SOUTH AMERICA'S INDIANS [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Sut,—May I answer Mr. Bertram Norton's letter in your issue of December 31st criticising my recent article on " South America's Indians"?
I cannot understand his first statement that " there is not a shadow of an Indian problem in Chile " because there are no Indians beyond " the few on the reserves around Temuco." That is like saying that there is no negro problem in the United States because even in the Deep South few negroes can boast a hundred per cent. African ancestry. The great mass of Chilian workers are mestizos—Indians with a small amount of Spanish blood. This statement is no invention of mine. The South American Handbook, the usual reference book in English on South America, says the same.
The exact proportion of Indian v. Spanish blood in the average Chilian mestizos can, of course, only be guessed at. Among the miners I have seen in the Andean copper mines and the workers on farms in the central and southern farming districts many appear at least 90 per cent. Indian. In cosmo- politan Valparaiso, or its smart seaside suburb Vina del Mar, from which Mr. Norton writes, there is naturally more white blood in the mixture although unskilled labour of all sorts is predominantly Indian both in appearance and character.
In these circumstances I cannot agree with the statement that " there are thousands of Chilians and foreign residents who have never seen an Indian "; or with Mr. Norton's assertion that " to say that the Chilian Popular Front has anything to do with organising Indians is simply grotesque." Any labour organisation in Chile must work among Indians, or people who are principally Indians by descent, as opposed to the upper class of pure European descent.
Mr. Norton also questions my remarks about bribery in the election in Chile last March. My statement that a fortnight's wages were being paid for each vote for the Right was far from an exaggeration. In Valparaiso and the farming district near the town of Chillan, for instance, far higher prices were paid. Considering the tremendous sum subscribed by Government supporters for this purpose and which was undoubtedly spent on bribes, the Popular Front's gains were remarkable. Without the wholesale bribery (taken as a matter of course out there and no reflection on the present Chilian Government) there is every reason to suppose they would have got in.
Mr. Norton also should not state that Peru probably has no Indian problem, although he is correct when he says that the Argentine and Brazil have no problem of this sort. On the East Coast there was never an important Indian civilisation and the scattered tribes have long been swamped by European immigrants. Recent political events and Aprista uprisings make this statement complete nonsense about Peru as it is about any of the other West Coast Republics. In all of them you have the same vast Indian or mestizos majority exploited by a handful of Europeans.—I am, Sir, &c.,
oYBIL VINCENT.
6 Paultons House, Paultons Square, S.IV.3
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