On October 8, 1879, at Punta Angamos, the Huáscar lost its last battle. The three ironclads that day had been built in British shipyards, and the greatest fortune of the war was made by a man who didn't fight a single day.
His name was John Thomas North. He arrived in Chile in 1866 as a mechanic and died in London in 1896 as "the King of Saltpeter." While Chile, Peru, and Bolivia were tearing each other apart over the Atacama Desert, North was buying up the saltpeter certificates that Peru had issued in 1875 in Iquique instead of cash. When Chile decided to return the offices to whoever presented these certificates, he had more than anyone else in the world.
In this video: the 1875 expropriation law and the 8% certificates, the British shipyards that armed both sides, Welsh coal, the Gibbs company, the railway and water monopoly in Tarapacá, the nitrate rush on the London Stock Exchange, Balmaceda's speech in Iquique on March 7, 1889, the 1891 civil war, the Santa María school of 1907, the Haber-Bosch method that destroyed natural nitrate, and the cities of Humberstone and Santa Laura, abandoned in 1960 and now a World Heritage Site.
Latin American history without simplistic school narratives. War of the Pacific, nitrate, Tarapacá, Atacama, British capital, and the consequences still visible on the map.
Harold Blakemore, "British Nitrates and Chilean Politics 1886-1896: Balmaceda and North"
William Edmundson, "The Nitrate King: A Biography of Colonel John Thomas North", Palgrave Macmillan
Simon Collier and William F. Sater, "A History of Chile, 1808-1994", Cambridge University Press
José Manuel Balmaceda, speech on the nitrate industry, Iquique, March 7, 1889 (Memoria Chilena, National Library of Chile)
UNESCO, site file for the Humberstone and Santa Laura Nitrate Works, 2005
#WarOfThePacific #Nitrate #LatinAmericanHistory
On October 8, 1879, at Punta Angamos, the Huáscar lost its last battle. The three ironclads that day had been built in British shipyards, and the greatest fortune of the war was made by a man who didn't fight a single day.
His name was John Thomas North. He arrived in Chile in 1866 as a mechanic and died in London in 1896 as "the King of Saltpeter." While Chile, Peru, and Bolivia were tearing each other apart over the Atacama Desert, North was buying up the saltpeter certificates that Peru had issued in 1875 in Iquique instead of cash. When Chile decided to return the offices to whoever presented these certificates, he had more than anyone else in the world.
In this video: the 1875 expropriation law and the 8% certificates, the British shipyards that armed both sides, Welsh coal, the Gibbs company, the railway and water monopoly in Tarapacá, the nitrate rush on the London Stock Exchange, Balmaceda's speech in Iquique on March 7, 1889, the 1891 civil war, the Santa María school of 1907, the Haber-Bosch method that destroyed natural nitrate, and the cities of Humberstone and Santa Laura, abandoned in 1960 and now a World Heritage Site.
Latin American history without simplistic school narratives. War of the Pacific, nitrate, Tarapacá, Atacama, British capital, and the consequences still visible on the map.
Harold Blakemore, "British Nitrates and Chilean Politics 1886-1896: Balmaceda and North"
William Edmundson, "The Nitrate King: A Biography of Colonel John Thomas North", Palgrave Macmillan
Simon Collier and William F. Sater, "A History of Chile, 1808-1994", Cambridge University Press
José Manuel Balmaceda, speech on the nitrate industry, Iquique, March 7, 1889 (Memoria Chilena, National Library of Chile)
UNESCO, site file for the Humberstone and Santa Laura Nitrate Works, 2005
#WarOfThePacific #Nitrate #LatinAmericanHistory