Renaissance · South America · War

1641

Arauco War Continues in Chile

1641

The Mapuche of southern Chile, having fought Spanish expansion for nearly a century, achieved de facto independence below the Biobio River through the Treaty of Quilin. They had resisted one of the longest colonial frontier wars in the Americas and kept their lands and languages for another two centuries, an achievement unmatched by any other indigenous nation in the Western Hemisphere.