Italian immigration to the current north of Chile extends until the mid-nineteenth century when these lands were part of the Republic of Peru. The small but thriving colony inserted itself in the various economic and productive activities offered by Arica, a small city located on the edge of the desert. Settled in a harsh land, they knew how to flourish and cope with the war and political conflicts that devastated a space that they soon called home. This work is a compilation of primary background data of demographic order on the early presence of the Italian colony in the city of Arica at the end of the XIX century and the first decades of the XX Century.