With Good Reason

On February 12, 1541, Spanish explorer and conquistador Pedro de Valdivia founded the City of Santiago (Chile) of the New Extreme. Valdivia named this city in honour of the worshiped military protector of the Spaniards during their fight for independence from Moorish dominion. But Santiago also accompanied the Spaniards to the New World, an enterprise considered by them as a continuation of the fight of Christianity against the infidel.

Pedro de Valdivia

 

According to the Bible, Santiago (Saint James) was one of the twelve Apostles, and his life and works are chronicled in the New Testament. However, the Saint James of the Bible is not exactly the same Saint James of the conquistadors but one transmuted by Iberian tradition. In medieval Spain, Saint James became a very popular saint, and his traditions include many marvellous legends. According to a tradition from the seventh century, Saint James preached the gospels in Galicia. The tomb of the saint was lost for eight centuries until the reign of King Alfonso II (789-842), when a hermit had a vision showing him the grave’s location. Alfonso II built a church in a place that from then on was called Santiago de Compostela (Saint James of Compostela).

In 711 the Moors, led by Tariq ibn Ziyad, crossed Gibraltar, invading Visigothic Spain and conquering most of the country except the mountain kingdoms in Asturias, which would resist the Arabic civilization for seven centuries.

The Arab invasion transformed the fight for independence into a crusade whose most important hero would be the spectre of the saint. Santiago makes his appearance as a divine warrior in the battle of Clavijo (834), where Ramiro I of Leon defeated the army of Abd-al-Rahman II. This is the first manifestation of the Saint as Santiago Matamoros (Saint James the Moor-slayer), the warrior who protected the Spaniards. Since then Santiago has been worshiped as the divine protector of Spain.

Santiago Matamoros gave his name to this city. Curiously, the name Santiago is a Spanish abbreviation of Saint-Yacob, which in time became “Santiago.” For that reason in Spanish there is no “San Santiago,” which would be a redundancy. In English, his name is Saint James without the abbreviation.

Pedro de Valdivia called the region the “Nuevo Extremo” (New Extreme), perhaps in memory of the region in Spain where he was born (Extremadura) but also because Chile is located literally at the southern end of the New World. Curiously enough, sixty kilometres west of Santiago of Compostela (from “Campus Stellae”, Latin for star field) is a place called Finisterrae (end of the world). Chile – the Quechua name given to the southern region of the Inca Empire - has always been called the end of the world. Thus the expressions “New Extreme,” Chile and Finisterrae mean exactly the same thing: a geographic location.

In 1552, King Carlos V of Spain called Santiago a very honourable and loyal city. It was the first city in Chile to have its own shield. In the shield appears a lion with a sword in its paw on a silver field surrounded by a blue background with eight shells in gold. The shell is the symbol of the pilgrims of Santiago of Compostela and of the knights of Santiago. The shield was topped by the royal crown. Today, this shield is preserved as the emblem of the Municipality of Santiago, the central district of the city, and used by other institutions as well. It is interesting to note that the lion in the shield had already appeared in the flag of the Spanish conquistador as a sign of the region called Leon (“lion”) in Spain. In the Santiago shield, however, the lion uses a sword, perhaps as an allegory of Santiago itself. It is also worth mentioning the shield of the University of Santiago, where the shells were replaced by stars (the historical regional branches of the university) and the lion substitutes his sword with the book of knowledge from Alpha to Omega.

At present there are no monuments to Santiago in the city named after him. There are not even any statues of him. However, his memory persists in the name and shield of the city. Of the same Catholic origin as Santiago Moor-Slayer, the statue of the Virgin of the Holy Conception which crowns the city from the San Cristobal hill is perhaps the town’s most famous symbol. This is a symbol of peace and hope of a universal scope beyond dogma, a maternal and affectionate figure that makes us forget the violence of a Santiago Moor-Slayer and a better emblem for a cosmopolitan and tolerant metropolis that is the Santiago we want.

Santiago has grown from a hundred homes at the time of the Conquest to the five million people it has today. With this fast growth the city has lost much of its old architecture. Of the prehistoric past nothing remains besides some pottery, and from the colonial period few things are still standing.

During colonial times several big projects were constructed, such as the “Puente de Cal y Canto” (”Bridge of Lime and Song”). It was called by this name because the bridge was made of bricks and of a mortar that consisted of lime and eggs. The “song” part ties in with the egg after the rooster’s singing and the Mapocho Tajamares (river walls). Both constructions occurred around 1767, of which only archaeological remains are preserved. Destruction notwithstanding, just behind a corner one can suddenly find colonial buildings that still remain in the middle of this changing city.

Examples of colonial buildings that remain standing are the Colorada (red) house, built in 1769 by Joseph de la Vega for Don Mateo y Toro Zambrano, the richest merchant of that time. Older and more emblematic is Saint Francis Church, built between the years 1586 and 1628 by Fray Antonio and the oldest architectonic complex preserved in Chile.

Colorada - The Red House

Chile declared its independence from Spain in 1810 and won it by force in Maipu (southwest of Santiago) in 1818. Since those chaotic times Santiago has never stopped growing, both in size and in the quality of its buildings. During the early republican period the French neo-classical style was the inspiration of both private and public architecture.

Perhaps the most beautiful building of that time is the former National Congress, which now hosts the International Relations Ministry. The edifice was built between 1858 and 1876 and was designed in classical style by French architect Brunet des Baines.

The stock exchange building dates from the twentieth century. Built in 1917, it is the symbol of the Chilean economy.

Today’s Santiago is full of problems that contrast with a future that appears brighter. The business areas downtown and in the eastern district show shining new buildings and a construction fever that never ends. New highways and subway lines are completed year after year, improving the life quality of Santiago’s citizens. There are even more futuristic projects in store such as urban monorails and a magnetic railway that may connect Santiago and Valparaiso (a city 120 kilometres from Santiago) in the near future.

In recent years the middle class has acquired better houses that in some cases are approaching the standards of developed countries. However, most of the population lives at moderate poverty levels. Nevertheless, its average condition is far superior to that in really poor countries. Problems such as environmental degradation, especially air pollution, make Santiago hard to bear. Add to this the relatively high criminal activity, which has forced authorities to put video cameras in many public areas to protect people. All these factors have made many people go to Santiago only for work and take up residence outside the city, in the countryside or in one of the new satellite cities.

With Chile’s economic growth, the future of Santiago will certainly be better. However, with the advance of communications and transports, people may abandon cities definitively to live in the countryside, close to nature. Perhaps then Santiago will recover the easy provincial character it had in the past.