indigenous population in Chile

According to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs:

There are 1,565,915 indigenous persons in Chile, that is 9% of the national population, and nine different indigenous groups. The Mapuche represent 84% of the indigenous population, while the Aymara, the Diaguita, the Lickanantay, and the Quechua peoples together represent 15%.

(https://www.iwgia.org/en/chile)

It is incredible how indigenous only make up 9% of the entire population in Chile. How did this happen? This country, as all Latin American countries were 100% indigenous prior to the colonization. 

Some of the key events have been:

- Pedro de Valdivia founded the capital city of Santiago on February 12, 1541

- December 1553, an Araucanian army of warriors organized by Mapuche chief Lautaro (Valdivia's former servant), assaulted and destroyed the fort of Tucapel. Valdivia fled but was later tracked down, tortured, and killed by Lautaro. 

- Battle of Mataquito 1557 - Lautaro was killed by the Spaniards. 

- The Araucanians were nomadic hunting and food-gathering peoples divided into three groups: the Mapuche, the Picunche, and the Huilliche.

- The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of present-day Patagonia. 

- Picunche - also referred to as picones by the Spanish, were a Mapudungun-speaking Chilean people living to the north of the Mapuches or Araucanians

- The Huilliche are the principal indigenous population of Chile from Toltén River to Chiloé Archipelago.

- The Spaniards generally traated the Mapuche as n enemy nation to be subjugated and even exterminated. 

- The conquerors appropriated mines and washings from the native people and coerced them into extracting the precious metal for the new owners. The crown claimed one-fifth of all the gold produced, but the miners frequently cheated the treasury. By the seventeenth century, depleted supplies and the conflict with the Araucanians reduced the quantity of gold mined in Chile.

- Because precious metals were scarce, most Chileans worked in agriculture

- The haciendas initially depended for their existence on the land and labor of the indigenous people. 

- In 1791 Ambrosio O'Higgins outlawed encominedas and forced labor.

- Free trade brought the spread of liberalism in Europe and the United States, but never reached the majority of mestizos and native Americans, who remained illiterate and subordinate.

http://motherearthtravel.com/history/chile/history-4.htm