soldiers were bilingual in Spanish and Mapudungun. A 1749 census in Valdivia shows that Afro-descendants represented at least 0.24% of the local population.

Beginning in the mid-18th century, Valdivia left behind its past as an enclave and a period of agricultural expansion begun. The expansion, that mainly directed to the south, was done mostly by pacific means, but hostilities with indigenous Huilliches did occur. After the Valdivian colonization had reached