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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

W. M. Mathew
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Extract

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.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 1977 , pp. 35 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

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)Google Scholar provides a mass of information on labour recruicment and passage from China, and on the life of the Chinese in Peru, but has very little to say about guano work specifically. Levin, J. V. in The Export 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.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Levin, Export Economics, p. 113,Google Scholar and graph and figures in Mathew, W. M., ‘Peru and the British Guano Market, 1840–1870’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 23, No. 1 (1970), pp. 120, 127.Google Scholar

3 ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands ’, Southern Planter, xv, No. 1 (01 1855), p. 20.Google Scholar

4 For general details on the early export contracts, see Mathew, W. M., ‘Foreign Contractors and the Peruvian Government at the Outset of the Guano Trade,’ Hispanic American Historical Review, 52, No. 4 (11 1972), passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Dancuart, P. Emilio, Anales de la Hacienda Pública del Perú, tomo III (Lima, 1903), p. 156.Google Scholar

6 Suggested by the ‘Cuenta de los Señores Dutey (sic) y Barroilet (sic)’ in Exposicion que Don Francisco Quiros y Don Aquiles Allier Elevan al Soberano Congreso (Lima, 1845), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 19; de Piérola, Nicolás, Informe sobre el estado del carguío de huano en las Islas de Chincha, y sobre el cumplimiento del contrato celebrado con D. Domingo Elías (Lima, 1853), pp. 9, 29–30. Piérola was father and namesake of the future Peruvian president (1879–81, 1895–9).Google Scholar

8 See Cristóval, Evaristo San, Apendicc al Diccionario Histórico-Biográfico del Perú (Lima, 1931), 11, 83–5;Google ScholarBasadre, Jorge, Historia de la República del Perú (Lima, 1946 ed.), tomo I, p. 249;Google ScholarLevin, Export Economics, p. 87, n. 182.Google Scholar

9 Contract reproduced in Piérola, Informe, pp. 20–3; see also p. 28.Google Scholar

10 Román'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 Merchants' Magazine, XXXVII, No. 5 (1857), p. 574.Google Scholar

11 For many years in the management of the Gibbs house in Lima; later a guano contractor in his own right.Google Scholar

12 Diaries of Witt, Henry (hereinafter Witt Diaries), vol. IV, 19 to 27 Oct. 1849. (Manuscript in possession of Sra. Eloyda Garland Melián de Montero, Lima.)Google Scholar

13 Piérola, Informe, pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

14 Ibid, pp. 12–3, 22–3.

15 Ibid, pp. 15, 22.

16 Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office Archives, Peru (hereinafter F.O. 61), 65/548, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

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18 Lima branch of the London house of Antony Gibbs & Sons.Google Scholar

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22 Cristóval, San, Apendice, II, 85.Google Scholar

23 Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha. Libro copiador de la correspondencia del Gobernador de las islas con los ministerios. Galvez to Vargas, 27 Mar. 1855.Google Scholar

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25 Levin gives the later date of 1862 for the transfer, but omits to cite a substantiating source. Export Economics, p. 89.Google Scholar

26 Diaries, Witt, vol. IV, 19 to 27 Oct. 1849.Google Scholar

27 Correspondencia de los Signatorios del Contrato de Consignacion para la Venta del Guano en la Gran Bretaña y sus Colonias, Dirigida á los SS. J. Thomson, T. Bonar y Compañia [no date or place of publication given], (hereinafter Thomson Bonar Corr.), Canevaro to Thomson Bonar & Co., 73 Feb. 1869.Google Scholar

28 F.O. 61/249, Jerningham to Stanley, 24 Dec. 1868.Google Scholar

29 ‘The Guano Diggings’, Household Words, VI, No. 131 (Sept. 1852), p. 44.Google Scholar

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31 Larousse, Pierre, Dictionaire Universel du XIXe Siécle (Paris, 1866), p. 1574.Google Scholar

32 Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha…, Paz Soldan to Lagomacino, 23 Dec. 1853.Google Scholar

33 See, inter alia, Mcqueen, C. A., Peruvian Public Finance (Washington, 1926), pp. 5–32, 37.Google Scholar

34 ‘Chincha Islands’, pp. 213, 216.Google Scholar

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36 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.Google Scholar

37 Levin, Export Economies, p. 87;Google ScholarStewart, Chinese Bondage, pp. 11–13.Google Scholar

38 Levin, Export Economies, p. 87;Google ScholarBasadre, Historia, 1, 236.Google Scholar

39 Piérola, Informe, pp. 4, 11;Google ScholarLevin, Export Economies, p. 88;Google Scholar F.O. 61/148, Lagomacino to Gomez Sanchez, 22 June 1854;Google ScholarWent to Sulivan, 21 Sept; 1854;Google ScholarIbid, Peruvian government decree of 15 Sept. 1854.

40 Piérola, Informe, p. 11.Google Scholar

41 Ibid, p. 11; Levin, Export Economies, p. 88;Google ScholarShipmasters' Memorial, p. 188.Google Scholar

42 Arch. Hist., islas Chincha…, Zevallos to Governor of Chincha, 13 June 1857.Google Scholar

43 Ibid, 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.Google Scholar

44 Calculated from figures in Shane Hunt, J., ‘Price and Quantum Estimates of Peruvian Exports, 1830–1962’ (unpublished discussion paper, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Jan. 1973), pp. 57–9.Google Scholar

45 ‘The Guano Diggings’, p. 5.Google Scholar

46 Piérola, Informe, pp. 11, 19.Google Scholar

47 ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214.Google Scholar

48 William Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 31 Aug. 1854.Google Scholar See also Arch. Hist., Correspond a Con los Consignat.s del Huano…, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 1 Aug. 1854.Google Scholar

49 William Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 5 Apr. 1855. Some Chinese also left of their own accord. In 1854 more than 40 escaped to Lima. Arch. Hist.,Google ScholarCorrespond a…, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 1 Aug. 1854.Google Scholar

50 The Times, 12 Jan 1855, p. 8; ‘The Conduct of the Guano Trade’Google Scholar, Farmer's Magazine, 3rd ser., VII, No. 3 (Mar. 1855), p. 209.Google Scholar

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53 Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 84.Google Scholar See also Levin, Export Economies, p. 90.Google Scholar

54 Report of Lionel Bonar, in F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

55 This certainly was the view of the nine British captains who memorialized the Privy Council of Trade in 1854. See Memorial, Shipmasters', p. 187.Google Scholar

56 Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 24.Google Scholar

57 Ibid, p.17.

58 Ibid, pp. 14–32.

59 Ibid, pp. 39, 71; F.O. 61/198, Russell to Barton, 3 Mar. 1862;Google ScholarMemorial, Shipmasters', pp. 187–8.Google ScholarDuffield, A. J., The Prospects of Peru (London, 1881), p. 46;Google ScholarLevin, Export Economies, p. 88.Google Scholar

60 ‘The Chincha Islands’, Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle (Apr. 1856), p. 182.Google Scholar

61 See, for example, Tennent to Wodehouse, 4 Aug. 1854,Google Scholar in British Parliamentary Papers, 1854–1855, XXXIX, 191 ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214.Google Scholar

62 In F.O. 61/148, 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;Google ScholarMorse, H. B., The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (London, 1918), 11, 172;Google ScholarDiaries, Witt, iv, 27 June 1850 and 1 to 3 Feb. 1851;Google Scholar F.O. 61/197, Barton to Russell, 14 Nov. 1861;Google Scholar F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866; P.O. 61/255,Google ScholarJerningham to Clarendon, 13 Aug. 1869.Google Scholar

63 ‘The Chincha Islands’, p. 82, ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214; Levin, Export Economies, p. 88;Google ScholarStewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 24;Google ScholarHutchinson, Thomas J., Two Years in Peru (London, 1873), p. 248;Google Scholar Arch.Hist., Correspond.a con los Consignat.8 del Huano…, Mendiburu to William Gibb & Co., 1 July. 1854;Google Scholar F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

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.Google Scholar

65 Stewart, Chinese Bondage, pp. 24, 43.Google Scholar

66 Stewart, Chinese Bondage, p. 82.Google Scholar

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.Google Scholar

68 Memorial, Shipmasters', p. 188.Google Scholar

69 ‘The Chincha Islands’, p. 181.Google Scholar

70 Reproduced in ‘The Conduct of the Guano Trade’, pp. 208–9.Google Scholar

71 Ibid.

72 The Times, 7 Dec. 1853, p. 12; ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214.Google Scholar

73 The Times, 22 Jan. 1855, p. 8;Google ScholarDe Bow's Commercial Review, XIX (1855), 220;Google Scholar‘Chincha Islands’, p. 224; ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands’, p. 20.Google Scholar

74 Piérola, Informe, p. 4.Google Scholar

75 F.O. 61/148, Overseer of Works to Lagomacino, 21 June 1854.Google Scholar

76 F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

77 Quoted in Murphy, Robert Cushman, Bird Islands of Peru (New York and London, 1925), P. 115.Google Scholar

78 Piérola, Informe, p. 18.Google Scholar

79 The Times, 12 Jan. 1855, P. 8.Google Scholar According to Peck, flogging of workers 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.Google Scholar

80 De Bow's Commercial Review, XIX (1855), 220.Google Scholar

81 Quoted in ‘The Chincha Islands’, p. 182. See also comments of ‘A New Zealand Settler’ in Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle (Apr. 1856), pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

82 Memorial, Shipmasters', pp. 187–9.Google Scholar

83 F.O. 61/144, Clarendon to Sulivan, 15 July 1854.Google Scholar

84 F.O. 61/147, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

85 A Hungarian who apparently had borrowed the surname of his celebrated compatriot Fercncz Kossuth, and claimed, indeed, to be his brother. See Piérola, op. cit., p. 18, and ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 213.Google Scholar

86 Arch. Hist., Islas Chincha…, Paz Soldan to Governor of Chincha, 9 Feb. 1854.Google Scholar

87 F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

88 F.O. 61/147, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

89 F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept 1854.Google Scholar

90 F.O. 65/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854;Google Scholar see also William Gibbs Corr., Henry Hucks Gibbs to William Gibbs, 5 Feb. 1855.Google Scholar

91 Arch. Hist., Correspond.a con los Consignat.s …, Mendiburu to William Gibbs & Co., 54 04 1854;Google ScholarIbid., Islas Chincha…, Mendiburu to Governor of Chincha, 22 Apr. 1854. There 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… hospital comforts’, observing that ‘Kossuth declared who was sick and who was not, in opposition to the medical inspector, whose opinions were not listened to…’ (Memorial, Shipmasters', pp. 188–9).Google Scholar

92 F.O. 61/155, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 July 1855.Google Scholar

93 F.O. 61/148, Sulivan to Clarendon, 22 Dec. 1854.Google Scholar

94 F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857.Google Scholar

95 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 seamen.Google Scholar

96 F.O. 61/148, Overseer of Works to Lagomacino, 21 June 1854.Google Scholar

97 ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands’, pp. 20–1.Google Scholar

98 Piérola, Infome, p. 5.Google Scholar

99 Information is available on loading routines in the early 18405. A random sample of 15 vessels taking on guano suggests that no work was done on Sundays (Arch. Hist., Año 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 was 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.Google Scholar

100 Bonuses were also paid for guano deliveries in excess of the standard quota. Piérola, Informe, p. 5.Google Scholar

101 ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 214; ‘Interesting from the Chincha Islands’, p. 20.Google Scholar

102 Memorial, Shipmasters', p. 188;Google Scholar F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

103 F.O. 61/148, enclosed directive from Mendiburu, 15 Sept. 1854.Google Scholar

104 F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857;Google Scholar F.O. 61/233, Barton to Stanley, 13 Sept. 1866.Google Scholar

105 Piérola, Informe, pp. 4–32. Again, bonuses were paid for additional amounts.Google Scholar

106 Ibid., pp. 5–32.

107 F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 Aug. 1857.Google Scholar

108 Piérola, Informe, p. 12.Google Scholar

109 De Bow's Commercial Review, XVI (1854), 100 and XIX (1855), 220; ‘An Interesting Visit to a Guano Island’, p. 398; ‘The Guano Diggings’, pp. 45–6;Google ScholarThe Times, 7 Dec 1853, p. 12;Google ScholarPiérola, Informe, p. 45;Google ScholarThomson, E. P. and Yeo, Eileen, The Unknown Mayhew, Selections from the Morning Chronicle 1849–1850 (London, 1971), pp. 305–6.Google Scholar

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111 ‘The Guano Diggings’, pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

112 ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, American Agriculturist, XI, No. 7 (26 Oct. 1853), 99;Google ScholarPiérola, Informe, p. 7.Google Scholar

113 ‘Chincha Islands’, pp. 213–14.Google Scholar

114 Piérola, Informe, p. 6. (Piérola in fact only mentions one being in operation.)Google Scholar

115 ‘Chincha Islands’, p. 213; Piérola, Informe, p. 15.Google Scholar

116 Ibid., p. 9.

117 ‘The Guano Islands’, p. 17.Google Scholar

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119 F.O. 61/148, Went to Sulivan, 21 Sept. 1854;Google ScholarMemorial, Shipmasters', p. 189.Google Scholar

120 F.O. 61/144, Clarendon to Sulivan, 13 Apr. 1854;Google ScholarThe Times, 7 Dec. 1853, p. 12;Google ScholarPiérola, Informe, p. 9.Google Scholar

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123 Ibid., pp. 213, 216.

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126 Depending on the register tonnage of the vessel: ‘about ten days for every one hundred tuns’, according to an American master. ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, p. 55.Google Scholar

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133 Quoted in Murphy, Bird Islands, p. 100.Google Scholar

134 Piérola, Informe, pp. 8, 10–11.Google Scholar

135 The Times, 7 12 1853, p. 12.Google Scholar

136 Cited in de Rivero, Francisco, Ojeada Sobre El Huano (Paris, 1860), p. 216.Google Scholar

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138 Informe Circunstanciado que la Comision de Delegados Fiscales cleva al Con greso, en cumplimienro dcl ArtIculo 8 de Ia Ley de 28 de encro de 1869 (London, 1872 [?]), p. xxxii.Google Scholar

139 ‘Of course the expenditure for these new schemes’, wrote Piérola of the wharves he considered urgently required, ‘will appear excessive, but this will be more than offset by the savings’. If 500,000 tons were removed each year, by his calculation 25,000 tons or so would be lost, worth around 500,000 pesos to the government. ‘With this amount of money 10 wharves could be constructed…’ Informe, p. 11.Google Scholar

140 Slavery was abolished in Peru in 1855.Google Scholar

141 It 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 unemployed 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 Economies, pp. 40–41, 85–86.Google Scholar

142 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.Google Scholar

143 In particular, from Bagley, William Chandler, Soil Exhaustion and the Civil War (Washington, 1942);Google ScholarStampp, Kenneth M., The Peculiar Institution (New York, 1956);Google ScholarGenovese, Eugene D., The Political Economy of Slavery (London, 1966);Google ScholarFogel, Robert William and Engerman, Stanley L., Time on the Cross (London, 1974).Google Scholar

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146 'The Guano Islands’, p. 18.Google Scholar

147 F.O. 61/174, Sulivan to Clarendon, 11 08 1857.Google Scholar

148 Ibid., p. 19.

149 ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, p. 100. See also Levin, Export Economics, p. 120.Google Scholar

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

151 ‘Chincha Guano Islands’, p. 100.Google Scholar

152 The loans had nothing to do with the financial requirements of Chincha production. See Mathew, ‘Antony Gibbs’, ss. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

153 Ibid., s. 3. A recent estimate suggests that over the period 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.Google Scholar

154 The 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 all commission and brokerage work stood at an average of only £6,296 per annum in the 1830s, before they entered the trade, compared with £16,980 in the 1840s and £73,671 in the 1850s. Antony Gibbs & Sons Ltd., Business Archives. London head office general ledgers, first series, vols. for 1830 to 1859.Google Scholar

155 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.Google Scholar See also Bonilla, Heraclio, ‘Aspects de l'histoire économique et sociale du Pérou au xixe siécle’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Paris, 1970). For a more favourable judgment,Google Scholar see Maiguashca, Juan, ‘A Reinterpretation of the Guano Age, 1840–1880’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

156 Diaries, Witt, VI, 1 Jan. 1862.Google Scholar

157 Quoted in Pike, Fredrick B., The Modern History of Peru (London, 1967), p. 114.Google Scholar

158 This argument is a central feature of Hunt's paper, ‘Growth and Guano’, cited above.Google Scholar

159 Bills A. Customs, London. Ships' Reports examined for 1842, 1847, 1852, 1857 and 1862 reveal only three Peruvian registered ships carrying guano into Britain.Google Scholar

160 Diaries, Witt, IV, 11 Mar. 1849;Google Scholar F.O. 61/148, Gomez Sanchez to Sulivan, 10 Oct. 1848;Google ScholarMathew, W. M., ‘The First Anglo-Peruvian Debt and its Settlement, 1822–49,’ Journal of Latin American Studies, 11, pt. 1 (1970), passion.Google Scholar

161 The converse, however, that a more sophisticated Sector would have yielded substantial benefits, 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.Google Scholar