The Battle of Miraflores, by Juan Lepiani. 1894. • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS On February 14, 1879, the Chilean navy landed in the port of Antofagasta, which was then on Bolivian territory. Thus began the so-called “Pacific War”, a conflict which until 1884 involved Chile, Peru and Bolivia. For the latter, the ultimate consequence will be the loss of its only access to the sea, the Littoral province, which has since been in the hands of Chile. Saltpeter, Bolivian “white gold” The trigger for the conflict is the exploitation of saltpetre deposits. At the end of the 19 th century, this raw material has acquired such economic importance that it is called “white gold”. Saltpeter (or Chilean nitrate) is a natural sodium nitrate obtained by refining caliche, a type of salt found under certain desert surfaces, and whose deposits are almost all concentrated in the border region between Chile, Bolivia and Peru. The usefulness of nitrate for fertilizers and for the manufacture of explosives causes a high demand, which has made it one of the most coveted products by international industry and trade. Moreover, the quarrel over saltpetre added to the conflict between the three countries over the trade of another highly valued fertilizer specific to the same region:guano, which comes from animal excrement in this area. The activity relating to saltpetre, long limited to the Peruvian province of Tarapacá, received a significant boost thanks to José Santos Ossa. In the 1860s, this Chilean mining entrepreneur discovered large deposits of saltpeter in the Atacama region, among which the Salar del Carmen stands out, which extends the exploitation of the ore to the Bolivian province of Littoral. The war of the mining companies With other Chilean partners and thanks to the capital of English merchants based in Valparaíso, Ossa founded Melbourne Clark &Co and obtained a concession from the Bolivian government to develop the operation for 15 years. The future city of Antofagasta, which became a municipality in 1872, was built on the temporary camp of the mining company. Two years later, Chile and Bolivia sign the border treaty, an agreement that defines their common border and puts an end to a territorial dispute that began in 1840 over the exploitation rights of the two countries on the guano deposits. In the region. It is established at the same time that Melbourne Clark &Co will be exempt from paying new taxes to the Bolivian government for 20 years. Despite the signing of the treaty, Chile continued to pursue its expansionist policy over the following years, encouraging the search for new deposits outside its borders. The initial peace that followed the treaty did not last long. The Melbourne Clark &Co has completed the construction of the railway linking the coast to the Salar del Carmen. Saltpeter deposits under Chilean control already extend in Bolivia along the entire coast near Antofagasta. The company, from which José Santos Ossa has now withdrawn, becomes the Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta. Its main shareholders are the Chilean businessman Agustín Edwards and the British company Gibbs &Co, which has until now based its activity on the exploitation of guano. The mines are already operated by mainly Chilean companies. But Chile wants more:to seize this Bolivian territory rich in deposits. War rumbles behind the economic rivalry. The 1874 treaty has so far limited the threat to Bolivia's territorial sovereignty. But when the rise of the nitrate industry is accompanied by the discovery of silver mines on its coast, the number of Chilean workers attracted to the Littoral province increases considerably. At the end of the 1870s, the population of Antofagasta was already made up of 93% Chileans, against only 2% Bolivians. The Littoral Province thus retains no Bolivian except its legal status, supported by a small detachment of soldiers. In 1878, faced with the rise of the Anglo-Chilean nitrate companies and the rare profits that the Bolivians derive from this exploitation, the Bolivian National Assembly decided to tax the exports of each quintal of nitrate from the Compañía de Salitres with 10 centimes. . The company denounces an attack on its interests before the Chilean Congress, declaring that it violates the territorial treaty between the two countries. And that's not all:the general administrator of the Compañía de Salitres, the Englishman George Hicks, even suggests that a magnificent opportunity presents itself in Chile to liberate the Pacific from "this plague of Bolivians". Note that the links between the nitrate company and the Chilean government are notorious:José Francisco Vergara, Minister of the Interior, or Rafael Sotomayor, Minister of War, as well as various members of Congress are among its shareholders. With the support of the Chilean government, the Compañía de Salitres refuses to pay the tax demanded by the Bolivian state, alleging that it is a violation of existing agreements. The Bolivian government responds by ordering the embargo and the auction of its assets. In turn, Peru decrees expropriations of Chilean companies linked to guano and saltpetre. After the failure of attempts to resolve the conflict through arbitration, the three countries are heading towards an inevitable war. Chile's coup On February 14, 1879, the date scheduled for the expropriation and public auction of the assets of the Compañía de Salitres, the Chilean army occupied the city of Antofagasta before this sale could be held. In previous years, Chile became a naval power thanks to the support of Great Britain, which financed and built much of its navy. For this reason, barely two months after the outbreak of the war, the Chileans seized the entire coastline of Antofagasta. The conflict will last another four years, during which skirmishes, occupations and fluctuations characteristic of any war follow one another. But one thing remains certain:Bolivia is definitely losing its access to the sea. The war officially ended with the truce signed by Chile and Bolivia on April 4, 1884. Twenty years later, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship recognized Chile as ceding the Bolivian coast in perpetuity; in compensation, Bolivia obtains the right of free transit of its goods and merchandise through Chilean ports. However, Bolivia's opposition to the agreement was very quickly evident, and since 1910 its successive governments have constantly demanded the right of access to the Pacific. In 2018, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the highest judicial body of the United Nations, decreed that Chile does not have “the obligation to negotiate with Bolivia” its access to the sea. Bolivian immediately declared that he would never give up this right. For its part, the Chilean rise in the sale of nitrate will continue throughout the following years, reaching its highest level during the First World War due to the increase in demand for the manufacture of explosives. . Subsequently, synthetic saltpeter, produced in Europe and cheaper than natural saltpeter imported from Chile, will gradually replace the latter. The heyday of Chilean nitrate ended with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Find out more Chile. In the footsteps of nitrate miners, V. Brunet, L’Harmattan, 2006. Chinese in the Chilean ranks The activity of extracting saltpeter required a large workforce. The centers of production were real towns, where the workers and their families lived. The needs of industry made it necessary to hire a large number of immigrants, such as coolies. This was the name given to the approximately 100,000 Chinese migrants who arrived in Peru between 1850 and 1875, most of them to work in conditions of near slavery in the guano farms in order to pay their ticket. Freed by Chilean captain Patricio Lynch during his expedition to the Peruvian coast, many joined the Chilean army and became part of the Vulcano Legion, led by Arturo Villarroel, known as "General Dynamite", whose mission was to explode the mines laid by the Peruvians.
