taken and retaken; if
one Indian army was destroyed another took its place, if one _toqui_ was
killed another was chosen; when defeated, the Indians retired to their
forests, marshes and hills, recruited their forces, and fell on the
pursuing Spaniards. In 1612 an attempt was made by a Jesuit missionary
to negotiate a peace, but not till 1640 was the desperate struggle ended
by the treaty of Quillin, which left the Indians all the land south of
the Bio-bio river. Up to 1800 the peace was broken by three wars, in
1655, in 1723 and in 1766, the last ended by a treaty which actually
gave the Araucanians the right to have a minister at Santiago.

Colonial system.

It was this constant warfare with the Indians and the necessity for hard
continuous work, owing to the lack of precious metals in Chile, that no
doubt helped to produce in the settlers the strength and hardihood of
character that distinguishes the Chileans among South American races.
But not unnaturally the material condition of the country was the
reverse of prosperous. The expenditure far exceeded the revenue. The
Indian warfare occupied nearly the whole attention of the governors and
much of the time of the settlers. By the Spanish colonial system the
development of manufactures was prohibited and the trade of the colony
was limited not only to Spain but to the one port of Cadiz. Till the
18th century ships were not allowed to sail round Cape Horn, so that the
Chileans had to trade indirectly through Peru and the Argentine.
Agriculture was the one resource of the colony, and wheat was grown for
export to Peru, but the land was concentrated in the hands of a few big
landowners, and the cultivation of the vine and olive was forbidden. At
the end of the 17th century Santiago was a town of poor one-storeyed
houses and had only 8000 inhabitants; the other towns, Valparaiso,
Concepcion, La Serena, were only large villages. Books were not allowed
to be imported, and education was limited to such as was given here and
there by priests and monks. The Indians within the limits of the Spanish
colony were treated like slaves, and horribly mutilated to prevent their
escape; but at the same time a gradual fusion of races was taking place,
and the Chilean peasant (_peon_) of to-day is as much of Indian as of
Spanish descent. The Araucanians, however, continued to preserve their
independence; they jealously resented the introduction of Spanish
influence, and the missiona