King of Araucanía and Patagonia: Justice, Historical Fiction, and the Occupation of Araucanía

• In Event: Identity on (the) Edge: Spatial and Social Frontiers in Latin American Narrative

Abstract

Given the circumstances in which Orélie-Antoine de Tounens declared himself King of Araucanía and Patagonia, the appeal of his story to writers of fiction is easily understood. The French law clerk arrived in Chile in 1858 with knowledge of neither Spanish nor Mapudungun and made his way south before proclaiming himself head of an independent monarchic state south of the Bío-Bío river. While the image of the white man arriving to govern the non-white men, women, and children smacks of colonialism, the case of Orélie-Antoine differs from expectations. He was arrested and committed to an insane asylum before being expelled from Chile. His dream of an independent Araucanía was firmly stamped out.
Beyond Orélie-Antoine’s quixotic character, his presence at the beginning of the concentrated military campaign to fortify and pacify Mapuche space and bodies offers narrative margins for reflection upon that campaign and its lasting consequences. As the vast majority of authors of Chilean historical fiction identify with majority culture, the representation of Orélie-Antoine allows for the exploration of ideas of how the center works to include and exclude groups from both the physical and metaphorical space of the nation. Therefore, in this presentation I will examine a series of texts focusing on Orélie-Antoine, such as Pedro Staiger’s La corona de Araucanía (1998), in order to trace the differing ways in which this European (anti?)colonizer has been used to give meaning to the Occupation of Araucanía, particularly in light of ever-growing calls for greater equality and justice in Chilean society.

Author

• Katherine Karr-Cornejo, Whitworth University