Their homelands once extended from Choapa Valley to the Chiloé Archipelago and later spread eastward to Puelmapu,[clarification needed] a land comprising part of the Argentine pampa and Patagonia.

In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Mapuche groups migrated eastward into the Andes and Pampas, conquering, fusing and establishing relationships with the Poya and Pehuenche.

[5] For others, the importance of the term Araucanian lies in the universality of the epic work La Araucana,[6] written by Alonso de Ercilla, and the feats of that people in their long and interminable war against the Spanish Empire.

[17] At the time of the arrival of the first Spaniards to Chile, the largest indigenous population concentration was in the area spanning from the Itata River to Chiloé Island – that is the Mapuche heartland.

[20] In 1536, Diego de Almagro set out to conquer Chile, after crossing the Itata River they were intercepted by a numerous contingent of Araucanian Mapuche armed with many bows and pikes in the Battle of Reynogüelén.

Discouraged by the ferocity of the Mapuches, and the apparent lack of gold and silver in these lands, Almagro decided its full retreat the following year to Peru.

Hostility towards the conquerors was compounded by the lack of a tradition of forced labor akin to the Inca mit'a among the Mapuche, who largely refused to serve the Spanish.

[25] In 1598 a party of warriors from Purén led by Pelantaro, who were returning south from a raid in the Chillán area, ambushed Governor Martín García Óñez de Loyola and his troops[28] while they rested without taking any precautions against attack.

[29] In this period the Mapuche Nation crossed the Andes to conquer the present Argentine provinces of Chubut, Neuquen, La Pampa, and Río Negro.

Argentina established a colony at the Falkland Islands in 1820, settled Chubut with Welsh immigrants in 1865 and conquered Formosa, Misiones and Chaco from Paraguay in 1870.

Chile on the other hand, established a colony at the Strait of Magellan in 1843, settled Valdivia, Osorno, and Llanquihue with German immigrants, and conquered land from Peru and Bolivia.

[40] Chile finally achieved the occupation and integration of the territories south of the Biobío River in 1884 when the last communities surrendered, and the cities of Villarrica and previously Angol were reestablished.

Economic migration initially responded to the need for jobs in cities, such as Santiago, where Mapuche arrived in the 1920s to work in bakeries[46] and formed organizations like the "Sociedad Galvarino."

[48] Despite its impact, statistics on Mapuche rural-to-urban migration have historically been insufficient, marked by integrationist policies that did not account for their indigenous identity but treated them as citizens.

[57] The construction of the Ralco Hydroelectric Plant, which displaced indigenous burial sites, was a breaking point in state-Mapuche relations, contributing to the formation of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM) in December 1997 following the burning of three trucks belonging to Forestal Arauco.

This first attack marks the beginning of the period of violence in the Southern Macrozone of Chile and a turning point in the development of the Mapuche autonomist political movement.

Stand.earth, a conservation group, has led an international campaign for preservation, resulting in the Home Depot chain and other leading wood importers agreeing to revise their purchasing policies to "provide for the protection of native forests in Chile".

], the crimes committed by Mapuche armed insurgents have been prosecuted under counter-terrorism legislation, originally introduced by the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet to control political dissidents.

Insurgent groups, such as the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco, use multiple tactics with the more extreme occurrences such as the burning of homes, churches, vehicles, structures, and pastures, which at times included causing deaths and threats to specific targets.

Also, Mapuche cosmology is informed by complex notions of spirits that coexist with humans and animals in the natural world, and daily circumstances can dictate spiritual practices.

Knowledge of both weaving techniques and textile patterns particular to the locality was usually transmitted within the family, with mothers, grandmothers, and aunts teaching a girl the skills they had learned from their elders.

Tissue volumes made by Aboriginal women and marketed in the Araucanía and the north of Patagonia Argentina were considerable and constituted a vital economic resource for indigenous families.

Most Mapuche women and their families now wear garments with foreign designs and tailored with materials of industrial origin, but they continue to weave ponchos, blankets, bands, and belts for regular use.

Many Mapuche women continue to weave fabrics according to the customs of their ancestors and transmit their knowledge in the same way: within domestic life, from mother to daughter, and from grandmothers to granddaughters.

[83] In this context of increasing trade Mapuches began in the late eighteenth century to accept payments in silver coins for their products, usually cattle or horses.

[102] When the Mapuches were finally defeated in 1883 President Domingo Santa María declared:[103] The country has with satisfaction seen the problem of the reduction of the whole Araucanía solved.

[104] It was in this context that Chilean physician Nicolás Palacios hailed the Mapuche "race" arguing from a scientific racist and nationalist point of view.

Mapuches obtained relatively favourable views as "primordial" Chileans contrasting with other indigenous peoples like the Aymara who were perceived as "foreign elements".

[110] 19th-century Argentine authorities aiming to incorporate the Pampas and Patagonia into national territory recognized the Puelmapu Mapuche's strong connections with Chile.

[112] In this context, Estanislao Zeballos published the work La Conquista de quince mil leguas (The Fifteen Thousand League Conquest) in 1878, which had been commissioned by the Argentine Ministry of War.