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Angol


Angol is a municipality and capital city of the province of Malleco in the Araucania Region of southern Chile. It is located at the foot of the Nahuelbuta Range and next to the Vergara River, that permitted communications by small boats to the Bio-Bio River and Concepcion. This strategic position explains the successive foundations of this city during the Arauco War. It was first founded in 1553 as a "conquistador" fort of Confines, the fort was later destroyed and rebuilt several times and it was not until the Pacification of Araucania in late 19th century that it was rebuilt with the name of Angol. The city has a current population of approximately 49,000. It belongs to the 48th electoral district, and the 14th senatorial circumscription.

History

Modern Angol was first founded in 1553 as the conquistador fort of Los Confines by Pedro de Valdivia, the fort was later that year abandoned and destroyed by the Mapuche after the Battle of Tucapel. In 1560, the city was established by Governor Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza with the name of San Andres de Angol, after his father the viceroy of Peru, the location to the north of the site of the old fort. It was commonly called Ciudad de Los Infantes for the infantrymen that had been assigned to build the city.

It was attacked and destroyed in 1599, by the Mapuches following the Disaster of Curalaba. In 1611 the city was rebuilt by Luis Merlo de la Fuente a little more to the south with the name of San Luis de Angol but it did not prosper. In 1637 Governor Francisco Laso de la Vega, refounded it with the name of San Francisco de la Vega, but in 1641, it was abandoned by the terms of the Peace of Quillin with the Mapuche. It was repopulated by Tomas Marin de Poveda in 1695, with the name of Santo Tomas de Colhue, but it was attacked and destroyed again in the Mapuche Rising of 1723 and one last time in their rising in 1766, from which it never recovered.

The present city of Angol was founded definitively by Cornelio Saavedra Rodriguez, on the 6th of December, 1862 as a fortress and base for his campaign for the Pacification of Araucania. Declared a city in 1871, it was connected by railroad with Santiago in 1876. In 1881 it was the base for the final campaign of pacification. Subsequently it was the economic and administrative center and departure point for the Chilean and foreign colonists that occupied the lands around it.

Angol was affected by the 8.8 magnitude 27 February 2010 earthquake. A US military field hospital was deployed to the city to treat casualties from the tremblor and subsequent tsunami. UKPA, "Foreign hospitals help out Chile", 6 March 2010 (accessed 6 March 2010)

Source

Francisco Solano Asta-Buruaga y Cienfuegos, Diccionario geografico de la Republica de Chile (Geographic dictionary of the Republic of Chile), SEGUNDA EDICION CORREGIDA Y AUMENTADA, NUEVA YORK, D. APPLETON Y COMPANIA, 1899. pg. 36-37 Angol (Ciudad de) and Angol Antigua, o Los Confines (Ciudad de)

External links

City website in Spanish

The community on internet

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Angol


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