Southern Cone Under the British

Chile

     Britain’s invasions of the River Plate in 1806 and 1807 in Auchmuty-Whitelocke World (AWW) had lots of consequences for Chile.  First of all, many people there were loyal to the Spaniards a little longer than in our world, since they (and many other South Americans) had the British threat to deal with.  Even so, from 1810, Chileans had become gradually disgusted with Joseph Bonaparte’s rule in Spain; it took a little longer, though, than in this world.  Meanwhile, after the British conquered the Viceroyalty of La Plata to the east in 1807 under the command of General John Whitelocke, they were on the verge of conquering Chile as well.  However, the sheer height of the Andes combined with the ongoing Anglo-Plate War in the western parts of Argentina prevented such a campaign. 

     As it was, Chileans started seriously contemplating independence from Spain in 1812, and Jose de San Martin came over in 1814 and supported Bernardo O’Higgins and other Chilean patriots.  San Martin, O’Higgins, and their supporters fought against the Spaniards at the Battle of Rancagua, and Chile declared independence in late 1817, right after the Battle of Maipu.  San Martin and O’Higgins then assembled a small army from among their men to invade Peru by sea.  Indeed, Bernardo O’Higgins, the independence hero of Chile, was of Irish descent.

     Before and (especially) after independence, British influence in Chile has been tremendous, largely due to its proximity to British South America (later to become Argentina and Uruguay).  First of all, it was the British who established the navy at Valparaiso.  Also, in the War of the Pacific from 1879 to 1881 (that pitted Chile against Bolivia and Peru for nitrate resources), the British and the nascent Argentine Confederation played large roles in resolving the disputes.  It was in fact the British and Argentines who developed and controlled the nitrate industry of northern Chile.  Furthermore, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Valparaiso was a trading centre, and the British and Anglo-Argentines together constituted a majority of its population; in fact, it felt like an extension of British South America.  In the 20th century, more angloparlants (English-speakers) from Argentina and Uruguay, along with those from Britain and North America, moved to Chile.  

      In 1970, Jorge Alessandri, who was also the president from 1958 to 1964, was elected president, narrowly defeating Salvador Allende.  Later that year, however, Alessandri resigned, knowing correctly that the people liked the previous president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, so much that he would win again.  (The consitutional system did not allow consecutive terms.)  In 1976, Allende won elections and governed until 1979, when Augusto Pinochet overthrew Allende's government.  Pinochet ruled with an iron fist until 1990.  Some angloparlants left Chile during the political upheavals of the 1970s and 1980s, especially to Argentina and other Anglophone countries, but most stayed in Chile.    

     Today, Chile has a per capita income of $10,000, twice what it is in our world, and over the past 20 years, it has enjoyed strong economic growth and serious reforms to its economic, political, and social systems.  Its capital, Santiago, is South America's third-biggest financial centre, right behind Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.

     Chile has an English-speaking and/or British-ancestry proportion of about 4.5%, comparable to Namibia's portion of whites.  Of the 700,000 or so angloparlants in Chile, half live in Santiago, 100,000 are in the Valparaiso-Viña del Mar area (80% of them in Valparaiso), and 200,000 are in Patagonia and the Lake District.  As a matter of fact, in Chile’s far south, English-speakers make up over one-third of the total population; the far south feels like an extension of angloparlant Argentina.  In the Magallanes region, the southernmost region of Chile that includes Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams, the British/Irish population of 60,000 makes up 40% of the total.  A bit further north, the Aisén region, at 30,000 angloparlants, is almost 30% of British or Irish descent.  So, Chile has had a British influence comparable to our world’s Argentina and Uruguay, though with a much higher proportion.  Chilean angloparlants are highly assimilated into overall Chilean society, so they speak much better Spanish than their counterparts east of the Andes. 

     The area of Chile is 756,626 square kilometres (or 292,135 square miles), the same as in our world.  Chile's population in 2002 was 14,996,747 - making it slightly smaller than in our world.

     In AWW, Chile is even more of a soccer powerhouse than in our world, ranking as high as Argentina or Uruguay in our world.  Not only was soccer introduced by the British, but also rugby.  Because of the profound angloparlant influence, the national rugby team in Chile is in the First Tier of rugby union (unlike in our world), on par with Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, Australia, the UK, and so on.  Chile also has a national rugby league team; the country aspires to be fully professional pretty soon with rugby league. 

     There are some French as well as Spanish and Italian people who have filled more or less the same roles in Chile in AWW that they have in Argentina in our world.  These include Eugene Py, one of the founders of the Chilean film industry; Luis Federico Leloir, who won the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; and Carlos Thays, a famous landscape architect.  

     Francisco Romero, who was born in Spain and moved to Chile, was a leading Latin American philosopher.  Luis Cesar Amadori, a filmmaker with movies like "Albeniz" (1947) to his credit, lived in Chile (and not Argentina like in our world).  As well, three Chileans have won the Nobel Prize (including Leloir and two in Literature).

     Another effect of the British victory in Buenos Aires is that Santiago, rather than Buenos Aires as in our world, has been the Paris of South America (Buenos Aires has been the London of South America).  In AWW, it is Santiago that has the highest proportion of psychoanalysts in the world, and also of many types of plastic surgery.  

     As well, northern Chile (where the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world, is located) kind of fills part of the same role for people from Argentina and Uruguay that Arizona does to North Americans – a second-favourite, dry-climate retirement spot, and maybe also a place to move to in general.  Especially popular retirement and snowbird spots are Arica, Calama, and Antofagasta, along with Iquique, Copiapó and La Serena/Coquimbo.  Northern Chile, along with, to a greater extent, various cities in northwest Argentina, is a distant second to Brazil in that regard.

     Moreover, over the past few decades, there has been a significant migration of Chileans into Argentina, looking for higher wages or fleeing the governments of Allende or Pinochet.  They have largely settled in Cuyo province (which has had strong Chilean cultural influences anyway), Buenos Aires and Plate Province, and Patagonia.  Many of them work as menial labourers or, as in Patagonia, sheep hands (peones).  In total, the Chileans in Argentina number just over 400,000.

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