White Chileans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chilenos blancos (Spanish) | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| White ancestry predominates 12,500,000 (estimated)[1] ranging in 2025 from 67% of the Chilean population to 88.9% White / non indigenous (There is no official census data) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Mainly in Central Chile, Coquimbo,[dubious – discuss] Biobío, Los Ríos, Los Lagos, Aysén and Magallanes[citation needed] | |
| Languages | |
| Majority: Spanish | |
| Religion | |
| Majority: Christianity Minority: Irreligion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
White Chileans (Spanish: Chilenos blancos) are Chileans who have predominantly or total European or West Asian ancestry, these stand out for having light or olive skin. White Chileans are currently the largest racial group in Chile.[1]
During colonial times in the eighteenth century, an important flux of emigrants from Spain populated Chile, mostly Basques, who contributed to the Chilean economy and rose rapidly in the social hierarchy and became the political elite that still dominates the country.[2]
European migration in the 19th century did not result in a remarkable change in the ethnic composition of Chile, except in the Magallanes Region and the city of Concepción in the Biobío Region.[3]
Spain and France were the largest source of European immigration to Chile during the 17th and 18th centuries, specially from the deep southern parts of Andalusia and Extremadura, which contributed to the Chilean ethnogenesis with thousands of peasants who migrated to the fertile lands of the Chilean Central Valley alongside the Basque merchants who started to arrive in the 18th century in great numbers.
The largest contingent of people to have arrived in post-independence Chile came from Spain and from the Basque country, a region divided between northern Spain and southern France. Note that this phenomenon occurs not only in Chile, but also in every Autonomous Community of Spain,[4] as well as in other Latin American countries – one can see that a substantial portion of their populations have one or two surnames of Basque or Navarre origin.[5][6]
In 1903, a fleet of 88 Canarian families—400 persons—arrived in Budi Lake, that currently have more than 1,000 descendants, as a response to the government's call to populate this region and signed contracts for the benefit of a private company. While many Canarians obeyed their servitude, some of those who disobeyed the provisions of repopulation tried to escape their servitude and were arrested, and the indigenous Mapuche people took pity on the plight of these Canarians who were established on their former lands. The Mapuches welcomed them and joined their demonstrations in the so-called "revolt of the Canarians", and many Canarians integrated into Mapuche population to add the large mestizo population that exists in Chile.[7] Chile's various waves of non-Spanish immigrants include Italians, Irish, French, Arabs, Greeks, Germans, English, Scots, Croats, and Poles.
In 1848 an important and substantial German immigration took place, laying the foundation for the German-Chilean community.[8][9] Sponsored by the Chilean government for the colonization of the southern region, the Germans (including German-speaking Swiss, Silesians, Alsatians, Austrians, Sudeten Germans, and Poles thru Partitions of Poland), strongly influenced the cultural and racial composition of the southern provinces of Chile. It is difficult to count the number of descendants of Germans in Chile, given the great amount of time since 1848. Because many areas of southern Chile were sparsely populated, the traces of German immigration there are quite noticeable.
In 1939, under the supervision of poet-diplomat Pablo Neruda, the SS Winnipeg, a French steamer, arrived at the port of Valparaíso with 2,200 Spanish Republican exiles who had been granted political asylum by the administration of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda. The passengers included Mauricio Amster, José Balmes, Roser Bru, Isidro Corbinos, and Víctor Pey.
