Nicolás Palacios Navarro (September 9, 1854 – June 11, 1931) was a Chilean

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

born in Santa Cruz, best known for his writings on the "Chilean race" and 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 of 1907 writing a key account of it.

''The Chilean Race''

Palacios identifies what is typically Chilean with the figure of the roto and a supposed Chilean race. He elevates the Chilean

mestizo ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturall ...

in status since, according to his writings, the Chilean is a mix of two bellicose master races: the Visigoths of Spain and the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

of Chile. Palacios traces the origins of the Spanish component of the "Chilean race" () to the coast of the

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, specifically to Götaland in Sweden, one of the supposed homelands of the

Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...

.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 and the War of Arauco 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 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 '' La Araucana'', where Mapuches are frequently compared to the "barbaric" Germanic tribes that fought the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

. 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 tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...

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 Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...

" in Chile or elsewhere, because the Latin race in the 20th century is very different from that in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

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 Eugenicists Hispanic eugenics