[News] Humberstone, the ghost town that was the center of the Chilean “belle époque”

[Warlock-]

BBC

 

 

 

 

Going to the ghost town of Humberstone, in the Great North of Chile, is like traveling back in time.

 

Although no one has lived or worked here for more than half a century, among its desert alleys you can still see part of the facades of the offices, schools and even a large theater that gave life to this site between 1870 and 1960, when thousands of workers worked for a common purpose: the million-dollar nitrate industry, also called "white gold." They were happy times for this South American country. The enormous demand for the material from industrialized nations of Europe led to a period of great enrichment, which was even called the Chilean "belle epoque."

 

And it is that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, almost all the saltpeter in the world came from the Atacama desert. And for Chile, its importance was vital: it represented between 40% and 60% of its tax revenue. "Chile literally lived on a single product: saltpeter," Julio Pinto, a historian from the University of Santiago, told BBC Mundo.

 

Shanks system

 

It all emerged in 1866, when the Chilean explorer José Santos Ossa discovered saltpeter deposits in the Salar del Carmen, near the city of Antofagasta. At that time, these lands belonged to Bolivia, but Santos Ossa obtained a permit authorizing him to extract the mineral for 15 years. Later, in 1982, the main and best known nitrate headquarters in the area was built: the Humberstone Saltpeter Office, originally called La Palma.

 

At its peak, between 1900 and 1929, this place located about 50 kilometers from Iquique (Tarapacá Region), was home to around 3,500 people, which meant a great demographic mobility of Chileans to the north, which later it was enriched by different waves of migration, especially from Peru and Bolivia. Here its inhabitants forged a specific community culture of the "pampinos" that is, of those who inhabit the desert zone of northern Chile, characterized by their linguistic expression and their pioneering struggle for social justice due to the difficult working conditions in Chile. one of the most arid and hostile areas on the planet. The business model behind the nitrate mill was based on the Shanks system, developed by James Humberstone (nicknamed "Don Santiago" by workers in the area), a British chemical engineer who emigrated to South America in 1875 and where the name comes from. of this ghost town. The procedure considered dissolving "caliche", the nitrate-rich desert crust, at high temperature in order to extract sodium nitrate, a fertilizer that transformed agriculture in America and Europe, providing Chile with considerable wealth. In this way, the Briton managed to build a fortune based on one of the largest extractors of "white gold" in the world, employing thousands of people and setting up a business that was an engine of development for the surrounding regions.

 

Pacific War The

 

saltpeter was so important to the Chileans that they were willing to go to war for it. Despite the fact that the independence of the countries of Chile, Peru and Bolivia took place in 1810, 1821 and 1825, respectively, the borders were not completely defined.

 

In the 1870s, many of the nitrate towns belonged to Bolivian territory despite the fact that most of the companies operating in the area were Chilean backed with British investment. The problem was unleashed when the Bolivian government imposed a tax of 10 cents per quintal of exported nitrate under a private transaction contract. Chile, then, decided to invade its territory in protest and arguing that it violated a commercial treaty signed in 1874. This agreement established that Bolivians would not increase taxes on nitrate for 25 years, that is, until 1899. The conflict that broke out and that involved Peru, an ally of Bolivia, is what is known today as the War of the Pacific (or Guano and Salitre War), which took place between 1879 and 1884, and is considered one of the bloodiest in the history of Latin America. The Chilean victory moved its border northward, annexing a large strip of nitrate-rich territory. This left Bolivia without 120,000 square kilometers of territory and 400 kilometers of coastline, according to historians' estimates. "The saltpeter was fundamental to the war," said historian Julio Pinto. "Once it had started, the main objective of the Chilean government was the permanent occupation of the Bolivian province of Antofagasta and the Peruvian province of Tarapacá," he says.