Valparaiso Bound! European Pioneers on the Pacific Coast of South America David J. Woods Santiago, Chile “Valparaíso Bound! European Pioneers on the Pacific Coast of South America” ISBN: 978-956-8449-20-9 First published (2016) by: Librería y Editorial Ricaaventura E.I.R.L. For [email protected] Valentine, Sam and Scarlett www.ricaaventura.cl with the hope that they will grow up to understand and enjoy their disparate roots Copyright© 2016 David J. Woods All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, by print, photography, microfilm or electronically, with- out permission of the author or Libreria Editorial Ricaventura. “Queda prohibida la reproducción parcial o total de esta obra por qual- guier medio o procedimiento, ya sea electrónico o mecanico, el tratami- ento informático, el alquiler o cualquiera otra forma de cesión de la obra sin autorización previa y por escrito de Editorial Ricaaventura.” Derechos de autor Nº: A-266339 Cover design: Jenny Contente Guazzotti Printed in Chile at Maval Impresores Contents Preface i. 1 A Voyage 1 2 First impressions: Paradise or purgatory? 19 3. Explorers, pirates, admirals and deserters 34 4. The Spanish and a defiant outpost of empire 59 5. Independence, with help from European friends 71 6. The newcomers: who, why and where from? 89 7. A home from home 109 8. Nature’s challenges: earthquakes, fire, drought and disease 131 9. Farmers and fishermen: a new start in fertile lands and waters 151 10. Risk, ruin and (a few) fortunes 169 11. Booms, bubbles, busts … and a bombardment 190 12. The nitrate men … and a war 213 13. Railways, the nitrate men … and a revolution 233 14. The legacies: families, teachers and priests 258 15. Conclusion: a spirit of enterprise and adventure, with its faults 275 Bibliography 280 Maps 288 1795 map from the “Nouvel Atlas Portatif”, published in Paris by Didier Robert de Vaugondy and Charles-François Delamarche. The territories, then under Spanish rule, were quite Index 293 different to those today. Author’s collection Preface uropean pioneers on the Pacific Coast of South America? Apart from a Evague recollection from school of the Spanish colonial period – the con- quistadors – few people in Europe know there were any such pioneers. It is a forgotten footnote in our collective history. And it is not well remembered in the region itself. Yet, for centuries the two continents were thoroughly entan- gled; their respective futures partially dictated by that entanglement. Gold, silver, copper and other mineral wealth had much to do with it. But so also did the strategic significance of that coast, the end of the Spanish monarchy’s State Library of Queensland, Australia predominance in Europe, the impact of the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War, and the arms race that culminated in the First World War. Add to that elements of piracy, voyages of discovery, the rampant capitalism of the Industrial Revolution and the emigration of poverty-stricken farmers across the Atlantic, and you have a powerful melange. To do justice to such an epoch, in a non-academic, highly selective and readable manner, was a challenge. No less, to describe adequately the many colourful, larger-than-life personalities who permeate the story. To retell the voyages and new lives established in lands on the other side of the globe, and to see it all in human terms, required a personal journey by the author himself. Yet it seemed a worthwhile journey to take on. Nearly a decade ago my wife and I started travelling regularly to the region, making close friends, exploring the coast, deserts, mountains and lakes, and eventually buying and restoring an old house in the historic centre of the Chilean port of Valparaíso. As in many such houses, constructed for Europeans in the nineteenth century, there was a tangible force circulating within its walls and its high-ceilinged rooms drawing us back to another era. In any event, I had caught the bug for writing history about the region from my earlier book on the bombardment of Valparaiso by the Spanish in 1866. Somehow, the history of this region of the world – especially its impact on the Old Continent – is habitually neglected. Yet millions of European and North American tourists now travel to Chile and Peru and other states on the Pacific Coast. They stand fascinated in front of the remnants of what was part of their own history. They see names they recognize. They learn a little, but not much. This book is an attempt to help them understand more of the common The“Garthsnaid”three-mastedbarque steel roughin off seas HornrouteCape en from Thewas 1920. ship in Iquique, Chile with a cargo of nitrate. heritage that binds these rapidly modernizing states to Europe. Yes, the British presence was pervasive and influential. But the story is a truly European one. From Portugal and Ireland in the West to Croatia, Greece, the ultimate price. Poland and Hungary in the East; from Scotland and Scandinavia to Italy and It was, and remains, a region of extremes, of passions, of adventure and of Greece, every part of today’s Europe left a mark somewhere on these distant adversity. The emotions roused among the sailors, travellers and immigrants territories of South America. generated traditions of sea shanties, folksongs, music hall ditties, tango and the It was not the kind of mass migrations that settled in Brazil, Argentina and ballads of the huasos, or gauchos. The songs and poetry provide continuity for Uruguay as well as much of the United States of America. True, many new- this extraordinary story. comers found themselves on the Pacific shores by accident or ill-luck. Many, Looking back, one cannot fail to be struck with parallels today. Globalization however, were intrepid and enterprising individuals – sometimes with their is the underlying dynamic of the past few decades, as it was in the nineteenth families in tow – who pursued dreams and fulfilled their duty in some of the century. Great migratory movements are again underway, too often for the most challenging environments on earth. Most of all, the common element worst of reasons. The manner in which immigrants and refugees were treated in each of their stories was the harsh voyage of three months or more from – rejected or assimilated – is also a recurring theme in this book. But there is the great ports of Europe: from Liverpool, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Le Havre, no denying the rich contributions that the European newcomers made to the Genoa and so on. Indeed, many never made it. The ships that still line the emerging, independent nations of South America from 1810 onwards, and well bottom of the sea around Cape Horn or the bed of the Strait of Magellan are into the twentieth century. It makes for colourful, adventurous but, above all, testimony to the rigours and horrors of this unique journey. optimistic history. Of course, much of the foundation of what the newcomers found and did in I have had much help, advice and encouragement in researching and writing the nineteenth century was the Spanish colonial period lasting nearly 300 years this book, notably from friends in Chile who know far more of the history than until the 1820s. That at once glorious and shameful era needs an entire book to I will ever master. In particular I would like to thank Michelle Prain Brice, of recount adequately. It will not be done here. Rather, the colonial influence on the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and the Instituto Chileno Británico de Cultura specific, mainly nineteenth and twentieth century, developments are treated in in Vina del Mar; Fernando Vergara Benítez, director of the Budge Library at the relevant chapters. These include the great voyages of exploration and settle- the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Vice Admiral (ret) Kenneth ment; the military campaigns that pressed southwards but finally failed to tame Pugh of the Chilean Navy; John Marsh, Emeritus Professor of Geography the fierce and brave tribes of Araucania; the repressive measures that lead to at Trent University in Canada; Iain Hardy, the British Consul in Valparaíso, the encomienda systems of near slavery in the fields and mines; the priests who who shared his own family history; in California, my long-time friend and strove to outlaw that system; the fight against piracy; the early traders and the colleague Billie Blackhurst; and my enthusiastic publisher Guillermo Burgos corrupt administrators. These represent some, at least, of the most fascinating Cuthbert of Ricaaventura in Santiago. Rhiannon Lewis was kind enough to features of a dramatic epoch that ultimately imploded in the early nineteenth share with me the story of her great-great-uncle, David Davies, who continued century with the independence movements and the painful expulsion of the to serve on one of the Pacific coast mail steamers, commandeered by President Spaniards from the region. Balmaceda, during the 1891 civil war in Chile. I owe a great debt to another old What followed was a grand epoch, the early era of globalization. Yet it did friend and colleague from the United Kingdom, Irene Lally, who yet again has not last long: natural disasters like earthquakes, fires and floods; wars and subjected my text to the rigours of a real journalistic professional, asking all the political crises; financial and commodities market bubbles; and the opening of right questions and insisting on some consistent style. But I should not forget the Panama Canal, all gradually helped eviscerate the foundations of affluent Daniela Martinez, my dear friend and translator for the Spanish edition, who communities. Only in the past two decades has Chile, in particular, reasserted also pointed out discrepancies and errors during her work.