- Castilian Chilean
Infobox Ethnic group
group = Castilian Chilean flagicon|Chile
"Chileno castellano"
caption = Notabe Castilian Chileans:Isabel Allende
poptime = The majority of the Chilean population in the upper classes and elite mixed with Basques and other European groups
popplace = All overChile
langs = Spanish
rels =Roman Catholicism
related =Castilians Spanish people The
Castilians formed the elite during the colonial period, the soldiers who accompanied Spanish conquistadorPedro de Valdivia in the 1540's and their highly numerous descendents who owned the manyhaciendas or fundos in the countryside of central Chile would be included in this group if you includeExtremadura inCastile andLeon provinces of Spain.Other
Spaniards settled in Chile includes Galicians, Asturians,Aragonese people , Catalans,Valencia ns, Andalusians and in some cases, Portuguese who aren't ethnonationally Spanish per se fromPortugal and Basques of southwesternFrance .The Basques later intermarried with the elite in the 18th century and after independence the other European immigrants who were involved with commerce and business joined the urban elite in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as you get a lot of non-Spanish surnames in the upper-middle and upper classes.
Thousands of Castilian refugees fleeing
Spanish Civil War on 1939 also settled and have many descendants in the country and have even intermarried with mestizo population, other Spanish ethnic groups other than Basques, and other European ethnic groups.Surnames are therefore important in Chilean society. Despite this admixture the basis of the elite, particularly the land-owning elite is Castilian rather than Andalusian.
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