Aurora de Chile

The Aurora de Chile (English: Dawn of Chile) was the first periodical in Chilean history and mostly dealt with politics and political philosophy. It was in print from February 13, 1812 to April 1, 1813, at which point it became El Monitor Araucano. The paper had four printed pages with two columns each, and was published weekly, every Thursday.

Until the time of the Aurora de Chile's publication, the only printed newspapers came from Lima, Buenos Aires, and Spain, and they only arrived in Chile after a considerable delay. The Age of Enlightenment's political philosophy and the political documents and pamphlets of the revolutions in the United States and France were known in Chile and had been translated. However, while there may have been a printing press operated by the Spanish Jesuits for printing religious material in the decades prior to 1810, there was no native press reprinting the philosophy from abroad, or printing Chilean revolutionary material, until the arrival of the first native printing press in Chile in 1811.

However, after the successful rise to power of the first revolutionary Government Junta on September 18, 1810, the government, in the words of Hernández, "instinctively felt the need, if we may say so, for close contact with public opinion, which had not, in order to express itself, had any of the means with which we are familiar today." Locals in Chile had attempted to procure a printing press from the Spanish government and then under the Junta, attempts were made to purchase a printing press from the revolutionary junta in Buenos Aires, but were unsuccessful after the death of Mariano Moreno. Finally, on November 24, 1811, Swedish-American Mathew Hoevel (Spanish: Mateo Arnaldo Hoevel), an idealist for free government, landed the Galloway in the port of Valparaiso with a printing press, American printers, and arms and munitions to supply the troops of the independence movement. These printers, who included Samuel Burr Johnston, soon set to work publishing the Aurora de Chile, Chile's first local publication.

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