A century after the Incas, the first Spanish conquistadors arrived on the scene, motivated by the legends about Chile, saying that it was a land bristling with gold and riches. The Spaniards began their conquest campaign from Cuzco, in today’s Peru, to finally settle in the Mapocho River basin.
Upon arrival, they found a territory that was not only occupied but organized, with considerable advantages such as the availability of water and a favorable climate, but no gold as they had expected. The land of the Mapocho Valley was the ideal place to establish the project of a city that the Spaniards had brought with them. Thus, Santiago de Nueva Extremadura was founded, a small Hispanic settlement that slowly took shape as a town.