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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
Figure 3. Territorial Adjustments among Bolivia, Chile, and
Peru, 1874-1929
Source: Based on information from David P. Werlich, Peru: A
Short History, Carbondale, Illinois, 1978, 110-111.
Chile's borders were a matter of contention throughout
the
nineteenth century. The War of the Pacific began on the
heels of an
international economic recession that focused attention on
resources in outlying zones. Under an 1866 treaty, Chile
and
Bolivia divided the disputed area encompassing the Atacama
Desert
at 24° south latitude (located just south of the port of
Antofagasta) in the understanding that the nationals of
both
nations could freely exploit mineral deposits in the
region. Both
nations, however, would share equally all the revenue
generated by
mining activities in the region. But Bolivia soon
repudiated the
treaty, and its subsequent levying of taxes on a Chilean
company
operating in the area led to an arms race between Chile
and its
northern neighbors of Bolivia and Peru.
Fighting broke out when Chilean entrepreneurs and
mine-owners
in present-day Tarapacá Region and Antofagasta Region,
then
belonging to Peru and Bolivia, respectively, resisted new
taxes,
the formation of monopoly companies, and other
impositions. In
those provinces, most of the deposits of nitrate--a
valuable
ingredient in fertilizers and explosives--were owned and
mined by
Chileans and Europeans, in particular the British. Chile
wanted not
only to acquire the nitrate fields but also to weaken Peru
and
Bolivia in order to strengthen its own strategic
preeminence on the
Pacific Coast. Hostilities were exacerbated because of
disagreements over boundary lines, which in the desert had
always
been vague. Chile and Bolivia accused each other of
violating the
1866 treaty. Although Chile expanded northward as a result
of the
War of the Pacific, its rights to the conquered territory
continued
to be questioned by Peru, and especially by Bolivia,
throughout the
twentieth century.
War began when Chilean troops crossed the northern
frontier in
1879. Although a mutual defense pact had allied Peru and
Bolivia
since 1873, Chile's more professional, less politicized
military
overwhelmed the two weaker countries on land and sea. The
turning
point of the war was the occupation of Lima on January 17,
1881, a
humiliation the Peruvians never forgave
(see War
of the Pacific, 1879-83
, ch. 5). Chile sealed its victory with the 1883
Treaty of
Ancón, which also ended the Chilean occupation of Lima.
As a result of the war and the Treaty of Ancón, Chile
acquired
two northern provinces--Tarapacá from Peru and Antofagasta
from
Bolivia. These territories encompassed most of the Atacama
Desert
and blocked off Bolivia's outlet to the Pacific Ocean
(see
fig. 3).
The war gave Chile control over nitrate exports, which
would
dominate the national economy until the 1920s, possession
of copper
deposits that would eclipse nitrate exports by the 1930s,
greatpower status along the entire Pacific Coast of South
America, and
an enduring symbol of patriotic pride in the person of
naval hero
Arturo Prat Chacón. The War of the Pacific also bestowed
on the
Chilean armed forces enhanced respect, the prospect of
steadily
increasing force levels, and a long-term external mission
guarding
the borders with Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. In 1885 a
German
military officer, Emil Körner, was contracted to upgrade
and
professionalize the armed forces along Prussian lines. In
subsequent years, better education produced not only a
more modern
officer corps but also a military leadership capable of
questioning
civilian management of national development
(see Development
of the Armed Forces
, ch. 5).
After battling the Peruvians and Bolivians in the
north, the
military turned to engaging the Araucanians in the south.
The final
defeat of the Mapuche in 1882 opened up the southern third
of the
national territory to wealthy Chileans who quickly carved
out
immense estates. No homestead act or legion of family
farmers stood
in their way, although a few middle-class and immigrant
agriculturalists moved in. Some Mapuche fled over the
border to
Argentina. The army herded those who remained onto tribal
reservations in 1884, where they would remain mired in
poverty for
generations. Like the far north, these southern provinces
would
become stalwarts of national reform movements, critical of
the
excessive concentration of power and wealth in and around
Santiago.
Soon controlled by British and then by United States
investors,
the nitrate fields became a classic monocultural boom and
bust. The
boom lasted four decades. Export taxes on nitrates often
furnished
over 50 percent of all state revenues, relieving the upper
class of
tax burdens. The income of the Chilean treasury nearly
quadrupled
in the decade after the war. The government used the funds
to
expand education and transportation. The mining bonanza
generated
demand for agricultural goods from the center and south
and even
for locally manufactured items, spawning a new plutocracy.
Even
more notable was the emergence of a class-conscious,
nationalistic,
ideological labor movement in the northern mining camps
and
elsewhere.
Prosperity also attracted settlers from abroad.
Although small
in number compared with those arriving in Argentina,
European
immigrants became an important element of the new middle
class;
their numbers included several future manufacturing
tycoons. These
arrivals came from both northern and southern Europe.
People also
emigrated from the Middle East, Peru, and Bolivia.
Although most
immigrants ended up in the cities of Chile, a minority
succeeded at
farming, especially in the south. In the early twentieth
century,
a few members of the Chilean elite tried to blame the rise
of
leftist unions and parties on foreign agitators, but the
charge
rang hollow in a country where less than 5 percent of the
population had been born abroad.
Data as of March 1994
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