Ocupación territorial de un fragmento. Estrategia militar en la frontera de Chile en el siglo XIX

Abstract

The historic origin of the habitat in the Bio-Bio Region was singular and repeated nowhere else in Chile.

The uncivilized and fragmented geography, with no communication routes to the south of the Bio-Bio River towards the end of the nineteenth century, together with the resistance of the indigenous people and the perception of having a country divided in two parts by an inexpugnably frontier by means of civil colonisation, provoked the political decision of settling these territories by the action of military force. Thus, in the geographical area that appears as an interstice and is known as “The Frontier”, the territorial occupation followed defensive lines along the fluvial routes in the form of a series of military forts that developed to become cities such as Collipulli, Mulchen, Negrete and Temuco.

This chronic situation of instability could neither allow the consolidation of foundation cities, nor the development of an agricultural economy or a commercial trade economy, which explains the late incorporation of this area to the nation. A country within a country; it neither assumes its rules nor submits to its jurisdiction; it does not even follow the economic model of its time.