Mapuche, the most numerous group of Indigenous peoples in South America. They numbered nearly two million in the 2010s. Most inhabit the Central Valley of Chile, south of the Biobío River. A smaller group lives in Neuquén provincia, west-central Argentina. Historically known as Araucanians, the Mapuche were one of three groups—Picunche, Mapuche, and Huilliche—identified by Spanish ethnographers. All Araucanians now identify themselves as Mapuche. The Mapuche language Mapudungun was spoken by about 250,000 individuals in the early 21st century.

History through the 18th century

In the pre-Spanish period, the Mapuche lived in scattered farming villages throughout the Central Valley. Each settlement had a chief (often called a cacique by Spanish colonial authorities) whose authority did not generally extend beyond his own village. The Mapuche cultivated corn (maize), beans, squash, potatoes, chili peppers, and other vegetables and fished, hunted, and kept guinea pigs for meat. They kept llamas as pack animals and as a source of wool. Wealth was reckoned in terms of the size of a person’s llama herd.

The Mapuche are famous for their 350-year struggle against Spanish and, later, Chilean domination. To resist the Spanish in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the Mapuche reorganized their traditional way of life. Widely separated villages formed military, political, and economic alliances; Mapuche warriors learned to use the horse against the Spanish; and Mapuche leaders such as Lautaro emerged as innovative and effective strategists.

After Chilean independence

In the 1800s, after Chile became independent of Spain, the Chilean government settled the Mapuche on reservations. For more than 100 years, the Mapuche held and farmed the reservation land collectively, and individual Mapuche could not lose their land to creditors. In the early 1980s the Chilean government transferred ownership of reservation land to individual Mapuche, who then stood to lose their property and their means of livelihood if they were unable to repay debts. Since the Mapuche had never practiced a highly intensive or productive form of agriculture, they were often forced to go into debt for agricultural supplies and crop seeds.