124 Grau
El conflicto entre Bolivia y Chile The conflict between Bolivia and Chile Las relaciones entre estos dos países habían llegado a su límite, a
Relations between the two countries had reached their limit, to a breaking
un punto de resquebrajamiento sin retroceso. Esto, como resultado
point of no return. This, as the result of continuous disagreements over
de continuos desacuerdos por la concesión, exonerada de pago de
concession, exempted from taxes, that Chile had obtained, years before, for
impuestos, que había obtenido Chile, años antes, para la explotación,
the exploitation, on an exclusive basis, of the deposits of niter and borax in
en exclusividad, de los yacimientos de salitre y bórax en el entonces
the then Bolivian department of Atacama. In this rarefied context, general
departamento boliviano de Atacama. En este contexto enrarecido,
Hilarión Daza heads a coup d’état in 1876 and becomes president of Bolivia.
el general Hilarión Daza encabeza un golpe de Estado en 1876 y
On February 14, 1878, the Bolivian government creates a tax of ten cents per quintal of niter exported. This situation produces a conflict in Chile, as the fact is qualified as unacceptable by the affected entrepreneurs from the Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta, created with Chilean and British capital, which had the backing of the Chilean government. It is interesting to consider that the great wealth of the Bolivian territory had already been discovered: niter and borax deposits on the littoral and generous silver mines in the Caracoles area. In this respect, Guillermo Thorndike’s assessment in his book The mansion of the heroes is must illustrative, as he sates: «Beyond the rights invoked by Bolivia, Antofagasta was closer to Valparaíso than from La Paz. With a population of six thousand inhabitants, five thousand were Chilean and two thousand of them worked directly for the company owned by English and
Fronteras de Bolivia antes de la Guerra del Pacífico. Bolivia’s borders before the War of the Pacific.