Writing a National Colony: The Hostility of Inscription in the Ge ...

The national colonization of Chile has, therefore, always had to contend with competing discourses. Whereas homogeneous German settlements were formed on Chilean soil, they were always under Chilean sovereignty; moreover, German immigrants recruited for the settlements became Chilean (or dual) citizens by law upon their arrival. Over the decades, the territorial notions of national colonization prevalent in the nineteenth century have given way to ethnic and genealogical discourses. And though discourses of the homogeneous national colony would continue to be disseminated, they have coexisted with new discourses of binationality, hybridity, and transnationalization. One powerfully symbolic pronouncement of Chilean patriotism heralded the discursive shift away from notions of a German satellite territory: a carefully crafted speech, delivered in 1850 before Chilean government officials by Carl Anwandter, a newly arrived German immigrant. Having obtained clear and binding concessions from the government agent, Anwandter, speaking on behalf of the ship’s passengers, gave what has come to be known as “Anwandter’s Pledge.”⁴ It was received even then as a pledge of allegiance—the government gazette El Araucano published it immediately—and has since been quoted, copied, and inscribed on many a frontispiece and many a monument commemorating German immigration:

By the time the first homogeneous German settlement was inaugurated and settled at Lake Llanquihue in the summer of 1852/1853, German inscriptions of national territory had to contend with texts that embraced new political identities and were sanctioned, like Anwandter’s Pledge, by the Chilean administration.