Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The high point of conservative rule came during the presidency of
Aniceto Arce
(1888-92),
a major silver-mine owner who completed the railway from La Paz to the Chilean port of An-
tofagasta, Bolivia's first rail link to the sea and a vital route for mining exports. The expan-
sion of the mining industry and transport infrastructure had a strong impact on rural Bolivia.
The growing demand for food in the mining centres of Potosí and Oruro stimulated the ex-
pansion of the
hacienda system
, with hacienda-owners acquiring indigenous land through
purchase, fraud or outright force. Though some communities maintained their traditional so-
cial and political structure, many others broke down, and migration to the cities and mining
centres increased.
THE RUBBER BOOM
The late nineteenth century saw the explosion of the
rubber boom
in Bolivia's Amazon
lowlands. The massive increase in the international demand for rubber transformed the re-
mote rainforests of northern Bolivia into some of the most valuable real estate in the world,
and the region was quickly overrun by
rubber barons
, who made immense fortunes and
forced the region's previously unconquered tribes to work as virtual slaves. The
indigen-
ous population
declined catastrophically and was saved from total destruction only by the
end of the Bolivian rubber boom in the early twentieth century, after rubber plantations had
been successfully established by the British and Dutch in their
Asian colonies
, where pro-
duction costs were much lower. One consequence of the rubber boom was the occupation
of the richest rubber-producing area along the
Río Acre
by Brazilian rubber-tappers. When
the Bolivian government sought to tax their production they rebelled, declaring the Acre an
independent state in 1900. After three years of sporadic fighting - the
Acre War
- the re-
gion was annexed by Brazil, an act later recognized by Bolivia in return for compensation.
The Federal Revolution and the rise of tin
Itsdependence onmining exports made Bolivia increasingly subject tointernational econom-
ic forces, and towards the end of the nineteenth century the international price of silver col-
lapsed, breaking the power of the silver-mining oligarchy. Fortunately for Bolivia, this col-
lapse coincided with a growing global demand for
tin
, a formerly unimportant by-product of
the country's silver mines. A tin boom ensued, centred on the Oruro mines and led by a new
class of Bolivian entrepreneurs who replaced the traditional silver-mining barons.
The new tin-mining elite and the growing urban professional classes of La Paz (the main
service centre for the tin mines) increasingly backed the
Partido Liberal
. Frustrated by the
impossibility of taking power through peaceful means - election results were always rigged
- they moved to overthrow the conservative regime. In 1898 a revolt broke out after the con-
servative government in Sucre rejected the demands of liberals in La Paz for local federalist
rule, while a major Aymara uprising erupted simultaneously in the Altiplano. Breaking the
