The Atacama Desert in South America is a strange place. There is no rain, but heavy fog. There are almost no animals or plants except some that can live with very, very little amounts of water. But the most interesting thing there is the ground. The ground is made up of many deposits of strange chemicals like chromates, borates, perchlorates, and many other chemicals.
If scientists didn’t see it they would have never believed so many deposits of natural chemicals. The scientists think that these deposits only happened because of the dryness of the area and it could never happen anywhere else in the world. If it did rain microorganisms would have eaten them or they would have been dissolved. This is the only place in the world that there are so many rich deposits of crystallized, rare minerals. The natives call them caliche. This place is also where almost all the natural sodium nitrate in the world is found. Since the guano had all disappeared by that time everyone looked to sodium nitrate. Before guano existed sodium nitrate was suppose to be imported by England to be used as fertilizer, but the ports of Liverpool didn’t allow it to come in because it's a very explosive compound. The crew dumped it into the sea not knowing later it would be very valuable. Since all the guano was gone everyone was rushing to find a new amazing fertilizer. One chemist found out how to make it into saltpeter (saltpeter is from earlier chapters and it is used to make gunpowder). Chemists then figured out how to make this cheap sodium nitrate into to many other compounds like nitric acid used in many explosives like dynamite and nitroglycerine. Even though this sodium nitrate was suppose to help crops instead Europe started to import it to make explosives. Since sodium nitrate could solve many problems like food supply and help with war efforts it became one of the most valuable natural chemicals in the 19th century. Many countries then started to buy the lands of the Atacama desert. All of the countries that had power needed sodium nitrate. Ports and refineries grew in Atacama which made thousands of jobs for Chileans. Many people wanted to make it big, it was like the gold rush, but in South America. The people hired to find the rich deposits were called barreteros. The barreteros were in a very dangerous line of work because many of the deposits were under mounds of rocks that they had to go under by digging trenches. Then the testing of the purity took place. Some of the sodium nitrate was grounded up and was thrown in a fire to see how well it burned (the best sodium nitrate was fifty percent pure). To get it out explosives were put down than calichera dug it up and brought it to the refineries to be sold. The selling of the sodium nitrate was the greatest in the 1870s. Peru needed money so badly at this time they people from foreign nations dig up the sodium nitrate and the made money off of high taxes, fees, and licenses. Iquique became a boom town since this has happened. Many people fought over the land to make businesses because it was close to many deposit sights. Since 12,000 people lived there now the town became a disaster. Full of drunks and hookers. One writer talked about if you happened to find a man there not drunk they were getting there. Many of the sailors that came to the ports when trading decided they wanted to live there instead of go back to their home land. There was drinking, a beach, and so many jobs they just didn’t want to leave their so called paradise. Peru was still not making enough money off this in the end so they took over all the factories so it could make its own saltpeter. The people didn’t like that so there were uprisings and some factories put small armies outside their factories so no one would take it over. Chile didn’t like that peru was taking over the factories because at the time Peru and Chilies were competing for the selling of Sodium nitrate. They both had desserts rich with Sodium Nitrate and they both wanted to make the most money off of it. It got so bad that if Peru bought a warship than chile bought two. But there was a third country trying to make money off the sodium nitrate, Bolivia. Chile's navy was growing so peru and Bolivia became a little scared that they would lose the sodium nitrate so they made a defense pact secretly. This later began the nitrate war of 1879. For Peru the Bolivians were easy to get rid of because their uniforms were bright green, yellow, and red against a desert. The Bolivians had just been taken controlled by the dictator Daza. He was greedy so he raised taxes on the sodium nitrate industry. He wasn’t allowed to do this because a dictator from the past made an agreement with Chilies to not raise taxes on this, but Daza still raised taxes. The Chileans and Englishmen didn’t pay the taxes. Daza then took over the companies that refused. Chile responded by taking over a town. Tough they didn’t kill any Bolivians they let them go to their homes in the mountains, but made them leave. Daza called for war on chile. Peru then joined Bolivia because of their pact.Daza commanded his troops, but he wasn’t a good commander so many of his troops died and he ended up fleeing. They lost all of their sodium nitrate in the end. A few thousand people died in the end of the war. The war was fought on the sea mostly. Chilies had the clear advantage because they had newer and faster ships, but Peru did have some secret weapons like an ironclad Miguel Maria Grau Seminario who was the ironclads captain. Seminerio was a very talented strategist. The port of Iquique was were the war was mostly focused on. Chile blocked the port so Peru couldn’t get its sodium nitrate money. The ironclad was named Huascar and its captain Seminero wanted to break the blockade. Many ships from Chile were sent out to sink the ironclad, but Huascar got by without being seen and when it got there only two ships were holding the blockade together. Another beaten up iron clad named Independencia was with the Huascar at the time. The captain of one another the Chilean ships Prat was a very courageous captain and told his sailors they could still win. Their ship was the Esmerelda. Seminero started to shoot at Prat’s ship. Many Peruvians cheering on the Huascar from the shore started to shoot at the Esmeralda. The Huascar won in the end. Prat ended up dying when him and a sergeant tried to run onto the Huascar. The Esmeralda lost 148 sailors and the Huascar lost one. After this battle the Huascar went around finding ships and taking them over all over the sea. Chile looked about done for until they decided their last hope was to take down the Huascar. Six of Chile's best warships were sent out and finally they found the Huascar and captured it and killed Seminero. About fifteen months later Peru was just about defeated.
It is interesting to see history unfold and repeat itself. Despite being within the same continent of South America, countries like Peru, Chile, and Bolivia in this case are constantly competing for resources to maintain supremacy. It is fascinating to see such a versatile compound that can be used to produce fertilizers and explosives especially being found in such an arid location. I never would have expected these useful mineral deposits in the Atacama Desert.
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