Afrodescendientes de la Guerra de Independencia y la negación de “lo afro” en la historia de Chile

Abstract

For a long time in Latin America peasants, soldiers, Indians, mestizo, African descent, among others were not considered relevant actors of Latin American independence, and although they were not, many researchers not considered valid interlocutor of the foundational process of national states, relegating to the silence or the austere episode the History of a large number of active participants in the construction of independence. Historical representations in school textbooks and commemorative events have not only made this reality, expressing the heroism of a group of white men giving a colossal political-military process mystification that achieved independence, but also have shown these silences. This paper investigates the presence and action of military corps of African descent in the Chilean army in the period of independence, and how its history, mainly in the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries was denied, resulting in Chilean society the idea of a Hispanic and Mapuche miscegenation with total absence of African descent. To achieve this objective, a historiographical review of the African presence was made, plus an archive work on participation and importance of slaves and free blacks battalions in the Chilean independence process. This work responds to the investigation of the “obvious absence” of African descent in Chile, as well as the recent migration of African and African American people and their Chilean descendants in historical perspective to understand this new and former member of the Chilean identity