Pre-Hispanic times (12,000 BC – 1543) The area around Valdivia may have been populated since 12,000 – 11,800 BC, according to archaeological discoveries in
Monte Verde (less than 200 km south of Valdivia), which would place it about a thousand years before the
Clovis culture in
North America. This challenges the
"Clovis First" model of migration to the New World. Researchers speculate that the first inhabitants of Valdivia and Chile travelled to America by
watercraft and not across a land-bridge in the
Bering Strait. During at least the
Middle Archaic, southern Chile was populated by indigenous groups who shared a common
lithic culture called the
Chan-Chan Complex, named for the archaeological site of
Chan-Chan located some 35 km north of Valdivia along the coast.
Ainil By the time of the arrival of the Spanish
conquistadores, Valdivia was inhabited by the
Huilliche (
Mapudungun for
People of the South). The Huilliche and
Mapuche were both referred to by the Spaniards as
Araucanos. Their main language was a variant of Mapudungun, the Mapuche language. A large village called
Ainil stood where present-day downtown Valdivia has been developed. The Huilliche called the river,
Ainilebu (now known as the Valdivia River).
Ainil seemed to have been an important trade center; it was a port on the sea and had access to the interior via the network of the
Cruces and
Calle-Calle rivers, both tributaries of the Valdivia.
Ainil may be described as "a kind of little
Venice," as it had large areas of wetlands and canals. Since that period, most of these waterways and wetlands have been drained or filled. The market in
Ainil received
shellfish and
fish from the coast,
legumes from
Punucapa, and other foods from
San José de la Mariquina, an agricultural zone northeast of Valdivia. The population has been estimated by some historians as 30 to 40 thousand inhabitants as of 1548, based on descriptions made by the conquistadors.
Pedro Mariño de Lobera, an early conquistador and
chronicler, wrote that there were half a million Indians living within ten
leagues (one league is roughly 4.2 km) from the city. After Pedro de Valdivia's death, the war with the
Mapuches, called the
War of Arauco, continued. The Spanish made many attempts to defeat the Mapuche and defend the cities and forts built on their territory. On 17 March of 1575, the city was damaged by
a massive earthquake. It has since been likened to the
Great Chilean earthquake of 1960 in terms of damage. Until 1575, the Huilliche of Valdivia did not organize any notable resistance against the Spanish. They had fought as
Indios amigos with the Spanish against the northern Mapuche in the Arauco War. But that year 4,000 Indians who had been fighting in
Martín Ruiz de Gamboa's army rebelled after returning to the area of Valdivia. , conquistador of Chile and founder of Valdivia During the 16th century, the economy of Valdivia was sustained by trade in agricultural products from nearby areas and by the coining and export of
placer gold from
Villarrica,
Madre de Dios and
Osorno. In
Lima and the rest of Chile, people referred to all the gold from these sources as "
gold from Valdivia." Many merchants of Lima had envoys in Valdivia, and the city developed a large ship building industry. It produced the largest ships in the
Kingdom of Chile. After the demoralising
Battle of Curalaba in 1598, in which the Mapuche killed governor
Óñez de Loyola, the Mapuche and Huilliche made a mass rebellion. The Indians destroyed or forced the abandonment of all the Spanish settlements and forts in their lands, in what came to be known as the
Destruction of the Seven Cities. On the morning of 24 November 1599, the Huilliche attacked the city and massacred its inhabitants, some few being rescued by the ships in the harbour. The border of the Spanish Empire shifted north of the
Bío-Bío River. Valdivia was re-established but it was a Spanish enclave surrounded by native Huilliche territory. Together with
Castro, Chile on the island of
Chiloé, it was one of the southernmost colonies of the Empire. Eleven days after the first destruction of Valdivia, a group of 270 Spanish soldiers arrived from Perú. The convicts, many of whom were
Afro-Peruvians, became later soldier-settlers once they had served their sentence. A 1749 census in Valdivia shows that
Afro-descendants represented at least 0.24% of the local population.
Independence and growth (1810–1959) Self-governing juntas appeared in
Spanish America and Spain after
Napoleon occupied Spain and held the Spanish king
Fernando VII captive. Many juntas, as was the case of Chile, declared plans to rule their territory in the absence of the legitimate king. At the time of the first governing junta of
Chile in 1810, the Valdivian governor, an
Irishman, Albert Alexander Eagar, led the celebration of what was seen as an affirmation of the legitimacy of the Spanish king. However, Valdivian independentists, such as
Camilo Henríquez, saw an opportunity to gain absolute independence from Spain, organized a coup on 1 November 1811, and joined other Chilean cities that were already revolting against the old order. He also stated that
"there is not much cleared land near Valdivia" Native
Mapuche and
Huilliche either sold their land or were pushed into reservations. The Osorno department of Valdivia Province was moved to
Llanquihue Province (created in 1853) as consequence of German immigration to the Llaquihue area. Valdivia prospered with industries, including shipyards, the Hoffmann gristmill, the Rudloff shoe factory, the Anwandter beer company and many more. The
steel mills of
Corral were the largest recorded private investment in Chile at the time, and were the first steel mills in
South America. In 1891 Valdivia became a
commune according to a law that created such subdivisions. After the
Malleco Viaduct was built in 1890 the railroads advanced further south, reaching Valdivia in 1895. The first passenger train arrived in 1899. In 1909 a fire destroyed 18
city blocks in downtown Valdivia, Later on 1911, the opening of the
Panama Canal meant a decrease in ship traffic all over Chile since ships travelling from the north Atlantic to north Pacific no longer had to pass through the
Straits of Magellan or visit any Chilean port.
Great Chilean earthquake and Los Lagos Region (1960–2006) of 22 May 1960 On 22 May 1960, Chile suffered the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, rating 9.5 on the
moment magnitude scale, with Valdivia being the most affected city. The earthquake generated devastating
tsunamis that affected
Japan,
the Philippines,
Australia,
New Zealand, and
Hawaii. Spanish-colonial
forts around Valdivia were severely damaged, while soil subsidence destroyed buildings, deepened local rivers, and created wetlands of the
Río Cruces y Chorocomayo – a new aquatic park north of the city. Large sections of the city flooded after the earthquake, and a landslide near the
Tralcán Mount
dammed the Riñihue Lake. Water levels in Lake Riñihue rose more than , raising the danger of a catastrophic break and of destroying everything downriver. Government authorities drew plans for evacuating the city, but many people left on their own. Danger to the city was reduced after a large team of workers opened a drainage channel in the landslide; water levels of the lake slowly returned to normal levels. There is evidence that a similar landslide and earthquake happened in 1575. After the Great Chilean earthquake, Valdivia's economy and political status declined. Much of the city was destroyed and many inhabitants left. The
1973 Chilean coup d'état and the military's actions that followed brought dozens of detainees to Valdivia and saw the imposing of a nationwide
curfew. In October, a group of 12 young men, among them was
José Gregorio Liendo, were brought from the
Complejo Forestal y Maderero Panguipulli in the Andes to be executed in Valdivia by
firing squad due to alleged participation in the
assault on Neltume police station and "guerrilla activities". By 1974, the military junta reorganized the political divisions of Chile and declared Valdivia a province of the
Los Lagos Region with
Puerto Montt as the regional capital. Many Valdivians resented the decision, and felt theirs should have been the legitimate regional capital—while Valdivia was founded in 1552, and had resisted
pirate attacks,
hostile natives and several earthquakes, Puerto Montt was a relatively new city founded only in 1853 (three hundred and one years later). Since the liberalization of the economy in Chile in the 1980s, the forestry sector in Valdivia boomed, first by exporting wood chips to Japan from
Corral and then by producing
woodpulp in Mariquina (50 km northeast of Valdivia). This led to deforestation and substitution of native
Valdivian temperate rainforests to plant pines and
eucalyptus, but also created new jobs for people with limited education. Valdivia also benefitted from the development of
salmon aquaculture in the 1990s, but to a much lesser extent than places such as Puerto Montt and Chiloé. ==Culture==