In 1883, the Treaty of Ancón ended Peru’s participation in the bloody War of the Pacific. The agreement ceded the nitrate-rich province of Tarapacá to Chile as well as giving the latter control of Tacna and Arica for a period of ten years. After a decade, there was to be a plebiscite: the winner would receive permanent control of the two provinces; the loser, an indemnity of ten million pesos. As we shall see, the Chileans ignored the treaty’s provisions thereby complicating their relations with Peru for more than half a century.
Chileans, anxious to retain a buffer between their heartland and their former enemy, sought to win the allegiance of their Peruvian wards by providing them with efficient government and needed social services. Perhaps the Chileans recognized that their efforts had failed because they refused to hold the plebiscite in 1894 as stipulated by the Ancón agreement. Only in 1898, when it feared a Peruvian-Argentine alliance, did the Chilean Chancellery enter into the Billinghurst-Latorre Protocol which called for the holding of the election. After Chile settled its border problems with Argentina, however, the Chamber of Deputies in Santiago rejected the Peruvian proposal to conduct the plebiscite. Henceforth, the Chileans would use less genteel methods to retain control over Tacna and Arica: Peruvian schools were closed and the teachers dismissed from their posts; Peruvian priests were expelled from both their pulpits and the nation; Peruvian social clubs were sacked; the Peruvian-owned press was vandalized and Peruvian citizens were drafted into the military, intimidated or even murdered.
After World War I, the Peruvians sought the good offices of the United States in hopes of resolving the dispute. It soon became obvious that Chilean intervention would prevent an honest election. A compromise was achieved after months of bitter negotiations. Peru received Tacna plus a monetary indemnity; Chile retained Arica.
Raúl Palacios’ work emphasizes two themes: Chilean oppression of the Peruvians residing within the disputed territories; and the Peruvian desire to regain its lost provinces. The case for Chilean repression, while not without foundation, is melodramatically stated. True, the Chileans acted brutally toward the Peruvian residents. It would be naive, however, to expect them to treat Peruvian nationalists more gently than they did their own citizens. And, as the strikes in Valparaíso and Iquique demonstrated, Chilean authorities did not react kindly toward dissent. Palacios also fails to understand that the Chileans sincerely believed that Tacna and Arica were legitimate spoils of a war which they felt had been thrust upon them by an aggressive Peru. The surrender of these territories would not only be a betrayal of past sacrifices, it would, moreover, deprive the Chileans of a buffer against a resurgence of Peruvian militarism.
Palacios does a better job when describing the Peruvian irrendentist movement. His bibliography is extensive although the work sometimes becomes disjointed and repetitive. The author tends to accept uncritically every manifestation of Peruvian nationalism. (One wonders if he would be so sympathetic to Ecuadorian demands for a return of lands lost to Peru in 1941.) As Howard Karno’s dissertation demonstrates, however, much of the enthusiasm for Tacna and Arica was generated by a military anxious for higher budgets and by politicians seeking to use the issue for their own advantage. Still, the Palacios volume does provide an interesting study of an important aspect of Peruvian nationalism.
