"Beings those of depraved customs": Cholos and Andean Indians in Chilean testimonies during the War of the Pacific (1879 - 1884)

Abstract

The protagonists of the Pacific War that left written record of their experiences between 1879 and 1884, made a detailed account of what they observed during their journey to the North. An important part of his chronicles and personal documents were devoted to make an ethnography with a speech and a rhetoric in nationalist key, which also acquired racist features. There, they tried to differentiate themselves from their enemies especially those who came from mixed race low class people, cholos, and from the Andean Indians, mostly Aymara and Quechua cultures. With that goal, and from the subjectivity of their point of view, they referred to the general characteristics of their enemies underlining its mixed race and indigenous ethnic ancestry, personality, behavior in the battlefield, physical appearance, culture and customs. This article is frand in the studies of war and society, and analiyzes the phenomenom with conceptual tools from historiography, ethnohistory and ethnography.