Children of Fate

Nara B. Milanich is Assistant Professor of History at Barnard College.

• Illustrations and Tables ixAcknowledgments xiIntroduction: State, Class Society, and Children in Chile 1I. Children and Strangers: Filiation in Law and Practice 1. The Civil Code and the Liberalization of Kinship 412. Paternity, Childhood, and the Making of Class 70II. Children of Don Nobody: Kinship and Social Hierarchy 3. Kindred and Kinless: The People without History 1034. Birthrights: Natal Dispossession and the State 128III. Other Peoples' Children: The Politics of Child Circulation 5. Vernacular Kinships in the Shadow of the State 1576. Child Bondage in the Liberal Republic 183Epilogue: Young Marginals at the Centenary: One Hundred Years of Huachos 216Appendix 239Abbreviations 245Glossary 247Notes 249Bibliography 309Index 333

“Children of Fate is a remarkable historical account of the intertwining of family law, vernacular kinship practices, and class in late-19th-century Chile.” - Clara Han, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review “In Children of Fate, Milanich provides a richly textured study of childhoodand filiation in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chile that culls important stories from new archives and analyzes the liberal state’s role in ‘generating kinlessness.’. . . The resulting study provides an insightful and often heart-rending account of the vicissitudes of children without parents-and adults without kin-in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chile.”- Elizabeth Quay Hutchison, Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Through a study of deeply rooted sociocultural structures . . . , Children of Fate seeks to understand how inequality has been produced, reproduced and perpetuated over time, resisting the cycles of economic growth and public policies that would supposedly end it. . . . Children of Fate stands out . . . for the importance of its subject and for contributing to a necessary and urgent discussion in Chilean society, reminding us that reducing social inequality cannot be left to economic growth but requires a cultural change that . . . even today has yet to materialize." - Pablo Whipple, A Contracorriente “In this beautifully written and well-crafted book, Nara B. Milanich convincingly argues that the family served as the nexus for class formation in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Chile. . . . [T]his study makes a major contribution to the burgeoning historiography of children in Latin America. In addition, Children of Fate should become required reading for students of class and state formation beyond Latin America.” - Robert Alegre, Labour/Le Travail “Children of Fate is truly original, with an extraordinary level of insight and analysis. Nara B. Milanich shows how class identity was manipulated by the liberal state in a way that maintained hierarchies, and she illustrates her arguments with rich examples gleaned from extensive archival research. A brilliant, first-rate book.”-Elizabeth Kuznesof, author of Household Economy and Urban Development: Sao Paulo, 1765 to 1836 “Children of Fate tells a thoroughly engrossing, emotionally moving story about children in Latin American history. Nara B. Milanich’s extremely powerful and original arguments about family, law, class relations, and state formation in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America have major ramifications for rethinking Latin American social and labor history and will undoubtedly help reshape the agenda of future social and political history in the field.”-Heidi Tinsman, author of Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950-1973 “Children of Fate is a remarkable historical account of the intertwining of family law, vernacular kinship practices, and class in late-19th-century Chile.” - Clara Han (PoLAR) “In Children of Fate, Milanich provides a richly textured study of childhoodand filiation in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chile that culls important stories from new archives and analyzes the liberal state’s role in ‘generating kinlessness.’. . . The resulting study provides an insightful and often heart-rending account of the vicissitudes of children without parents-and adults without kin-in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chile.”- Elizabeth Quay Hutchison (Journal of Interdisciplinary History) “In this beautifully written and well-crafted book, Nara B. Milanich convincingly argues that the family served as the nexus for class formation in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Chile. . . . [T]his study makes a major contribution to the burgeoning historiography of children in Latin America. In addition, Children of Fate should become required reading for students of class and state formation beyond Latin America.” - Robert Alegre (Labour/Le Travail) "Through a study of deeply rooted sociocultural structures . . . , Children of Fate seeks to understand how inequality has been produced, reproduced and perpetuated over time, resisting the cycles of economic growth and public policies that would supposedly end it. . . . Children of Fate stands out . . . for the importance of its subject and for contributing to a necessary and urgent discussion in Chilean society, reminding us that reducing social inequality cannot be left to economic growth but requires a cultural change that . . . even today has yet to materialize." - Pablo Whipple (A Contracorriente)