Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE May 2018 To Plow a Lonely Furrow: Indigenismo and Mapuche Politics in Chile, 1920-1960 Henry John Stegeman Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Stegeman, Henry John, "To Plow a Lonely Furrow: Indigenismo and Mapuche Politics in Chile, 1920-1960" (2018). Dissertations - ALL. 878. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/878 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This study examines Mapuche political organization in Chile from 1920-1960 through the lens of transnational indigenismo. In that period, politicians, academics and social reformers across the Americas were questioning how to incorporate indigenous populations into modern national states. While many historical accounts of similar phenomena in other countries have drawn categorical distinctions between indigenismo (as a movement led by white elites) and indigenous activism (led by Indians themselves), this work places the two phenomena side-by-side to explore connections between them. That approach shows that collaboration, periodic conflict and strategic alliance making were important components of indigenous politics in Chile. It also brings indigenous agency to the fore, and in doing so challenges historical interpretations of indigenismo that have characterized it as a paternalistic mechanism of the neocolonial state. It joins a growing body of scholarship that recognizes indigenismo as an important influence on and precursor to identity-based indigenous social movements that emerged in the late-twentieth century. To Plow a Lonely Furrow: Indigenismo and Mapuche Politics in Chile, 1920-1960 by Henry John Stegeman B.A., University of Colorado Boulder, 1999 M.A., SUNY College at Brockport, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History. Syracuse University May 2018 Copyright © Henry John Stegeman 2018 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgments In undertaking a project of scope and magnitude such as a dissertation, one necessarily relies on the support, instruction and good will of a great many people. I would first like to thank my advisors Gladys McCormick and Karin Rosemblatt for their many years of patient guidance as I plodded along. In the Department of History, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn and Norman Kutcher gave me generous institutional support in tandem with personal encouragement. I am very grateful to John Burdick for serving as an unofficial transdisciplinary advisor, helping me navigate the intersections of history and anthropology as well as the intellectual life of academe. A dissertation project could not be completed without financial support either. In their own ways, each person above helped me secure funding that supported three research trips to Chile through the Maxwell School Dean’s Summer Research Grant, Goekjian Summer Research Grant, PLACA Travel Grant and Perryman Award programs. I also received financial support from my employer, the Manlius Pebble Hill School, and personal encouragement from many friends and colleagues there. I would like to especially thank Matt Twomey-Smith, Fred Montas and Jim Dunaway for nudging me along through cold winters of early morning, late night and weekend writing sessions. Outside of Syracuse, my intellectual journey began in Boulder, Colorado through the mentorship of Richard Haly Meyer, who kindled my interest in the indigenous history of Latin America, cited me in a paper he published and took me to Tlaxcala, Mexico to study the archaeoastronomy of Nahuatl speakers, past and iv present. More importantly, he taught me the value of listening to students, which still forms a foundational pillar of my professional practice as an educator. In Brockport, New York, Anne Macpherson introduced me to the disciplinary complexities of indigenous history and the pioneering work of Florencia Mallon. As I transitioned from graduate student to adjunct professor, she and Jenny Lloyd encouraged me to continue the journey and pursue the PhD at Syracuse. In Chile, Karin and Florencia helped me make initial contact with Chilean scholars in their professional networks. Claudio Barrientos, at the Universidad Diego Portales, helped me navigate the archives in Santiago and Temuco. Sergio Caniuqueo gave me critical feedback on an earlier project proposal, and even came to find me when I couldn’t find the coffee shop where we agreed to meet. Sergio’s work introduced me to Mapuche historical perspectives, and he personally introduced me to Vicente Mariqueo, who invited me to spend a day with him visiting his family’s reducción and sharing an asado. While this project is largely unrecognizable from the ideas that Sergio, don Vicente and I first discussed in the summer of 2008, I have carried their thoughts and suggestions with me as my research interests evolved from an oral history of Mapuche migration to an archival history of the way ideas migrated across continents. André Menard, of the Universidad de Chile, guided me in the latter stages of that archival work, generously sharing his own knowledge of Chilean and Mapuche archival caches and his thoughts about the project’s merits. On the more personal side of things, I could not have completed this project without the consistent support of friends and family. Benjamin Schechter has v patiently listened as I struggled through this project and doubted myself, and Matt Stewart met me for coffee on Saturday mornings to hold me accountable for sitting in the chair and writing. My uncle, Philip Kuehnert, was the first to suggest one summer that I would benefit from having an “accountability partner,” and offered to be that person for me. My dad, Henry Stegeman, provided financial and moral support for my scholarship long after it seemed worth the cost. My wife Laura, and children Ruby and William, have sacrificed more for this effort than perhaps anyone else. They accepted countless nights, weekends and summer months away from husband and father. When they were able to join me on the adventures I am afraid I was too often distant and grumpy. Nevertheless, they persevered through it all and kept loving me, accepting me and supporting the things I wanted to do. My mother Jean Wedig’s untimely passing meant that she never knew this part of my life. And yet the whole thing rests upon her memory and the lessons she taught me, as all lives are built upon the stones of ancestors and the stories they tell. For Jeani vi Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Historiography ................................................................................................................................... 6 Sources .............................................................................................................................................. 17 Historical Context .......................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter Outline ............................................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 1: The Roots of Mapuche Activism .................................................................. 33 The First Mapuche Organizations ............................................................................................ 34 Manuel Aburto: Portrait of a Mapuche Leader .................................................................... 48 Proposals, Projects and Quotidian Assistance for Indígenas .......................................... 57 Collaboration and Division within the Mapuche Movement ........................................... 60 Surveillance, Repression and Connections with the Left ................................................. 66 Explaining Aburto’s Political Philosophy .............................................................................. 75 Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 80 Chapter 2: A Conservative Indigenismo ........................................................................ 82 Monsignor Guido Beck de Ramberga ...................................................................................... 84 Ley Indígena 4.169 and the Special Tribunal ....................................................................... 93 The Fracas of 1930: Internal Politics .................................................................................... 100 Opposing Aburto: Communism & Indigenous Culture .................................................... 113 Forming the Corporación Araucana ...................................................................................... 125 Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 133 Chapter 3: Indigenismo in Chile and the Americas ................................................. 135 Indigenismo across the Americas ........................................................................................... 136 Origins of the