Dissent Index 02: Mapuche Resistance
The frontlines of indigenous resistance
The Mapuche resistance is one of the most enduring struggles against colonial domination, spanning centuries of defiance, first against Spanish conquest, then against the Chilean and Argentine states, and now against the forces of transnational capital and militarized neoliberalism. Unlike narratives that frame indigenous survival as contingent on legal recognition or state inclusion, the Mapuche struggle asserts a sovereignty that exists beyond the nation-state. By centering direct action and self-governance, their resistance challenges both political authority and the economic systems that sustain corporate control over indigenous land. As corporate and government interests continue to expand into Mapuche land, they remain on the frontlines of the fight against displacement and ecological destruction, demonstrating that decolonization is not a symbolic gesture but a material struggle over land, power, and survival.
The Mapuche Nation (Wallmapu) resisted colonial rule for centuries, maintaining its independence across what is now occupied southern Chile and Argentina.1 From 1536 to 1883, the Mapuche fought the Spanish in the Araucanian Wars, forcing colonial authorities to recognize their sovereignty through treaties, one of the few instances of formal indigenous sovereignty being acknowledged in the Americas.2 That relative autonomy ended in the late 19th century, when Chile and Argentina launched military campaigns to assert state control. The so-called Pacification of Araucanía (1861–1883) in Chile resulted in the deaths of thousands of Mapuche, caused by warfare and diseases like smallpox.3 In Argentina, the Conquest of the Desert (1870s–1880s) led to the killing of more than 1,300 Mapuche and the displacement of over 15,000 from their traditional lands.4 These campaigns were not only wars of expansion but also acts of genocide that violently removed indigenous populations from their land.
By the late 20th century, the Chilean state had moved away from direct military campaigns and instead relied on legal and economic mechanisms to consolidate control over Mapuche territory. The Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990) accelerated this shift, privatizing communal lands and transferring them to forestry corporations, further entrenching corporate dominance over indigenous land.5 By the year 2000, an estimated 1.5 million hectares (approximately 3.7 million acres) of ancestral Mapuche territory had been converted into commercial pine and eucalyptus plantations, with two Chilean companies, Mininco and Arauco, controlling more than one million hectares.6
Despite laws intended to protect indigenous land, state policies often accelerated territorial loss. The Indigenous Reservations Law of 1866 established land titles for Mapuche communities but restricted communal holdings, making them vulnerable to fragmentation and sale. Between 1931 and 1971, land division policies broke up approximately 832 Mapuche communities, resulting in the loss of nearly 100,000 hectares (247,105 acres), almost a fifth of their remaining land, to non-indigenous ownership. By the late 20th century, this process intensified as privatization efforts expanded corporate control over indigenous territory. The 1993 Indigenous Peoples Act, meant to address historical injustices and facilitate land recovery, proved largely ineffective.7 Legal restitution was slow and bureaucratic, while state policies continued to prioritize corporate interests. Rather than reversing land loss, the law functioned as a regulatory measure, offering limited concessions without disrupting the mechanisms that enabled ongoing land transfers to private industries.
The long history of broken treaties and land dispossession has led many Mapuche to conclude that legal avenues offer little recourse. As Lonko Juana Calfunao stated in an interview with The Guardian,
“In the so-called Pacification of Araucanía, the Chilean army, with the complicity of the Catholic Church, invaded our territory, burned our [homes], killed our people, and drowned babies in the rivers.” They added, “Even today … we are hostages of states that don’t recognize our Mapuche nationality.”8
With limited legal avenues for restitution, Mapuche resistance increasingly shifted to direct action, including land occupations, sabotage, and coordinated efforts against corporate and state control.
Organizations such as the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM) and the more militant, Weichan Auka Mapu (WAM) have led efforts to reclaim ancestral lands, rejecting the ineffective bureaucratic state-mediated restitution process in favor of direct occupation.9 These land recoveries are strategic actions aimed at dismantling corporate landholdings, particularly those of the forestry industry, which has long profited from the privatization of indigenous land.
Recognizing that resource extraction is central to the Chilean state’s economic model, Mapuche militants have intensified their resistance, targeting industries that drive deforestation and displacement. The Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM) has developed a structured strategy to reclaim and maintain ancestral Mapuche territories, viewing pine and eucalyptus plantations as symbols of colonial expansion. Their approach centers on the creation of Organos de Resistencia Territorial (ORT), or Territorial Resistance Organs, which coordinate direct actions to dismantle corporate infrastructure and challenge capitalist control over indigenous land. Once an area is secured, CAM prioritizes siembra productiva, or productive planting, reviving traditional agricultural practices to sustain both the land and autonomous Mapuche governance.
As Hector Llaitul, a CAM leader, explained in a 2018 interview with The Guardian:
“We burned these forests as an act of legitimate resistance against the extractive industries that have oppressed the Mapuche people. If we make their business unprofitable, they move on, allowing us to recover our devastated lands and rebuild our world.”10
Additionally, logging equipment and corporate infrastructure have been sabotaged, disrupting the operations of multinational companies that control vast swathes of former Mapuche territory.11 These actions are part of a broader effort to weaken industrial forestry’s grip on indigenous land and push back against ongoing environmental destruction.
Beyond land and economic resistance, some Mapuche communities have severed ties with the Chilean legal system entirely. Lof Temucuicui, one of the most prominent self-governing Mapuche territories, operates outside state jurisdiction, enforcing its own laws and defending its territory against police incursions.
This strategy represents a decisive break from traditional indigenous activism, which often seeks accommodation within existing state structures. The Mapuche movement is not advocating for greater representation or improved legal protections; it is challenging the legitimacy of the state itself.
The Chilean government has intensified its repression of Mapuche resistance, frequently acting in defense of corporate interests.12 Under the pretext of combating “rural violence,” the state has militarized indigenous territories, conducting frequent raids on Mapuche communities, arresting activists under anti-terrorism laws, and carrying out extrajudicial killings. One of the most high-profile cases was the 2018 killing of Camilo Catrillanca, a 24-year-old Mapuche farmer shot in the back of the head by police while driving a tractor in Temucuicui.13 Initial police statements falsely implicated Catrillanca in a crime, but subsequent investigations exposed deliberate misconduct, including the destruction of video evidence by officers. The incident sparked national protests and led to the resignation of high-ranking officials, underscoring the systemic nature of state violence against the Mapuche.
Beyond direct state repression, private security forces employed by forestry corporations have also been implicated in acts of violence against Mapuche activists. These companies, some with backing from European and North American investors, have benefited from state-led militarization in indigenous territories. The classification of Mapuche resistance as “terrorism” serves to justify this crackdown, framing indigenous land defense as a security threat rather than recognizing it as a legitimate political struggle.14 By criminalizing Mapuche activism, the state effectively shields corporate interests while suppressing indigenous claims to land and sovereignty.
This pattern mirrors actions in settler-colonial states worldwide, where indigenous challenges to colonization are met with overwhelming force.
The Mapuche resistance is one of the longest-running struggles for land and self-governance, persisting for over five centuries. More than a fight for indigenous rights, it is a direct challenge to the alignment of state power and corporate expansion. As conflicts over land and resources intensify worldwide, the Mapuche movement remains a case study in sustained resistance, demonstrating the limits of legal restitution and the consequences of defying entrenched economic interests.
Dissent Index is a curated series on HELLRAISERS that examines pivotal movements, activists, and events in the history of resistance. Each installment profiles a different form of dissent, revealing how organized challenges to power have shaped societal change and continue to inspire contemporary struggles.
Wallmapu is the Mapudungun name for the ancestral territory of the Mapuche people-nation.
The Araucanian Wars (1536–1883) were a prolonged conflict between the Mapuche and Spanish, later Chilean and Argentine, forces over control of indigenous territory in southern Chile and Argentina.
See Toby Arguello, “The Mapuche People and Their Centuries-Long Struggle,” Explore the Archive, February 17, 2021.
The Pacification of Araucanía (1861–1883) was a Chilean military campaign aimed at annexing Mapuche territory, resulting in violent displacement and forced assimilation.
See Joanna Crow, “Histories of Conquest: The Occupation of Araucanía and Its Consequences, 1862–1910,” in The Mapuche in Modern Chile: A Cultural History (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2013).
See Carolyne R. Larson, ed., The Conquest of the Desert: Argentina’s Indigenous Peoples and the Battle for History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2020).
See Robert Christensen, “Indigenous People and Smallpox in Argentina’s Desert Campaign, 1879–1881,” Ethnohistory 71, no. 1 (2024): 113–138.
See Walter Delrio, Diana Lenton, Marcelo Musante, and Marino Nagy, “Discussing Indigenous Genocide in Argentina: Past, Present, and Consequences of Argentinean State Policies toward Native Peoples,” Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 5, no. 2 (2010): Article 3.
See Patricia Richards, “The Mapuche Movement, the Popular Unity, and the Contemporary Left,” NACLA Report on the Americas 46, no. 3 (2013).
See Rosamel Millaman and Charles Hale, eds., “Chile’s Forestry Industry, FSC Certification, and Mapuche Communities” (University of Texas at Austin, November 9, 2016).
See Culliney, Susan M., Marisa Peterson, and Ian Royer. “The Mapuche Struggle for Land and Recognition: A Legal Analysis.” Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Workshop, Lewis & Clark Law School, 2013.
“Chilean Couple Die in Arson Attack after Land Dispute with Mapuche Indians,” The Guardian, January 4, 2013.
For a deeper look into CAM’s political project, see Recovering Pre-Colonial Autonomy in Wallmapu at Intercontinental Cry.
Mat Youkee, “Indigenous Chileans Defend Their Land Against Loggers with Radical Environmental Protests,” The Guardian, June 14, 2018.
“Armed Men Destroy Two Dozen Logging Trucks in Chile Forestry Dispute,” Reuters, August 28, 2017.
For more on the work of CAM and ongoing efforts to delegitimize their work see Lucia Newman, “A Journey Through Chile’s Conflict with Mapuche Rebel Groups,” Al Jazeera, April 12, 2021.
John Bartlett, “Chile: Four Police Officers Arrested Over Fatal Shooting of Indigenous Man,” The Guardian, November 29, 2018.
See Human Rights Watch, Undue Process: Terrorism Trials, Military Courts, and the Mapuche in Southern Chile (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2004).