Nicolás Palacios statue, Santa Cruz, Chile

Nicolás Palacios Navarro (September 9, 1854 – June 11, 1931) was a Chilean physician and writer born in Santa Cruz, best known for his writings on the "Chilean

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

" and

national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...

. His 1904 (second edition 1918) book ''Raza chilena'' form the ideological backbone of many Chilean nativist groups. Palacios witnessed the

Santa María School massacre The Santa María School massacre was a massacre of striking workers, mostly saltpeter works (nitrate) miners, along with wives and children, committed by the Chilean Army in Iquique, Chile on December 21, 1907. The number of victims is unde ...

of 1907 writing a key account of it.

''The Chilean Race''

Palacios identifies what is typically Chilean with the figure of the

roto ''Roto'', f. ''rota'', (literally "torn" or "broken") is a term used to refer to Chilean people and in particular to the common Chilean. In Chile from the start of the 20th century it was applied with a negative classist connotation to poor ci ...

and a supposed Chilean

. He elevates the Chilean mestizo in status since, according to his writings, the Chilean is a mix of two

bellicose A belligerent is an individual, group, country, or other entity that acts in a hostile manner, such as engaging in combat. The term comes from the Latin ''bellum gerere'' ("to wage war"). Unlike the use of ''belligerent'' as an adjective meaning ...

master race The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative " Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). T ...

s: the

Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kn ...

s of Spain and the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

of Chile. Palacios traces the origins of the Spanish component of the "Chilean race" ( es, link=no, Raza Chilena) to the coast of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

, specifically to

Götaland Götaland (; also '' Geatland'', '' Gothia'', ''Gothland'', ''Gothenland'' or ''Gautland'') is one of three lands of Sweden and comprises ten provinces. Geographically it is located in the south of Sweden, bounded to the north by Svealand, wit ...

in Sweden, one of the supposed

homeland A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethn ...

s of the

Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe ...

.Raza Chilena
Nicolás Palacios He says that at most 10% of the Visigoths mixed with the native Iberians of Spain, while the rest remained racially pure through the Middle Ages. The

conquest of Chile The Conquest of Chile is a period in Chilean historiography that starts with the arrival of Pedro de Valdivia to Chile in 1541 and ends with the death of Martín García Óñez de Loyola in the Battle of Curalaba in 1598, and the destruction of ...

and the

War of Arauco The Arauco War was a long-running conflict between colonial Spaniards and the Mapuche people, mostly fought in the Araucanía. The conflict began at first as a reaction to the Spanish conquerors attempting to establish cities and force Mapuche ...

that followed for many years attracted adventurous Spaniards of martial lineage to Chile, thus giving Chile an overwhelming amount of Visigoth heritage and blood, in contrast to other more prosperous Spanish colonies where "merchant peoples" dominated. These Spaniards of supposed Visigoth ancestry would have mingled with native Mapuches, producing the common Chilean roto. According to Palacios, about 25,000

arrived to Chile during the first five generations after its initial conquest in the 1540s and 1550s. Palacios goes on to say that both the blond and the bronze-coloured (or olive-skinned) Chilean mestizo share a "moral physiognomy", and that both think and reason in the same way, a similarity that can be found in early Spanish literature about Chile including the

epic poem An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

La Araucana ''La Araucana'' (also known in English as ''The Araucaniad'') is a 16th-century epic poem in Spanish by Alonso de Ercilla, about the Spanish Conquest of Chile. It was considered the national epic of the Captaincy General of Chile and one of th ...

'', where Mapuches are frequently compared to the "barbaric" Germanic tribes that fought the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

. He says that the "Chilean roto" has nothing "Latin" except the language and the surname, rather than being racially a "Latin". Palacios finds in alcoholism also a similarity with the

Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and e ...

of Northern Europe. Palacios warns against immigration from Southern Europe and says that on medical grounds, mestizos descended from Southern Europeans lack "cerebral control", and are thus a social burden, given the fact that Southern Europeans have more darker-colored features than Germanic people from Northern Europe who have light-colored hair, eyes, and skin. He adds that the Latin race cannot produce a " Miguel Cervantes" or " Michelangelo" in Chile or elsewhere, because the Latin race in the 20th century is very different from that in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

References

2. Article in Spanish about Palacios on Chile's National Library website: http://www.memoriachilena.cl/602/w3-article-97363.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Palacios, Nicolas Chilean physicians Chilean male writers Chilean fascists Chilean anti-communists Far-right politics in Chile 1854 births 1931 deaths Anti-Masonry Anti-Marxism Antisemitism in Chile People from Santa Cruz, Chile Racism in Chile Nordicism Proponents of scientific racism