Santiago de Chile was founded in 1541 by conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. The city's regular grid design was laid out very early, stretching out from the present-day Plaza de Armas, but attempts by the Araucanian Indians to kill everyone in town meant that for several years the settlement consisted of little more than a besieged hillside camp of adobe houses. By the late 16th century, Santiago was a settlement of just 200 houses, inhabited by 700 Spaniards, plus their thousands of Indian slave-labourers, and a growing population of mestizos.

Chile remained a backwater of imperial Spain for nearly three centuries, subject to the Viceroyalty of Peru, and it was not until the late 18th century that Santiago slowly began to look more like a city. Construction took place along the Mapocho River to prevent it from flooding, roads between the capital and its port of Valparaíso were improved, and civic beautification projects were put in place to please the landowning aristocracy. But progress was slow, and when colonial rule ended in the early 19th century Santiago had barely 30,000 residents. City streets remained largely unpaved, and most country roads were still tracks with many potholes. There were few schools, and not much cultural life.

In just a few decades, however, the capital had more than 100,000 inhabitants. Railway and telegraph lines linked the city to Valparaíso, by that stage a bustling commercial centre with a population of 60,000. The aristocracy spent millions on splendid mansions adorned with imported luxuries, wintering and summering in the city and spending the other months at their rural estates. They created an elite society based around social clubs, the track, the opera and outings to exclusive Parque Cousiño (today's more egalitarian Parque O'Higgins). Most of them sent their children to be educated in Europe. Meanwhile, all around them, more poor people were arriving: by 1875 domestic migration had pushed Santiago's population to 150,000, as crop failures drove farm labourers and tenants from the land.