Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:28:07.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chilean Social and Demographic History: Sources, Issues, and Methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Robert McCaa*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Historical research on Chilean population has been thwarted for some time by intractable sources and rudimentary methods. Nevertheless, within the past two decades researchers have begun to achieve some successes. Attention has turned from simply ascertaining gross population totals and growth rates to a much wider range of topics. Significant examples include: the relationship between population growth, illegitimacy, vagrancy, and labor supply; the social context of marriage, family formation, and kin ties; the nature, frequency, and intensity of mortality crises; demographic responses to population pressure; the social and economic repercussions of European immigration; and the determinants and consequences of rapid growth and redistribution of population in the twentieth century (Góngora, 1965; Bauer, 1975; Hurtado, 1966; Solberg, 1969; Young, 1974; Sadie, 1969). To study these topics satisfactorily we must both maintain the healthy skepticism of our distant precursors (e.g., Barros Arana, 1880–1900; Palacios, 1904; and Vergara L., 1900) and integrate the demographer's analytical tools with the historian's skill in finding, selecting, and interpreting a whole range of quantitative and qualitative documents. Demographers have demonstrated that even post-1920 data collected by the Chilean Statistical Bureau have substantial and varying degrees of error, notwithstanding the considerable advances in data collection techniques, improvements in the educational levels of the population, and economic inducements to insure the public's cooperation (Somoza and Tacla, 1969; Gutiérrez, 1969). In the not too distant past, civil administrators and priests received crude, if any, instructions, administered several hundred square kilometers of poorly defined territory, and faced an almost insurmountable task of enticing information from a widely dispersed, highly mobile, poor, and uneducated populus. Consequently, historical studies with exclusively demographic ends, using narrowly defined data bases and relying principally on arithmetical or statistical techniques, may prove to be extremely frustrating to carry out and somewhat barren in their findings. Attempts to replicate European studies with Chilean materials, whether simple aggregations of annual totals or tediously reconstructed family life histories, will run a high risk of failure unless researchers incorporate broader questions of social history, exploit an extensive range of documentation, and integrate historical, demographic, and statistical reasoning. While little mathematical sophistication may be necessary—elementary measures may prove the most powerful—a mature, sensitive understanding of the logic of these disciplines, which comes only with considerable study and experience, is essential. The slavish application of demographic formulae and the invention of ill-considered measures are direct pathways to embarrassing nonsense.

Type
Special Section: Historical Statistics
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

Research on which this article is based has been supported by the Foreign Area Fellowship Program, the Fulbright-Hays Program, and the Population Council. The computer facilities of Cambridge University (England) and the University of Minnesota subsidized data processing expenses. The staff of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure generously advanced my work with intellectual, material and warmly humane encouragement at critical junctures.

References

ARCHIVO NACIONAL 1953 Censo de 1812. Santiago.Google Scholar
Arriaga, Eduardo E. 1968 New Life Tables for Latin American Populations in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Institute of International Studies: Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Arriaga, Eduardo E. 1970 Mortality Decline and Its Demographic Effects in Latin America. Institute of International Studies: Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Arretx, Carmen De Ramon, Armando Mellafe, Rolando Salinas, RenÉ; and Somoza, Jorge L. 1977 Informe preliminar sobre nupcialidad, fecundidad y mortalidad, basado en historias de familias Chilenas. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: Santiago.Google Scholar
Arretx, Carmen Mellafe, Rolando; and Somoza, Jorge 1976a Estimaciones de mortalidad en una parroquia de Santiago a partir de información sobre orfandad, Nuñoa, 1866–71. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: Santiago.Google Scholar
Arretx, Carmen Mellafe, Rolando; and Somoza, Jorge 1976b Estimates of Mortality Among Members of Religious Orders in Chile in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: Santiago.Google Scholar
Arretx, Carmen Mellafe, Rolando; and Somoza, Jorge 1977 Estimación de la mortalidad adulta a partir de información sobre la estructura por edades de las muertes. Aplicación a datos de San Felipe en torno a 1787. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: Santiago.Google Scholar
Barros Arana, Diego 1880–1900 Historia jeneral de Chile. 16 volumes. Santiago.Google Scholar
Bauer, Arnold J. 1975 Chilean Rural Society from the Spanish Conquest to 1930. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England.Google Scholar
Behm Rosas, Hugo 1962 Mortalidad infantil y nivel de vida. Universidad de Chile: Santiago.Google Scholar
Brading, David A.; and Wu, Celia 1973Population Growth and Crisis: Leon, 1720–1860.” Journal of Latin American Studies 5:136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cabello, Octavio 1956Integralidad del registro y oportunidad de inscripción en Chile.” Estadística 14:302–8.Google Scholar
Cabello, Octavio Vildosola, Jerjes; and Latorre, Marta 1953 Tablas de vida para Chile: 1920, 1930, 1940. Centro Interamericano de Bioestadística: Santiago.Google Scholar
Carmagnani, Marcello 1967Colonial Latin American Demography: Growth of Chilean Population, 1700–1830.” Journal of Social History 1:179–91.Google Scholar
Carmagnani, Marcello; and Klein, Herbert S. 1965Demografía histórica: la población del obispado de Santiago, 1777–78.” Boletín de la Academia Chilena de la Historia 72:5474.Google Scholar
Charbonneau, Herbert 1970 Tourouvre-au-Perche aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles: Étude de démographie historique. Presses Universitaires de France: Paris.Google Scholar
Coale, Ansley J.; and Demeny, Paul 1966 Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations. Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Collver, O. Andrew 1965 Birth Rates in Latin America: New Estimates of Historical Trends and Fluctuations. Institute of International Studies: Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Contreras Arias, JuÁN Marambio, Flores, Eugenio, Herrera Canales, InÉS; Mazzei Degrazia, Leonardo Rivera Navarro, Aristide; and Romero SepÚLveda, Rodia [1972] Fuentes para un estudio de demografía histórica de Chile en el siglo XVIII. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: [Santiago].Google Scholar
Crocco Ferrari, JuÁN 1947 Ensayos sobre la población chilena. Universidad Católica: Santiago.Google Scholar
Cruz-Coke, R. 1963El censo de 1813 y las razas chilenas.” Revista Médica de Chile 91:931–35.Google Scholar
DÍAZ, WENCESLAO 1888 El cólera de 1887–1888. Santiago.Google Scholar
DÍAZ VIAL, RAUL 1962Situación de los libros parroquiales.” Revista de Estudios Históricos 10:109–22.Google Scholar
Fleury, Michel; and Henry, Louis 1965 Nouveau manuel de depouillement et d'exploitation de l‘état civil ancien. Institut national d‘études demographiques: Paris.Google Scholar
GÓNGORA, MARIO 1966 Vagabundaje y sociedad fronteriza en Chile siglos XVII a XIX. Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios Socioeconomicos, II. Universidad de Chile: Santiago.Google Scholar
GutiÉRrez, HÉCtor 1969Breve análisis de las declaraciones por sexo y edad de los censos de población de Chile de 1930, 1940, 1952 y 1960.” In Chile. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: Santiago.Google Scholar
Henry, Louis 1960Mesure indirecte de la mortalite des adultes.” Population 15:3:457–66.Google Scholar
Henry, Louis 1967 Manuel de Demographie Historique. Librairie Droz: Paris.Google Scholar
Hollingsworth, T. H. 1969 Historical Demography. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
Hurtado RuÍZ-Tagle, Carlos 1966 Concentración de población y desarrollo económico: el caso chileno. Instituto de Economía Universidad de Chile: Santiago.Google Scholar
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADÍSTICA (OFICINA CENTRAL DE ESTADÍSTICA, etc.) 1860 Anuario estadístico de la República de Chile: primera entrega.Google Scholar
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADÍSTICA (OFICINA CENTRAL DE ESTADÍSTICA, etc.) 1908 Censo de población de la República de Chile levantado el 28 de noviembre de 1907. Santiago.Google Scholar
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADÍSTICA (OFICINA CENTRAL DE ESTADÍSTICA, etc.) 1926 Sinopsis estadística de la República de Chile. Santiago.Google Scholar
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADÍSTICA (OFICINA CENTRAL DE ESTADÍSTICA, etc.) 1955 Demografía, Año 1953. Santiago.Google Scholar
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADÍSTICA (OFICINA CENTRAL DE ESTADÍSTICA, etc.) [1968] Demografía, Año 1966. Santiago.Google Scholar
LarraÍN Eyzaguirre, IvÁN 1956 La parroquia ante el derecho civil chileno. Santiago.Google Scholar
Legarrete, Adela Aldea, ÁMparo; and Lopez, LucÍA 1973Omission in the Registration of Deaths in Maternity Hospitals in Santiago, Chile.” Pan American Health Organization Bulletin 7:4:3540.Google Scholar
Lira Montt, Luis 1965Padrones del reino de Chile existentes en al Archivo de Indias.” Revista de Estudios Históricos 13:8588.Google Scholar
Mueller, John Henry Schuessler, Karl F.; and Costner, Herbert L. 1970 Statistical Reasoning in Sociology. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, Mass.Google Scholar
Palacios, NicolÁS 1904 Demografía chilena. Rectificaciones a las publicaciones oficiales. Santiago.Google Scholar
Pressat, Roland 1972 Demographic Analysis: Methods, Results, Applications. Aldine: Chicago, Ill.Google Scholar
Sadie, Johannes L. 1969Poblacion y mano de obra de Chile, 1930–1975.” In Chile. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: Santiago.Google Scholar
Salinas Meza, RenÉ 1970 La población de Valparaíso en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII. Universidad Católica: Valparaíso.Google Scholar
Shryock, Henry S. Siegel, Jacob S.; and associates 1975 The Methods and Materials of Demography. United States Bureau of the Census: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Solberg, Carl E. 1969 Immigration and Nationalism, Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914. University of Texas Press: Austin, TexasGoogle Scholar
Somoza, Jorge; and Tacla, Odette 1969La mortalidad en Chile, según las tablas de vida de 1920, 1930, 1940, 1952, 1960.” In Chile. Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía: Santiago.Google Scholar
Tacla, Odette 1975 Panorama demográfica de Chile y su evolución en el presente siglo. Instituto Nacional de Estadística: Santiago.Google Scholar
Vergara L., Armando 1900 Población de Chile: estudio sobre su composición y movimiento. Santiago.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A. 1968Mortality in Pre-Industrial England: The Example of Colyton, Devon, Over Three Centuries.” Daedalus 97:2 (Spring):546–80.Google ScholarPubMed
Young, George F. W. 1974 Germans in Chile: Immigration and Colonization, 1849–1914. Center for Migration Studies: New York.Google Scholar