The first century of Spanish colonization in Chile came to a halt with the devastating defeat of a Spanish garrison, headed by the governor, at Curalaba (1598), which prompted a Mapuche Indian insurrection that lasted more than 150 years. Making this setback even more critical to the Spanish presence in South America, pirates from England and Holland broke the imperial dominance of the Pacific Ocean and ransacked almost at will the fledgling settlements on the western coast of the continent. Threatened in the southern seas by its European rivals and on land by the belligerent Mapuches, the weakened Habsburg Crown opted for the construction of a military frontier at the southern margin of its possessions in the New World. However, the commitment of human and financial resources in European wars thwarted the viability of this project and condemned to misery the remote Spanish outposts in the Americas. Attracted by the...

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