Mathew- Guano Export

A Primitive Export Sector: Guano Production in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Peru

W. M. Mathew

Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1. (May, 1977), pp. 35-57.

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1. Lat. ilnter. Stud, 9 , I , 35-57 Printed in Great Britain

A Primitive Export Sector: Guano Production in Mid-Nineteenth- Century Peru "

by W. M. M A T H E W

This paper sets out to examine the way in which guano was dug and removed from the Chincha islands in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Peruvian trade was in its most buoyant phase. We shall, in fact, be looking at the physical operation of an entire export sector, up to the point at which the commodity left the shores of Peru for the farms of Western Europe and North America.

What sorts of institutional arrangements governed guano extraction and loading? What size of labour force was required, and how was it recruited? How were the workers treated, and what range of tasks were they required to perform? Mihat were the costs of guano removal? What was the scale of inefficiency and waste? These are some of the questions to which answers will be sought. The main concern overall, however, will be with the general economic implications of the system of extraction. Material used in the body of the paper will be brought together in the final section in an attempt to evaluate the impact of guano production on the Peruvian economy at large.'

It is intended that at least three very important points should be established. First, that the export sector was a remarkably primitive one in terms of the production techniques employed and of the size, treatment and remuneration of the labour force. Second, that because of this, the positive, direct effects

* The rescarch for the article was financed by the Universities of East Anglia and Leicester, the Nuffield Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Valuable suggestions for improvement to the paper, when it was in draft form, were offercd by Dr W. I. Albert of the University of East Anglia.

1 Most of these questions have been treated only very briefly by Peruvian historians, and discussion of them in English has been either partial or cursory. Watt Stewart in Chinese Bondage in Peru (Durham N.C., 1951)provides a mass of information on labour recruitment and passage from China, and on the life of the Chinese in Peru, but has very little to say about guano work specifically. J. V. Levin in The &port Economies (Cambridge, Mass., 1960) presents a fair body of facts and statistics and some useful comment on the very limited direct impact of Chincha enterprise on the Peruvian economy, but his observations scarcely represent a comprehensive evaluation of the loading system.

of extraction from the Chincha islands on the Peruvian economy were very slight indeed. Third, that the crudeness of the sector was the principal reason why the Peruvian government, almost uniquely in nineteenth-century back- ward economies, was able to take the bulk of net receipts from staple-exporting "a fact of the greatest significance for any assessment of the trade'j impact on the Peruvian economy).

There are - in the words of an American observer in the 1850s - three of the Chincha Islands, lying in a line, AT. and S., the passages between them being less than half a mile. The wind is always S. and E. and it is never lcnown to rain. The North island is the largest. It is nearly circular, and about one third of a mile in diameter, and about one hundred feet high. Some parts of the coast are steep, high cliffs, and others sandy and roclry coves of gradual ascent from the shore. The heap of guano continues to deepen to the highest point of the island, where it is one huncired feet in depth. Fancy a large, old-fashioned loaf of brown bread, laid on a table but little larger than the base of the loaf, and you can pretty nearly see the pile of guano on either island . . . The second island is similar in size and pile to the one described. The third one has not been touched yet. It is much smaller, but well 10aded.~

O n these miniscule territories, fourteen miles from the mainland and ilinety miles to the south of the Peruvian capital, was located virtually the entire productive effort behind the guano trade. From them, millions of tons of what was then the world's most highly-prized fertilizer were carried away by flects of European and American vessels. In the first decade of the trade, the 184os, responsibility for digging and loading the guano and supplying the necessary manpowel and equipment was placed in the hands of the men who held the export contract^.^ Article 5 of one of the earliest of these arrangements, drawn up in February 1842 and covering all guano exports, stipulated that the merchants should meet every expense connected with guano removal at the islands, and reimburse themselves from the proceeds of the sales they effected in overseas rnarke t~ .~ The merchants. however, managed largely to keep their distance from the islands. These offered a bleak and acrid environ- ment, and there were many other commercial matters to be attended to in the

2 See, for example, Levin, Export Economies, p. 113, and graph and figures in W. M. Mathew; . Peru and the British Guano Market, 1840-1870 ', Economic History Review, 2nd ser., xxiii, No. I (rg;o), pp. 120, 127.

3 ' Interesting from the Chincha Islands ', Soztthern Planter, xv, No. I (Jan. 1855), p. 20.

4 For general details on the early export contracts, see W. M. Mathew, ' Foreign Contractors and the Peruvian Government at the Outset of the Guano Trade ', Hispanic -4merican His- to~icaz Review; 1.11, NO. 4 (Nov. 1972): passim.

5 P. Ernilio Dancuart, Anales de la Hacienda Pdblica del Perd, tomo 111 (Litna, 1903), P. 156.

A Primitive Export Sector 37

more congenial surroundings of Lima and Callao. Two of the exporters, Barroilhet and Dutez, seem to have supervised some of the loading in the early 1840s~~ but the bulk of the business over the decade was placed in the hands of subcontrac~ors. Of these, a Chilean by the name of Cipriano Rom6n features most pr~minent ly.~

The system of parcelling up production and trade in a single enterprise was brought to an end in 1849 when the government of Ram6n Castilla decided to draw up its own separate contracts with loaders. Tenders were invited in October of that year, and the concession awarded shortly after to Domingo Elias, an important figure in the political life of rhe country and the owner of extensive hacie~zdas on the mainland opposite the guano islands.' The arrangement was to run for six years. Ellas had hoped that the government would pay him 18 reales (nine shillings) per register ton for his services, but in the end had to settle for the 12-real rate at which it seems the export contractors had formerly reimbursed Cipriano R ~ m i n . ~ His success in acquiring the extraction business is probably to be explained by his political influence and his command, as a major plantation owner, of a substantial labour force.1° ' It was calculated at the time ', Henry Witt l1 wrote in his diary, ' that as Don Domingo would make use of his negro slaves, not of free labourers to whom he would have to pay wages, the loading would leave him an annual profit of $30,000.' His profit expectations increased as time went by. In August 1851, there was an easing of his responsibility for making demurrage payments to vessels whose loading had been unduly delayed, and he was given the right to claim compensation for filling vessels whose effective- tonnage (cargo weight) was more than 33 per cent greater than ?heir register- tonnage.13 In April 1852. his remuneration was raised from 12 to 15 reales

6 Suggested by the ' Cuenta de 10s Sefiores Dutey (sic) y Barroilet (sic) ' in Exposicion que Don fiwncisco Quiros y Don Aquzles Allier Elevan a1 Soberano Congreso (Lima, 1845), pp. 19-20.

' Ibid., p. 19; Sicolris de Pierola, Injorme sobre el estado del carguio de huano en las Islas de Chincha, y sobve el cumplimiento del contrato celebmdo con D . Dominyo Elias (Lima, 1853), pp. g, 29-30. Pi6rola was father and namesalie of the future Peruvian president (1879-81,

1895-9). 8 See Evaristo San Cristbval, Apendice a1 Diccionario Histdrico-Biogm6fco del Per6 (Lima,

1g31), n,83-5; Jorge Basadre, Historia de la Repdblica del Perzi (Lima, 1946 ed.), tomo I, p. 7.49; Levin, Export Economies, p. 87, n. 182.

9 Contract reproduced in Pierola, Injorme, pp. 20-3; see also p. 28. 10 Rombn's success was against some competition, it appears. A North American journal observed

in 1857 that a certain Mr Lloyd had offered to do the loading at the much lower rate of around four reales per ton. Hunt's iVerchants' Magazine, xxxvx~, KO. 5 (1857), p. 574.

11 For many years in the management of the Gibbs house in Lima; later a guano contractor in his own right. Diaries of Henry Witt (hereinafter Witt Diaries), vol. IV, 19 to 27 Oct. 1849. (Manuscript in possession of Sra. Eloyda Garland Melirin de Montero, Lima.)

13 Pikrola, Informe, pp. 22-3.

per register ton because of the alleged expense of separating inferior darkened material from the guano after it had been dug. The extra labour here, according to a report prepared by Nicolas de Pitrola, was inconsequential and did not merit anything like a 25 per cent increase in charges on all guano loaded.14 The same document also accused Elias of failing to meet a number of other obligations in his contract, one of which was that charges be lowered to nine reales after the building of a short rail track at government expense in 1851-z.15

O n 23 December 1853 the Elias arrangement was terminated.16 The contractor had fallen foul of the incumbent Echenique administration," and his removal was no doubt assisted by Pitrola's unfavourable report, delivered to the government two months earlier. In January 1854 his responsibilities were transferred to the principal guano exporters, William Gibbs & Co.,lS and the system of remuneration altered.'' Elfas had charged a flat rate and made profit from the differential between this and his costs.20 Gibbs, on the other hand, met all the expenses on government account, taking a small commission for their trouble.

The Government has agreed that while William Gibbs & Co. are in Charge they are to receive 3/4 of a Real [4$ pence] per Register Ton loaded at the Islands, which is a moderate charge for their intervention, and they will have to take care that the expenses are sufficiently reduced to make the arrangement a good one for the Government . . .21

Government control through Gibbs prevailed only briefly. With Castilla's return to power early in 1855, following a rebellion that Elias had himself helped instigate,22 the old loading contract was quicltly revived. A decree was issued in March by the finance minister, S. E. Galvez, stating that matters would be placed ' in the same state as they were in before the contract was annulled, returning to D. Domingo Elias the price of each ton of guano

14 Ibid., pp. 12-3, 22-3. 1 5 Ibid., pp. 15, 22.

1 6 Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office Archives, Peru (hereinafter F.O. 61), 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.

17 F.O. 611148, Sulivan to Clarendon, 25 June 1854. 18 Lima branch of the London house of Antony Gibbs & Sons. 1Winisterio de Hacienda, Lima. Archivo Historico (hereinafter Arch. Hist.), Aiio de 1853.

Correspond.a con 10s consign at.^ del Huano y Gobor. de las Islas de Chincha. Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 14 Jan. 1854. See also F.O. 611147, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sept. 1854 and F.O. 611148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.

2 0 F . 0 . 611148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854. 2 1 Guildhall Library, London, Antony Gibbs & Sons, Ltd., Business Archives. Copy-hook of

in-letters addressed to William Gibbs, 1854-5 (hereinafter William Gibbs Corr.), Henry Huclis Gibbs to William Gibbs, 31 Aug. 1854. See also ibid., 5 Feb. 1855 and Arch. Ilist., Correspond.n con 10s Consignant.s . . . ,Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 15 July 1854.

22 San Crist6va1, Apendice, 11, 85.

A Primitiue Export Sector 39

removed after he was deprived of his loading rights.. .' 23 Elias, a leading force in the new administration, no doubt helped formulate the decree, grasp- ing loading profits on guano he had never had a hand in extracting and on which commissioils had already been paid out. As Galvez's successor at the finance ministry, he was prepared to tolerate this small additional burden on the exchequer. It is difficult, however, to determine how long he retained the contract. It would seem likely that the March decree was largely a compensa- tory device and that he quit the business shortly after its enactment. In 1857, he left Peru to serve for a brief spell as Minister Plenipotentiary in Paris." According to Henry Witt, guano loading after 1855 was performed by Andrks Alvarez Calder6n ": ' how many years he attended to it I do not remember, but what I know is that whilst Jose Balta was President [1868-721, he left Peru for Europe as Peruvian Chargt in Italy and with a fortune of several millions of dollars, all made by the loading of the vessels. I merely mention this to show how everything has gone on increasing in Peru. In 1849 Elias was satisfied with $jo,ooo annually. Ten years later Andrks Calder6n made hundreds of thousands every year.' 2 6 Calder6n apparently held the contract until February 1869.~' Its precise terms are not clear, but if Witt is correct they could hardly have been less generous than those enjoyed by Elias. His successor was the Guano Loading Company. Again, very little material is available on this enterprise, but there are indications that Calder6n retained a masked share of the b~siness. '~

The system as it worked did not require the loading contractors to be present on the islands. The daily management of affairs in such desolate terrain was usually left in other hands. Information on the people who exercised direct control over digging and loading is fragmentary and a little confusing. We read of a comnzandante being in residence on the north island in the early 1850s : ' a military-looking old gentleman ', by one account "; ' as thorough an old scoundrel in his way as Peru can produce ', according to another.30 He was the principal government representative and the officer in

23 Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha. Libro copiador de la correspondencia del Gobernador de las islas con 10s nzznisterios. Galvez to Vargas, 27 Mar. 1855.

24 San Crist6va1, Apendice, 11, 85. 25 Levin gives the later date of 1862 for the transfer, but omits to cite a substantiating source.

Export Economies, p. 89. 26 Witt Diaries, vol. IV, 19 to 27 Oct. 1849. 2 7 Correspondencia de 10s Signatories del Contrafo de Consignation para la Venfa del Guano

en la Gran Brefaiia y 524s Colonias, Dirigida a' 10s SS . I . Thomson, T . Bonar y Compa%ia [no date or place of publication given], (hereinafter Thomson Bonar Corr.), Canevaro to Thomson Ronar fi: Co., 13 Feb. 1869.

2 8 73.0.61/249, Jerninghatn to Stanley, 24 Dec. 1868. 2 9 ' The Guano Diggings ', Household Words, VI, No. 131 (Sept. 18 jz), p. 44. 30 ' Chincha Islands ', Littell's Living Age, 2nd ser., IV, No. 506 (28 Jan. 18j4). p. 216.

40 W. M. Mathew

charge of the soldiers stationed on Chincha. There were some petty officials too, required, it seems, to spend only twelve months at a time in service there.31 At the end of 1853, coincident with the abrupt termination of the Elias contract, a governor was appointed,32 but we cannot say for sure what functions additional to those of a commandante he had to perform. Almost certainly, however, rhe post represented some attempt at closer official control over affairs at Chincha. The guano trade was growing rapidly at the time and greatly increasing in importance as a source of government revenue.33 Prior to 1854, at least, there were also overseers present. One of these, Carlos Kossuth, was in effective command at the middle island in the early 18jos, his regime being characterised by much capriciousness in the loading of the ships.34 AS we shall see later, there were also excesses of cruelty in the treatment of the resident labour force.

I11

There was little voluntary movement of workers to the guano islands. People usually had to be placed there and coercively retained. In the first decade of the trade, convicts and army deserters were made available to the contractors, to perform the simple but very laborious tasks of digging and loading. Slaves were also used and a number of men from Peru and Chile went out as free wage-labourer~.~~

A major turning point in recruitment came in 1849 wirh the introduction of indentured workers from China.36 Their arrival coincided, not accidentally, with the award of exclusive extraction rights to Domingo Elias, and within a short space of time they were to become the principal element in the Chincha labour force. Plantaltion owners in Peru, of whom Elias was one of the most prominent, had been troubled for some time by problems of labour shortage on the mainland. On 17 November 1849, led by Elias, they had a bill passed granting a 30-peso per head subsidy to anyone who brought in more than jo immigrants between the ages of 10 and 40.~' Elias and a fellow hacendado,

3 1 Pierre Larousse, Dictionaire Ufziversel dzr XIXe SiPcle (Paris, 1866), p. 1574. 32 Arch. Hist., lslas Clzzncha . . . ,Paz Soldan to Lagomacino, 23 Dec. 18j3. " See, inrer alia, C. A. McQueen, Peruvian Public Finance (Washington, 1926), pp. 5-6, 37. 34 ' Chincha Islands ', pp. 213, 216. " Levin, Export Eco?zomies, p. 86; Memorial [from James Turnbull and eight other British

shipmasters] to the Lords of the Privy Council of Trade, 27 June 1854, British Parliamentary Papers, 1854-55, xxxrx (hereinafter Shipmasters' Memorial), p. 187.

3 6 1849, it might be noted, also saw the ending of the slave trade in Peru (which had become by mid-century largely inter-regional rather than international). More serious, however, as a cause of labour-supply difficulties along the coast was the abolition of the whole institution of slavery in 1855.

3 7 Levin, Export Economies, p. 87; Stewart, Chinese Bofzdilge, pp. 11-13.


Juan Rodriguez, were also awarded a four-year monopoly on the introduction of coolies into the departments of Lima and La Libertad.38 Within a month or two, therefore, Elias had secured two distinctly profitable privileges : the right to import labourers and claim a subsidy for doing so, and the right to remove guano from the Chincha islands. The two fused when he decided to make use of the Chinese for guano digging. The Peruvian government also allowed him to employ convicts, army deserters and conscripts, and, as antici- pated, he brought over some of his slaves from the mainland.39 In 1853 the working population was apparently about 70 per cent Chinese and 6 per cent slave.40 The remainder was not made up exclusively of soldiers and convicts : there were still -some free wage-labourers around.41 In June 1857, for example, seventeen men left Callao of their own volition to seek employment at the islands.42 Apart from diggers and loaders, there was a quite separate body of independent tradesmen, doing jobs connected with provisioning, ship repairs, construction, and other activities ancillary to guano removal. There were over 150 such people at Chincha around 1 8 5 7 . ~ ~

Given the scale of the fertilizer trade (with exports totalling around 3,4oo,ooo tons in the 1850s and 4,230,000 in the 186os),~~ the guano labour force was surprisingly small. In 1852, one report of a visit to the Chinchas (probably undertaken some years earlier) cited about 280 workmen, ' nearly all Indians '.45 For 1853, Pitrola suggested a figure of about 850, of whom 599 were Chinese : a number insufficient, he considered, for the tasks in hand.46 An American visitor in 1853 indicated a coolie population of around 800." The Gibbs' house noted fresh Asiatic arrivals in 1854.~' In the following year, however, they complained of a somewhat irregular exodus : Elias had come

38 Levin, Export Economies, p. 87; Basadre, Histovia, I, 236. 39 Pi(rola, In,forme, pp. 4, 11; Levin, Export Economzes, p. 88; F.O. 611148, Lagomacino to

Gomez Sanchez, 22 June 1854; Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854; ibid., Peruvian government decree of Ij Sept. 1854.

40 Pierola, In]orme, p. 11.

41 Ibid., p. 11; Levin, Export Economies, p. 88; Shipmasters' Memorial, p. 188. 42 Arch. Hist., lslas Chincha . . . , Zevallos to Governor of Chincha, 13 June 1857. 43 Ibzd., list of names and occupations at the end of correspondence for 1857. See also ' An

Interesting Visit to a Guano Island ', Farmer's Magazine, 3rd ser., VI, No. 5 (Nov. 1854).

P. 399. 44 Cdlculated from figures in Shanc J. Hunt, ' Price and Quantum Estimates of Peruvian

Exports, 1830-1962 ' (unpublished discussion paper, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Jan. 1973), pp. 57-9.

45 ' The Guano Diggings ', p. 45. 46 Pierola, Informe, pp. 11, 19. 47 ' Chincha Islands ', p. 214. 48 William Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 31 Aug. 1854. See also Arch.

IIist., correspond.^ Con los consign at.^ del Huano .. ., Mendiburu to William Gibbs &

Co., I Aug. 1854.

over to the islands and carried off forty-five of the best hands to his plantations on the mainland.49 In 1555, other reports indicated a Chinese work force of 600.'~ In October 1857, a Captain Bulford called at the Chinchas and reckoned that the Chinese then numbered about 800,~' but in the same year the British charge! d'aflaires set the figure at only 5j0.j2 Stewart suggests, although without substantiation, that numbers increased quite significantly in the 1860s." In 1856, however, an informed British observer set tbe total no higher than 680.'"

These figures indicate that manpower requirements at the islands were very modest by the normal standards of nineteenth-century export sccrors. It should not have been impossible, had decent living facilities been provided and a generous wage policy implemented, to attract a suficient number of free workers LO the islands." But the Peruvian government, (which could gain a clear net return of over X 8 a ton, depending on freights and market ~rices), was only re pared to pay out r7//9pesos or 7s Gd on the removal costs of each register ton, and out of this the loading contractors had to find their profits. These, if Henry Witt is to be believed, were very substanti~l.

The Chinese were not slaves in any legal sense of the term. In taking on certain contractual obligations, 9,000 miles away in China, they did, nonetheless, place themselves in the hands of men who, both in transporting and in employing them, could for the most part treat them as arbitrarily and as harshly as they wished. The arrangement was a typical one for indentured labour: an advance for passage to the place of employment, followed by a stipulated period of work and repayment of the money lent.5Wost of the trade was conducted through the port of Macao," and, in Stewart's view, the Taiping rebellion was a major factor activating the emigration." In theory, the Chinese freely entered into certain written agreements concerning their transportation and their work in Peru. In practice, however, there occurred a good deal d coercion and deception. There was common resort to crimping

49 T17i11iarn Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucits Gibbs to William Gibbs, j Apr. 1 8 j i Some Chinese also left of their own accord. In 1854 more than 40 escaped to Lima. Arch. Hist., Corres-p o n d . ~... ,Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., I Aug. 1854.

5 0 The l'imes, 12 Jan. 1855, P. 8; ' The Conduct of the Guano Trade ', Farmer's hlngazine, 3rd ser., vn, No. 3 (Mar. 18jj), p. 209.

51 ' The Origin of Guano ', Farmer's Magazine, 3rd ser., XI^, No. I (July 1858), 38. 5 2 F.O. 611174 Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857. 53 Stewart, Chtnese Bondage, p. 84. See also Levin, Export Economies, p. 90. 5* Report of Lionel Bonar, in F.O. 611233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866. " This c e r r ~ i n l ~ w n s the view of the nine British captains who memorialized the Privy Council

of Trade in 1854. See Shipmasters' Memorial, p. 187. 56 Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 24. 5 7 Ibid.. p. 17. 5* Ibid. , pp. 14-15.


and kidnapping.'"ome were ' inveigled to the islands . . .under specious promises '." Many, no doubt, quit China in a state of total ignorance about Peru (some possibly not even knowing that that was their destination)," although as early as 1854 news was filtering back across the Pacific about the realities of life and work there. ' The Guano Islands ', wrote a Peruvian consular official in Canton in February 1854, ' are represented as so many prisons where the Chinese are maltreated. Up to a point this cannot be denied for want of proof and more so as the Captains of Peruvian Vessels themselves, who come with Guano to return with Chinese, give such information.' "

The duration of the indenture contracts probably varied a good deal. Some sources suggest a normal period of three years, some suggest five; most others indicate eight." The labourer was required to do whatever work was asked of him, remain where he was empl~yed ,~ ' and rcpay his debt by small monthly in~talments.'~The indenture agreement was transferable : the Peruvian party, according to Stewart, ' could at will sign his contract over to another individual and . . . the coolie could be put at any type of work . . .' C6 It was also possible, apparently, for the Chinese to buy their way out of their inden- tures: ' those who dcny themselves an addition to their coarse fare can accumulate their pay . . . until it amounts to 80 dollars," when they can. . . purchase their emancipation, and, after being ~araded about in holiday clothes, can . . .find their way to Callao.' "

Ibid., pp. 39, 71; F.O. 611198, Russell to Barton, 3 Mar. 1862; Shipmasters' Memorial,

pp. 187-8. A. J. Duffield, The Prospects of Peru (London, 1881), p. 46; Levin, Expo~t Economies, p. 88. ' The Chincha Islands ', Natrtical Magazine and Naval Chronicle (Apr. 1856), 11. 182.

61 See, for example, Tennent to Wodehouse, 4 ilug. 1854, in British Parliamentary Papers, 1854-55, xxx~x ,191; ' Chincha Islands ', p. 214.

" In F.O. 611148, dated 11 Feb. 1854. Conditions on the passage to Peru may also have had a deterrent effect. Overcrowding was acute, nourishment poor, diseases rife, discipline harsh, mutinies common, and the mortality rate high. See Stewart, Chinese Bondage, pp. 18, 62; H. B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (London, 1918), It, 172; Witt Diaries, IV, 27 June 1850 and I to 3 Feb. 1851; F.O. 611197, Barton to Russell, 14 Nov. 1861; F.O. 611233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866; F.O. 611255, Jerningham to Clarendon, 13 iiug. 1869.

6 3 ' T h e Chincha Islands ', p. 82, ' Chincha Islands ', p. 214; Levin, Export Economzes, p. 88; Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 24; Thomas J. Hutchinson, Tzuo Years in Peru (London, 1873)~p. 248; Arch.Hist., Correspond.n con 10s Consixnat.s del Huano . . . , Mendiburu to William Gibb & Co., I July 1854; F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.

64 Guards were stationed on the islands to prevent escape from foreign vessels. ' The Guano Islands ', Chambers' Journal, xv, No. 367 (12 Jan. 1861), 17.

6s Stewart, Chinese Bondage, pp. 24, 43. " Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 82. 67 The same figure was cited in an American journal in 1855 as the amount of the original

' loan ' for passage. ' Interesting from the Chincha Islands ', p. 20.

6 8 Shipmasters' Memorial, p. 188.

44 W . M. Mathew

' Most people ' wrote a correspondent of rhe Nautical Magazine in 1856, ' have heard of the fertilizing virtues of guano. . .but few probably are aware that the acquisition of this deposit, which enriches our lands and fil!s the purses of our traders, entails an amount of misery and suffering on a portion of our fellow creatures, the relation of which, if not respectably attested, would be treated as a fiction.' The condition of the contract labourer, it was suggested in a letter to rhe Morning C/zronicle the year before, ' seems to realise a state of torment which we could hardly have conceived it possible for man to enact against his fellow man '.70 The sense of outrage was shared by a large number of mariners whose ships called at the guano islands in the early- and mid-1850s.

The two main charges were overwork and brutality. ' They are compelled, each man, young and old, strong and weak ', wrote the iMorning Chronicle correspondent, ' daily to work five tons of guano. . .' This same figure was cited by Admiral Moresby in his report on the Chincha workings of Septem- ber 1853 and by an American visitor, George Washington Peck, in November of the same year.72 It also appears in other, later, accounts by North American observer^.^^ It may, nonetheless, have been an exaggerated estimate. Pierola cites a quota of four tons (80 sacks or 80 barrowloads) for 1 8 5 3 . ~ ~ One of the overseers at Chincha reported in 1854 rhat contract labourers were obliged to deliver only three tons each day.73 In 1866 the British consul at Callno, John Barton, wrote of a two-ton daily Considering, however, that the labourer had not only to dig these amounts but usually move them to the cliff-top shoots as well, the work was unquestionably onerous, even on the lower quotas. ' I seem to see them at their work ', recalled George Washing- ton Peck, ' their slender figures quivering under the weight of loads too heavy for them to wheel ' " The larger the amount, the harsher was ?he system of discipline needed to keep up the tempo of extraction. Physical cruelty was preferred to imprisonment; sentences of any duration would have meant loss of labour and perhaps a welcome rest for the worker. ' It is in the interes:~ of

' The Chincha Islands ', p. 181. 7 0 Reproduced in ' The Conduct of the Guano Trade ', pp. 208-9. " Ibid. 7 V h e Times, 7 Dec. 1853, p. 12; ' Chincha Islands ', p. 214. 7:g The Times, 12 Jan. 1855, p. 8; De Bow's Commercial Review, xrx (1855), 220; ' Chincha

Islands ', p. 214; ' Interesting from the Chincha Islands ', p. 20.

7 4 Pierola, Inlorme, p. 4. 7 5 F.O. 611148, Overseer of Works to Lagomacino, 21 June 1854. 7 6 F.O. 611233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866. " Quoted in Robert Cushman Murphy, Bird Islands of Pert: (New Yorlc and London, ~ g z j ) ,


good order, humanity and religion that rhe wretched Chinamen of the middle island be treated with less severity . . .' wrote Pierola in 1853.~'' I have known as many as 30 flogged in one day ', wrote a Korth American ~bserver.~' The degree of barbarity, commented another, was ' unparalleled '." A corres-pondent of the Daily News wrote of the ' horrible howling constantly heard on the islands ' and listed a variety of ' devilish ' and often greatly protracted punishn~ents inflicted for even the most trivial of offences.*' In 1854 a group of English sea-captains sent a memorial to the Lords of the Privy Council of Trade documenting the ' murderous cruelty ' which they had witnessed. Heavy floggings were a particular source of concern.82 In direct response, the British foreign secretary, Lord Clarendon, wrote to chargk Sulivan express- ing his disgust at ' the revolting atrocities ' that were apparently being prac- tised. If the Peruvian government failed to bring the abuses to an end, he warned, the British government would undertake to protect ' these victims of brutal cupidity '. Instructions were being senit to the naval forces on the Pacific station to look into the matter ' and at once to adopt such measures for the protection of the Chinese and the punishment of the overseers and others as humanity and justice may demand ' . 8 3

Sulivan raised the matter with the Peruvian foreign minister and with Samuel Went, head of the Gibbs house. Both parties agreed that things had been bad in the past under Elias and his overseeers. They asserted, however, that following Elias's demise significant improvements had taken place.*" The two overseers, including the notorious Carlos Kossurh,*j had been dis- missed and enquiries begun concerning the latter's c ~ n d u c t . ~ T h e worst excesses, according to Samuel Went, had, in fact, occurred after August 1853 when Elias had been prohibited from visiting the islands and total control had fallen into the overseers' hands.b7 William Gibbs ~r Co.'s first priority when they took over, Went claimed, had been the amelioration of the con-

7 8 Pikrola, Informe, p. 18. 7 9 The Times, 12 Jan. 1855, p. 8. According to Peck, flogging of worliers took place ' almost

constantly '. Murphy, op. cit., p. 112. See also ' The Guano Islands ', p. 18; ' The Conduct of the Guano Trade ', pp. 208-9.

80 De Bow's Comnzercial Review, xrx (1855), 220. 81 Quoted in ' The Chincha Islands ', p. 182. See also comments of ' A New Zealand Settler '

in Nazctical Magazine and Naval Chronicle (Apr. 1856), pp. 183-4. 8 2 Shipmasters' Memorial, pp. 187-9. 8 q . O . 611144, Clarendon to Sulivan, 15 July 1854. 84 F.O. 611147, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sept. 1854. 8s A Hungarian who apparently had borrowed the surname of his celebrated compatriot Ferencz

Kossuth, and claimed, indeed, to be his brother. See Pierola, op. cit., p. 18, and ' Chincha Islands ', p. 213.

86 Arch. Hist., lslas Chincha . . . , Paz Soldan to Governor of Chincha, 9 Feb. 1854. F.O. 611148, Went to Sulivan, Z I Sept. 1854.

ditions of labour on the islands." The Chinese, he told Sulivan in September 1854, had lately improved much in appearance, behaviour and e f f i c i enc~ .~~ Wages, as we shall see, were raised, and Went claimed credit for this." A hospital was also set up and placed under the charge of a British doctor, the immediate purpose being the treatment of casualties of a contagion which had broken out in Lima and spread to the islands." Sulivan also asked John Barton, the British consul at Callao, to make a report on conditions at Chincha. Barton made enquiries from the masters of vessels that had just come in from the islands : ' he assures me,' wrote Sulivan, ' . . . that he does not hear of any cases of injustice or cruelty, and some persons whom I have seen and w11o are lately arrived from the Chincha Islands, represent the state of the Chinese labourers as good and satisfactory '." In Sulivan's view, circumstances had certainly changed and British intervention was no longer necessary. H e had fears about Elias's possible ~ e t u r n , ~ b u t , when this occurred, reported no lapse back into barbarity. He visited the Chinchas in the summer of 1857 and witnessed nothing about which he felt compelled to complain.Q4

This was all sufficient to relieve London's concern, and it can probably be taken as indicative of real improvement that the number of independent reports itemising brutalities fell away sharply after the mid-1850s. Indeed, it made little sense to permit excesses of cruelty to continue. If a man was flogged to pulp or, to cite two other forms of ~unishment, suspended for hours in the sun or half-drowned on a buoy, the loss to enterprise in man-hcurs could be considerable. This crude economic fact of life, combined with the increased vigilance of the Peruvian governn~ent,~' and, for that matter, of the British government also, was ~ r o b a b l ~ enough to ensure that the code of discipline at Chincha became a degree less harsh. ' The indolent and lazy have received

8 8 F.O. 611147, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sept. 18j4. 89 F.O. 611148, Went to Sulivan: 21 Sept. 1854." O.O. 611148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854;see also William Cibbs Corr., Henry Ilucks

Gibbs to William Gibbs, j Feb. 18jj."Arch. Hist., correspond.^ con 10s Consignat .~ . . . ,Mendiburu to William Gibbs h Co.,

14Apr. 1854;ibid., lslas Cliincha . . . , Mendiburu to Governor of Chincha, 22 Apr. 1854. 'Ihere does, however, seem to have been an establishment of this sort prior to 1854.George Washington Peck writes of a ' so-called ' hospital in 1853(' Chincha Islands ', p. 213)and the seamen who wrote to the Board of Trade in June 1854 mentioned ' miserable . . .hos-pital conliorts ', observing that ' Kossuth declared who was sick and who was not. in opposition to the medical inspector, whose opinions were not listened to . . .' (Shipmasters' Memorial. pp. 188-9).

" F.O. 61/1j5, Sulivan to Clarendon, 1 1 July 18jj. 9 3 F.O. 6111~8, Dec. 18j+Sulivan to Clarendon, 22 gd F.O. 611174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857. " Deriving in some measure, one presumes, from embarrassment over the occurrence of cruel

practices in such a public place as the Chinchas, before an audience of thousands of foreign


correc~ions', wrote the head overseer to the governor of the islands in 1854,-' but never such as are imprudent nor which prevented them continuing their daily work; and it may be said that many have been reformed by the strict vigilance kept over them of which they have more fear than any other punishing '.Q6

Fatalistic tolerance of their conditions by the Chinese was not limitless. Suicide and opium offered quick means i f escape and seem to have been resorted to quite frequently.

In the months of November (1853) -wrote an American mariner - I have heard fifty of the boldest of them joined hands and jumped from the precipice into the sea. In December there were twenty-three suicides; this is from one in authority; in January quite a number, but I have not learned how many. I was a few days since on the South island, and there saw two of the most miserable starved creatures. They had swam across on their wheelbarrows, and fully determined to die."

As for remuneration, it seems clear that wage rates were set at a generally low level. It is, however, difficult - certainly for the years prior to 1854 - to present precise estimates with very much confidence. ' The Chinese and the convicts ', wrote Pitrola in 1853, ' like the down-and-outs, deserters, con-scripts and vagabonds, receive three reales a day, of which two are for food,

and one peso (eight reales) a week . . .' Assuming a six-day working week," this indicates a net cash wage of I~ and a monthly income of just over 7 pesos, or about 28s. In 1873 and 1854 two American observers also referred to a cash payment of I real a day, but made no mention of any

additional weekly rem~neration, '~ ' giving a monthly equivalent, therefore, of only about 3% pesos. Other sources indicate incomes of 4 and j pesos per month.lo2 This is somewhat confusing. After 1854, however, the picture

becomes clearer. In September of that year, during the brief Gibbs regime at the islands, the Echenique administration raised the wages of the contract

" 6 F.O.611148, Overseer of Worl;s to Lagomacino, 21 June 1854. " 7 ' Interesting from the Chincha Islands ', pp, 20-1.

" 8 PiCrola, Informe, p. 5. " Information is available on loading routines in the early 1840s. A random sample of 15

vessels taking on guano suggests that no worlc was done on Sundays (Arch. Hist., Aiio 1842. Guano). George Washington Peck stated in his account that labourers did not get Sundays off on the middle island, but that they were granted this privilege on the northern island (see Murphy, Bird Islands, p. 115). Given that the latter island \<,as the more heavily populated and that the former was under the unusually harsh (and short-lived) rule of Carlos Kossuth at the time of Peck's visit, we may assume that the six-day week was the norm over the period as a whole.

10.0 Bonuses were also paid for guano deliveries in excess of the standard quota. Pikrola, Informe, p. 5.

1 0 1 ' Chincha Islands ', p. 214; ' Interesting from the Chincha Islands ', p. 20.

1 0 2 Shipmasters' Memorial, p. 188; F.O. 611148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.

labourers to 8 pesos (32s) per month, after subsistence.lo3 The same figure was cited by British diplomatic officials in 1857 and 11;66.lo4

Free labourers were paid a higher wage than coolies and were probably required to meet their own subsistence costs. They earned 6 reales a day in 1853 for moving four tons of guano to the clif3s.lo5 Men who did the dangerous work of insertion at the mouths of the loading shoots received double that amount.'06 In 1857 free workers were apparently being paid 2 % reales for every 1.800 lbs moved.'" At the four-ton daily rate this would give 12%

reales in all, and 9 ~ 6pesos or 37s Gd for a six-day week. These comparatively high rates, however, would only apply if the labourer was prepared to sustain a fast tempo of work, day after day. The majority probably set themselves relatively low targets. In 1853 Pitrola complained that many free workers ' se contentan con comer solanze?zte ' and that there was much lack of effort and excess of idleness.lo8

The methods used in extraction and loading were primitive in the extreme. The worker's basic tasks were loosening the guano, shovelling it on to trucks and barrows or into bags, and pushing or carrying these to special enclosures at the clif3 edge. From there the guano was dropped into the holds of ships anchored below, or into special loading vessels, through canvas shoots or maagueras, of which there were four - two large and two small - in operation by the 1 8 5 0 s . ~ ~ ~ Work in the enclosures was very laborious and men were in constant danger of falling into the shoots. It was, accordingly, reserved for free labourers : a dead contract worker represented lost money.l1° Crews in the ships receiving the guano appear to have confined themselves to tending the bowlines attached to the nza?zgueras.ll1 The extremely unpleasant work of stowing the fertilizer in the holds was left to men from the Chincha work force.llZ

103 F.O. 611148, enclosed directive from Mendiburu, 15 Sept. 1854. 10" F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 18j7; F.O. 611233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept.

1866. 1 0 5 Pi&rola,Informe, pp. 4-5. Again, bonuses were paid for additional amounts. 106 Ibid., pp. 5-6. 107 F.O. 611174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857. 10s Pierola, Injorme, p. 12.

l o v e Bocu's Commercial Review, XVI (1854), loo and XIX (1855), 220; ' An Interesting Visit to a Guano Island ', p. 398; ' The Guano Diggings ', pp. 45-6; The Times, 7 Dec. 1853, p. 12; Piirola, Inlorme, p. 45; E. P. Thomson and Eileen Yeo, The Unknown hlayhew, Selections froill the Morning Chronicle 1849-1850 (London, 1971), pp. 305-6.

1 1 0 ' The Guano Diggings ',p. 45; Piirola, In fome, p. 6. 111 ' The Guano Diggings ', pp. 45-6. 1 1 2 ' Chincha Guano Islands ', American Agrictiltz~rist, XI, No. 7 (26 Oct. 18j3), 99; Piirola,


Picks and shovels were the basic tools. On the north island in 1851 two ingenious steam-driven cutting and barrow-loading machines or ' paddies ' were in operation.'l3 According to Pitrola they were devices of very uncertain economy and efficiency.l14 Most of the digging, then and after, was done without mechanical assistance. Small rail tracks were provided after the early 1850s to speed up the movement of guano to the cliffs.l15 There was no powered traction available and the trucks had to be pushed by the labourers. These items, the canvas shoots and some loading vessels (numbering around 30 in 1853),116 comprised the bulk of the fixed capital on the islands. Other installations included only some ' low miserable bamboo huts ' 11' where the labourers slept, and the small hospital mentioned earlier.

The loading system was both slow and wasteful and there were frequent complaints about the inadequate size of the labour force.l18 It was suggested in the mid-1850s that ships' crews ought to be allowed to take a hand in moving the guano.llThere was much criticism, too, of methods of loading, and he shortage of both nzangueras and feeder ve~se1s. l~~ The delay [for ' foreign ships] . . . occasioned by inefficient means of supply is very great, so much so, that three or four months is no unusual period of detention. During this time, masters and officers of ships amuse themselves by catching fish.' lZ1

200 vessels were queueing up at Chincha in October 1853,lZ2 and some masters were resorting to bribery to win preference at the sh00ts . l~~ ' The quiet suggestion of a sovereign or two,' according to an 1861 report, ' has a wonderful effect. . .' AS late as May 1869, by which time the Chinchas were almost depleted, there were assembled ' one hundred and sixty of the largest ships in the world, with over four thousand souls on Board. . .' 12'

Thlis, needless to say, was inconvenient for shippers, and the uncertainties were roba ably only tolerated because of frequent overcapacity in rhe shipping industry and the difficulty of finding return freights for all the vessels that

113 ' Chincha Islands ', pp. 213-14. 11" P~Crola,Informe, p. 6. (Pikrola in fact only mentions one being in operation.) 115 ' Chincha Islands ', p. 213; P~Crola,Injorme, p. 15. 1 1 6 Ibid., p. 9. 117 ' The Guano Islands ', p. 17. 1 1 8 See, for example, Pitrola, Informe, pp. 11, 18-19; Arch. Hist., correspond.^ con 10s

Consignat.3 . . . ,Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 10 July 1854. 11QF.O.611148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854; Shipmasters' Memorial, p. 189. 1 2 0 F.O. 611144, Clarendon to Sulivan, 13 Apr. 1854; The Times, 7 Dcc. 1853, p. 12; Pitrola,

Injorme, p. 9. 1 2 1 ' The Guano Islands ', p. 19. 12" Chincha Islands ', p. 213. lZ3Ibtd., pp. 213, 216. 1 2 4 ' The Guano Islands ', p. 17. 1 2 5 F.O. 611255, Memorial from 69 British shipmasters to John Dartnell, May 1869. See also

Thomson Bonar Corr., De Villate to Thomson Bonar & Co., 27 Jan. 1869.

brought cargoes into the Pacific from Europe and North America. It was also expensive for the Peruvians, since demurrage had to be paid to vessels delayed beyond the ' lay ' period stipulated in their charterparties. No est' smates are available for aggregate losses here, but they must have been very substantial. Lay days ranged between 30 and 80 day~,~ 'hccording to retrospective comments of Samuel Went in 1873, and demurrage was usually paid in kind at the rate of 10 tons of guano per extra day.'''

Demurrage losses were compounded by other, more direct, consequences of primitive loading techniques. Guano came down the main shoots, 150 feet or so in length, with great force, raising clouds of dust around the ships. ' With their yards cock-billed, and rolling their royal masts almost against the face of the rock, all covered with guano, you would hardly recognise some of thc finest clippers, that before they left Kew York or Boston were praised in the papers, visited by ladies, and, instead of guano, had their cabins per- fumed by champagne.' '" And of course much of this air-borne guano was lost into the sea. ' Complaints are made about mafzge~eraloading,' it was written in 1851, ' because of the dust that is lost, to the exaggerated point of alleging that from the islands to the beaches of Pisco, the sea is saturated with guano.' lZ9Pierola wrote in 1853 of guano powder at times obscuring all the ships lying off the islands and spreading ' like a sort of coating on the surface ' of the water. Losses, he noted, also rcsulted from the punctured condition of the rnangueras and from thcir periodic choking, a problem that could only be relieved by suspending the shoots vertically and letting the force of gravity release the guano into the sea.13' Ships rolled around, moreover, in the occasionally heavy seas around the islands, and this caused additional difficulties. ' At times,' wrote one North American observer, ' when there is much surf on, I have seen the hose come out of the hatch and the guano go thirty feet from the side of the vessel. . .'13' Taking on guano from small feeder boats also caused a good deal of waste, overloading being common, requiring the crews to dump some of their guano over the sides before they could row to the waiting ocean ~esse1s . l~~ Some of these launches occasionally sank from excessive loads : ' rather an expensive matter ', as one seaman put it, causing ' much general profanity from all concerned '.Is3 PiCrola es~imated

12"epending on the register tonnage o f the vessel: ' about ten days for every one hundred tuns ', according to an American master. ' Chincha Guano Islands ', p. 55.

1 2 7 Mznz~tes of Euzdence Taken belore the Royal Comnzission on Unseaworthy Ships, British Parlzanzentary Papers, 1873, xxxv~ ,51.

1 2 8 ' Chincha Islands ', p. 213. 129 L.E.S., Estzrdios Sobre El Huano (Lima, 1851)~p. 33. 1 3 0 Pikrola, Infonne, p. 8 . 131 ' Chincha Guano Islands ', p. 100.

1 3 2 Pikrola, Injorme, p. 8. I" Quoted in Murphy, Bird Islands, p. 100.


total losses at j per cent of the fertilizer dug, and suggested bagging and wharf construction as obvious s01utions.l~~ Another calculation at about the same time set loading losses at the much higher figure of 12 per cent.13' In the late 1850s rhe Peruvian finance minister referred to the problem as ' one of the gravest afflictions suffered by rhe Treasury ' and indicated a loss percentage of 1 6 . l ~ ~

T o provide basic mooring facilities for vessels and permit more orthodox loading, the government ordered the construction of a quay in 1856, and great things were expected of this.13? It was 1868, however, before a reasonably comprehensive system of wharves was given a trial. It did not, for reasons which are obscure, turn out to be very practicable, and most loading continued to be done through rhe defective mangueras, with continuing wastage.13R What the Peruvian government saved by minimising investment expendi- tures on the islands it lost many times over through these consequences of misdirected thrift.13'

VI

These, then, were the foundations upon which the various commercial, financial and agricultural activities spawned by the guano trade were built. The men who dug and loaded guano off rhe coast of Peru performed the first crucial acts necessary before contractors could make their fortunes, merchants earn their commissions, or the Peruvian government receive its profits. They had to do their work, which would have been unpleasant whatever the institutional arrangements, under conditions which many con-temporary observers properly considered to be shameful. The business of guano extraction was malodorous, both literally and metaphorically. With men of European origin employing Asiatics for whom they had scant respect, with systems of indentured, convict and slave labour in operation, with the physical circumstances of work on arid, acrid islands of manure, it would have been surprising had it been orherwise.l" There were certainly some

1 3 4 Pikrola, Inlorme, pp. 8, 10-11.

135 The Times, 7 Dec. 18j3, p. 12.

1 3 6 Cited in Francisco de liivero, Ojeada Sobre El Huano (Paris, 1860). p. 216. 13? Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha . . ., Elias to Governor of Chincha, 13 June 18 j j ; ' The Trade

in Guano ', Farmer's Magazine, 3rd ser., xv, No. 4 (Apr. 1859), 313; Rivero, Ojeadn, p. 217. 138 Injorme Circunstanciado que la Comision de Delegados Fiscales eleua a1 Congreso, cn czci1z-

plimiento del Articzilo 8 de la Ley de 28 de enero de 1869 (London, 1872 [ ? I ) , p. xsxii. 13" Of course the expenditure for these new schemes ', wrote Pierola of the wharves he con-

sidered urgently required, ' will appear excessive, but this will be more than offset by the savings '. If 500,ooo tons were removed each year, by his calculation 25,000 tons or so u~ouid be lost, worth around joo,ooo pesos to the government. ' With this amount of money 10

wharves could be constructed . . .' Injorme, p. 11.

1 4 0 Slavery was abolished in Peru in 1855.

advances in both remuneration and treatment after the mid-18gos, but these represented a marginal easing rather than anything approaching reform, and they appear to have come about more from a combination of embarrassment and foreign pressure than from any developing humanitarianism among Pei-uvian contractors and officials.

It still remains for us to attempt some overall economic assessment of the prevailing loading system. Did the employment of contract labour, for example, make sense, or would free labour have been preferable? The ques- tion is a difficult one.''' This is partly because the possible beneficiaries fall into at least three categories : the loading contractors, the Peruvian govern- men?, and the Peruvian economy as a whole.'" The answer would seem to be that the first two did gain a great deal, but that the third, which, of course, was far more than the sum of the other two, gained little and possibly lost more.

The simplest argument for viewing the system as beneficial for contractors and government is that it permitted the exercise of coercive pressure and the payment of very low wages, such as to raise output higher and depress costs lower than would have been possible with an exclusive employment of free labour. The wage-earners who came voluntarily to the Chinchas, as we have seen, had to be paid at much higher rates than the contract labour force. Moreover, rhey could, if they wished, be very irregular in their work (partly as a result of these relatively high wages). The argument, however, has to be somewhat more complex than that, and we may take some guidance here from the debate on the efficiency of the North American slave.lL3 The coolie, like che slave, gave his labour under duress, presumably gudgingly and without enthusiasm. It would be difficult, however, to assert that his effort and efficiency were thereby impaired. Discipline was harsh, escape (other than suicide) was very difficult, and the work, although extremely laborious, required minimal skill and creativity. The Chinese were not giving their

141 I t is, however, worth asking, despite Levin's contention that Peru had little choice in the matter. Given the small numbers and minimal skills involved, and the quantity of un-employed and underemployed labour that must have been present in the coastal towns and cities, it is difficult to agree with his view that no areas of Peruvian society could, either individually or in aggregate, provide an adequate supply of workers. It is misleading to suggest, as he does, that most urban labour ' was rigidly organised into guilds ' and, therefore, unable to move. Export Econors~ies, pp. 40-41, 85-86.

342 I have excluded export merchants from the list since there is no very clear or substantial relationship between labour costs and efficiency and their commission-earning capacity.

1 A : I In particular, from William Chandler Bagley, Soil Exhaustion and the Civil War (Washing-ton, 194"); Kenneth M. Statnpp, The Pect~liar Institution (New Yorlc, 1gj6); Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery (London, 1966); Robert William Fogel and Stanley I>. Engerman, Time on the Cross (London, 1974).


labour in a way that might be conditioned by their mental state : their labour was being taken and applied to the crudest sorts of tasks. As for the possibility of low skills standing in the way of implement improvement and mechanisation, this assumes that Chinese skills were low, and there is far too little information available about prior occupations in China to justify confident assumptions of this sort. In any case, basic implements like picks and shovels were bound to remain simple, and mechanisation, in so far as it was possible or practicable, would probably not have been of the sort greatly to tax the labourer's ability. There would have been no complicated processing of the guano, since processing of any kind was largely unnecessary, and any additional digging or loading machines would in all probability have been technically rather simple constructions, requiring the presence perhaps of a few engineers, but no great deliberation or functional versatility from the worker.

There may, however, have been other constraints on mechanisation: money, for example, being tied up to such a degree in the labour force that there was neither the cash surplus nor the entrepreneurial inclination to substitute capital for labour. It is doubtful, however, if such an argument has relevance here. Any extension of fixed capital at the islands would have been financed by the Peruvian government, and in the 1850s and 1860s in particular it enjoyed relatively massive cash inflows from guano.14' None of this had to be spent on ~ u r c h a s i n ~ a labour force, and only a fraction of it had to be used to remunerate the loading contractors. And, although there clearly was no great inclination to substitute capital for labour, this was not because labour was specially abundant, thereby perpetuating and giving short-term rationale to labour-intensive methods. There were frequent complaints of labour shortage, and the queues of vessels which so &ten developed at the islands and the amount of guano lost through primitive loading techniques offered very clear evidence of the need for more and better equipment in both digging and loading.

Despite the costly delays and wastage involved in guano loading, then, it would seem likely that contract labour offered advantages over free labour and that these were not cancelled out by any ~owerfu l negative features. The inefficiencies of guano removal are less attributable to any inherent defects in the labour force or in the system of employment than to casualness and sheer reluctance to invest on the part of Peruvian governments, reoccupied as they usually were in Lima with financial considerations of a short-term

144 See Levin, Export Economies, pp. 112-114; Shane J. Hunt, ' Growth and Guano in Ninc- teenth Century Peru ' (unpublished discussion paper, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Feb. 1973), pp. 62, 70.

nature.''' The government and the contractors did very well indeed from the crude exploitation of the coolie.

The Peruvian economy, on rhe other hand, was a much less certain bene- ficiary. The profits from loading operations went into the pockets of two or three individuals. Elias, no doubt, put some of his money into his mainland plantations, but that was simply one man's activity, and it is interesting that both Elias and CalderCln went off ro serve for a time as diplomats in Europe after their years as guano shifters. It might be guessed that quite a lot of their earnings from Chincha helped finance stylish living and social display in Paris and Rome.

As for the labourers, their influence on the pattern and tempo of Peruvian economic activity was both slight and peripheral. First of all, as we have seen, their numbers were always extremely low by the standards of other nineteenth-century export sectors. They were, moreover, very ill-rewarded for their work. Even if they did have some spare cash, there was not much they could spend it on. Opportunities for visiting the mainland to purchase goods or pleasures were v i r t u ~ l l ~ nll. A lot of the money in Chinese pockets probably found its way into gambling and the purchase of opium and alcohol. A foreign visiror around 1860 noticed a large wooden shed on rhe north island, brightly decorated with silks and flags. On enquiring, he was told that it was a gambling house ' and that the proprietor had amassed no less than two thousand dollars out of the miserable pittance paid to his brother- workers There also appears to have been some saving. The British charge' d'aflaires reported in 1857 that most of the Chinese had been able to put aside a portion of their earnings and that some were, to use his term, ' wealthy '.I4'

The objective here, presumably, was either the purchase of release from indenture or the accumulation of funds for use on the mainland after the full contract period had expired. There may, therefore, have been some very modest post-indenture investment activity by Chinese in the coastal towns and cities, such as buying some small stake in retail trading or setting up the occasional eating-place for others who had arrived back on the mainland. The number of such petty capitalists, however, was almost certainly small. and the funds at the disposal of any one individual could seldom have been very large.

The principal impact of the Chincha labourer on the Peruvian economy

'4s See %Queen, Pertioian Ptiblic Finance, pp. 38, 8j-6; W. M. Mathew, ' Antony Gibbs si

Sons, The Guano Trade, and the Peruvian Government, 1842-61 ', S. 4, in D. C. M. Platt (ed.), Btisiness In2peritilism, 1840-1930: an inquiry based on British experience in Latin ilnierica (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

1" ' The Guano Islands ', p. 18. 147 F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857.


probably came through the purchase of foodstuffs and other provisions made on his behalf by the loading contractors. Water, meal, rice, fish, some meat, and items of clothing and footwear were brought in by small vessels from the mainland directly opposite the islands.14' These gave extra earning power to some of rhe local merchants and hacendados, ainong them, one would presume, Domingo Elias. Quite a substantial market was also provided by the seamen manning the foreign vessels that came to Chincha.

We are -wrote an American sailor - supplied twice a week. Wednesday and Saturday, from Pisco city with fresh meat, vegetables and fruits, by boatmen who make quite a business of it. Fresh beef eight and a half cents per pound, fowls $10 per dozen, pigs weighing twenty pounds, $3; sheep $4 each. Vegetables are high, enough for one week's consumption for a crew of fifteen, say $2. Everything in way of provisions is high.14"

It is, indeed, probable that these foreigners offered a bigger market than did the labourers. Not only was their purchasing power higher and their dietary requirements greater but their numbers were periodically in excess of those of the resident population. The 200 vessels queueing up at the Chinchas in October 1853 probably represented a temporary off-shore community of between 3,500 and 4 , 0 0 0 . ~ ~ ~

Another obvious failure of guano production was the low demand it generated for social overhead capital and its inability to yield external economies to other sectors in Peru. Investment was quite inconsequential, as noted, finding its way mainly into launches, canvas shoots, and short rail tracks from the diggings to the loading enclosures. Many of the items and materials were probably purchased from abroad. ' We are all supplied with boats ',wrote the master of a visiting guano vessel in 1853. ' They hold from ten to twenty tons, and are generally ships' long boats, sold to Peruvians when rhey leave for home.' And even if there had been an impressive scale of investment, the fact that it would have been on two or three off-shore islands where nothing but guano could be produced would have meant that no other sectors in the economy could have taken advantage of it.

Another, more positive, and enormously important, consequence of the primitive style of production at the Chincha islands was that it enabled Peru to retain the bulk of the profits from the trade. Low costs meant that digging and loading could be attended to by Peruvian contractors. Had guano production required large amounts of capital, technology and entrepreneurial

118 Ibid., p. 19. 149 ' Chincha Guano Islands ', p. 100. See also Levin, Export Econon2ies, p. 120.

1" Calculated from data for vessels sailing from the Chinchas to Britain in Bills A. Customs, London. Ships' Reports and Lloyd's Register of Shipping

15' ' Chincha Guano Islands ', p. 100.

skill, and had there been a resultant need to recruit a lot of foreign money and management, a substantial portion of guano earnings would have been lost overseas. As it was, the foreigner could be brought in almost exclusively on a mercantile, commission-earning (and loan-providing) basis.15' In con-sequence, not only could loading profits be retained by Peruvians, but the great bulk of the income from the trade could be kept by the Peruvian government.lj3 The foreigner had to contribute little but merchanting ability, and, with a monopolistic system of exporting guaranteeing very high aggregate returns to compensate for very low unit returns, he was able to strike a generally profitable bargain.''" This, of course, might have been highly advantageous to Peru. The primitiveness of the export sector ought, on a simple reading, to have been very rewarding. As it happened, however, the funds were not put to very good use and the Peruvian government used its large and fairly regular income as security for borrowings from guano merchants and home and foreign bondholders on a scale unprecedented in Latin American financial history. The money from these loans was not, on the whole, productively or profitably invested, and by the 1870s the government's debt obligations had become intolerably burdensome.l5' ' The Govern- ment treasury,' wrote Henry Wirt in 1862, ' was always without a dollar: they owed much and every sum which entered vanished like smoke, to satisfy the urgent claims of hundreds of creditors.' 1 5 T h e fact, moreover, that ~roduc- tion was so primitive, so easy, so undemanding, meant that Peru could, for a few decades at least, afford to sit back and enjoy a largely unearned income. In the words of the Peruvian writer, Pedro Divalos y Liss6n: 'Guano and

1" 'I'he loans had nothing to do with the financial requirements of Chincha production. See Mathew, ' Antony Gibbs ', ss. 3 and 4.

'33 {bid., s. 3. A recent estimate suggests that over the ~ e r i o d 1849-61, the government took 65 per cent of gross sales proceeds from the very large portion of the trade contracted to the English house of Gibbs, most of the remainder going on freights. Hunt, ' Growth and Guano ', p. 62.

154 'I'he guano incomes of the principal mid-nineteenth-century contractors, Antony Gibbs &

Sons, cannot be calculated with any precision. but it is notable that the London house's net earnings from ail commission and brokerage work stood at an average of only L6,296 per annum in the 1830s, before they entered the trade, compared with ,(;16,98o in the 1840s and L73,671 in the 1850s. Antony Gibbs & Sons Ltd., Business Archives. London head office general ledgers, first series, vols. for 1830 to 1859.

15' A proper evaluation of the economic activities of Peruvian governments in the guano period is not something that can be attempted in this paper. The negative assessment implied here is in accord with the works of Hunt, Levin, McQueen and Mathew cited above. See also Heraclio Bonilla, ' Aspects de l'histoire economique et sociale du P6rou au XIXe siPcle ' (unpublished doctoral thesis, Paris, 1970). For a more favourable judgment, see Juan Maiguashca, ' A Reinterpretation of the Guano Age, 1840-1880 ' (unpublished doctoral thesis, Osford, 1967).

1 5 6 Witt Diaries, vr, I Jan. 1862.


the form of wealth it produces has contributed only to the affluence of a speculator class . . .Because of the false guano prosperity, Peruvians have failed to develop the capitalist mentality that leads ro the founding of industries and the generation of wealth . . .'

The inadequacy of the guano export sector as a stimulating force within tlie Peruvian economy, it must be stressed, lies not in the fact that it was an enclave but in the crudity of its organisation. Despite the peculiar and restricted location of production, far too much of the income generated by guano was directed into Peruvian hands for the classic enclave model to be ap~licab1e. l~~A lot of the commission earnings in the trade certainly went to foreigners, and British and American shippers largely monopolised the oceanic transport.15' But the really striking fact is that a singularly large portion of gross sales proceeds -usually well over a half -went to the Peruvian government, with additional sums besides going to the loading contractors. If some of the government's money was immediately passed on to foreign bondholders and other creditors - or rather was retained by these parties, since such earmarked funds usually never got back to Lima - that was because the Peruvian government had, of its own volition, chosen to take advantage of its now quite privileged access to funds of loanable capital.lc"

Guano was a primitive export sector within a still quite primitive economy. Had production required larger inputs of capital, technology, labour and entrepreneurship, had it been located at such a distance from the coast as to require costly transport improvements to permit exportation, had it been placed on the mainland and therefore exposed to the local violences of political upheaval, it is very doubtful if Peru would have made such a mark in mid- nineteenth century international commerce. Peru in this period, to enjoy a rapid growth of trade, had to rely on a peripheral and crudely organised sector of production. The primitiveness, in turn, greatly circumscribed the sector's positive impact on rhe economy at large, and possibly, depending on one's view of debt extension and easy wealth, indirectly caused a good deal of harm as we11.161

'" Quoted in Fredrick B. Pike, The Modevn History oj Pertl (London, 1967), p. I I +

158 This argument is a central feature of Hunt's paper, ' Growth and Guano ', cited above. I"' Bills A. Custowis, London. Ships' Reports examined for 1842, 1847, 18j2, 1857 and 1862

reveal only three Peruvian registered ships carrying guano into Britain. Witt Diaries, i v , 11 Mar. 1849; F.O. 611148, Gomez Sanchez to Sulivan, 10 Oct. 1848; W. M.Mathew, ' The First Anglo-Peruvian Debt and its Settlement, 1832-49 ', Iotlrnal of Latin American Studies, 11, pt. I (1970), passim.

1 6 1 The converse, however, that a more sophisticated sector would have yielded substantial bene- fits, does not necessarily apply. Peru's experience with silver, nitrates and sugar, for example, shows this only too well. What we have been concerned with here are the manner and the scale of guano's inadequacy, and these, as has been demonstrated, were very closely related to the way in which it was produced.

Documents

Mathew- Guano Export