Ethnocultural Demography
The Osorno province owes its legacy to fairly recent Chilean settlement, when the government subdued the region's indigenous Mapuche peoples in the mid-19th century and opened the land to Chilean and European immigration soon to follow. Large percentage of locals in Osorno are descendants of Spanish (the livestock grazing industry owes its foundation to the Basques) and other European immigrants.
In Osorno, there are historic ties and bonds with the Dutch, British esp. Scots with some Irish and English, French, Germans including Austrians and Swiss, Italians, Portuguese, ex-Yugoslavians, Greeks and from the Middle East are Arabs and Palestinians. These ethnic groups came in the late 19th century and early 20th century period.
It is thought in Central Chile (including Osorno), a small pattern of American immigration claiming to be of Cherokee Indian descent immigration occurred after the Dawes Act in the 1870s and 1880s displaced Native American farmers from Indian Territory now the state of Oklahoma, but the number of descendants is minuscule compared to the Spanish-Basque-ethnic German-Mapuche population.
Around 1850, the government of Chile began inviting German settlers to the colony to promote growth in the region; the settlers found Osorno's climate and geography to be very similar to their own. With their help, Osorno was made the home of the national cattle ranch of Chile, boosting the regional economy significantly. Present-day Osorno has preserved 19th-century architecture and urban layout, represented by six picturesque houses which have been designated national monuments.
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