Water Flows and Topographic Networks of Power: Social Struggles for Water in the Copiapó Valley in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

In the mid-eighteenth century, following the Bourbon Reforms, the Captaincy General of Chile developed a foundational urban-center policy to organize and concentrate the demographic distribution in their territories. As a result, in 1744, the Villa de San Francisco de la Selva was founded in the middle regions of Copiapó Valley, replacing the old Copiapó Town that dated from 1540. From the Villa’s foundation, the river and water governance were considered critical factors in the political equilibrium of colonial society in the valley. The valley and its river cut across the extreme dryness of the Atacama Desert that stretches from the Andes Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. This small wet strip offered refuge, wood, shade, water, and food to settlers and travelers in a region with a very arid climate and scarce rainfall.