Nicolás Palacios Navarro (September 9, 1854 – June 11, 1931) was a Chileanphysician andwriter born inSanta Cruz, best known for his writings on the "Chileanrace" andnational identity. His 1904 (second edition 1918) bookRaza chilena form the ideological backbone of many Chileannativist groups. Palacios witnessed theSanta María School massacre of1907 writing a key account of it.
Palacios identifies what is typically Chilean with the figure of theroto and a supposed Chileanrace. He elevates the Chileanmestizo in status since, according to his writings, the Chilean is a mix of twobellicosemaster races: theVisigoths of Spain and theMapuche of Chile.
Palacios traces the origins of the Spanish component of the "Chilean race" (Spanish:Raza Chilena) to the coast of theBaltic Sea, specifically toGötaland in Sweden, one of the supposedhomelands of theGoths.[1] He says that at most 10% of the Visigoths mixed with the native Iberians of Spain, while the rest remainedracially pure through the Middle Ages. Theconquest of Chile and theWar of Arauco that followed for many years attracted adventurous Spaniards of martial lineage to Chile, thus giving Chile an overwhelming amount of Visigoth heritage and blood, in contrast to other more prosperous Spanish colonies where "merchant peoples" dominated. These Spaniards of supposed Visigoth ancestry would have mingled with native Mapuches, producing the common Chilean roto. According to Palacios, about 25,000Goths arrived to Chile during the first five generations after itsinitial conquest in the 1540s and 1550s.
Palacios goes on to say that both the blond and thebronze-coloured Chilean mestizo share a "moral physiognomy", and that both think and reason in the same way, a similarity that can be found in early Spanish literature about Chile including theepic poemLa Araucana, where Mapuches are frequently compared to the "barbaric" Germanic tribes that fought theRoman Empire. He says that the "Chilean roto" has nothing "Latin" except the language and the surname, rather than being racially a "Latin". Palacios finds in alcoholism also a similarity with theGermanic peoples of Northern Europe.
Palacios warns against immigration from Southern Europe and says that on medical grounds, mestizos descended from Southern Europeans lack "cerebral control", and are thus a social burden, given the fact that Southern Europeans have more darker-colored features than Germanic people from Northern Europe who have light-colored hair, eyes, and skin; this is the reason for Chilean government invited immigration and settlement mostly from Northern Europe, particularlyGerman. He adds that the Latin race cannot produce a "Miguel Cervantes" or "Michelangelo" in Chile or elsewhere, because the Latin race in the 20th century is very different from that in theRenaissance.
2. Article in Spanish about Palacios on Chile's National Library website:http://www.memoriachilena.cl/602/w3-article-97363.html
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