History
The sector is currently located where the city was inhabited by the pre-Hispanic village called Viluma or Vilumanque (Mapudungún Snakes and condors).
La Serena was first founded on the orders of Spanish Pedro de Valdivia in order to provide a sea link to maintain permanent contact between Santiago and Lima in the Viceroyalty of Peru. For this he would need a place for his troops to rest and eat. The village was first founded by captain Juan Bohón with the name "Villanueva de La Serena". Although the exact date is disputed, probable dates include 15 November or 30 December 1543 and 4 September 1544. Many historians simply say that it was founded in 1544. Five years later, from the night of 11 January 1549 until the following day, an uprising of local Indians totally destroyed and burned the village, killing nearly every Spaniard. Pedro de Valdivia gave order to Captain Francisco de Aguirre to found the city later the same year on 26 August to under the name of San Bartolomé de La Serena (now patron saint of the city), in the same place where today the Plaza de Armas stands. A few years later, on 4 May 1552, King Carlos I of Spain by royal decree gave it the title of city.
During the 17th century, the city suffered continuous attacks from pirates, including Francis Drake who opened the Pacific route to pirates in 1578. Bartholomew Sharp, who partly burned and looted in 1680, and Edward Davis, who set fire to the convent of Santo Domingo 1686, caused great fear among the population, forcing the defense of the city in 1700. In addition to attacks from pirates, the city experienced an almost total destruction resulting from the earthquake of 8 July 1730.
During the Revolution of 1859, a rebellion against the conservative government, the city was taken by forces led by Pedro Leon Gallo. Gallo's forces were defeated at the Battle of Cerro Grande by an army from Santiago, which then occupied the city.
Read more about this topic: La Serena Song Festival
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“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)