The Kingdom of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia (; ), sometimes referred to as Kingdom of New France (), was an unrecognized state declared by two ordinances on November 17, 1860 and November 20, 1860 from Antoine de Tounens, a French lawyer and adventurer, who claimed that the regions of AraucanÃÂa and eastern Patagonia did not depend on any other states. Tounens had the support of the highest Mapuche lonko of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia, Kilapan, and that of Toki Magnil Lonko Kalfukura, Lonko Leminao and others, who believed that they could help maintain independence from the Chilean and Argentine governments.
Arrested on January 5, 1862 by the Chilean authorities, Antoine de Tounens was imprisoned and declared insane on September 2, 1862 by the court of Santiago and expelled to France on October 28, 1862. He later tried three times to return to AraucanÃÂa to reclaim his kingdom, but was each time captured and deported back to France by the Chilean State. After his 3rd and final attempt he died of the ill health conditions caused during his lengthy captivity in Chilean prison.
In 1858, Antoine de Tounens, a former lawyer in Périgueux, France, who had read the book La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla, decided to go to AraucanÃÂa, inspired to become its king after reading the book. He landed at the port of Coquimbo in Chile and met some loncos (Mapuche tribal leaders) after arriving South to the BiobÃÂo. He promised them some guns and the help of France to maintain their independence from Chile. The Indians elected him Great Toqui, Supreme Chieftain of the Mapuches, possibly in the belief that their cause might be better served with a European acting on their behalf.
On November 17, 1860, and November 20, 1860, the self-proclaimed sovereign proclaimed via two decrees that the regions of AraucanÃÂa and eastern Patagonia did not need to depend on any other states and that the Kingdom of AraucanÃÂa is founded with himself as monarch under the name King Orélie-Antoine I. He declared Perquenco capital of his kingdom, created a flag, and had coins minted for the nation under the name of Nouvelle France.
He writes in his Memoirs in 1863 "I took the title of king, by an ordinance of November 17, 1860, which established the bases of the hereditary constitutional government founded by me [...] On November 17, I returned to AraucanÃÂa to be publicly recognized as king, which took place on December 25, 26, 27 and 30. Weren't we, the Araucanians, free to bestow power on me, and I to accept it?"
The supposed founding of the Kingdom of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia led to the Occupation of AraucanÃÂa by Chilean forces. Chilean president José JoaquÃÂn Pérez authorized Cornelio Saavedra RodrÃÂguez, commander of the Chilean troops, to arrest Antoine de Tounens on January 5, 1862. Tounens was then imprisoned and declared insane on September 2, 1862, by the court of Santiago and expelled to France on October 28, 1862.
In a 1870 meeting of Saavedra with Mapuche lonkos at Toltén, Mapuche chiefs revealed to Saavedra that Antoine de Tounens was once again at AraucanÃÂa. Upon hearing that his presence in AraucanÃÂa had been revealed Orélie-Antoine de Tounens fled to Argentina, having however promised Quilapán to obtain arms. There are some reports that a shipment of arms seized by Argentine authorities at Buenos Aires in 1871 had been ordered by Orélie-Antoine de Tounens. A French warship, d'Entrecasteaux, that anchored in 1870 at Corral, drew suspicions from Saavedra of some sort of French interference. Accordingly there may have been substance to these fears as information was given to Abdón Cifuentes in 1870 that an intervention in favour of the Kingdom of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia against Chile was discussed in Napoleon III's Conseil d'ÃÂtat.
On August 28, 1873, the Criminal Court of Paris ruled that Antoine de Tounens, first "king of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia", did not justify his claim to the status of sovereignty. He died in poverty on September 17, 1878, in Tourtoirac, France, after years of fruitlessly struggling to regain his kingdom.
Historians Simon Collier and William F. Sater describe the Kingdom of AraucanÃÂa as a "curious and semi-comic episode". According to travel writer Bruce Chatwin, the later history of the "kingdom" belongs rather to "the obsessions of bourgeois France than to the politics of South America." A French champagne salesman, Gustave Laviarde, impressed by the story, decided to assume the vacant throne as Aquiles I. He was appointed heir to the throne by Orélie-Antoine. The pretenders to the throne of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia have been called monarchs and sovereigns of fantasy, "having only fanciful claims to a kingdom without legal existence and having no international recognition". Therefore the "throne of AraucanÃÂa" is sometimes the subject of disputes between "pretenders", some journalists wrote : "The memory of the French adventurer Orélie-Antoine, self-proclaimed king in 1860, and the defense of the rights of the Mapuches guide the action of this strange symbolic monarchy" and "The intensification of the Mapuche conflict in recent years has given a new purpose to the Kingdom of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia, long considered an absurdity by French society."
Mapuche writer Pedro Cayuqueo considers the kingdom a lost opportunity and speculates that, in a French-ruled AraucanÃÂa, the Mapuche would have rights similar to that of the Kanak people, who were given the possibility of independence from France in a 2018 referendum.
Antoine de Tounens had died without issue, and his family members did not wish to accede to the throne. The Constitution of the Kingdom 1860 provides only for hereditary succession, however immediately prior to the death of the founding Monarch, aware of his frail state of health, he wrote a last will and testament designating the Lieutenant General of the Kingdom, Gustave Achilles Laviarde as his heir and successor, who succeeded to the Crown on the death of the King. Since his death in 1878, there have been 8 consecutive Sovereigns appointed by the Regency Council to the throne in exile in France. The current Prince of Araucania and Patagonia is Prince Antoine V.
<big>Sovereign</big>
<big>List of pretenders to the Throne and Heads of the Royal House of AraucanÃÂa and Patagonia</big>