Territory and Genealogy of historical Paposo

Ethnohistorical data (s. XVII-XX) allusive to Paposo, located on the southern Andean desert coast (25ºS), do not specify which population cores formed it. This fact, together with the remoteness of Paposo from large population centers, obscures the understanding of the historical frequency of its population and, above all, the ethnic and kinship categories of the local population that appear in parish books and early censuses. With a diachronic analysis of the historical context of these records, which is based on original ethnohistorical, ethnographic, and ecclesiastical sources, we can outline in Andean coastal areas a typical local kinship structure from family groups registered as Indians or mestizos according to categories by assignment of their surnames in neighboring areas, because these populations of Paposo had to adapt to the Estancias system of the Spanish Crown since 1679 and, later, to the mining boom during the Republic on the 19th century. Thus, the documented information on the southern Andean coast allowed us to identify a socio-territorial context of broad local and regional population mobility and to group family names widely dispersed according to matrilineal bases, usual natural affiliation, and family alliances with deep coastal indigenous roots.