Less than a century later, a Spanish army attempted to do just that. In 1541, Pedro de Valdavia crossed into the central valley, having followed the Inca road south from Peru. He founded Santiago in February, and soon afterward crossed into Mapuche domains and established strongholds there. In 1553, in a gesture no doubt familiar to the Spaniard Valdavia, they bound him to a tree and beheaded him.
For the next four hundred years the Spanish, like the Incas before them, found it appropriate to maintain a massive defensive presence in the central valley. During these centuries the regions under Spanish control were permitted to trade directly with Peru: smuggling flourished, and privateers swarmed along the coasts.
Chile gained its independence from Spain in 1817, after seven years of warfare. The Mapuche region to the south, which had remained largely independent of Spanish rule, also resisted the new Chilean government. Capable of marshalling full cavalry forces and even modern artillery, the Mapuche succeeded in holding onto their autonomy until the middle of the century, when large numbers of armed settlers gradually moved into the region.
Although Chile's war of independence brought into place a system of representative democracy, the country's political history has not always been smooth. In 1970, a Marxist government under Dr. Salvador Allende came to power, having responded to the perceived failure of the established liberal party. Allende's attempts to radically change the structure and direction of the country brought about a second political crisis however, and in 1973 a right-wing government under General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte seized power with assistance from the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Allende was killed in the coup, and Pinochet's government maintained power for the next
decade and a half, frequently resorting to terror in order to stifle discontent. In 1990, having failed in his bid to gain popular ratification for his rule, Pinochet handed over the presidency to the rightfully- elected Patricio Aylwin Azocar. Chile's political climate has since remained stable, although there is still considerable tension between the military and the government concerning the human rights violations of the Pinochet era.