The farms in dispute: land expropiation and restitution during the agrarian reform and counter-reform in Malleco and Cautin provinces

Abstract

In this article, we expose and analyze the characteristics of the land reform in the provinces of Malleco and Cautin from 1962 to 1989 with special attention to the device that produced the greatest social and political agitation among peasants and land owners, although in opposite direction: expropriations. By digitizing and analyzing the 707 expropiations files of both provinces during the land reform, we conclude, among other ideas, that expropriation ambition of the Land Reform Corporation during Allende’s government pushed to the limit the legal framework by the intervention of a significant number of productive medium-sized farms allegedly occupied by their workers. The above was used by their former owners to defend the irregularity of land interventions during revisions procedures and contributes to clarify the outstanding legal-administrative success of the regional farmers in the restitution of their lands (47% of cases in the region vs. 28.7% of cases at the national level).