Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. we have an interesting story to tell where we try to use the 400th anniversary stamp of the discovery of Chile to piece together what happened.
The stamp is visually not very impressive. It is from the thirties though and from not a particularly wealthy country. The stamps of the set show various industries of Chile. In the case of todays stamp, fishing boats represent that industry. What none of the stamps show is a gold mine, which is what the Spanish initially came for.
The stamp today is issue A66, a 10 centavo stamp issued by Chile on March 1st 1935. It was part of a 12 stamp issue in various denominations to celebrate the 400 anniversary of the discovery of Chile by the Spanish conquistador Diego de Almagro. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. The stamp to look out for in this set is the 10 Peso stamp featuring a saltpeter mine. It is worth $14 mint.
Talking of anniversaries like the one on this stamp is difficult these days as people only want to hear one side depending on their politics or ethnicity. Here are some basic facts that are not in dispute. The discovery of Chile does not take into account the Mapuche tribe that was already present in numbers. It also does not take into account that the explorer Magellan had sighted Chile 25 years before. It also does not take into account that the conquistador Diego de Almagro did not stay and actually find a colony.
Diego de Almagro story was very much the personal quest to find gold and thereby wealth. He first went to the earlier found Panama where he teamed up with Pizarro to move south in pursuit of Inca gold. It is worthy to remember how small these expeditions were. Only a few hundred men. I think it is reasonable to wonder if these vast Indian empires were so great, how could they have fallen to so small a force. Any way the Incas fell in stages in Peru yielding much gold to the conquistadors. The gold mainly went to Pizarro and Almagro became a jealous rival. At first they were both headed north toward Quito in present day Ecuador where it was believed the Incas had much more gold. Quito was burned before Spanish conquest and there was supposedly some gold buried. The failure lead to increased rivalry between Almagro and Pizarro and the Spanish King divided the map as to where each could seek gold to get them apart.
Almagro lead 250 men south down Inca trails toward Chile. He made it into Chile but found very little gold. He did find a war ready Indian tribe called the Mapuche. He did not stay to find a colony but instead returned to Peru to feud with Pizarro over the already found gold. This did not go well for any concerned. Eventually Pizarro, Almagro and even Almagro’s son were all hung by the various Spanish factions.
The area of present day Chile reported to the Peruvian Spanish colony. it remained for a long time the poorest area of the Spanish American empire. The Mapuche Indians were not fully subdued until the 19th century and still today are a big part of the ethnic makeup of Chile. The discredited American academic Ward Churchill claims that the Mapuche Indians were completely decimated by the interactions with the Spaniards. While the losses were great, I don’t think it gives the Indians enough credit for how long they held out. Also it perhaps short changes the Spanish who seemed to be able to do so much with so few.
Today Chile is a free prosperous country with a majority of it’s citizens of Indian ancestry. For this reason I think it is better to think of it as the Spanish came and were integrated into the local culture. And if there wasn’t much gold, at least there was copper and of course saltpeter.
Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. I have been lucky enough to visit Chile and neighboring Argentina. The two countries are very different both ethnicly and in the forward looking Chile and the backward turned Argentina. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.