Abstract

"Banking on Resistance: A Financial History of Araucanía, 1860s-1870s"

Damian Clavel, University of Zurich (damian.clavel@uzh.ch)

This paper examines the financial dimensions of Mapuche resistance to Chilean territorial expansion during the 1860s-1870s, revealing how Indigenous leaders strategically extended their struggle beyond military confrontation into European capital markets. Focusing on French legal practitioner Orélie-Antoine de Tounens's role as diplomatic and financial intermediary, the study demonstrates how Mapuche leaders attempted to finance their resistance by issuing sovereign loans on over-the-counter markets in Paris and London. Drawing on scattered archival materials from French, English, and North American repositories, alongside works by local Mapuche and Périgord historians, this research reconstructs Tounens's efforts to secure international credit for weapons, mercenaries, and institutional reform while navigating the complex political economies of French and British finance. These financing attempts posed a direct challenge to Chile's creditworthiness at a crucial moment when Santiago depended on European capital to fund both its military campaigns and railway expansion into contested territories. Although ultimately unsuccessful, Mapuche financial initiatives reveal sophisticated engagement with global capitalism and opened new fronts of resistance in the metropolitan centers financing their dispossession. This study contributes to histories of nineteenth-century sovereign debt and Indigenous resistance by centering Araucanía rather than European financial centers, uncovering how subaltern polities actively navigated—and threatened to reshape—international financial networks to sustain their independence struggles.