The Mediation of the United States in the War of the Pacific. The Conferences of Arica.

The mediation of the United States in the war of the Pacific

The conferences of Arica

ABSTRACT

In the current dissertation, there is a serious analysis of the War of the Pacific and the mediation of the United States which was consolidated in October 1880 at the Conferences of Arica.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter is about the military and economical situation prior to the conferences. The second chapter focuses on the analysis of the international political situation of the countries involved in the conflict after the victory of Chile in the marine campaign and Tarapaca and the impact of this event in the north American politics. The final chapter consists of a critical analysis of the north American mediation, since the Department of State offered their good offices and mediation until the process of the Conferences of Arica.

INTRODUCTION

Once Chile conducted a military occupation of the Tarapaca’s territory during the War of the Pacific (1879 - 1884), the issue of the nitrate-rich Peruvian region’s destiny arose, in which many economic interests had converged. Peru’s economic situation was already precarious before the confrontation, but its government had all the intentions of paying its external debt from the mining area’s income. A large population of Chilean businessmen had made substantial investments in the mining industry of Peru, making it the second largest production center of nitrate, copper, and guano. The same phenomenon had happened in Tarapaca with Italian, French, English, and German entrepreneurs.

Despite the fact that Peru had been defeated in both land and naval campaigns, and had lost the whole province of Tarapaca after the fall of Arica, Pierola’s government wished for its territory and its foreign capital assets to remain intact, as they were key for repaying the country’s external loans. Chile, on the other hand, considered that the war had damaged the country significantly, making it possible then to ask the defeated countries for a compensation to be used for restoration. In addition, the Chilean government sought some measures to secure the terms of the Treaty of Ancón. The occupation of Arica practically defined the war’s result, having Chile as the victor. Prolonging the conflict would have meant a useless extension of the allies’ resistance and a waste for Chile, exhausting the already drained resources of the country. 

By the end of 1880, Peru and Bolivia acknowledged their military defeat, but were confident on receiving external aid to help them maintain their territories as they were. It was in this context that the United States, considered a great power, took part in the Pacific war. According to the Monroe Doctrine, the US did not want European intervention in the North American hemisphere, since they had already established their own sphere of influence trying to contest monetary hegemony after the Mexican Cession (1848), Civil War (1861 - 1865) and the Spanish-American war (1898), in spite of efforts from some European powers, especially England.

Though the Americans did not have economic interests in Tarapaca, the result of the war was still an issue to them*. A victory for the allies would have meant an interference of European interests in detriment to the North Americans. Thus, the United States intervened in the conflict, precluding any intentions of European countries for mediation.

Despite the need for the belligerent parties to find peace between them after the fall of Arica in favor of Chile, the North American attempt to manage arbitration through the Arica Conference ended up in failure. Failure that resulted in three more years of war which left Peru and Bolivia with no possible armed resistance.

This study tries to determine the reasons for the failure of the Arica Conference, having the preceding situation of the conflict as a starting point of our hypothesis.  This issue generated a series of intricate diplomatic, economic, political, and military relationships, which had such a negative impact on the possible course action on the Arica Conference, wasting and depleting efforts, ideas and arguments. The study also tries to determine how the plenipotentiaries found themselves forced to take an uncompromising position, which led to the mediation’s failure. We also tried to find the reason for the belligerent parties to accept the North American good will to summon a peace conference.  

Other questions we try to answer here refer to the reasons of the belligerent countries to accept the help of the North Americans, as well as their intentions to summon a peace conference. We also question whether the United States’ intermediary role was partial or not, which was the position of European and Latin American countries against the conflict. It has been established that, before the US offered its help, many other countries offered their mediation as well, but none of them materialized. We are also interested in finding out why these countries made these offers.

In an effort to find answers, we will analyze the development of the war until the moment the mediation was offered, as well as the positions and objectives of the Latin American and European countries and the US. It became necessary then to study not only the Conference episode, but also the situation of the Nitrate Resources in Tarapaca before the war. By examining these issues from an economic, military, and political point of view, as well as their evolution, we found it greatly helped to explain the results.

From the point of view of its originality, this investigation is justified, as it shed some light on the issue of why the outcome of the conference was negative. We are not certain why it happened that way or why an opportunity to end the war was lost. After all, these were the elements that led the American intervention to occur. Perhaps, the manner in which the conference was implemented also contributed to its failure, giving us a valuable lesson for the future.

The preliminary steps of the mediation and the Conference of Arica’s final process are the topics we tried to present critically and analytically throughout this research. It was mainly based on the study of primary sources and properly selected complementary bibliography. We were able to acquire documents about the dispatch of North American diplomats and their instructions from the US Department of State thanks to the National Archives Microfilm Publication, Department of State, bringing new light to a process studied rather superficially by some treatise writers of the War of the Pacific.

In the case of Chilean archival sources, this information is still categorized as confidential; hence its consultation was not possible. However, this glitch did not stop the investigation from reaching its final objectives, as the information from other sources filled the blanks.

The method of study conditioned the usage of bibliography and sources, since it was compulsory to resort to the pre-war situation in order to establish the causes for the Conference results, and to continue our study from an economic, diplomatic, political and military point of view. The investigation was organized from general to specific information. In the first chapter we addressed more general issues, continuing with more specific topics in the second chapter, ending with a study of the Conference in the third chapter. This way, our bibliography and source work was naturally organized following the same order from the chapters. Reading from different sources such as newspapers from the time was useful to get a global understanding of the process that led to the result of the conference as well as guiding the investigation. It can be appreciated that, in spite of being well informed about the tracks of the war, such as the position and attitude of the involved parties, these newspapers could not be used in its majority since the source of the information was not mentioned, producing doubts about their credibility. Fortunately, this information was present in a more refined manner in the official documents. For this reason, the latter sources were given a more preferential treatment.

This Book is based on the thesis of Mr…____ to apply for a Master’s degree on History, at Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

Finally, by presenting this document, the author wants to express his thanks to everyone who collaborated on this task. Among these people, and only to mention some, I want to thank the Instituto de Investigacion del Patrimonio Nacional’s Library, from the University of Santiago, Chile, and the National Library Newspaper Section’s personnel.

CHAPTER I

THE WAR OF THE PACIFIC IN 1880

Arbitration and mediation before the War of The Pacific in Chile-Bolivia Relationship

In order to understand the process of US mediation and Conference of Arica, a very important chapter of diplomatic history of the War of the Pacific, we must analyze the origins of the conflict and the actions developed between 1879 and 1880 until Arica Assumption which influenced the results of inclusive administration.

The government of President Bulnes (1841-1851) was the first to establish the limits of Chile in the north and the south.

Between 1842-1843, the northern limit was determined at Mejillones parallel. In October 1842, after discovering the guano deposits, the Law determined that the northern limit consisted of the Mejillones Bay, saying that all guanos located in the Southern area were Chilean property.

The Bolivian government complained about this provision saying that the southern limit of Bolivia consisted of latitude 25. After a long negotiation they solved their issues by signing the Treaty of 1866, which established a dividing line at parallel 24° from the Pacific Ocean to Cordillera Range. Thus, there was an agreement to the division of taxes coming from guano and mineral export which were produced between parallels 23º and 25º south latitude.

According to Gonzalo Bulnes, this treaty had