Chapter Three

Between Mapuche and Colonos: Educating a Mestizo State

Hoi que la locomotora anuncia el paso del progreso por las selvas de Aracuo, que hermosas ciudades se
levantan orgullosas en medio de esos territorios i que la civilizacion se muestra con todas sus galas en las
rejiones salvajes de otra poca, corresponde a los que llevan instruccion que les demuestre que, al caer sus
abuelos en la lucha se, han rendido a la fuerza, pero han conquistado la luz que ensancha la imajinacion i
vivifica el espritu.1

Today, the locomotive announces the coming of progress through the jungles of Arauco. Beautiful cities are
proudly raised within these territories. Civilization is manifested with all its regalia in the savage regions of
another time. Those with education are responsible in demonstrating, once their grandfathers had fallen in
battle and forced to surrender, that they have conquered light that widens the imagination and the living spirit.

On December 8, 1888, the Ministry of Education declared the creation of a second-tier, all-

boys high school in the newly founded city of Temuco. The Liceo de Temuco, which opened its

doors in March 1889, was envisioned as part of the original city plans, highlighting the increased

importance of education as a public right and under the purview of the state. As part of the

institutional arm that secured state presence in the region, Liceo de Temuco consequently became

an institution of assimilation, constructing a European-centered national race politic. The school

became the project of education reformers, since La Araucana was conceived as an empty and

new territory, and as such, heralded the prospect of a new beginning.

The first two school directors, Plcido Briones (1889-1899) and Toms Guevara (1899-

1915) were education reformers in their own right, admiring from afar the ideas and writings by

Valentn Letelier and Claudio Matte.

The Liceo de Temuco, as this chapter will demonstrate, developed a dual function as a

civilizing force of social uplift for Chilean children and an institution of assimilation for Mapuche

children. As an institution of governance and for the public, Liceo de Temuco became a center that

1
Luis Schmidt Quezada, Problemas de la Araucana : La civilizacin de los indjenas, La Revista de Chile vol. 3,
no. 5 (Santiago, 1 de setiembre de 1899), 145.
 2

produced policies and intellectual debates about race, contributing to the initial framework of a

mestizo state politic. The first section will analyze textbooks to illuminate the European-centered

historical lineage and racial identity that Chilean schools were cultivating. However, the section

will primarily inquire the possible impact that Chilean education had on the first generation of

Mapuche youth who entered public institutions since the occupation of Wallmapu. The second

half of this chapter will concentrate on the Guevara years, highlighting how the schools director

and alumni, in particular Manuel Makilef, that participated in debates about race and assimilation.

Guevara used Mapuche students, including Makilef, as anthropological subjects (informants) and

field researchers that supplied the writings that made his career. Furthermore, Guevara proposed

at the 1902 Congreso General de Enseanza Pblica (Public Education General Congress) a

separate system of education for the indigenous populace to accelerate the process of assimilation.

Makilef was seen as an example of the Liceo de Temucos unintended assimilationist project. He

was a respected intellectual who wrote about Mapuche culture and embraced ideas about progress

and civilization while rejecting biological racism. In a period that Chile avoided racial

identification, Liceo de Temucos geographic position made the institution a key contributor in

producing the Chilean brand of mestizo state politics, as well as an assimilationist policy blueprint.

The Progressive High School

The first Chilean education institutions established south of la frontera (the frontier) in

Mapuche territory were in consequence of military and religious expansion: missionary schools

and schools protected by military forts. The primary school Escuela Primaria No. 3 (f. 1883) had

its roots in the Temuco Fort. Following occupation, the Ministry of Education received numerous

letters from frontier vecinos (neighboring communities) and government officials requesting the
 3

building of a school in their town; even tough these requests were often required as part of the

terms of surrender. 2 Nicanor Gana, a colonization engineer, wrote in 1883 to the governor of

Caete recommending a mixed gender primary school in the town of Tira. Gana stated,

Esta lamentable ignorancia me hizo pensar desde lugar en la apremiante necesidad que habia de fundar un
establecimiento de educacin, no solo para los chilenos de origen estranjero, sino tambin para la
degraciada raza indijena, que sera el medio de formar, mas pronto, ciudadanos tiles para el pais labrando
al mismo tiempo su felicidad para el porvenir.3

This lamentable ignorance had me think about the need for a place of learning and there should be an
education establishment, not only for the Chileans of foreign extraction, but also for the disgraceful
indigenous race, which would be the way to form, sooner than later, useful citizens for the working nation,
as well as their future happiness.

Gana noted government plans in the area, including the creation of an indigenous colony in Tira

led by Franciscan missionaries that would spark the growth of a town. In order to take full

advantage of the industrial capacity of the regions rich natural resources, Gana highlighted that

there was a need to educate the local population in the necessary skills: basic reading, history, and

math. Ganas concern to educate the rural populace complemented the uplift politics that education

reformers originally planned.

In March 1887, the Chilean government reorganized La Araucana, creating the Cautn and

Malleco Provinces. Angol, the longtime military dispatch center for boarder conflicts, was the

capital of Arauco Province until 1875, in which the province was consequently renamed the

Colonization Territory of Angol. Temuconicknamed the Protestant Capital, was founded

the same year that the provinces were reorganized, became the capital of Cautn Province while

Angol became the cabecera (head city) of Malleco.4 Temuco quickly flourished as the regions

2
The term vecinos means neighbors but the term dates to the colonial era referring to a familial unit, a government
title, and also communities in proximity. Nineteenth century documents begin to use vecinos as neighboring
communities.
3
Letter to the Inspector General de Instruccin Primaria, quoting Nicanor Gana. Lebu, mayo 31 del 1883. Fondo
Ministerio de Educacin (ME), Archivo Nacional, vol. 378, No. 236.
4 Rolf Foerster and Sonia Montecino, Organizaciones, lideres y contiendas mapuches (1900-1970) (Santiago,
Ediciones CEM, 1988), 8.
 4

political center, as originally envisioned by its city planner and engineer, Teodoro Schmidt. The

citys regional prominence was largely due to location. Temuco was well situated in proximity to

cities with growing economies. But, more importantly, the provincial cabecera was located in the

heart of Mapuche territory where there were ongoing land disputes. Chile needed a governing

presence at the center of old Wallmapu to reinforce state appropriation of lands (terrenos fiscales)

by legitimizing the roles of the rural police, engineers, and the Cuerpo de Gendarmes para las

Colonias (Colonial Gendarmes).5 Government officials opened their offices in the winter of 1887

with the intension of integrating the new settler population into the administrative state. 6 For

Schmidt, the planning of Temuco was a carte blanche to build a city of civilized potentials. But in

order to be a civilized and industrious cabecera, Temuco would need a high school (liceo) to

produce educated professionals.

According to the 1895 census, the province of Cautn population increased 325% between

1885 and 1895 with 78,221 inhabitants with Temuco accounting for 11,476 (25,826 including the

outer rural population) and 6,242 in Nuevo Imperial (40,919 including the outer rural population).7

The foreign colono populace in Temuco amounted to 997 (372 French and 292 Germans) and 352

in Nuevo Imperial (85 French, 59 British, 50 Germans).8 The republican era censuses concentrated

on questions that aided the national progress: literacy, occupation, gender numbers and marital

5
Documents form the 1880s mention rise in rural delinquency, even though who exactly are the perpetrators is
unclear. Cautn Province includes in their 1888 budget the revival of rural police in 1889. Fondo Ministerio de
Relaciones Exteriores (MREE), Archivo Nacional, vol. 14; The Colonial Gendarmes or Gendarmes de Colonias
were a paramilitary force led by the Italian colono Hernan Trizano that protected colono property from so-called
bandits. Trizanos dark history for having committed atrocities against the Mapuche is currently being exhumed,
challenging the history that Trizano helped pacify La Araucana. A right-wing paramilitary group led by colono
descendants uses his name today. The Gendarmes de Colonias were eventually legitimized as part of the rural police
and are said to be the historical impetus for the formation of the Carabineros (Chilean police). See: Jorge Lara
Carmona, Trizano: El Buffalo Bill Chileno. Precusor de los Carabineros de Chile (Santiago, Imprenta La Nacin,
1936).
6
Teodoro Schmidt rented a locale from July-October 1887 before moving. MREE, vol. 233.
7
Stimo Censo Jeneral de la Poblacin de Chile levantado el 28 de noviembre de 189, Tomo Cuatro (Santiago,
Imprenta Universitaria, 1904), 106.
8
Ibid., 132.
 5

status, vaccination rates, percentage with disabilities, percentage of foreign-born and their religion.

Absent from these figures were the old racial categories from the colonial era. When the Chilean

government eventually organized a Census Indjena (Indigenous Census) in 1907 it was in reaction

to the realization that the indigenous population had not disappeared as planned.9 According to the

1907 Census, the Mapuche population in the provinces of Concepcin, Biobo, Cautn, Valdivia,

and Chilo amassed to 101,118, while the Chilean population was 820,021. 10 The Mapuche

accounted for 10.97% of the total population in those provinces, yet approximately 70% of the

Mapuche were located in Cautn. Toms Guevara and Capuchin missionaries oversaw the 1907

Census.11

Liceo de Temuco was Cautns first high school in an era of mass education expansion. In

1892, there were a total of fifteen public schools (six boys, one girls, and eight mixed gender),

including elementary and secondary.12 By 1910, institutional numbers increased to seventy-three

(twenty boys, eighteen girls, and thirty-five mixed gender), meeting greater gender parity. There

was a push by local officials to find buildings for the expansion of schools and prisons, often

discussed in the same letters. While there was general agreement about a schools role in local city

governance, there were expected differences that depended on the schools gender component, as

well as location. In describing the Liceo de Temucos purpose, the Governor of Cautn Province

explained that the school est llamado prestar servicios especialmente a los hijos de colonos (is

being called to provide services especially to the sons of colonos).13 He noted that the Ministry

9
Jos Bengoa, Historia del pueblo mapuche, Siglos XIX y XX (Santiago, LOM, 2008), 252.
10
Ed. Sol Serrano, Macarena Poncde de Len, and Francisca Rengifo, Historia de la Educacin en Chile (1810-
2010), Tomo II: La educacin nacional (1880-1930) (Santiago, Taurus, 2012), 294-295.
11
Bengoa, Historia del pueblo mapuche, 334.
12 Andrs Donoso Romo, Educacin y nacin al sur de la frontera. Organizaciones mapuche en el umbral de
nuestra contemporaneidad, 1880-1930 (Santiago, Pehun, 2008), 95.
13
Francisco Perez, Memoria del Intendente de Cautn, Fondo Ministerio del Interior, Memoria 1888, 131.
 6

of Colonization would also subsidize the school, in addition to the provincial government and

Ministry of Education, because they foresaw colono children as the main student body. Chilean

historian Sol Serrano stated, La escuela se estableci en la zona de la Araucana junto al desarrollo

incipiente del mundo urbano, como en el resto del pas, intentando incorporar a los sectores

populares y al mundo rural, que casi slo por accidente, desde la perspectiva de la escuela pblica,

era tambin indgena (The school was established in la Araucana along with the incipient

development of the urban areas. As in the rest of the country, trying to incorporate the popular and

the rural sectors that, almost by accident, from the perspective of the public school, also included

the indigenous population). 14 Indigenous children were present in the territory but were not

foreseen to be included in the original plan. Plcido Briones, the schools first director, described

the institutions purpose was to prepare students pursuing careers in the liberal, industrial, and

commerce professions, as well as public office or as small business owners.15 The school sought

to prepare middle-class professionals and intended to apply the mantra of popular education for

all. Toms Guevara, the second director, drew attention to the role of the first educated Mapuche

as integral to the arrival of progress to the region. 16 While the Governor of Cautn made an

informed assumption based on the imagined projections for the region, Briones and Guevaras

deductions were in reaction to the realities that surrounded them.

The Liceos student body during the first twenty years is relatively unknown since there

are no rosters available. There are records of distinguished students, as well as writings by former

graduates, even though former graduates reflected minimally on their schooling years. Based on

14
Sol Serrano, De escuelas indgenas sin pueblos a pueblos sin escuelas indgenas: La educacin en la Araucana
en el siglo XIX, Historia No. 29 (Santiago, 1995-1996): 424.
15
Plcido Briones, Memoria leida por el rector del Liceo de Temuco el 25 de diciembre de 1893 (Santiago,
Imprenta Albion, 1894), 7.
16
Toms Guevara, Resea histrica sobre el Liceo de Temuco (Temuco, Imprenta Alemana, 1903).
 7

available information about these distinguished pupils, the vast majority of them carried Spanish

last names, which means they were either the children of Chileans or recent Spanish immigrants.

Mapuche children are identified in documents by their last names. However, a child can be

Mapuche and carry a Spanish last name due to a Chilean father or adoption. As Nara Milanich

demonstrates in Children of Fate, the long history of kidnapping and forcing Mapuche children

into servitude led to the socioracial category of orphan (huacho) and, at times, the adoption of

the orphan-servant into a well-to-do family.17 The traffic of Mapuche children further complicates

the historical documents and illuminates the violence situated on Mapuche identity. In a society in

which last names determined social and racial standing, they exhibit the official and familial story

that wishes to be told, hiding transgressions and uncomfortable truths. Furthermore, the

longstanding racial categoriespeninsular, criollo, mestizo, and reino indioproduced by the

Spanish Empire were erased by the new republics as categories that determined government

positions and marital alliances. Merit would be the determining factor for social advancement in

the new republican era. However, as history has proven, those racial categories were eradicated

from government forms and censuses, but they persisted as essential to the social fabric of existing

power structures.

The only known Mapuche pupil from the Briones years was Francisco Melivilu Henrquez,

who later became a Democratic Party deputy and the first Mapuche to enter Parliament. Melivilu

was born in Temuco in 1882, which meant he probably attended Liceo de Temuco in the mid-

1890s; three years in preparatory school and two years in humanities.18 He was intended to be an

17
Nara Milanich, Children of Fate: Childhood, Class, and the State in Chile, 1850-1930 (Durham, Duke University
Press, 2009), 185.
18
There are conflicting dates for his birthdate, but according to the Chilean National Congress Library archive,
Melivilu was born in 1882; Carlos Waykigr Rain, Francisco Melivilu Henrquez: Biografa del talentoso y
dinmico primer diputado araucano fallecido, Arauco de ayer y de hoy 1 (1966): pp. 23-25.
 8

electrician, but excelled in mathematics and law, eventually becoming a notable public figure in

the city of his birth. In describing Melivilus quick rise into state politics, Bengoa discerns, La

segunda generacin despus de la prdida de la independencia, actu directamente en la poltica

nacional representando los intereses de los mapuches (The second generation following the loss

of independence, directly partook in national politics representing the Mapuche interests). 19

Melivilu, however, died young at age 52 and little is known about him beyond the public record.

As foreign-born colonos arrived in increasing numbers in the 1880s, so did the presence of

their schools. Juan Frey noted in his history about German schools in Chile that, De esta manera,

es de esperar, que los nios de orijen alemn conserven sus cualidades de raza i de lengua i

contribuyan a la vez a transmitir a los demas las ventajas de la cultura i educacion alemanas (In

this manner, one would hope, that the children of German origin are able to conserve the qualities

of their race and language, and contribute by transmitting to others the benefits of German culture

and education).20 The Liceo Alemn (German High School) of Temuco was founded in 1887 with

state financial backing. Fewer than expected children attended Liceo de Temuco, partially a result

that Liceo Alemn was established a few years prior and partially due to the preference made by

colono parents. The German schools in Chile eventually developed a prominent role in Chilean

high society.21 The Liceo Alemn of Temuco was the eighth institution and the fourth high school

(one of them all-female) that opened its doors in Chile, and between 1888 and 1910 twenty-one

elementary schools and three liceos were established across the country.22 There were a total of

19
Bengoa, Historia del pueblo mapuche, 331, 385.
20
Juan Frey, Los colegios alemanes en Chile, in Los Alemanes en Chile, Homenaje de la Sociedad Cientfica
Alemana de Santiago a la nacin chilena en el centenario de su independencia (Santiago, Imprenta Universitaria,
1910), 357.
21
For an overview of colono schools see: Jos Manuel Zavala Cepeda, Los colonos y la escuela en la Araucana:
Los inmigrantes europeos y el surgimiento de la educacin privada laica y protestante en la regin de la Araucana
(1887-1915), Revista UNIVERSUM 23, vol. 1 (Universidad de Talca, 2008): 269-285.
22
Frey, Los colegios alemanes, 358.
 9

twenty-six German elementary schools and seven high schools across Chile, the majority being

secular.23

There are many instances in human history when migrating groups create enclaves and

institutions to assure the continuation of their culture. In this instance, when European colonos

were considered the quintessential civilized being, these institutions solidified economic and social

power by these groups. However, in retrospect, those of German descent would eventual wheel

the most amount of power in La Araucana in comparison to other colono ethnic groups, even

though at the time this dissertation covers there were a greater percentage of French nationals who

arrived to the region.24 As noted in the previous chapter, the colonizing agent Luis Aldunate argued

in support for Spanish and Basque immigration in reaction to the tendency by Germans in southern

Chile to remain culturally separate.25 Even with greater numbers of French colonos in Temuco,

few students with French surnames appear in their documents, which makes it possible that French

parents decided to send their children to the nearby French schools in Traigun or Ercilla (f. 1892).

The few students with Germanic last names appear to be the children of government functionaries

who wanted to prove their commitment to Chile.

The majority of the Mapuche population lived in the rural areas surrounding Temuco.

Mapuche families, devastated by occupation, either did not have the financial means, the social

knowhow, or the desire to setup a new life in Temuco proper. The Mapuche understood education

as a community project meant to teach their youth the needed skills for survival and the continuity

23
There were a few Evangelical German schools, some interfaith, and only three that were Catholic.
24
This issue was discussed more in detail in the previous chapter concluding that a larger number of French colonos
sold their lands in La Araucana for capital to move to urban centers. The German and Austro-Swiss colonos, on the
other hand, remained on the lands and tended to marry among those in their shared ethnic group.
25
Pedro Santos Martnez, La inmigracin en Chile: El caso de los colons vascos (1882-1883), Historia 22
(Santiago, 1987), 293.
 10

of their collective memory.26 As mentioned, there are no rosters from the schools initial years,

which makes it is unclear how many Mapuche youth attended. However, when Adolfo Larenas, a

local official, wrote to the Ministry of Education in 1882 about the need to build a school in

Temuco he noted that Temuco was situated in the midst of an indigenous population and suggested

Manuel Nekulma for the post of instructor because por la circunstancia de conocer la lengua i

costubres de los indijenas es adecuado para dirijir una escuela en aquel lugar (by the circumstance

of knowing the indigenous language and customs he is fit to lead a school in such a place).27

Some years later, Luis Schmidt Quezada, son of the German engineer Teodoro Schmidt, stated in

an 1899 article that due to lack of rural schools, the Mapuche were unable to advance their race.

He described an order of nuns in Temuco who aided indijenas huerfanas o indijentes (orphans or

indigent Indians) by offering shelter to some two hundred impoverished natives.28

Unequivocally, there was a Mapuche population present in Temuco, which foresees the

possibility that a few were likely to matriculate. However, the few Mapuche students able to attend

Liceo de Temuco had to surpass certain obstacles. The first criterion was that their family or

guardians had to live in urban Temuco and afford to send them to school. Secondly, in order to

attend the Liceos preparatory school, the student needed primary education in order to meet entry

requirements. Even though Labarca argued that entry requirements into liceos were so lowwhich

is why high schools created preparatory schools

that there were no real obstacles.29 However, most Mapuche youth in the 1880s and 1890s did not

speak Spanish that placed them in an automatic disadvantage. Lastly, and notably, Liceo de

26
Segundo Quintriqueo M., Implicancias de un modelo curricular monocultural en context mapuche (Temuco,
Universidad Catlica de Temuco, 2010).
27
Adolfo Larnas al Seor Ministro de Instruccin Pblica, Fondo ME, volumen 451, no. 72 (Santiago, julio 17 de
1882).
28
Luis Schmidt Quezada, Problemas de la Araucana : La civilizacion de los indijenas, La Revista de Chile vol. 3,
no. 5 (Santiago, 1 de setiembre de 1899), 146.
29
Amanda Labarca H., Historia de la Enseanza en Chile (Santiago, Imprenta Universitaria, 1939), 214.
 11

Temuco was a boys school, which meant only Mapuche boys could attend. This factor

immediately placed Mapuche girlsand all girlsin a social disadvantage. The first all-girls liceo

in Temuco was not inaugurated until 1905.

Mapuche children faced obstacles that were radically different in comparison to Chilean

and colono children. While popular education as a social right was still growing in terms of

infrastructure and support, Chilean and colono families were more likely to know about the

importance of education even if they never or only briefly attended. Schools in La Araucana ran

advertisements in local newspapers promoting their school to vecinos.30 This included German and

public schools that advertised the qualities and benefits of their institution, which required the

reader to be literate.31 The archival documents reviewed for this project did not show a similar

propagandistic concern in reaching out to Mapuche communities. Provincial administrators or

educators would have needed to travel to and meet with Mapuche communities, in a similar vein

as done by Catholic missionaries. Furthermore, after years of warfare and displacement, the notion

that a Mapuche family would move to an urban center for the education of their children and

understand how to navigate Chilean society was beyond the reach of most Mapuche at the time.

While Mapuche merchants who had trade relationships with Chileans would have been familiar

with aspects of Chilean life, those located deeper in Mapuche territory and those who opposed

integration into Chilean society would have been marginal to such knowledge. In later years,

Mapuche parents would come to understand education as a political tool for political recognition

30
Liceo de la Alta Frontera, El Cautn ao 2, nm. 64 (Temuco, noviembre 18 de 1888), Fondo MRREE, vol.
233.
31
After reviewing Deutsche Zeitung fr Sd-Chile newspaper from 1886 to 1896, there are many mentions of
German liceos, either as advertisements or articles discussing the history of German education and schools; Archivo
Nacional, Fondo Microformatos, Peridico Deutsche Zeitung fr Sd-Chile.
 12

and social betterment. In the early years following occupation, educations value as a means to an

end was still being mediated.

Plcido Briones had been a state school inspector, teacher at Liceo de Copiap, and a

director of the San Carlos Superior School before becoming director of Liceo de Temuco. 32

Brioness appointment to the new liceo in Temuco was not a prestigious post, but it was a

promotion. He faced the difficulties in activating a new institution with limited resources due to

its rural (or new frontier city) location and, at times, discouraged unable to foresee whether the

city of Temuco would flourish. Furthermore, the available student body was not academically

prepared to enter the liceo that required the creation of a three-year preparatory school that trained

students to pass the liceos qualifying exams.33 Briones, however, was not convinced that Temuco

was the ideal place in the region for the state to concentrate its educational resources. In his initial

reports, he argued for transferring the school to Nuevo Imperial, which had a smaller population,

but more infrastructure since the city was founded in 1882; five years prior to Temuco.

During Brioness tenure, his memorias to the Ministry of Education emphasized the

implementation of five policies that reflected the Letelier-wing of education reform: popular

education, secularization, paternalistic practices, the abolition of corporal punishment, and the

inclusion of the German language in the school curriculum. Briones proved his adherence to

popular education when he stated, Esta enseanza est al alcance de todos los que desen ser

alumnos del Liceo, cualquiera que sean las ideas religiosas de sus padres i los recursos con que

cuente (This institution of learning is available to all who wish to become Liceo students; no matter

32
Boletn de Instruccin Primaria in Anales de la Universidad de Chile, vol. 74, 2 seccin (Santiago, Imprenta del
Siglo, julio a diciembre de 1888), 354; Plcido Briones, La Instruccin en Chile i la Pedagojia Moderna (Santiago,
Imprenta Gutenberg, 1888).
33
As explained in the previous page, Labarca explained in her study that the preparatory schools were a norm for
liceos because prior to 1889, since there were no universal standards set that intended to prepare students in
elementary school to eventually enter liceos; Labarca, Historia de la Enseanza, 214.
 13

the religious ideas of their parents nor the resources they may have). 34 Briones used his

institutional influence to prove his support for secular learning. The nineteenth century marked the

beginning of gradual changes in the relationship between Catholic Church and Latin American

republics. There were growing tensions between the Church and some government officials, in

particular education reformers. Public figures such as Letelier spoke openly about the need for

secular and scientific education.35 Religion, however, continued to be taught in public schools until

the passing of the 1925 Constitution that declared separation of Church and State.36 It should be

noted that the teaching of religion was not central to concentric learning. As noted in Chapter Two,

the education reformers of the 1880s were constructing an education system and curriculum that

relied heavily on the German Protestant experience that upheld the individual within society.

Among the influential education theorists was the Englishman Herbert Spencer who argued for the

need to a balance body, mind, and spirit; or as his book is titled, Education: Intellectual, Moral,

and Physical (1860).37 But the moral component that he professed had less to do with Christian

teachings and more to do with an ethical and moral citizenry that was primarily taught at home.38

Christianity maintained an influence over men like Spencer, even though if he did lose his faith,

for many of these learned European men viewed themselves as the more rational beings able to

separate science from worship. Director Briones explained in an 1892 memoria that religion, as a

school course, was made optional at Liceo de Temuco. He used an 1880 decree that stated that

students have the option to not attend all the required courses, which was originally intended for

rural students who had irregular attendance due to work and the ordinance allowed them to remain

34
Plcido Briones, Temuco, Octubre 21 de 1892, Fondo ME, vol. 955, no. 1195.
35
Valentn Letelier, La lucha por la cultura (Santiago, Encuadernacin Barcelona, 1895).
36
Religion courses would be reintroduced to public schools through a 1983 decree under the dictatorship of Augusto
Pinochet.
37
Herbert Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (New York, AL Burt Co, c. early 1900s).
38
Ibid., 170, 175.
 14

registered.39 Brioness decision to use that decree to make religion optional was a political move

on his part that proclaimed support for secular education. He explained that this decision was

largely in reaction to parents and guardians who complained to the director that their children or

wards not take the course.40 He did not explain the national or racial origin of the parents or

guardians. Since religious teachings were centered on Catholicism this allowed the children of

Protestants and Chilean free thinkers to opt out. It is no wonder that the 1895 Census detailed the

numbers of dissidents, free thinkers, Protestants, Lutherans, and Muslims among the immigration

population. According to Brioness memorias to the Ministry of Education, in 1894 there were

twelve students matriculated as second year students while ten took religion, and there were eight

matriculated as third year students and only five opted for religion. 41 Since Briones was

forthcoming about this decision in his memorias and school statistics, he must have felt supported

by some Ministry of Education officials. However, freedom of religion was not for the Mapuche

since their religious practices were considered outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition and instead

classified as pagan. Contemporary proponents of social evolution agreed that human societies had

evolved from worshiping multiple gods or natural spirits to a singular God. The Age of Science

and Reason had, however, taken humanity to a new zenith. Those deemed savage, social

evolutionist theorists argued, had to reach certain milestones, such as belief in a single God, to

eventually evolve into a civilized race. This is why it can be argued that Brioness construction

of a quasi-secular curriculum was intended for so-called civilized pupils; in particular civilized

and male. Mapuche indoctrination into Christianity was understood as a necessary stepping-stone

for social and civilized development. This is why Catholic and Anglican missionaries educated the

39
Decree from the Ministry of Education on November 8, 1880.
40
Plcido Briones, Temuco, Octubre 21 de 1892, Fondo ME, vol. 955, no. 1195.
41
Plcido Briones, Temuco, Abril 19 de 1894, Fondo ME, vol. 955, no. 34.
 15

vast majority of Mapuche children. Mapuche young men who attended the Liceo might have been

able to opt out of religion, but based on the writings by contemporary government officials and

intellectuals such a decision would have been frowned upon and most likely discouraged. It is also

unclear how many school directors implemented the practice of optional religion courses at this

time.

On the matter of paternalism, Briones quoted Spencer on the need for a teacher to develop

an intimate relationship with their students, functioning as their segundo padre (second father)

who would teach the student about las incomparables bellezas del rbol de las ciencias (the

incomparable beauty of the science tree). 42 He also quoted the US pedagogist James Pyle

Wickersham who explained, El nio es como un jrmen copado al instructor, y es deber de este

suplir las condiciones necesarias a su completo desarrollo (A child is a germ put into the hands of

the educator, and it is his duty to supply the conditions necessary to its development). 43

Wickersham, as well as Sarmiento, was part of the pedagogical camp that argued that a child was

an empty vessel that needed to be nurtured and trained. The rejection of corporal discipline

complemented a soft paternalism approach in which the state should function as guide and

protector rather than enforcer. The non-inclusion of corporal punishment as a school disciplining

tool was argued as an attribute of a civilized nation. Rather than needing to beat out of a child

internalized devilish and uncivilized manners, opponents stated that corporal punishment was

harmful to the sanctity of the body and individual.44 Briones offered as example Prusia i en toda

la Alemania (Prussia and all of Germany) where penal codes were implemented against

42
Plcido Briones, Memoria leida por el rector del Liceo de Temuco el 25 de diciembre de 1893 (Santiago,
Imprenta Albion, 1894), 4.
43
Plcido Briones, Temuco, Octubre 21 de 1892, Fondo ME, vol. 955, no. 1195; James Pyle Wickersham, Methods
of Instruction (Philadephia, J.P. Lipincott & Co., 1871), 142.
44
Herbert Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (New York, AL Burt Co, c. early 1900s).
 16

employees who inflict maltreatment on children.45 However, the legality of corporal punishment

continues in Chilean schools, while in Germany and the US it was abolished in 1983.46

Lastly, the inclusion of the German language into the Liceos curriculum had political

significance. According to the 1889 Pedagogical Congress, the distinction between 1st and 2nd level

high school was that a 1st tier school included additional courses in Latin. Second-tier schools were

expected to include either English or German, in addition to French. After all, French was the

lingua franca for international diplomacy and intellectual circles. In December 1893, Briones

proposed to the Ministry of Education to include the wages for professors in the English and

German languages.47 The Liceo received a German instructor from Germany for the 1894 school

year and Briones scheduled for humanities (non-preparatory) students two hours of French and

three hours of German per week.48 If Briones had read Wickershams The History of Education in

Pennsylvania (1886), which seems likely, he would have found a bedfellow since Wickersham

underscored the impact of German settlers in developing Pennsylvanias schools. It can only be

assumed that the lack of erudite citations originating from German pedagogical theorists by

Briones was due to a lacuna of available translated books, which was why Revista de Instruccin

Primaria devoted many folios to translating foreign texts.

Mapuche children who attended Liceo de Temuco and other public schools in the region

experienced education as social assimilation. Even though a Chilean, colono, and Mapuche child

went through the same education process, their experiences must be reviewed separately. There

were many factors that marked the Mapuche experience in public schools as different, but their

45
Plcido Briones, Memoria leida por el rector del Liceo de Temuco el 25 de diciembre de 1893 (Santiago,
Imprenta Albion, 1894), 6.
46
El castigo corporales de los nios, nias y adolescentes en Chile, UNICEF, October 15, 2015, republished by
www.endcorporalpunishment.org, accessed April 8, 2017.
47
Plcido Briones, Memoria leida por el rector del Liceo de Temuco el 25 de diciembre de 1893 (Santiago,
Imprenta Albion, 1894), 7.
48
Plcido Briones, Carta al Ministerio de Educacin, Temuco, abril 19 de 1894, Fondo ME, vol. 955.
 17

recent defeat by the occupation army stood as a central issue affecting how they saw their place in

this new society and, concurrently, how Chileans conceived of them as a people. The social codes

used to identify the Mapuche within Chilean society were their phenotype, last name, and clothing.

Their language was not valued, their ceremonial practices were not classified as a religion, and

their schoolbooks referred to them as savages. For Mapuche youth who attended the Liceo, they

must have recognized their matriculation as a privilege that would open opportunities for them in

the new wingka (non-Mapuche) world. Bengoa notes in History of the Mapuche People that,

Los caciques se daban cuenta de la derrota indefectible y optaron por que la segunda generacin del 900,
esto es, los hijos de los caciques de la ocupacin, tuvo algun grado de mapuches relativamente educados,
establecidos generalmente en los pueblos, y que correspondian a los hijos de las familias que habian
recibido mas tierras. Por otro lado, este grupo de mapuches instruidos veia la discriminacin que les
afectaba personalmente, y tambin se sentan reponsables de la suerte que coria el pueblo.49

The caciques took note of the undeniable defeat and opted for the 1900, second generation the
children of the occupied caciquesthat they would obtain a certain degree of education. This group was
generally established in towns and corresponded to be the offspring of families that had received the most
land. On the other hand, this group of educated Mapuche experienced discrimination since it affected them
personally, and they felt a sense of responsibility for their people due to their given opportunity.

Yet, there are no records that describe in detail the Mapuche youth experience in public schools in

this transitional period. As Plcido Briones noted that the Liceos purpose was to develop

professionals and the Mapuche students were no exception. However, Mapuche graduates did not

have the financial or social capital to either open a shop or attend university in Santiago; instead,

their intended profession was to become future instructors. This was an unofficial social uplift

strategy in which Mapuche would educate Mapuche.

In a study about the affects of monocultural education on Mapuche students, Llancavil and

Sepulveda explain, [L]a escuela, se constituyo como un dispositivo de poder, mediante el cual, el

Estado Chileno construa al otro traves de una lgica binaria civilizacin/barbarieque reprima

49
Bengoa, Historia del pueblo mapuche, 381-382.
 18

las diferencias e invibilizaba a la cultura ancestral pre-existente a la presencia de la nacin chilena

(The school was constituted as a device of power, through which the Chilean state constructed the

other through a binary logiccivilization/barbarismthat repressed the differences and made the

preexisting ancestral culture invisible in the presence of Chilean nation).50 Those who were able

to assimilate into public school culture had to internalize the racist and Eurocentric discourse, as

well as function in favor of the hegemonic system in order to receive societal accolades such as

appointments and employment.

Schoolbooks allow for a degree of analysis about the worldview that state schools were

developing. These texts reflected contemporary debates, but they are fundamentally historical

documents that divulge the states ideal for the future of the nation. A detailed inventory of the

Liceos school library is not available, but there is a list of books distributed by the government

between 1885 and 1893. There are additional books in the Museum of Education in Santiago that

stated in their initial pages whether they received official approval from either the Ministry of

Education or the Pedagogical Institute. Even though the list does not stipulate where exactly the

texts were distributed, the Liceo de Temuco library accounted for 573 volumes by 1894. 51 By

reviewing textbooks, one can surmount a social and psychological examination in how children

were expected to understand broader society, national history, and expectations of citizenry. And,

furthermore, by concentrating on the subjects of history and geography, one can piece together the

various debates about Chiles historical lineage and racial makeup. Mapuche children would have

come across clear references about them as savages, primitives, and araucanos. At other times,

they were described as heroes, but looming always was the onward march of Western progress.

50
Juan Mansilla Seplveda, Daniel Llancavil LLancavil, et al., Instalacin de la escuela monocultural en al
Araucana, 1883-1910: dispositivos de poder y Sociedad Mapuche, Educao e Pesquisa 42, no. 1 (So Paulo,
Jan.-Mar. 2016): 2.
51
Plcido Briones, Carta al Ministerio de Educacin, Temuco, abril 19 de 1894, Fondo ME, vol. 955.
 19

The rest of this section will review primary and secondary schoolbooks that were published

between the years 1881 and 1910. In doing so, there are three questions that will be explored: How

were the Mapuche described, included, and omitted? How was Chiles historical and racial origins

described? Did the ideology of occupation change the Mapuches place in history?

Primary and secondary schoolbooks published between the years 1881 and 1910

Nuezs El Lector Americano and Mattes Silabario were the main grammar books used

during primary education, even though the Ministry of Education did not distribute the latter until

1889. Both books introduced children to the alphabet and used the method of storytelling to teach

grammar and instill moral lessons. El Lector Americano, interestingly enough, introduced two

letters, k and w, that were not part of the Castilian alphabet in order for children to learn how

to pronounce foreign last names and cities such as Wellington Poniatowsky.52 Nuezs stories

read like fables, offering warnings while explaining to children societal expectations about

religion, study habits, and obedience to their parents. The aforementioned book did not include

narratives about Mapuche cultural landmarks such as choike prrn or palin prrn.53 The stories

and experiences of the Mapuche people were absent since they were considered irrelevant to the

national culture. Claudio Mattes first reference about the Mapuche was in a 1950s re-edition of

Silabario, shortly before his death. He changed Lesson #21 to state: Los Indios Mapuche no saben

contar,... para decir uno dicen Sol, y para decir dos, dicen Pata de Pjaro (The Mapuche children

do not know how to count,when they attempt to say Sun and two, they say a Birds Foot).54

52
Jos Abelardo Nuez, El Lector Americano (Santiago, Liberia El Mercurio, 1881), VI.
53
Choike prrn is a Mapuche ceremony in the form of a dance that honors the ostrich. Palin prrn is a ceremonial
series of palin (likeness to hockey) games organized between two communities. For more information about palin
prrn see: Magnus Course, Becoming Mapuche: Person and Ritual in Indigenous Chile (Urbana-Champaign,
University of Illinois Press, 2011).
54
Juan anculef Huaiquinao, La Data Cultural Mapuche y los 12 mil aos uke Mapu: Centro de Documentacin
Mapuche (6 de mayo de 2010): http://www.mapuche.info/print.php?pagina=677 (Accessed May 17, 2017).
 20

While Nuez made sure to give children the tools of w and k to pronounce German and

English words, such care was not equally done for Mapuche children or Chilean children to

understand words in Mapuzungun. As historian Sol Serrano rightly argued that the politics of

occupation simultaneously produced a politics of omission; their language, practices, and

understanding of the world were omitted from social significance.

The Consejo de Instruccion Primaria (Primary Education Advisory), a Ministry of

Education committee, published Plan de estudio i programas del instruccion secundaria (Study

Plans and Programs for Secondary Instruction) (1893) that featured contributions by several

members of the Pedagogical Institute and the Director of Universidad de Chile, Diego Barros

Arana. The text was a handbook for liceos to plan their courses correctly, offering in great detail

the expectations for each course depending on their sequential year. In the introduction, Barros

Arana explicated two main reasons for the education reform and the restructuring of the national

curriculum: 1) to create a hierarchal learning structure where each course complemented other

courses; 2) to construct year-to-year uniformity, in which all children of a certain age would

acquire standardized knowledge and knowhow. In the books introductory section History and

Geography, he further stated, En la enseanza particular de la historia se cuidar mucho, como

se recomienda en el programa, de estudiar particularmente los hechos que se relacionan con el

progreso de la civilizacion i de la cultura (In the teaching of history, in particular, greater care will

be taken, as recommended in the program, to study the facts which relate to the progress of

civilization and culture).55 This point was reemphasized in the chapter on the same subject co-

written by Luis Barros Borgoo and Juan Steffan, in which the authors formulated the study of

55
Consejo de Instruccin Primaria, Plan de estudio I programas de instruccin secundaria. Aprobados por el
consejo de Instruccin Pblica para los liceos del estado (Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, 1893), xx.
 21

history as the progression of events centered in Eurasia, placing Latin America as a consequence

of European progress.

During the fourth year of liceo, students were expected to learn about Spanish and

Portuguese conquests of Africa and Latin America; in conjunction with learning el mapa la

jeografia de Espaa, Portugal, Francia, Inglaterra, Europa central, costas de Africa y toda la

Amrica espaol y portuguesa (the geographic map of Spain, Portugal, France, England, Central

Europe, the African Coast, and all of Spanish and Portuguese Latin America). 56 This example

demonstrates how textbooks emphasized the role of European conquerors as the bearers of

progress and civilization, and the movers of history. The Amerindian and African civilizations

were either the antagonists or the backdrop in this telling of history. According to Lambropouliss

The Rise of Eurocentricism (1993), nineteenth century modernity was grounded in a Protestant-

led vision of the world in which the rise of European-might could be traced to the Hellenistic

Ancient Empires.57 Nineteenth century social sciences had made progress a core component in

their theories about societal development, in which the linear tracing of Ancient Greece to

Industrial Europe fulfilled the intended sequence of events, highlighting on the way what they

understood as key markers of progress.58 E. Bradford Burns argued that the Latin American elite

embraced the concept of progress even when the extreme racism by European authors, such as

Spencer, were selectively ignored or interpreted differently. 59 Eurcentricity, as the educational

core of nineteenth century schooling, is neither a new critique nor expos; yet the above example

56
Ibid., 201.
57
Nineteenth century historians interpreted Ancient Greece as the pure manifestation of democracy, while the rise of
the Hellenistic period marked the cultural and political degeneration that evolved into the period of Caesars of the
Roman Empire. However, some view the rise of European Empires as analogous to the Roman Empire and natural
succession of progress.
58
Peter J. Bowler, The Invention of Progress: The Victorians and the Past (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989).
59
E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (Berekely, University of
California Press, 1983), 18-19.
 22

is meant to inform how a formulaic understanding of history, progress, and culture had a direct

impact on Mapuche pupils in comparison to Chilean or European colono students. The historical

sequence emphasized a racial coaxial between Europe and the Americas, in which even an

educated Mapuche would be seen as unable to reach certain feats.

The Jeografia de las escuelas (Geography for Schools) by Gonzalo Cruz was a book used

in secondary schools that described human and territorial geography. According to the first pages,

the Consejo de Instruccion Pblica approved the text and was used at the National Institute and by

some liceos. While other geography texts noted that the racial origin of Chileans a theme later

aggrandized by Nicols Palacios was a mixture of Spanish Conquistadors and Mapuche; Cruz

albeit made no such allusion. 60 Under the religion section, Cruz noted, Las religiones que

profesan los diferentes pueblos de la Tierra se pueden comprender en estas dos clases: el

monotesmo, que consiste de la adoracion de un solo Dios, i el politesmo o paganismo, que

consiste en la adoracion de varios dioses (The religions that are professed by the different peoples

of Earth can be understood in two categories: monotheism, which consists in the adoration of a

singular God, and polytheism or paganism, that consists in the adoration of many gods).61 He

further explained that, El Fetequismo o feticismoes profesada por los pueblos mas ignorantes

del MundoPresenta multitud de diferencias, desde las mas absurdas supersticiones de los

embrutecidos salvajes del Continente Austral, hasta el feticismo de los pueblos menos brbaros de

la Polinesia i del centro de Africa. Sacrificios humanos i actos de espantosa atrocidad son el

carcter distintivo de estas brbaras relijiones (Fetishismis professed by the most ignorant

people of the WorldIt represents a multitude of differences, from the most absurd superstitions

by the brutalized savages in the Southern Continent to the fetishisms of the less barbarous peoples

60
Enrique Espinoza, Jeografa Descriptiva de la Repblica de Chile (Santiago, Imprenta Gutenberg, 1890).
61
Gonzalo Cruz, Jeografia para las escuelas. Cuarta Edicin (Santiago, Imprenta Nacional, 1883), 27.
 23

of Polynesia and of Central Africa. Human sacrifices and acts of appalling atrocities are the

distinctive character of these barbarous religions).62 Cruz expressed a succession of popularized

dehumanizing myths by educated men who understood non-European centered practices as

backward or in an earlier stage of human development. His comment about actos de espantosa

atrocidad (frightening atrocious acts) further drove the racist notion that the so-called barbaric

people have no self-control and are prone to extreme violence while the so-called civilized man is

intentional in his actions and only succumbs to violence when necessary. Latin America escaped

this barbaric darkness, according to Cruz, with the arrival of Christopher Columbus, who brought

with him su idioma, su civilizacion, sus costumbres i la relijion cristiana (his language, his

civilization, his customs, and the Christian religion). 63 The unfortunate events that followed

Columbuss arrival were explained as a force of good and would ultimately benefit humanity.64

The historical erasure and downplaying of the brutality and violence conducted by Columbus and

his crew was done to rationalize the stratified social and economic power structure that maintained

those of more noticeable European heritage on top.

A Mapuche student, either in primary or secondary school, would have read Cruzs book

or similar ones. She or he might have read Cruzs section about the Angol colonization territory

where Cruz explained that until 1883 was mostly inhabited by Indians, while la poblacin

civilizada (25,000 h.) en la rejion del norte, protejida por una serie de Fuertes (the civilized

population (25,000 hectares) in the northern region, were protected by a series of forts). 65 Cruz

described two categories of humans, yet only one the civilized and important human population

needed protection. The civilized population needed shielding even though they were the

62
Ibid., 31.
63
Gonzalo Cruz, Jeografia para las escuelas. Segunda Edicin (Santiago, Imprenta Nacional, 1881), 19.
64
Ibid.
65
Ibid., 37.
 24

aggressor force, supported by the advances of the Chilean army. There are no records that discuss

the responses by Mapuche students about the impact of these racist ideas. These students were the

first generation to grow up under occupation and to experience assimilation processes on a wider

and long-lasting scale. Recent studies on the effects of monocultural education underscore that

los alumnus experimentan un conflicto socio-cognitivo e identitario que obstaculiza su capacidad

de desenvovimiento, tanto en la comunidad como en la sociedad nacional (the students experience

a socio-cognitive and identity conflict that places an obstacle in their capacity to fully integrate in

their community, as well as the national society).66 In other words, Mapuche students experienced

conflicting cognizance when arranging or rationalizing the social terrene: Western versus Mapuche

worldviews. According to Segundo Quintriqueos research on the impact of monocultural

education on the Mapuche, he concludes that most teachers in the modern-day do not recognize or

explain such discord, forcing students to resolve those internal and social conflicts individually.

As Quintriqueo notes, this causes the student to experience dissociation and lack of belonging from

both their Mapuche community and Chilean national culture. For the colonized, constructing a

sense of belonging and identity emerges as a counter-memory of resistance; for the sociability of

belonging forges the knowing of a cultural home whilst surrounded by a hostile dominant culture.

In the realm of psychology, there are two ways humans cope with inner conflict: they either

experience cognitive dissidence to convince themselves they belong to the dominant culture or, in

Jungian terminology, enter into a life-long conflict that becomes part of the shadow-self that

functions as an identity tug-a-war. As Franz Fanon robustly explained in Black Skin, White Masks

(1952) that colonized Africans experienced catharsis due to a breakdown of pride and assuredness

in their groups collective belonging, in which he explained, A feeling of inferiority? No, a feeling

66
Segundo Quintriqueo M., Implicancias de un modelo curricular monocultural en context mapuche (Temuco,
Universidad Catlica de Temuco, 2010), 14.
 25

of not existing.67 The Chilean occupation marked the beginning of that catharsis, while land theft

and education became the two-prong strategy that caused cultural dissociation.

As mentioned, there were varying views about the place of the Mapuche in the Chilean

historical narrative. In Jeografia Descriptiva de la Republica de Chile (Descriptive Geography of

the Chilean Republic) (1890), Enrique Espinoza connected with another elite trend across Latin

America to include heroic [indigenous] figures [as] the true fathers of Spanish America. As

Rebecca Earle explained in The Return of the Native, The pre-Columbian past thus formed as

essential part of national history, much more glorious than the three hundred years of tyranny of

which the colonial era was said to consist.68 Earle demonstrates in her research how the elite used

indigenous martyrs as allegorical figures to claim historical belonging. However, such a view had

grown out of favor in Chile once the government had decided to fully usurp Wallmapu. Following

occupation and after the successful imposition of Chilean control of Araucanian territory, those

allegorical claims reemerged.69 Enrique Espinoza is an example of that return since he included in

his descriptive geography the Mapuche as part of Chiles racial and historical heritage and

described them as the dueos (owners) of the southern territory.70 He explained,

Conquistado Chile por los espaoles, la poblacin se form de la mezcla de sangre espaola con la
araucana, que con el continente de la inmigracion de los dems pases europeos ha dado la poblacion
actual. As, en su masa, predomina el orjen europeo con tenues matices de la raza indjena, dando, al fin,
una poblacion casi uniforme, de constitucion robusta, talla regular, fisonoma agradable; y, en cuanto al
carcter, los chilenos se distinguen como emprendedores, por su decidido amor a la patria, su hospitalidad,
y sus aptitudes para el estudio de las ciencias y el desarollo de las artes.71

The Spanish conquered Chile and a mixture of Spanish blood with the Araucanian formed the population.
The immigration from varying European countries eventually yielded the current population. In its entirety,
the European origin dominates with undertones of the indigenous race, creating an almost uniform population

67
Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask (New York, Grove Press, 2008), 118.
68
Rebecca Earle, Return of the Native: Indians and Myth-Making in Spanish America, 1810-1930 (Durham Duke
University Press, 2007), 4.
69
Ibid., 113.
70
Espinozas book did not stipulate that it was in official use by the Ministry of Education. It did state: Arreglada
segn la ltimas divisiones administrativa, con los territorios anexados y en conformidad al Censo Jeneral
levantado el 26 de noviembre de 1885. Es propiedad. Se ha hecho en la Bibioteca Nacional el depsito que
prescribe la lei.
71
Enrique Espinoza, Jeografia Descriptiva de la Republica de Chile (Santiago, Imprenta Gutenberg, 1890), 13.
 26

with a robust constitution, regular height, and agreeable phenotype. The Chilean character is distinguished
for being enterprising, their love for their country, their hospitality, and their aptitude to study sciences and
the advancements of arts.

The above historical sequence that defined Chilean racial origin was repeated later by other

schoolbooks on geography, such as Jeografia Elemental (Elementary Geography) (1896) where

the authorless text that was officially distributed to primary schools stated, Los chilenos son

robustos; por lo general de buen color, y de facciones regulares, amantes a su patria,

emprendedores y aficionados a las artes, a la industria y la ciencias (Chilean men are robust;

generally of good color with regular features, who love their nation, and are entrepreneurs and

fanatics of the arts, industry, and science). 72 Nicols Palacios promoted this fiction in Raza

Chilena (1904), where he described the Chilean race as a European-dominant race of Germanic

descent with subtle Mapuche attributes. But it is relevant to highlight that the intention by more

current historians to paint Palacios as a lonesome, yet kooky, cowboy who read an excessive

quantity of European race theories is misleading. Palacioss historical tracing of the Chilean race

was shared and purported by several esteemed intellectuals of his time.73

Espinoza further embraced the concept of the allegorical Mapuche when he wrote, La

historia de las tribus araucanas forma una leyenda de proezas y herosmos que si no fuera exacta

seria fantstica Al fin, fatigado de su larga y heroica resistencia y debilitado en su nmero, han

tenido que someterse ante el esfuerzo tenaz y heroico tambin del soldado chileno y de las medidas

civilizadoras tomadas para subyugarlas. (The history of the Araucanian tribes form a part of the

poetic and heroic legends that if they were not factual it would be fantasticIn conclusion, as their

long and heroic resistance fatigued that debilitated their numbers, they were forced to submit to

72
Ibid., 15.
73
Cristin Gazmuri Riveros, Notas sobre la influencia del racism en la obra de Nicols Palacios, Francisco A.
Encina y Alberto Cabero, Historia, no. 16(1981); Bernardo Subercaseaux, Raza y nacin: el caso de Chile, A
Contra corriente: Una revista de historia social y literature de Amrica Latina 5, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 29-63.
 27

the tenuous and heroic efforts by Chilean soldiers, who had to impose civilization measures in

order to subjugate them).74 The overuse of the word heroic projected the post-War of the Pacific

euphoria that placed the Chilean soldier on a pedestal of Chilean masculinity. School children were

constantly reminded about the centrality of that military victory.75 The victories following the dual

expansionist wars presented Chile as finally whole and able to proceed with its divine right.

Espinoza further explained,

Pacificado ya el territorio que forma esta provincia, en la que despus de una labor tan paciente como
esforzada, imperan las leyes del pas, la industria y el comercio han alcanzado un desarrollo que ir en
progreso seguro, merced a la condicin agrcola de su suelo y de los dems veneros de riqueza que se
esploren y se esploten. Su unin con el resto de la Repblica por la lnea frrea, ser para sus recientes
pobladores una prenda segura de prosperidad.76

The territory that makes up this province has already been pacified, after patient and strenuous work, the
nations laws prevail, industry and commerce have reached a level of development that will surely
progress, thanks to the agricultural condition of its soil and those other areas of wealth that will be
discovered and exploited. Its union with the rest of the republic by railway line will be, for its most recent
settlers, an assured delivery of prosperity.

According to Espinoza, progress had reached La Araucana through laws, industry, settlers, and

the railroad. When the Ministry of Education ordered in 1899 a new edition of Ercillas La

Araucana to be distributed in schools, the decision was made at a moment of heightened

confidence by the Chilean state. It can be argued that the re-emergence of the allegorical Mapuche

marked the beginning when Chilean government officials and intellectuals located them in the past

once more. The invisible hand of progress would absorb them into the national culture, not needing

specific legislation.

The Chilean government resisted formalizing an explicit assimilationist policy similar to

those implemented in Australia and the United States, but a politics of assimilation did transpire

74
Espinoza, Jeografia Descriptiva, 215.
75
Sergio Gonzlez Miranda, Chilenizando a Tunup: la escuela pblica en el Tarapac andino 1880-1990
(Santiago, DIBAM, 2002).
76
Espinoza, Jeografia Descriptiva, 218.
 28

and was enforced to assure the superiority of a Chilean Europeanized culture. A Mapuche child

who read either Espinozas allegorical tale about Mapuche heroism or Cruzs depiction of them as

barbarous peoples, absorbed a historical arch that reached a similar conclusion: that as a people

they needed to be rid of their culture and beliefs, and acculturate into the more advanced Chilean

civilization. Assimilation appears kinder than extermination, just as the good cop is projected as

helpful in contrast to the bad cop. However the degrees of violence are rationalized; the cultural

and social violence of assimilation cannot be minimized. Australian Aboriginal historians have

highlighted that assimilation functioned as a slow extermination.77 As Fanon painfully described

the feeling of not existing; or in the case of the Mapuche existing as a caricature with warrior

qualities in order to give credence to the Chilean states masculine military victories that are

essentially the white masksto use Fanons termthat refrain from painting the Mapuche in their

breathing and living qualities. Fundamentally, indigenous communities will always contest

assimilationist policiesin its varying forms because they are about absorption into the Chilean

nation-state, not the territorial and cultural independence of the Mapuche people. In discussing the

Aboriginal experience in Australia, the historian Jennifer Clark explains, The aim of assimilation

was to gather the remnants of Aboriginal society and, in a spirit of democratic equality, merge

Aboriginal into white culture. It was against the thrust of assimilation for the government to

promote community independence.78 In Chile, assimilationist policies became integral to the

institutions of civil society, but were not publically defined as racially motivated. Schools,

especially for education reformers, were to be the archetypical institution that would build the

universal citizen. Mapuche students were required to assimilate in order to become part of the

77
Jennifer Clark, Aborigines & Activism: Race, Aborigines & the Coming of the Sixties to Australia (Crawley,
University of Western Australia Press, 2008), 99.
78
Ibid., 43.
 29

universal dream. Yet, assimilation would never rid them of the racial markers that would

consistently deny them full integration into Chilean society.

Educating the Race-Nation

The Ministry of Educations appointment of Toms Guevara in 1899 as Liceo de Temuco

second director marked an institutional turning point. There were a few underlining interpersonal

and political concerns about his appointment, including the snubbing of the schools Spanish

instructor, Manuel Seplveda, who was the natural successor. And there was the tense

correspondence that took place in 1895 between the Ministry of Education and Mallenco officials

trying to determine whether Guevara deserved a bonus for his six years of service, even though

his employment during the 1891 Civil War was sporadic. Or as the illegible signer of a letter to

the Ministry, who stated opposition to awarding Guevara the bonus, noted that Guevara had

accepted a teachers post by el gobierno de la Dictadura el 1o de Mayo de 1891 (the May 1,

1891 dictatorial government). 79 Nevertheless, Guevara secured his position as director,

opening a new era in his intellectual endeavors.

Guevara was a race conscious education reformer, who intended to use education as the

means for progress and social betterment. However, as a proponent of biological racism, he

interpreted policies for social uplift as limiting due to biological primacy. Over the years, he

heedlessly discussed and proposed government policies about the educational prospects for the

indigenous populace. Most contemporary Santiago government officials avoided discussions

about race, preferring to image los pueblos originarios (the original peoples) as relics of the past.

Guevara, unlike Briones, wrote and researched Mapuche history and culture. Yet, his intellectual

79
Signed to the Minister of Education, 20 de julio de 1895. Fondo ME, vol. 1091.
 30

awareness or knowledge about race was bound within scientific race theories. Furthermore,

Guevaras familiarity with Mapuche pupils and colleagues did not spawn an empathetic

understanding of their experience.

As this section will demonstrate, during Guevaras sixteen years as school director, he

promulgated racialized stereotypes that were supported by a scientific language of reason and

legitimized by schoolbooks that advocated a Eurocentric historicism. He used and hired his

Mapuche students and contacts as ethnographic informants to study cultural and psychological

Mapuche behaviors, with the intention of recording their culture prior to their expected

disappearance. Guevara played a significant role in the public articulation of Chilean race politics,

influencing the nascent deliberation of a mestizo state politic. His most celebrated Mapuche pupil

and colleague, Manuel Makilef, embraced and rejected the assimilationist ideas purported by the

school that placed the two men, in later years, privately at odds. The combination of intellect

curiosity and geographic location elevated the school to transact a noteworthy role in Chilean

education and race histories. From 1899 to 1916 Liceo de Temuco transformed into an institution

at the forefront in producing research and ideas about race, participating in the theoretical building

blocks that helped mold Chiles mestizo identity.

Liceo de Temucos student body that included its three-year preparatory section and four-

year humanities section had tripled from 113 students in 1889 to 333 in 1902 (93 to 285,

respectively, those with registered regular attendance).80 Guevara inherited a fully functional liceo

and continued to mold the school to reach those popular education and scientific-learning

milestones. Guevara expanded manual labor and courses in agriculture with the intent in preparing

future landowners in advanced studies in zoology, agricultural chemistry, commercial geography,

80
Toms Guevara, Resea histrica sobre el Liceo de Temuco (Temuco, Imprenta Alemana, 1903), 50-51.
 31

and rural engineering. However, it would also prepare the next generation of agricultural workers

in manual labor techniques that a student could later perfect by transferring to a technical school.

As discussed in the previous chapter, Claudio Matte had circulated a manuscript for La enseanza

manual (Manual Learning) in the early 1880s that was later published in 1888, prior to the First

Pedagogical Congress. Mattes book was an endorsement for Otto Salomons manual labor system

known as the sljd (manual or handicraft) system that Salomon taught at the Ns pedagogical

school he directed, where also many Chileans studied. Guevara found Mattes study of el mtodo

de Ns (the Ns method) particularly useful when constructing his plan for indigenous

education.81

Guevaras academic writings offer more insight about the Liceos Mapuche pupils than his

official memorias and reports to the Education Minister. If one had only read his public policy

proposals about indigenous education, there would be an element of surprise in discovering the

intimate intellectual engagement Guevara had with his Mapuche researchers, translators, and

informants; a striking omission from official government reports. In his published works,

especially in Las ltimas Familias y Costumbres Araucanas (The Last Families and Araucanian

Customs) (1912), three Mapuche Liceo students were mentioned by Guevara due to their

participation in said research: Ramn Lienan, Jos Segundo Painemal, and Manuel Makilef. The

latter two came from families that supported the Chilean army, while Lienans family had resisted

Chilean military incursion at Temuco Fort. 82 There were other Mapuche informants hired to

81
In an 1896 report by doctor J.B. Zubiaur to the Argentinian Commission of Manual Labor, he referred to Matte as
a disciple of Otto Salomon. See: Dr. J.B. Zubiaur, Conferencia del Dr. J.B. Zubiaur. El trabajo manual en el
Colegio Nacional de Uruguay, Repblica de Argentina. Comisin de Trabajo Manual by Doctor Antonio Bermejo
(Buenos Aires, Taller Tipogrfico de la Penitenciara Nacional, 1896), 121; Claudio Matte, La enseanza manual en
las escuelas primarias (Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, 1888), 102.
82
Jorge Pavez Ojeda, Mapuche i nutram chilkatun/Escribir la historia mapuche: Estudio Posliminar de Trokinche
Mfu i Piel. Historias de Familias. Siglo XIX, Revista de Historia Indgena no. 7 (Santiago, Universidad de
Chile, 2016), 17-18.
 32

conduct research that were educated at Capuchin or Franciscan missions. According to Jorge Pavez

Ojeda, Guevaras rectorship allowed him to ampliar su red de relaciones, entrando tambin en

contacto con los hijos de familias mapuches que llegan a estudiar al liceo (widen his relational

network, giving him contact with the sons of Mapuche families who studied at the high school).83

Guevaras interests in his pupils were their familial contacts for his ethnographic work, insight into

their culture, and their ability as bilingual translators and transcribers. Due to this reason, the

Mapuche students at Liceo de Temuco appear suddenly out of the shadows once Guevara enters

in comparison to the Briones years. Jos Anka and Pavez Ojeda argue that even though Guevara

mentioned the participation of Mapuche students and colleagues, his Mapuche researchers were

the cores of his intellectual labor, yet the intellectual capital and acclaim was attributed solely to

Guevara.84 This does not minimize Guevaras capacities as an autodidact researcher and academic,

but his evolutionary historicism and position of power in relation to his researchers illuminate

the ethnocentricity of his accolades.85

It is uncontended that Guevaras published works gave him public recognition as an

intellectual authority on Mapuche culture and psychology. The defamed historian Leonardo Len

described Guevara as the last of the great long nineteenth century historians in the liberal

tradition.86 Guevara was situated in that intellectual cusp, along with Letelier, who reasoned as a

liberal and influenced the new modernist ideas of the 1920s. Guevaras writings, however, also

produced tidbits about Liceo de Temucos Mapuche pupils and opinions about the educational

83
Ibid., 23.
84
Ibid., 29.
85
Ibid., 34.
86
Leonardo Len, Historia y representacin: Toms Guevara y sus estudios sobre los Mapuches del Gulu Mapu,
Historia Indgena no. 10 (Santiago, 2007): 51.
 33

future of the Mapuche people. In order to flush these ideas out, it will be necessary to review

Guevaras research and policy proposals.

At the time of his appointment, Guevara was the Spanish instructor at Liceo de Angol. The

Ministry of Educations archival documents do not reveal the reasons for choosing him over

Seplveda, but in 1898 Guevara published the three-part series Historia de la civilizacin de

Araucana (The History of Civilization in Araucana) in the Anales Universidad de Chile, which

ostensibly influenced that decision. Publishing appears to be an important consideration in

Ministry of Education appointments. For example, Brioness La Instruccin Primaria i la

Pedagojia Moderna (Primary Education and Modern Pedagogy) was published in 1888, a year

prior to his appointment. The emphasis placed on publishing demonstrated a preference for praxis

of theory-driven initiatives along with classroom experience rather than pure administrative

qualities in their selections. Furthermore, as education reformers took on higher posts in the

Ministry of Education, they conceivably appointed individuals who would advance concentric and

scientific learning. What the Ministry Education officials were not able to obtain through

presidential decrees and congressional approval, they were able to advance in the culture of ideas

within the Ministry through appointments.

In Resea histrica sobre el Liceo de Temuco (Historical Overview of Liceo de Temuco)

(1903), Guevara presented his telling of the institutions short history. He noted the difficulties

that Briones faced in implementing concentric learning due to the chaos produced by the 1891

Civil War and teacher resignations that opposed the system.87 Guevara explained, A pesar de la

implantacion del sistema concntrico, sigui predominando la enseanza del tipo antiguo (Even

with the installment of the concentric system, the old style of teaching continued to dominate), in

87
Toms Guevara, Resea histrica sobre el Liceo de Temuco (Temuco, Imprenta Alemana, 1903), 13-15.
 34

which Guevaras appointment was self-described as a new era.88 Briones had included German in

the school curriculum in 1894; however, Guevara gave the language further importance by

increasing its study hours from three to eight hours of German per week, surpassing French by two

hours.89 Guevara quoted from the German-language newspaper Der Grenzbote que se edita en

Temuco i circula hasta Puerto Montt (which is published in Temuco and circulates to Puerto

Montt) that hailed public schools that included the German language into their curriculum and

urged other institutions to follow suit.90

Guevara devoted a chapter on Influencia de los liceos en la cultura del sur del pais (The

Cultural Influence of the High Schools in the South of the Country) where he expounded that the

institutions of learningeven with their past defectshave elevated the overall regional cultural

level from a so-called state of barbarism. Education, for Guevara, played a central role in preparing

indigenous peoples as proselytizers for progress,

Los hijos de estos primeros habitantes del sur ingresaron a los liceos; porque la enseanza particular no
exista, como no existe aun sino en la forma rudimental, nula i anticuada de uno que otros colejio particular.
Estos educandos desempearon, pues, el papel de agentes civilizadores en la sociedad en que vivieron, i
andando el tiempo obtuvieron un ttulo profesional o entraron a colejios de enseanza especial, como la
escuela normal i la de oficios; se dedicaron a empleos pblicos i privados, o al trabajo libre de la
agricultura i del comercio. Hubo as una benfica evolucion hcia el mejoramiento de las costumbre i la
estension de trabajo.91

The children of the first southern dwellers entered the high schools since private learning did not exist
and continues to be available only on a rudimentary basis, null and outdated with some exceptions being
private schools. The educated ones played the role, well, of civilizing agents in the society in which they
lived and, with time, they obtained professional titles or entered schools of specialized learning, such as
normal schools and those of other professions. They dedicated themselves to public and private
employment, or in agricultural and commercial free labor. That is how an evolutionary benefit took place
towards betterment of customs and long-term employment.

88
Ibid., 15-16.
89
In 1902, 16 hours were devoted to Spanish, 20 to Mathematics, 14 to Physical Education, 12 to German, 12 to
History and Geography, 8 to English, and 6 to French; Ibid., 54-55.
90
The article mentioned was published on August 13, 1902. Der Grenzbote was later absorbed by Deutsche Zeitung;
Ibid., 29-30.
91
Ibid., 47.
 35

Guevaras vague remark about the children of the first dwellers can be read as either national or

foreign colonos. But as he later detailed the childrens schooling and labor opportunities and

betterment of customs, it became clear that he was referring to Mapuche offspring. The

education of Mapuche children was not intended to boast their potential, but to fulfillas Guevara

and other assimilationist understooda preconceived social and economic role that predetermined

their employment, usually in agricultural or industrial hard labor and on occasion as educators and

translators for the state. Their education, much like those of young Chilean women, was meant to

satisfy the providence of evolutionary progress and the preservation in the harmony of the status

quo.

Lastly, Guevaras final chapter focused on the issue of popular education. He explained

that the there were ongoing debates about whether the state should invest in educating the children

of the poor. He noted the schools history in funding students in need. He described how parents

from humble socioeconomic backgrounds responded positivelywhen directedto the need for

parental involvement and regular student attendance, while the mas acomodados (more affluent)

parents disregarded the need for regular attendance, holding the school back having to

accommodate to those students. Guevara, a former War of the Pacific soldier, came from modest

beginnings and reacted to the arrogance by affluent parents who demonstrated little regard for the

efficient running of his school.

A year prior to the publishing of Resea, Guevara presented a detailed report at the 1902

Congreso Jeneral de Enseanza Pblica (Public Education General Congress) titled Enseanza

Indjena. Guevaras thesis was to assimilate the Mapuche by removing them from their ancestral

land and proximity from their family. He described the shortcomings of Catholic-led education

during the colonial period and initial years of the republic and highlighted the tendency by
 36

Mapuche students to runaway, returning home where eventually they would forget the Spanish

language. Guevara also described the story of Lorenzo Koliman, a Mapuche youth who was one

of Col. Saavedras hostages, who studied at the Collipulli Mission and the Escuela de Preceptores

(School for Preceptors) in Santiago. After fighting for Chile in the War of the Pacific and living

among the wingka for many years, he returned to his community where he began to vivir de ruca

a ruca (live from hut to hut).92 Kolimans desire to return home, as did many youths who ran

away from missionary schools, was described by Guevara as a setback toward barbarism.

Koliman did return to his ancestral lands, married a Mapuche woman, and worked where he could,

using his literacy and bilingual skills. Koliman was also Guevaras first translator and colleague,

who invested his labor in collecting information and performing interviews for Guevara.93

In his report, Guevara also used Rodolfo Lenzs study on the Mapuche language

(Mapuzungun) as a supposed insight to how the Mapuche rationalize.94 According to Guevara,

Lenz demonstrated that Amerindian languages, in general, were simple and corresponded to the

infantile character of their minds. Guevara argued that for Mapuche children to assimilate fully

into Chilean society they would have to undergo a rigorous education process that emphasized

European languages and manual labor. According to Guevara (and Lenz), the complexity of

European languages such as Spanish, French, and German would develop a Mapuche youth

thinking process allowing for an improved understanding of complex ideas and for a better

integration into Chilean society. Manual labor, on the other hand, would engender discipline and

92
Toms Guevara, Enseanza Indjena in Congreso Jeneral de Enseanza Pblica de 1902 (Santiago, Imprenta,
Litografa, Encuadernacin Barcelona, 1904), 175.
93
Guevara mentioned his collaborative efforts in his 1902 report. Stefanie Gnger, Relics of the Past: The Collecting
and Studying of Pre-Colombian Antiquities in Peru and Chile, 1837-1911 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014),
197; Pavez Ojeda makes a similar observation about Guevaras description of Kolliman using other writings by the
school director. Pavez Ojeda, Mapuche i nutram chilkatun/Escribir la historia mapuche, 14-15.
94
Rodolfo Lenz, Estudios Araucanos: Materiales para el estudio de la lengua, la literatura y las costumbres de los
indios Mapuche o Araucanos (Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, 1895-1897).
 37

a future profession. Both areas would consummate the intended goal of turning the Mapuche into

useful citizens for the nation. However, Guevara did not believe that public education and Catholic

missionary institutions were capable in making a deep-seated impact to rid the Mapuche of their

customs. Enseanza Indjena also published letters from numerous school directors in La

Araucana who responded to seven questions that Eulojio Robles, the Protector de Indgenas

(Protector of Indians) in Mallenco, had sent. 95 In one such response by Charles Sadlier, the

Canadian director of the Anglican missionary school in Quepe, stated,

VII. Viendo los grandes resultados de escuelas industriales de Amrica del Norte i otros paises entre
indjenas, fu acordado en el ao 1897 establecer una escuela industrial entre los indjenas de Chile,
adoptando el mismo sistema de la famosa Escuela Industrial de Carlisle Pa. en los Estados Unidos, uniendo
el trabajo con la enseanza secular.96

VII. After observing the great results from North American and other nations industrial schools for Indians,
it was determined in 1897 to establish an industrial school for the Indians of Chile, adopting the same
system as the Industrial School in Carlisle, Pa in the United Stated; uniting work with secular labor.

Guevara reciprocated Sadliers enthusiasm for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School system

because the schools overarching assimilationist goals matched Guevaras vision.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened in 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania under the

direction of Captain Richard Pratt. Pratt, who was described in a 1935 biography by an Anglo

assimilationist educator as the Red Mans Moses, proposed to the federal government to

transform an old army barrack for the sole purpose of civilizing indigenous children.97 An 1887

newspaper article in the Christian Union noted,

[I]n pursuance of a theory, which [Pratt] had held for some time, that the true way to civilize the
Indian youth was to take him away from tribal influences, he proposed to the Interior and War Departments
to remove to an unused military post two hundred and fifty or three hundred Indian children, who might

95
Guevara, Enseanza Indjena, 173-175.
96
Ibid., 179.
97
Elaine Goodale Eastman, a Massachusetts-born poet and supporter of Indian cultural assimilation, wrote Pratts
biography. Goodale married Dr. Charles Eastman Ohye Sa, of Santee Dakota origin, who was often depicted as an
assimilationist success story. Dr. Eastman cared for the wounded after at the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and is
portrayed, along with his wife, in the HBO film Bury My Heart in Wounded Knee; Elaine Goodale Eastman, Pratt:
The Red Mans Moses (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1935).
 38

there receive a training of head, heart and hand---with the demoralizing influence of camp life during
vacationsand with the still further advantage of being thrown into the midst of civilization. 98

Pratts theory promoted the removal and geographic distance of indigenous children from their

family and communities. Guevara, who intentionally highlighted Kolimans story, did so to prove

his point: that even if the state educated a Mapuche, they would eventually return to their ways.

It is not known the extent of information that Guevara received about the Carlisle Indian School

is not known at this time; but even not having access to Pratts own writings, Guevara found the

institution practice worth mimicking.99

In the last several decades, there have been numerous academic studies and documentary

films that have exposed the harsh realities behind Carlisles betterment faade. The schools motto

captured its assimilationist intention: Kill the Indian, Save the Man. Carlisle embodied a

Spenserian social Darwinist culture in which some students excelled, while others died due to

shock, abuse, depression, and infectious disease. Renown Carlisle graduates, such as the footballer

Jim Thorpe, overshadowed the harsh realities that the overall student body experienced. [I]t is

indisputable fact that the Indian School initiated a large-scale diaspora of Native children, and that

the geo-spatial-cultural dislocation they experienced as part of settler colonialism was grounded

in a new and foreign place-name that would soon become infamous in all Native communities as

a major site of cultural genocide: Carlisle.100

Guevaras report concluded with a proposed plan that urged the creation of Carlisle-like

industrial schools across the region. He then affirmed, De aqu se pasa sin violencia al punto

fundamental del programa: hacer del indio un cultivador til de sus campos, donde lo retengan los

beneficios de sus esfuerzos i el amor tan arraigado en sus costumbre al suelo de sus antepasados

98
Ibid. add Christian Union citation.
99
Guevaras footnotes mention the school multiple times, but he does not cite a specific reading.
100
Ed. Jacqueline Fear-Segal and Susan D. Rose, Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories,
Memories, and Reclamations (Lincoln, London: University of Nebraska Press, 2016). 4.
 39

(From here it passes without violence the fundamental point for this program: to turn the indian

into a useful cultivator in the fields, where they can benefit from their efforts and the love that they

hold for their customs and the soil of their ancestors).101 In other words, Guevara resigned the

idea that an indigenous person can truly assimilate since they were biologically driven to return to

their ancestral land. His plan reads as a begrudging compromise as the best we can do with them.

As a biological racist, he would have interpreted the Carlisle motto rather literally, even though he

did produce a schema for improvement through language skills and selective labor. He explained

in a footnote that the Mapuche appeared to have a talent as cultivators, herders, and merchants,

even though such a fact was demonstrated across several centuries, only to be destroyed by the

Chilean occupying army.102 These examples highlight the ever-growing confluence between the

meaning of citizenry and capitalist expansion, in which the Mapuche self-worth as citizens

amounted to their ability to produce and labor for the nation.

In the aforementioned writings by Guevara, he argued the following: Amerindians were

driven to return to their ancestral land by their inability to rationalize; to become useful citizens

they must be trained as agricultural workers. It is significant that the director of an important urban

institution in La Araucana, who was also a respected expert on Mapuche culture, promoted an

agriculture-driven education for the Mapuche. According to the sociologist Patricia Richards,

Only a small proportions of the Mapuche were inquilinos on the large estates in the regiona

role more likely to have filled by poor Chileans. They [the Mapuche] were, nevertheless, a reserve

labor force for the large estates.103 This chapter is not arguing that Guevara was the sole cause

behind the economic cornering of the Mapuche as a reserved labor force, since that causation was

101
Guevara, Enseanza Indjena, 187.
102
Ibid., 186.
103
Patricia Richards, Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights (Pittsburgh,
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), 58.
 40

due to land theft following occupation. But Guevaras erudite opinions confirmed regional

economic realities in motion and normalized through scientific reasoning Mapuche

marginalization and educational futures.

There are eight documented Mapuche students who attended Liceo de Temuco from 1889

to 1908, although it was likely that a few more attended. They include Francisco Melivilu, Ramn

Lienan, Jos Segundo Painemal, Manuel Makilef, Manuel Nekulma (Jr.), as well as three other

students noted by Guevara using only their last names: Collio, Melinao, and Coueman. 104

Guevara, as described earlier, was a race conscious education reformer; however, his government

reports did not include assimilation progress updates about the Liceos Mapuche pupils. It must be

deduced that Guevara or the Ministry of Education considered following such developments as

not significant. He also did not mention Mapuche pupils in his 1902 report to the Pedagogical

Congress and instead focused on Koliman as his example of failure. Therefore, what is known

about these former pupils remains limited; mostly about their adulthood accomplishments which

can shed some insight into their scholastic experience.

Manuel Makilef was born in Maquehue in 1887, from a Mapuche father, Fermn

Trekama Makilef, and a Chilean mother, Trinidad Gonzlez. At age one he was handed over to

his paternal grandmother and raised on their Mapuche family land in Pelal near Quepe. Makilef

was socialized into Mapuche culture by learning their language, customs, and rituals. He learned

to play paln and participated in rituals such as choike purn. In describing moments from his

childhood, he noted that todos mis compaeros de juego sabian que era hijo de una chilena i como

practicase las costumbres igual i, a veces, major que ellos, designronme con el apodo de Cheuntu,

104
Guevara mentions he has several Mapuche students registered in Liceo de Temuco, he then names a few by last
name and then added etc; Toms Guevara, Psicologa del pueblo araucano (Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, 1908),
161.
 41

que quiere decir: el que se vuelve gente (all my play friends knew that I was the son of a Chilean

woman and since I practiced all the customs equally, sometimes, even better than them, they

nicknamed me cheuntu, which means: he who returns to the people). 105 Makilefs parents

eventually took custody once more, taking him to study at the primary school in Temuco under

the instruction of Nekulma. Makilef later studied for two years at Liceo de Temuco, where

Guevara was his Spanish instructor, and later at the Chillan Normal School, graduating in 1906.

Makilef, with Guevaras support, obtained a position as the librarian at Liceo de Temuco for a

short period where, in his words, lei constantemente i mui a menudo consultaba a mi jefe,

llegando a adquirir con el Seor Guevara relaciones de intima seriedad (I read constantly and I

continuously sought the advice from my boss, developing a sincere and intimate relationship

with Mr. Guevara).106 Makilef taught Mapuzungun at the Anglican Mission in Quepe and other

subjects in nearby institutions before securing a job as the calligraphy and physical education

instructor at Liceo de Temuco.107

Makilefs writings offer minimal insight about his adolescent school days; after all, he

only attended Liceo de Temuco for two years. He was rushed off to study at a normal school,

unable to complete the entirety of his humanities education. Makilef, however, fit into a pattern

bestowed on many Mapuche children, in which those who demonstrated promising intellect were

given the professional path to become teachers while the less promising were expected to enter

agricultural labor; a rather narrow realm of social and economic possibilities.

105
Manuel Manquilef, Comentarios del Pueblo Araucano: La faz social from Tomo II, Revista de la Sociedad de
Folklore Chileno, entr. 1a (Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, 1911), 6.
106
According to Makilef, the quote was pulled from a certificate that Guevara wrote about his relationship with
Makilef; Makilef, Comentarios: La faz social, 7.
107
Ibid., 8.
 42

Makilef, as a recent mestizo, was Mapuche due to his surname and personal identity, but

was technically mestizo, even though such a technicality was dependent on social coding. In the

language of national identity, a differentiation arose between those who were recent mestizo and

still connected to their familial indigenous customs versus those who were long ago mestizo,

already integrated into Chilean wingka society. Such racial coding was rooted in government

documents that legitimized last names, cultural representations such as garments, and the geo-

racial location of where someone lived. Makilefs personal identityeither mestizo or

Mapuchemattered little, since hegemonic social scripts reminded the individual about who they

were and where they stood in the social order. On this subject, Guevara noted,

Los campurrias o araucanos espaolizados son, pues, abundantes en los grupos indgenas actuales; hasta
caciques de fama llevan en su sangre mezcla de la casta que los ha suplantado. Pero es preciso observar que
casi todos ellos quedan viviendo en las reducciones, se unen a familias netamente araucanas i dan as a la
cruza una direccin regresiva. La poblacin nacional, chilena, con esto nada ha ganado por el momento. 108

The champurrias or Spanishized Araucanians are, well, abundant among current-day indigenous groups.
Even some famous caciques carry mixed casta blood of those who have tricked them. But it is precise to
observe that almost all of them continue to live in reducciones as part of distinctly Araucanian families;
thus leading toward a regressive direction. The Chilean national population has currently not gained
anything by this.

This reflection by Guevara was supposedly from a conversation with Eulojio Robles. But, more

importantly, it highlighted a position by Guevara on the degenerative, or regressive, nature of being

mixed race or champurria.

In a 2003 study about urban Mapuche in Chile, interviewees explained that the social power

of last names as the prime signifier of their indigenousness. Los apellidos dan cuenta que

verdaderamente el individuo es indgena (In the last name people recognize whether the individual

is truly indigenous).109 Another young woman explained her classroom experience, No lo poda

108
Toms Guevara, Psicologa del pueblo araucano (Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, 1908), 161.
109
Alexia Peyser Alciaturi, Desarollo, Cultura e Identidad: El caso del Mapuche urbano en Chile. Elementos y
estrategias identitarias en el discurso indgena urbano. Tesis de doctorado en Ciencias Sociales del Universit
catholique de Louvain (enero 2003), 307.
 43

ocultar [mi origen] por mi apellido, yo era muy tmida. Por ejemplo, en la sala de clase, el hecho

que no te expresas bien, o que va a decir esta mapuchita, estn todos atentos, lo digo mal y todos

se ren (I could not hide [my origin] due to my last name. I was very timid. For example, in the

classroom, the fact that I could not express myself well or that they will say mapuchita; they were

all aware if I said something poorly and then everyone would laugh).110 Over time, the mounting

social pressures and prejudices that had come to define the meaning of Indianness and being

Mapuche in a wingka world had detrimental effects. Statistical studies demonstrate that racial

prejudice is the root cause for Mapuche to either suppress or change their last names to garner

social acceptance and mobility. 111 The calamitous examples of assimilationist politics are

documented in these self-inflicted acts of cultural erasure. The social repercussions, social

exclusion, and politics of omission are the engines of ethnocide in a monocultural train that speeds

up generation to generation.

Exploring the relationship between Liceo de Temuco and assimilation politics exposes the

beginning stages in the negotiations between the geo-racial reality of the region and the nation

building demands by Santiago that would encompass the regional character of a mestizo state

politic. The historian Andrs Donoso Romo discerns in his study about education practices in La

Araucana, El nacionalismo, en la prctica, oper como una estrategia simblica-cultural para

cambiar las desmeradas percepciones sobre las malas condiciones de vida de los sectores

populares, sin alterar necesariamente las condiciones estructurales de la sociedad (Nationalism, in

practice, operated as symbolic-cultural strategy to alter the degrading perceptions about the poor

110
Ibid.
111
M. Cristina Llanquileo, La identidad cultural en los procesos de modernizacin Un anlisis de los cambios de
nombres en sujetos mapuche, 1970-1990, SUR (Santiago, Ediciones SUR, 1996), file:///Users/romi/Downloads/PR-
0027-3223.pdf (Accessed May 10, 2017); Geraldine Abarca Cariman, Rupturas y continuidades en la recreacin de
la cultura mapuche en Santiago de Chile (La Paz, PINSEIB, 2005), 71.
 44

living conditions by the popular sectors without necessarily altering societys structural

conditions).112 Class biases and the need to educate the popular classes was a central concern by

Santiago officials, while classroom culture and schoolbooks were the tool in producing the chorus

for nationalisms anthem. As already noted, there is limited information about the Mapuche

experience in Liceo de Temuco, but it is important to keep in mind that former Mapuche pupils

were pressured to write about their educational experience in a positive light. The social backlash

in doing otherwise would have meant losing employment opportunities. Furthermore, discussing

publicly emotional or physical hardships would have been interpreted as a feminized masculinity

and a racial sign of weakness, an already prescribed racist stereotype applied to Mapuche men.113

To pry open the relational triadassimilation, Liceo de Temuco, and the mestizo state, it will

be necessary to dissect these topical areas in order to analyze where and how they informed and

assisted one another.

Eugenics had a profound affect in the theoretical molding of assimilation politics during

the last two centuries. Preconceived ideas and categories about race continued from the colonial

to the republican era, yet the authority of scientific race theories would trickle down into the

complex fabric of social and political life.114 Historian Nancy Stepan described in The Hour of

Eugenics that late nineteenth and early twentieth century Latin American policy-makers and

scientists were just as enamored with eugenics as their European counterparts. In contrast,

however, Latin Americans interpreted racial mixture as an avenue for racial improvement

(mejorar la raza or improve the race) rather than social degeneration, which sparked sterilization

112
Andrs Donoso Romo, Educacin y nacin al sur de la frontera. Organizaciones mapuche en el umbral de
nuestra contemporaneidad, 1880-1930 (Santiago, Pehun, 2008), 75.
113
For example, Nicols Palacios described the Mapuche as warriors, yet emotionally weak crying on a whim. He
differentiated Chilean masculine tears as rooted in the love for their nation, similar to the Russians.
114
Nancy Stepan, The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, Cornell University
Press, 1991), 3.
 45

and euthanasia policies in the US and Europe. Latin American intellectuals preferred Lamarckian

evolutionary theory that assumed that external influences could manipulate lasting hereditary

changes, meaning the offspring could inherit acquired [physical] characteristics. 115 Francois

Galton, who coined the term eugenics, opposed Lamarkian theory for allowing vast possibilities

of inheritable traits and instead took a harder line focusing on internal genetic inheritance. Galton

also took the position on the need for human selective breeding, or social selection, to extract

those deemed unfit from the societal gene pool; a position that Charles Darwin found deeply

troubling.116 Stepan argued that scientific racism was widely embraced for over a century, whose

discourse became part of the natural fabric of academic and broader society.117

Assimilation race theory can be divided between two camps: cultural and biological.

The cultural assimilationists promoted ideas about social uplift, in particular education and

hygiene. The pedagogue John Dewey was a well-known proponent of cultural racism who

restrained from biologizing race while still naturalizing systems of racism.118 Cultural racism

that used the language of social uplift and cultural assimilation had wider support and impact,

especially in communities of color.119 Social uplifters promoted industriousness, personal drive,

Christian values, and good citizenry. Luis Schmidt Quezada elaborated on his assimilationist social

uplift position in an 1899 article,

Ahora bien por qu nuestro gobierno no establece en los pueblos situados en los antiguos dominios
araucanos escuelas de oficios y de agricultura, dejando a la caridad cristiana el cuidado de educar los

115
Ibid., 25
116
Ibid., 23
117
Stepan noted that scientific racism went unchallenged from 1850 to 1950 becoming part of the natural
judgments scientists and intellectuals included in their researches. See: Nancy Stepan, Ideas about Race in Science:
Great Britain, 1800-1960 (London, The MacMillan Press LTD, 1982), 141.
118
John Wesley Jones, John Dewey and Cultural Racism, MA Thesis in Education Policy Studies (University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012), 55.
119
There are numerous studies about how assimilationist and social uplift ideas evolved into respectability politics
that was embraced by middle-class and property owning African-Americans in the US that they in turn used to
police poor and working class Blacks in order to position themselves as socially more acceptable to white middle
and elite classes. See: Robin D.G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina Press, 1990).
 46

huerfanos? Cuan provechoso seria para la civilizacion de la raza araucana la creacion de estos
establecimientos!...La raza araucana no es, pues, unicamente una raza de valientes, es una raza tambien
capaz i de inteligencia que solo necesita un poco de ayuda para levantarse de la postracion en que hoi se
encuentra.120

Well, why does our government not establish professional and agricultural schools in the towns situated in
former Araucanian domains, leaving to Christian charity the task to educate the orphans? Such a benefit it
would be for the civilization of the Araucanian race the creation of these establishments!...The Araucanian
race is not, well, only a valiant race, but also capable and intelligent that only needs a little bit of help to
uplift from the debilitated state they are currently under.

Those who fell out of line due to alcoholism, lack of employment, and a perceived loose sexuality

were blamed individually for bringing down the social caliber of the nation.

The second wing within the assimilationist movement described social problems as rooted

in biological difference. Guevara, along with Herbert Spencer, fell into this camp. In comparison

to cultural racism, biological racism is resolute and less accommodating for a person of color. The

cultural racists offered a tactic for integration, while the biological racists understood race as

determining and mixture as either degenerative or a method for whitening. Guevara was a

proponent of biological racism that was expressed in his academic work; yet he ran an institution

that was an outward exponent of assimilation through education. For example, he would state

publicly, Antes [los mapuche] se defendan con las armas, ahora deben defenderse con la

instruccin: para no quedar totalmente vencidos manden sus hijos a las escuelas, al liceo, etc. Asi

la generacin venidera reemplazar dignamente a sus antecesores (Before [the Mapuche] defended

themselves with arms, but now they must defend themselves through education: to not be entirely

defeated, send your sons to school, to the Liceo, etc. In that way, this generation will replace with

dignity their ancestors.).121 Conversely, he discerned in his academic writing, La raza indgena

ha llegado a un perodo en que la extincin es ms efectiva que la absorcin del elemento tnico

120
Luis Schmidt Quezada, Problemas de la Araucana: La civilizacin de los indjenas, La Revista de Chile vol. 3,
no. 5 (Santiago, 1 de setiembre de 1899), 146.
121
Rolf Foerster and Sonia Montecino, Organizaciones, lideres y contiendas mapuches (1900-1970) (Santiago,
Ediciones CEM, 1988), 17.
 47

superior en contacto con ella (The indigenous race has reached a point in which their extinction is

more effective than absorption by the superior ethnic element that they have contact with).122

There are shared philosophical treatises between biological and cultural racists in their belief in

the racial superiority by those of European descent; the difference being that cultural racists were

the humane face of colonial racism. Guevara would have viewed his Mapuche pupils as culturally

backward and biologically handicapped, and, according to him, only one of the two problems

could be altered. Such stinging resolutions must have added to the surrounding environment of

ethnocentric violence within Lieco de Temucos school walls.

Melivilu and Makilef are the two most celebrated Mapuche alumni from the Liceo de

Temuco early years and who would become, respectively, the first and second Mapuche delegates

elected to Congress.123 These two men, along with other figures such as Nekulma, represented

Mapuche interests in the 1910s Chilean political arena; whose acceptance rested in that they were

educated or lettered Mapuche, giving them a legitimate voice as seen through the wingka gaze.124

They were ardent supporters of progress and education as a means of uplift, yet opposed biological

racism, endorsing racial equality instead. Education gave Makilef and Melivilu the ability to

politically and socially function in two worlds, and the legitimacy to make demands and call

attention to injustices. They heralded support for the expansion of popular education to be more

Mapuche inclusive in terms of access; therefore, the need for more rural schools. They also viewed

private property as a means to uplift the Mapuche as equal citizens in Chilean society. At the

Sociedad Caupolicn Defensora de la Araucana first year anniversary dinner in 1911, Guevara

122
Toms Guevara, Psicologa del pueblo araucano (Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, 1908), 172.
123
Melivilu was elected in 1924 as the congressional deputy for the Department of Temuco, Imperial, and Llaima
under the Democratic Party ticket, Makilef was elected the Liberal Party candidate for deputy in 1925; Foerster and
Montecino, Organizaciones, 23.
124
Foerster and Montecino, Organizaciones, 17.
 48

the Societys honorary memberurged the Mapuche to embrace civilization and use education to

defend their rights. Makilef spoke after his boss and mentor and stated, Todos tenemos una

misma sangre, una misma corazn. De aqu, pues, que los pensamientos de cualquiera de nosotros

sean considerados en conjunto como la idea de una raza (We all have the same blood and heart.

From here on out, whoevers thoughts be considered in unison as the idea of one race).125 Foerster

and Mendocino noted the shortcomings in appealing for equality through reason when la razn

[es] una fuente de poder en manos del blanco (when reason is a fountain of power in the hands

of the whites).126 A few years later, in 1916, Makilef took over the presidency of the Sociedad

Caupolicn from Nekulma. Soon after he spoke at an event hosted by the Araucanian Catholic

Congress in Santiago, where he used the platform to express public support for expanding

Mapuche private property that would require breaking up collective holdings. This position was

widely opposed by the majority of Mapuche that would force him to take a less public role on

behalf of the organization and lose his legitimacy among the rural Mapuche.127 He also went on to

state, [L]a inferioridad de nuestra raza est slo en la mente del usurpador, seremos un pueblo

atrasado; pero no somos raza inferior, sino desgraciada (The inferiority of our race is only in the

minds of the usurper; we may be a backward people, but we are not an inferior race, only

disgraced).128 Makilef simultaneously asserted opposition to Guevaras biological determinism,

while supporting ideas about progress, uplift, and assimilation. Melivilu and Makilefs public

school education assimilated them to a certain degree into Chilean institutions thus creating

125
Ibid.
126
Ibid., 18.
127
The Federacin Araucana (f. 1916) would eventually displace politically Makilef and la Sociedad Caupolicn.
The Anglican educated Manuel Aburto Panguilef who, in contrast to Makilef, had made the reducciones the
Federacins political base; amounting to ninety percent of Mapuche support; Ibid., 23, 45.
128
Ibid., 22; Andr Menard and Jorge Pavez Ojeda, Documentos de la Federacin Araucana y del Comit Ejecutivo
de la Araucana de Chile Los archivos del 29: derroteros y derrotas de la F. A., Anales de Desclasificacin vol. 1:
La derrota del rea cultural, n 1 (2005).
 49

distance (and political rifts) between them and the rural-based Mapuche that Manuel Aburto

Panguilef would later represent as president of the Federacin Araucana (Araucanian

Federation). 129 Even though common ground was at times reached between Panguilef and

Makilef (and among many other leaders) to favor Mapuche interest, Mapuche entry into Chilean

society exposed them to competing ideologies that represented the economic pull produced by

class society, creating friction within the community.

Melivilu and Makilef played a significant public role on behalf of the Mapuche, but it is

also important to keep in mind that these two men cannot stand in as proxy examples for describing

the experiences or political opinions by all Mapuche pupils who attended state schools.

Concurrently, Jim Thorpe cannot stand in as the cumulative Carlisle Indian School student

experience. Little is known about the other Mapuche students experiences or even existence in

Liceo de Temuco. Were they able to assimilate? How did they reflect on their hardships? I am not

describing Melivilu and Makilef as purely on the side of the Chileans because their political

history is more complex. Makilef embraced assimilation and progress, including land

privatization, in the belief that assimilation would benefit the Mapuche. Makilef was the most

visible of opinions, yet a minority position among the Mapuche. He contributed to maintaining

Mapuche historical memory and refused to regard his culture as a dying race. The irony being that

he cooperated simultaneously to cultural erasure, cultural uplift, and cultural continuity. The

education that Melivilu and Makilef received in Lieco de Temuco without a doubt influenced

their political outlook and tactics of struggle. Makilefs historical memory continued on in Liceo

de Temuco, whose own writings were published and excerpted in the school newspaper.130

129
Ibid., 33-52.
130
El Estudiante (The Student) was Liceo de Temucos first student-run newspaper inaugurated in March 1916. In
their tenth number, they published Makilefs call to end collective lands. He argued against people who stated that
the problems with land cultivation on reducciones were los indios and responded that the problem was collective
 50

Liceo de Temuco functioned as a microcosm in the institutional articulation of the mestizo

state that practiced assimilation to homogenize a monocultural citizenry that legitimized a

gendered and class society. The mestizo state politic can be described as the construction of a racial

citizenry for the political means of social compromise to alleviate class tensions; a regional racial

discourse that stood between Mapuche and colonos that favored the European that in school houses

became the embodiment of the ideology of occupation. For the nation-state to succeed, a

semblance of national unity was necessary, which meant the need for a shared origin story about

the birth of the nation that, in the late nineteenth century, quickly centered on the War of the

Pacific. Unity also meant underlining differences from neighboring nations to justify territorial

expansion and war, and that difference, especially for nationalism sake, was best expressed in a

racialized national identity.131 While a homogenous racial citizenry was constructed in the national

imagination through novels and populist speeches, such ideas were engrained in classroom

readings about history, geography, and science.

In the context of La Araucana, racial divisions were pronounced in ongoing land conflicts

that complicated the internalization of a mestizo identity. Liceo de Temuco functioned as a conduit

between the student body (mixed class and race) and the states education demands for citizen

development. The curriculum embodied the mestizo politic praxis that was institutionalized by the

Ministry of Education and homogenized using concentric education. In Marisol de la Cadenas

anthropological study about historical construction of race in twentieth century Cuzco, she

explored the social complexities and pressures that triggered many urban dwelling Quechuas to

identify as mestizos through multiple mediums. She explained,

ownership; Manuel Manquilef G., El ltimo cacique, El Estudiante: Seminario de profunda sinceridad 1, nm. 10
(Mayo 28 de 1916) en Fondo Microformatos, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile.
131
Peter Wade, Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia (Baltimore, The John
Hopkins University Press, 1993), 11.
 51

[M]y study has also shed light over other minoryet also historically producedreasons that endorsed the
avoidance of indigenous ethnic labels as an efficient political strategy: Indianness was consensually
deemed inferior, and Quechua was not synonymous with Indianness, as the elites used the language
tooThe suppression of certain labels and the enhancement of others does not automatically reflect the
suppression and enhancement of the culture that the dominant meanings of those labels connote, or of
ethnicity as prescribed in dominant scripts. Quite the opposite: the suppression of Indianness from
subaltern practices meant the subaltern rewriting of dominant definitions of indigenous culture to include
mestizo identities that exalt rather than extinguish their authenticity. 132

La Cadena noted that these racial scripts evolved into a common national language, constructing

a synergy between the racial scripts from above (the state) and those from below (popular culture),

yet differences remained between the two. The racial scripts about belonging (and exclusion) and

power relations (and marginalization), as well as an expression of a racially mixed popular culture

represent the labyrinth of words and experiences that would culminate in a mestizo politics from

above and below; a confluence noted by de la Cadena.

The Liceos regional importance coupled with the public roles by Makilef and Guevara

placed their academic successes, as well as writings, as respected authorities on the subject of race

and education. It should also be noted that the political ideas associated with the men of Liceo de

Temuco represented regional concerns centered on land conflict and industrial development.

Whereas in Santiago there was a desire by political representatives to avoid the topic of race or

even make decisions that would alleviate the injustices committed against the Mapuche. 133

Santiago officials, as discussed in Chapter 2 in this dissertation, intended to develop La Araucania

by using the bodies of Austro-Swiss, German, and French colonos. Complacency through silence

was consent for violence, in which the Mapuches continual political presence, even in the

132
Marisol de la Cadena, Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991
(Duurham, Duke University Press, 2000), 327.
133
This avoidance by congressional politicians to deal with the Mapuche Question is seen in their reluctance to
earmark funds or develop Mapuche-related programs, such as rural schools near Mapuche reducciones. This
reluctance continued even after Mapuche organizations made specific demands for rural schools.
 52

contending views of accommodation and resistance, forced the intellectual imagination to

describe the national racial identity as mestizo.134

Contending views about Chilean mestizo identity in the national arena is best articulated

between Toms Guevara and Nicols Palacios. Both were men of science who fought in the War

of the Pacific, but their understanding of the Chilean race, or the scientific study about race, was

notably different. The anthropologist Andr Menard explains that Guevara and Palacios shared a

liberal positivist racism, but with slightly different views about mestizaje. Palacios understood the

mestizo body as the national origin while Guevara as a national program and racial destiny.135

Pavez Ojeda highlighted how Palacios embraced the heroic Mapuche described by Ercilla that

allowed la transmisin de carcteres culturales (the transmission of cultural characteristics) that

would constitute the Chilean race as a defense of the roto chileno.136 Palacios was a medical doctor

who spent his post-war years working in the mining camps and in Santiago. Guevara, in contrast,

worked in Angol and Temuco educating Mapuche, Chilean, and foreign colono students. Guevara

wrote an entire book as his polemical response to Raza Chilena, accusing Palacios to be a charlatan

academic.137 Nevertheless, Palacios and Guevara can stand in as proxies for the citizen-making

debates in which the first expounded the need for racial unity and, the latter, spotlighted the

regional realities in state-building. Furthermore, the policies promoted by the Colonization Agency

and the Ministry of External Affairs and Colonization were the policy-driven manifestations of

race politics through immigration and land distribution. Education, nevertheless, was the subtle

134
The quoted phrase is from the article title by Allison Ramay; Allison Ramay, Between Resistance and
Accommodation: Manuel Manquilef and Mapuche Oppositional Writing, Chasqui 45, no. 2 (May 2016).
135
Andr Menard. Pudor y representacin. La raza mapuche, la desnudez y el disfraz. AISTHESIS N 46 (2009):
15-38.
136
Roto is a pejorative term that means broken but was and is used by middle-class and elite to degrade working-
class people. The roto chileno has a well-documented history by renowned Chilean labor historians including
Gabriel Salazar and Julio Pinto. Palacioss Raza Chilena upheld Chilean masculinity as represented by the roto
chileno who labored in the mines, defending the roto from class biased and dehumanizing elite attacks.
137
Toms Guevara, El libro Raza Chilena i sus referencias sobre el sur (Temuco, Imprenta Alemana, 1904).
 53

wing of the colonial nation-state. The entry by institutions of learning into Mapuche society had

both damaging and legitimizing effects. As Jorge Pinto R. always highlights in his scholarly

writings: Mapuche resistance has defined their perseverance.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I argued that Liceo de Temuco was a significant state institution that

legitimized Chilean presence in Mapuche territory and a European-centered monoculture. The

Liceo utilized concentric education to homogenize learning, while schoolbooks promoted a

progressive historicism and biological racism. Even though a separate curriculum for Mapuche

pupils was not instituted, the effects of a monoculture education that degraded and dehumanized

their culture and existence had lasting negative effects, culminating into the politics of omission.

However, Liceo de Temucos education gave some Mapuche students, such as Melivilu and

Makilef, the tools and legitimacy to fight for Mapuche rights in the Chilean political arena and

polemicize against their old schoolmaster. At the same time, Melivilu and Makilef were

intellectually influenced by their education, expressed in their partisanship for assimilation policies

and land privatization. La Araucanas race politic differed from Santiago because of its geo-racial

regional reality where mestizaje stood between Mapuche and colono bodies. By piecing together

the few archival sources and academic writings associated with Liceo de Temucos early years,

what comes to the fore is a story about racialized ideals, a male-centered intellectualism, a

Eurocentric historical progressivism, and the continual discord by the Chilean state as it attempted

to consolidate a national citizenry.

 54

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