Santa Clara

Introduction and Points of Divergence

The original point of divergence is set 40 MYA, when the Santa Clara hotspot opened latitudinally, creating a divergent rigde and the formation of a barrier submarine volcano, akin to a much smaller version of the Siberian Traps. 20 million years after, this geologic accident would emerge to the surface, creating a fast-growing island, which was easily colonized by neotropical vegetal and animal species in few millions of years. Still growing, the island reached a size comparable to Hainan in historic times (around 33.000 sq. km), but with a heavily sloped terrain, plenty of active volcanoes and rift valleys.

The historical point of divergence happened in the mid 11th century C.E., when the growing population of Rapa Nui (Easter) Island sailed eastward to find another land to populate: while the northbound travellers found the coasts of South America and the useful sweet potato which they brought back to their islands, the southernmost adventurers were grabbed by the swirling currents of the South Pacific Gyre to the land they would end up calling Hou Hiva.

1500s C.E.

Back to Rapa Nui arrived the news of a huge land, with hills so high the clouds got entangled in their peaks, with almost frozen water running on enormous streams at the depths of sharp ravines, and boiling water emerging from the soil, accompanied by yellow, breathtaking clouds. That description was taken by the ruling class as proof that their adventurers have found no land and were lying, or even worse, that they have indeed found a land forbidden to inhabit. That, added to the lack of a previous prediction of the island, as happened with Rapa Nui, was enough for the Ariki to dismiss the discovery and halt travels to the east.

Four centuries after a civil war broke out on the overpopulated Rapa Nui. Some islanders decided to try their luck and search for the mythical Hou Hiva, sailing to the east. Sadly, it was too late for them to set a firm foot on this new land, because just decades after their arriving, Juan Fernández, a Portuguese navigator serving the spanish Crown and searching for a faster route between El Callao and Valparaíso, found the island he called Santa Clara on August, 12th of 1574.

When arriving at Valparaíso, the news of a vast, forested island on the southern seas begun the Santa Clara Craze. Many Spaniards in the port and Santiago decided to embark on a new conquest instead of waiting for defeat in the hands of the araucanians, as happened recently in Purén, or the shock of an earthquake like the one that destroyed Concepción in 1570.

Those first Spaniards, backed by the actions of Bravo de Saravia, Royal Governor of Chile, carried captured Araucanians with them as work Indians. Most of these natives escaped their captors upon arriving at Santa Clara's first port and village, San Mateo, on September 21st, 1574, a rocky cove on the northern tip of the [Loberías Sound (Santa Clara|Loberías Sound]], the main geographic feature south of the island. Those araucanian 'cimarrones' were the only hope for the isolated houhivans that inhabited the northernmost tip of the island, because they were already immune to the diseases the spaniards brought. Even if most houhivans died of smallpox, contracted from the Araucanians, a few had mixed children that were born immune.

A double process of colonization ensued in the island, with the now firmly settled indigenous peoples sparsely populating the arid northwest and adopting the language and customs of the araucanians; and the spaniard colonizers accompained by more docile indians establishing mining towns on the greener southeast, where the rift valley exposed small but rich gold, silver, and tin deposits. This further contributed to the aforementioned Santa Clara Craze, with the port now even dubbed the authentic location of the mythical El Dorado.  

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1575 - With the beginning of the austral spring, Juan Fernández, by then Capitán General and Adelantado of Santa Clara, headed the first spanish raid against the mapuche 'cimarrones', a group of whom had just recently taken contact with the houhivans. The aggressive manners of the Spanish "maloca" biased the houhivans to the mapuche side, even if they didn't join the retaliatory mapuche's "malón".

1576 - Due to the contact with mapuches, most houhivans were contagied from smallpox. Close to 70% of the houhivan contacted population died from the illness on the same year.

1587 - After the attack perpetrated by the english corsair Thomas Cavendish in mid March, San Mateo ends burnt and is depopulated. The spaniards move inland and found Villa del Lago at the southern tip of the Totorales island (Santa Clara, just over the end of the brackish water lake that marks the end of the Río Blanco (Santa Clara). On soft sedimentary soil, the main source of goods for the settlers change from sea lion meat to a more stable agriculture, even if they sacrificed an easy access to the sea, having to resort to

1600s C.E.

1600 - Escaping from Valparaíso, the dutch corsair Oliver Van Noort tries to trace the estuary of the Kalfú River, west of Ciudad del Lago, informed that there was a route available to enter the town up the river. After being discovered and attacked by a gunned outpost on the mouth of the river, he sent a boat to set fire to the forested hill where the outpost was located, then escaping from the island. The resulting Great Fire of 1600 did not reach the town, but the winds carried an ash rain over it and contaminated its water sources. Most of the population had to move outside the city

1603 - As a countermeasure to the effects of seasonal and man-made fires, (placeholder name), governor of Santa Clara, ordered the construction of the Gran Zanjón, bringing running waters from many springs on the northern hills to the town centre.

1625 - The works of the Gran Zanjón were culminated. The water course was previously functional by means of a network of artisan wells on route of the definitive reservoir.

1800s C.E.

1810 - Being a key base of the Spanish navy and having an important peninsular population, on September, 3rd Ciudad del Lago's Cabildo resolves to declare obedience to the deposed king of Spain, Fernando VII, and to the peninsular Cádiz Courts, instead of trying an independentist movement. The Spanish Santa Clara Fleet sails around the island on the 'Loyalist Patrol', forcing the other Cabildos to accept the aforementioned decision. Having no means of enforcing their opposition, nor the local opposition nor the revolutionary administrations on the continent could avoid Santa Clara's ports being used as royalist base.

1817 - José de San Martín seizes the fleet that José Miguel Carrera brought from the United States, with the explicit intention of capturing Santa Clara and deny the Spanish crown a foothold on South America. The plan gets frustrated with the slow tear and wear of the fleet, which is used to defend Montevideo from the Brazilians, to populate Puerto Deseado on Patagonia and prevent a southern invasion, to try briefly to siege San Carlos and Valdivia and letting cannons for coastal defences on Santa María Island. Even getting a reinforcement crew and munitions in Valparaíso, the fleet was too weak to take Santa Clara. A plan to take advantage of the Indian malaise against the Spanish elites and to capture pacifically a coastal settlement on the northwestern coast was foiled by the closeness of the Loyalist Patrol and the discontent of the crew, many of whom deserted to the royalist band.

1818 - A levy is imposed by the governor to help with the feeble defenses

1819 - With a new fleet formed with the ships previously stationated on friendly ports, and under the command of the English lord Thomas Cochrane, the so-called Expedición Libertadora tried a new landing on Santa Clara on January, 16th.

1820 - With the news of the king Fernando VII accepting the Cádiz Constitution,