Abstract
The War of the Pacific has long dominated the historiography of Peruvian–Chilean relations, and with good reason: it was a violent, devastating conflict with consequences that affect the region to this day, and it has persisted in the warring countries’ national memories. The war began over a border dispute between Chile and Bolivia in what is now Chile's northern region of Antofagasta. Although originally sparsely populated and of little importance to either country, thousands of Chileans migrated to the nitrate-rich area beginning in the mid nineteenth century when the mineral became a lucrative item for export. In 1874, after years of altercations and negotiations, Bolivia established a border that the Chilean government accepted in return for a 25-year moratorium on raising taxes. When a new government in Bolivia imposed new taxes on Chilean mining, the Chilean government responded by invading the port of Antofagasta in February 1879. Bolivia declared war on Chile soon after. Peru, meanwhile, had signed a defence pact with Bolivia in 1873 and, although the government attempted to dodge going to war, Chile's declaration of war on both Bolivia and Peru made that impossible, and thus began the War of the Pacific. Peace settlements in 1883 and 1884 did not stop the violence in the area, and Bolivia was forced to concede its access to the sea while Chile gained new territory from both Peru and Bolivia.
While this story seems to be one purely of conflict, Joshua Savala takes a different tack by uncovering cooperation between Peruvians and Chileans before, during and after the war. To do this, he shifts the methodological focus from the land to the sea and, citing Fernand Braudel, looks to the ‘miniature communities’ (10) created by seafaring individuals in what Savala calls the ‘South American Pacific World’ (3). This allows Savala to minimize the emphasis on nationalist sensibilities that has characterized the historiography of the post-independence era in Latin America and reveal the unnoticed stories of the many lives that were not defined by those larger disputes. At the same time, this approach makes for a useful and engaging case study in maritime history for scholars who do not specialize in Latin America, and the book is accessibly written so that students in a variety of courses can enjoy it as well.
The book contains five chapters, an introduction and an epilogue addressing the 2008 Hauge Convention that was tasked with settling the maritime border dispute between Peru and Chile. The chapters are organized thematically rather than chronologically, with time periods often overlapping between the chapters. The first two chapters look at Peru, Chile and the Pacific, exploring the lives of the people who worked on ships. It focuses on Peru's Amazonas, which employed both Peruvians and Chileans, as well as a smattering of workers from other countries. In a detailed social history, Savala traces how people came to work on the ships – both voluntarily and involuntarily – and what working life was like. In the innovative second chapter, Savala digs deeper into these questions by investigating gender, sexuality, race and masculinity on ships. He shows how sexual relationships, including those among men, helped maritime workers build intimate connections and endure life at sea.
Those interested in the history of medicine and science in the maritime world will find Chapters 3 and 5 particularly useful. Chapter 3 looks at the circulation of disease, knowledge and medical supplies during the cholera outbreak of the 1880s, accentuating how Chile and Peru worked together to combat the epidemic and placed science ahead of nationalist disputes. The emphasis on transnational collaboration to manage the cholera outbreak is particularly poignant in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and would be an excellent case study for courses on the history of disease. An intriguing fifth and final chapter investigates the policing of maritime workers in reaction to the explosion of the Pacific world. It delves into the world of criminology, analysing the circulation of knowledge regarding techniques of surveillance and classification of people based on everything from the shape of their noses to the meaning of their tattoos. While we have many studies on criminology, Savala's focus on port cities highlights the importance of the maritime world for understanding both the development of transnational policing and how and why different techniques were applied in specific contexts. At the centre of these projects was protecting the goods on ships from thieves on their journey between the docks and customs house, as well as tracking down sailors who did not return to ship on time. Furthermore, local police were wary of the multinational nature of ship crews, finding foreigners suspicious and hard to control. Maritime and port workers’ growing militancy, largely influenced by anarchism, also caused alarm among port police and the states they served.
The transnational anarchist movement forms a backdrop for much of the book and is given special attention in Chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 4 greatly strengthens the book's central argument in its examination of labour organizing and class solidarity among port workers in Valparaíso, Chile, and Mollendo, Peru, in the early twentieth century. Indeed, anarchism's scepticism of national allegiances informs Savala's approach to the study as a whole.
One of the most impressive aspects of Beyond Patriotic Phobias is the wide array of source material. Savala does painstaking work with conventional sources for social history such as census data from port cities, ship manifests and dispatches, newspapers, and government and navy reports. But the thematic nature of the chapters enables him to explore other sources, such as public health reports on venereal disease, published memoirs, police documents, medical and criminological journals and conference minutes, and anarchist writings – especially those of the celebrated Chilean author Manuel Rojas. Savala uses these documents to piece together the experiences of those who lived, worked and died on ships, and, in the process, created a South American Pacific world that often displaced the nation-state as seafarers’ principal font of identity. While the book firmly establishes various modes of solidarity and cooperation, it does not overlook the quarrels and clashes among Peruvians and Chileans, or the often unbalanced and fluctuating nature of collaboration. Beyond Patriotic Phobias is an original study and fascinating read that scholars and students of many historical subdisciplines surely will find valuable.