TY - JOUR
AU - Savala, Joshua
AB - Abstract On August 16, 1906, the people of Valparaíso and central Chile experienced a massive earthquake and raging fires. In the aftermath of the event, the local authorities in Valparaíso sought total control of the city population, lashing and killing many and requiring written permission to traverse the city. Meanwhile, in Santiago, the prolabor Partido Democrático first interpreted the disaster as affecting all classes equally. But party leaders soon recognized that the state was abandoning their working-class comrades. Using archival documents and periodicals, this article follows the path of recent scholarship that has denaturalized “natural disasters.” I emphasize how a political party with roots in working-class activism interpreted and integrated the social disaster into its politics. The state and local elites attempted to use the earthquake and fires to their advantage, yet in so doing they pushed a portion of the labor movement to the left. By working to help the victims of the earthquake and of the state, the organizers of the Partido Democrático forged bonds of “affective solidarity” that enabled workers to advance economic demands and to produce a radical critique of the state. On August 16, 1906, the city of Valparaíso faced the most devastating earthquake in its recorded history. With many settled at home after a day of work, the earth began to shake at 7:55 p.m. as rain steadily fell on the port city. It shook for ninety seconds. Thirty seconds later, residents experienced a less powerful aftershock, followed ten minutes later by another aftershock. With an estimated magnitude (Ms) of 8.2, the earthquake sent waves away from Chile at about two hundred meters per second, producing a twelve-foot wave in Maui, Hawaii. The earthquake registered on seismographs as far away as Paris, Hamburg, Osaka, and Washington DC.1 Fires quickly spread throughout Valparaíso, destroying more buildings than the earthquake itself.2 In the immediate aftermath, local authorities instituted martial law and publicly executed an unknown number of people accused of various violations. Between fifteen hundred and five thousand people died. What, though, is a natural disaster? What type of work does the modifier “natural” do for the term? In response to similar questions, scholars have recently denaturalized natural disasters.3 Rather than seeing a tsunami or earthquake as an event beyond human control, these studies show that disasters are embedded within social and political relationships, which can mitigate or worsen their effects. As historian Ted Steinberg suggests, some politicians, policymakers, or heads of corporations “have tended to view these events as purely natural in an effort to justify a set of responses that has proved both environmentally unsound, and socially if not morally, bankrupt.”4 Or as Mike Davis puts it, “First the earthquake, then the disaster.”5 As a whole, these studies have opened up a space to think about disasters from the perspective of unequal relationships of power before, during, and after the event. Disasters tend to bring to the surface these inequalities, offering scholars a condensed moment through which they can pull together longer histories of cities, regions, and nations. Disasters are, in other words, social events. Moreover, different social sectors experience and interpret disasters in distinct ways. How, for instance, might marginalized and elite groups deal with a disaster when the gravity of the effects they experience tends to differ? And how do these experiences and interpretations shift political ideologies and social movements? Although marginalized groups often bear the brunt of disasters, their voices are infrequently heard in the historiography. In some cases, scholars have identified the social movements that formed out of previously held political grievances, but how these groups interpreted and inserted the disaster into their politics is much less clear.6 The recent historiography on the Valparaíso earthquake follows a similar path, with labor organizers and organizations in central Chile largely absent from the literature.7 Following Mark Carey’s suggestion that we seek to understand how “marginalized populations” interpret and respond to environmental hazards, this article shifts attention toward the perceptions and actions of a portion of the organized working class.8 The response of organized working people to the earthquake was shaped by the larger history of class inequality and state violence in Chile. As historian Mario Garcés Durán has argued, the Chilean state tended to respond to the growing “social question,” and particularly to strikes, with brutal repression.9 The earthquake, though, represented something fundamentally different for many in central Chile: people organized strikes, whereas earthquakes were natural events that affected all segments of society and thus ought not to provoke a discriminatory response. Nevertheless, in the wake of the earthquake, local authorities engaged in organized and clear class violence for all to see, revealing the violence inherent in the state itself. The Partido Democrático (Democratic Party; PD), a prolabor party that from its founding in 1887 had viewed the state as an institution with liberatory potential, soon recognized the violence perpetrated in Valparaíso. On the basis of this experience, party leaders began to question the nature of the state, bringing the party much closer to an early-twentieth-century anarchist view of the state.10 A close look at the response of the PD reveals that the Valparaíso earthquake, typically left out of the labor history of this period, played a central role in unmasking the political basis of state action. The earthquake and the state’s response to it, then, opened up new opportunities for working-class people to organize around a radical critique of the state. The types of activities involved in postearthquake organizing—such as holding benefits, finding people work, and housing those in need—produced what I call “affective solidarity.”11 These affective bonds, in conjunction with a high demand for labor, created the conditions within which working-class organizations could begin to push for economic gains in labor bargaining. By bringing together both the economics of labor organizing and the affective ties that bound these communities, this article shows how the earthquake and the state violence that followed helped transform working-class political ideology in early-twentieth-century Chile. Valparaíso and Social Geography Over the course of the nineteenth century, Chile urbanized as increasing numbers of rural people moved to cities, particularly Santiago and Valparaíso.12 In the case of Valparaíso, the population rose from between five and six thousand in 1822 to 162,447 in 1905.13 Many arriving to Valparaíso in the late nineteenth century did not move into the flat center of the city (el plan), due in large part to cost. Instead they slowly filled in the outskirts of the city, near or on the steep hills (cerros) that encircle the port.14 Residents in different cerros created neighborhoods known for particular populations, such as Cerro Concepción or Bellavista where well-off foreigners tended to settle.15 According to historian María Ximena Urbina, with such a varied physical geography, the city incorporated the new migrants into a social structure similar to that of rural areas, “maintaining their poor, underemployed and marginal condition.”16 This large influx of both elite and nonelite people created a new urban space where class differences were more concentrated than in the countryside. The elite and the police grew increasingly concerned with the city’s expansion. As the city grew, so did the police: The Valparaíso police department expanded to include a new “Security Section” in September 1896 with forty-five functionaries, and three years later its payroll increased to a total of fifty-five.17 Urbanization and expansion created new spaces difficult to oversee and guard, especially in the cerros. The topography of the cerros, claimed the police, made overseeing them more difficult than the city center: “If one looks at the topography of the city, and its extension, especially in the neighborhoods in the cerros, one will understand the enormous work and zeal required of the police in order to bring to court such a growing number of delinquents.”18 Within this atmosphere, the police began to petition for more arms to help them patrol the city. In October 1905, for instance, they asked for and received eighty revolvers.19 In the eyes of the police, moral citizens lived in the rationally formed streets of the plan while immoral criminals resided in the winding streets of the cerros. Yet the city was not characterized by a simple spatial binary of popular classes and elite. Residents of the city mixed, for example, through the spatial arrangement of work in the city. Many of the recently arrived poor migrants filled the ranks in textile factories located in the plan, as well working in construction, printing, leather-work, the maritime industry, and as street vendors or day-laborers, much of which required the inhabitants of the cerros to travel through the city to their job site. A washerwoman who lived in a conventillo (tenement) in a cerro might travel to the plan to pick up clothing or other materials, return to her conventillo to wash the clothes, and then travel back to the city center or plan to drop them off. Moreover, the city center itself contained a sizable number of conventillos, home to many unskilled laborers (gañanes) who earned money working occasional small jobs or in some of the professions mentioned above.20 As Samuel Martland writes of the Almendral area of the city, “mansions had coexisted uneasily with tenements, factories with theaters, and railroad yards with parks.”21 Thus while life in turn of the century Valparaíso was shaped by a geography of class division, the social experience of the city created porous boundaries rather than strict demarcations. Artisans, Mutual Aid Societies, and the Valparaíso Labor Movement The labor movement’s reaction to the disaster must be situated within a larger historical narrative of working-class solidarity. According to historian María Angélica Illanes, artisans in the early nineteenth century began to organize around ideas of solidarity, equality, and morality in the aftermath of the Wars of Independence.22 In 1850 a group of eleven or twelve men in Santiago formed the Sociedad de la Igualdad (Society of Equality), perhaps the most famous organization in the literature on these types of groups in the nineteenth century. At roughly the same time, Valparaíso artisans formed two mutual aid organizations of their own: the Society of Artisans in 1850 and the Sociedad de Carpinteros y Calafates de Valparaíso (Society of Carpenters and Caulkers of Valparaíso) in 1851. As Sergio Grez has argued, these two societies “prefigured what would become the principle form of organization among Chilean urban workers during the next few decades.”23 Almost four decades later, after a devastating smallpox epidemic and in the midst of the spreading of cholera and continuing high infant mortality rates, women in Valparaíso created the Sociedad de Obreras de Socorros Mutuos (Workers Society of Mutual Aid) in 1887. Similar to many other mutual aid groups, members paid an entrance fee and regular dues and the society supported members in times of need, such as when a member became sick and could not work or to help pay for funeral expenses.24 At their core, these organizations represented the basic principle of workers and artisans helping others in their most vulnerable times. With inscriptions from members, the writing of statutes, and their own procedures of governance, they relied upon actions of solidarity with others of their class. These organizations also saw the state as an institution that would guarantee their right to organize and that could be mobilized to help protect or improve the lives of the working class as a whole. In the first decade of the twentieth century, resistance societies and anarchists took up many of these ideas of mutual aid but remolded them into mutual aid for the class and for the destruction of capitalism and, in some cases, the state. Nonetheless, the idea of class self-help and support remained: when fellow working-class people found themselves in need, collective help and action were necessary. In this sense, organized labor’s response after the earthquake built on a long tradition of working-class organizing and solidarity. It was not merely a spontaneous reaction to a natural disaster. The elite of the country also increasingly took notice of the rise in radical labor organizing. An increased production and circulation of anarchist newspapers, protests, and strikes that called for everything from wage increases to revolution may have caught the elite’s attention. In February 1901, the Spanish ambassador to Chile, who probably had experience with anarchists in Spain, warned the Chilean state about anarchism and supposed foreign agitators. The state, in turn, stepped up its intelligence and repression of the rising movement and circulated within the government names and descriptions of workers suspected of having radical sympathies.25 Four years later, in October 1905, concern over foreign labor agitators and transnational criminals resulted in a meeting in Rio de Janeiro by the heads of police of Santiago, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, La Plata, and Rio de Janeiro. They discussed “the necessity of the common defense against habitual criminals that go from one country to the other,” many of whom, they argued, desired to “subvert the social order” of society. They also warned against labor “agitators” who crossed national borders and wanted to overturn society, including anarchists who José Gregorio Rossi, from the investigations unit in Buenos Aires, labeled as “antisocial” subversives intent on “changing the current social order” and encouraging “disorder, theft, and assassination.”26 The heads of the police lumped common criminals and labor organizers into the same category since, in their eyes, both of them attacked property, the elite, and the authorities—in essence, the entire social order of society. The Earthquake and Fires of August 1906 As the ground shook in Valparaíso on August 16, many residents fled their homes in search of open air to avoid falling debris, “converting the streets into rivers of people.”27 As aftershocks continued, even those who found open spaces had to deal with falling buildings and rubble from already crumbled structures.28 Small aftershocks continued to shake the city and its residents for weeks on end: “These tremors do not stop in their work of alarming the few inhabitants that remain [in Valaparíso]; there are nights when you feel almost twenty of them.”29 Up to a hundred fires engulfed the city and, according to two residents, the city resembled a bonfire.30 In the coming weeks the national daily El Mercurio published lengthy lists of the missing or dead, a list that grew each day. In the coming years, estimates would put the death toll at between fifteen hundred and five thousand, in a city with a population of 160,000.31 The light from the sunrise the next morning helped residents see the vastness of the destruction. Much of the Almendral was in ruins. One writer visiting Valparaíso from Santiago described the major street Las Delicias as “a terrible picture” with nearly all of its buildings destroyed. “The names of the streets are the only parts of the streets that remain,” the writer continued in his discussion of the Almendral.32 Some of the cerros resisted the earthquake quite well, while others, including Cerro de la Cruz and de la Merced, were completely destroyed by the earthquake or fires.33 People quickly built temporary camps in the main plazas and streets, turning the Gran Avenida de Brasil into a “half-mile-long refugee camp.” Some repurposed the city’s trams into housing, while others used boats in the bay as temporary housing.34 View largeDownload slide A map showing the type of damage after the earthquake and fires. The Plaza de la Victoria is located four blocks below the compass, with the Gran Avenida de Brasil running just above it. Olivar street is the last street labeled with its name in the water of the port. Source: Alfredo Rodríguez Rozas y Carlos Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe del 16 de Agosto de 1906 en la República de Chile (Santiago de Chile, 1906), between p. 130 and 131. View largeDownload slide A map showing the type of damage after the earthquake and fires. The Plaza de la Victoria is located four blocks below the compass, with the Gran Avenida de Brasil running just above it. Olivar street is the last street labeled with its name in the water of the port. Source: Alfredo Rodríguez Rozas y Carlos Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe del 16 de Agosto de 1906 en la República de Chile (Santiago de Chile, 1906), between p. 130 and 131. The destruction of the city was not total, though. In the first telegram to Santiago, Intendant Enrique Larraín Alcalde wrote of an “almost completely destroyed city.” Yet as Martland has pointed out, the city was not “almost completely destroyed”; rather, much of the elite part of the city, the Almendral, was destroyed, and the discourse of a complete destruction reflected a “restricted definition of Valparaíso.”35 By only mentioning the Almendral in the telegram, Larraín equated the Almendral with Valparaíso as a whole. This slippage was not a singular event. On September 22 the municipal government met for the first time since the earthquake and council member Claro Melo spoke of the “almost total disappearance of the city as a consequence of the earthquake of August 16.”36 Municipal authorities did speak of the Almendral specifically, but this was a product of the particular discussion of reconstruction and of a reconstruction of the Almendral only.37 In the aftermath of the earthquake, political elites revealed which parts of the city they valued and which they saw as negligible. Although the Almendral was an elite section of the city, it also contained many conventillos. Overlaying a map of conventillos in 1886 onto a map of the destruction in the city makes it clear that the disasters brought down both elite and popular buildings.38 For example, on Calle del Olivar there were seven conventillos in the three blocks after the Gran Avenida in 1886. Even if some of these conventillos were transformed into other forms of housing between 1886 and 1906, it is almost certain that some remained.39 The map of the destruction reveals that all three of these blocks were significantly damaged through either the earthquake or fires, depending on the side of the street. The New Space of the City: Crime, Theft, and Punishment Authorities of the city quickly sought complete control over the city. In the first issue of El Mercurio released after the disaster, one writer argued that “public order should be maintained at all cost, [and] general orders fulfilled with military exactness.”40 Intendant Larraín instituted a curfew from 6 p.m. until 7 a.m. for all areas of the city with damaged or destroyed buildings; only people with written permission from the intendant’s office were exempt from the curfew.41 On August 20, El Mercurio writers reinforced the need for the curfew (now shortened to 6 a.m.) and added that workers in a fit state should help with the cleaning of public streets and the tearing down of badly damaged buildings.42 In the first two days, Larraín called in about 250 marines from the bay to patrol the city, asked military men in nearby Viña del Mar to enter the city (at the same time that authorities in Viña del Mar asked for armed reinforcements for their city), armed and commanded firefighters to help keep order, worked with the police to send guards to the prison to stop any potential escapes, gave guns to individuals to protect foreign businesses, and named the navy captain Luis Gómez Carreño military commander of the city, establishing the Plaza de la Victoria as a new “headquarters.”43 While Larraín also helped organize some aspects of housing, food, and water, he appeared to pay much more attention to “public order” than to social relief. The creation of a General Commission of Aid dates from August 24, over a week after the initial earthquake, suggesting that in the first few days after the earthquake, the authorities were much more concerned with maintaining order than helping those in need.44 As they responded to the crisis, the intendant and municipal council members may have had in mind the 1903 maritime strike, which stretched for close to a month and resulted in the burning of the Compañía Sud-Americana de Vapores (South American Steamship Company) building and in the death of almost a hundred workers.45 Just a few months prior to the earthquake they had banned the selling of alcohol before and during May Day protests due to the possibility of “disorder.”46 Despite centuries of seismic activity, local authorities drew not on earthquake planning but on their plans for large scale urban protests, plans that were designed to put down labor actions and maintain order.47 With the destruction of much of the Almendral, the state reorganized the spatial functioning of the city. The Office of the Intendant, the Police, the General Command of the Armed Forces, and other public offices all relocated to the Plaza de la Victoria, a central hub of connections in the city.48 The plaza also offered easy access to the port, as Condell and Salvador Donoso streets ran on either side of the plaza, and the Gran Avenida Brasil was located within two blocks, connecting the plaza and state functions to the rest of the plan. Many of the local decrees by Larraín Alcalde were issued in the Plaza de la Victoria and published under the title “Ordenes de la Plaza.” While the authorities distributed functions of the state to other plazas, such as sanitary services, the authority of the state centered in and emanated from the Plaza de la Victoria. In the time directly after the disaster, many suspected of or caught stealing or causing fires faced public lashes or execution as punishment. The local police and “guards of order”—formed by firefighters and residents—executed numerous people for theft, many in the Gran Avenida de Brasil, previously the most important avenue in the city and in the aftermath of the earthquake one of the main places for temporary housing. They publicly displayed their lifeless bodies and tied them to posts with signs that read “For Stealing” or “For Being a Thief” as a warning to others in the city.49 Those found alarming residents with information about a new coming disaster received between eighty and a hundred lashes the first time and possibly execution on the second occurrence.50 On August 24, just a week after the earthquake, Augustin Rojas received 150 lashes for assaulting a police sergeant. The authorities followed this with 150 more lashes the next day.51 The number of people in prison rose so quickly that Larraín Alcalde proposed sending some to a fort in the south of Chile to relieve the overpopulation of local jails.52 The number of people executed remains unclear, with numbers ranging from “about 15 people” to “a little over 100,” but the exact number is less important than the method; the executions acted as public statements to survivors regarding unacceptable behavior and state power.53 The authorities and those empowered by them acted with relative impunity. Punishment was often characterized by public display, much of the time in the Avenida de Brasil and thus in the midst of those who had set up temporary housing on the avenida or those traveling across the city. The authorities very easily could have used less populated and traveled streets to execute people, display their corpses, or lash people. But they specifically chose the most populated and traversed locations in order to perform the power of the state to an audience, to show residents their fate if they were deemed to have broken any laws. Local authorities attempted to halt public movement in the city by requiring people to carry a paper with them that described their type of work.54 This paper seems to have functioned as the person’s pass to traverse the city while also restricting their movement to particular spaces: if the paper described one type of work, then the authorities could question a person walking in a section of the city where that type of work did not take place. Some types of work may have allowed for greater movement in the city, such as collecting the bodies of those killed in the disaster and burying them.55 Some of the people in charge of guarding the city streets and checking for proper documentation to cross the city, though, ignored the workers’ passes entirely, causing the Compañía de Tracción Eléctrica and The West Coast of America Telegraph Company to complain of their inability to function properly in the aftermath of the disaster.56 One of the “Orders of the Day” from Larraín Alcalde on August 25 called for workers to begin reestablishing communication with other cities. In order to do this, the state required the collective effort of as many workers as possible. Those who did not help and did not have a suitable excuse would be taken to the plaza to meet with Capitan Gómez Carreño, who would mete out punishment.57 Given the violence of the authorities discussed above, punishments may have included jail sentences, executions, and everything in between.58 The Initial Plan to Rebuild the Almendral Within a week of the earthquake and fires, El Mercurio began to report on a newly formed group called the “vecinos” (neighbors/residents). According to the front page article, the group formed after Manuel Salinas, the minister of the interior, called for its creation in order to support the general population of the port city, help with cleanliness in the temporary housing camps, and remove debris.59 The membership of the vecinos reveals a class bias in the way authorities thought about rebuilding the Almendral. In their first meeting, held in a room of the Banco de Chile, the vecinos included Primer Alcalde Enrique Bermudez, one of the highest ranking political figures in the city; the Minister of the Interior, Manuel Salinas; and the Minister of War and Navy, Salvador Vergara, hardly a group representative of the larger population.60 With around thirty people in attendance, the group met for its second meeting on August 26, once again in a room in the Banco de Chile. Two recently arrived special guests from Santiago participated in the meeting as well: President Germán Riesco and President-elect Pedro Montt. Riesco opened the meeting, relaying to the group that the government realized the extent of the damage from the earthquake and fires and truly hoped that homes and businesses could be rebuilt as quickly as possible. The vecinos thanked Riesco for his support, emphasizing that they would need the central government’s help in rebuilding. E. J. J. H. Sandiford told Riesco that the damage was far too vast for residents to rebuild by themselves and suggested that he create a commission of “respectable residents” to assess the damage and put forward ideas on rebuilding. Anjel Guarello—a long-time, leading member of the PD and a negotiator on the part of striking workers in 1903—expressed his enthusiasm for a rationally reconstructed Almendral: “[reconstruction] can be a measure to help the relative progress of Valparaíso, the expropriation and reconstruction in the form of a model, [for] all of the Almendral. I had this idea, even before the earthquake, for the future of Valparaíso.” Riesco agreed and the attendees created the list of members for the commission on the spot. They closed the meeting with applause for the local authorities who took charge after the earthquake and fires, who “gave confidence to the inhabitants and remedied the consequences of the calamity as best as they could” and protected the city and its inhabitants from those who wanted to create “disorder.”61 Their next meeting took place one day later in the offices of El Mercurio. In subsequent meetings, the members set out a few specific tasks in their project of reconstruction, finally agreeing on the idea of a complete expropriation and rebuilding of the Almendral. They then explored ways of expropriating the land, including how much to pay each owner for their building or plot of land, “taking into account the interest of the property owners.” The money to fund the expropriation, they hoped, would come directly from the central government in Santiago.62 The final assessment of total land to be expropriated by the commission’s suggestion reached 564,000 square meters, a total they called “absolutely necessary” for the future security of the city from “floods, fires, and earthquakes.”63 In the following weeks El Mercurio opened its columns to property owners in the Almendral to write opinion pieces on the suggestions of the commission. The first letter published, signed by “Un Propietario” (an owner), voiced complete support for the expropriation and mentioned that the specifics of the task should be left to “los técnicos”64 since they know what is best for “commerce and the interest of the country.” The second letter, written by E. C. Eberhardt, also supported the expropriation and desire to leave the technical aspects of the buildings to “men of the profession.” Moreover, Eberhardt wrote, the “magnificent idea” of total expropriation calmed the fears of merchants and industrialists who, in the uncertain days after the earthquake, had thought about leaving the country.65 The vast majority of the letters published were in enthusiastic support of the expropriation and construction of a modern Almendral, with only a few suggestions on how to do it differently. One letter of support, for instance, argued that the work should focus on half of the area first and when completed, switch to the second half. The author suggested that a project of such a large scale would require at least twenty thousand workers plus an extra four to five thousand since many of them would inevitably get sick or celebrate “Saint Monday” on a regular basis. The author may well have been concerned about the prospect of such a high number of working-class people in the Almendral.66 The planned expropriation was not without its critics, though, and they added a middle-class element to the discussion. One letter, signed by X.X., criticized the composition of the commission, calling it a “shame” that “small property owners are not represented” in the slightest. People should have the option to opt out of the expropriations since, the author argued, small property holders most likely held an emotional attachment to their property.67 Two days later another small property owner published a scathing critique of the planned expropriation, writing that “the expropriation of the Almendral would be even more serious and of worse consequences for the poor property owner than the earthquake itself.” The letter, signed X. Y. Z., continued: For a young man, for the rich property owner, who received the property through inheritance, perhaps the projected expropriation does not mean anything for them; but for the man who has a family and passed the second half of his life [in his home], the above mentioned project would be the biggest disaster, as proven [above]. The benefit of the expropriation would be for the trusts, for the large companies, for the millionaires, to the detriment of the poor property owners that would never be able to obtain property of an equal number of [square] meters that he had before and at a price similar to the expropriated price. In a word, the middle class, that class which has so often been talked about and is the real victim, would one more time be repressed if the project in question reaches its end. We think the government really should take our reasoning into account. Our reasoning may not be written with elegance, but it is born from the fear that we have of the completion of the project that would be called: “the final earthquake.”68 With the recent seismic movement in mind, the author lucidly showed that the actions of people—in this case the elite—could produce a disaster. These opinion pieces reveal that middle-class residents of the Almendral conceptualized the expropriation project as a profoundly classist plan, designed by the local elite for their own benefit.69 Financially, the elite would benefit from the plan, while middle class property owners would never be able to live as they did prior to the earthquake. Emotionally, too, the middle class property owners felt a particular connection to their homes and had spent years in them with their families, while the elite were accused of being more concerned with the possibility of financial gain from the project than with personal connections to the property. In letters supportive of the expropriation there is rarely a sign of an emotional connection to damaged homes; rather, these letters express a connection to a future space, to a “modern” Almendral. One implication of a modern Almendral is that elite residents would have access to a more rationally planned business environment and live in houses appropriate for their incomes, without middle- and working-class people in the(ir) neighborhood. The elite fight for expropriation, then, was about the potentiality of the Almendral, of a future space that would create new avenues for them to accumulate wealth, while at the same time protecting their wealth and property from both nonelites and possible environmental damage. The middle class, in turn, invoked the social relations, bonds, and emotional connections created over years in and around their homes and to the social lives and connections built within those spaces; they were writing of the relationships built in their homes; they were, in essence, writing of their places.70 The commission and the Intendancy of Valparaíso approved the plan, but in the end it was abandoned, due to property owners’ disagreement about the scale of the project and the amount of money necessary for the expropriation.71 Nonetheless, the discourse around the expropriation reveals a definite class division (middle and elite) within the Almendral and the projects for its future. This discussion, though, left out working-class residents entirely. If, as discussed above, working-class housing was also a part of the Almendral, then the project would have harmed working-class residents as much as or even more than middle-class property owners since they were probably less likely to own their property and thus would not have received payment for the expropriation. Yet this view is absent from the pages of El Mercurio; the only mention of working-class people in these opinion pieces referred to their role in razing and then rebuilding the new Almendral. Their value, in other words, resided in their labor. La Reforma and Working Class Solidarity The precise way the Valparaíso labor movement responded to the earthquake and subsequent fires is difficult to ascertain. According to historian Peter DeShazo, anarchists led the organized labor movement in central Chile in 1906. Yet for at least three reasons, the anarchist press provides few clues to the working-class response. First, the anarchist press at the turn of the century was irregular in general, and it is not surprising that it did not publish in the weeks after the most devastating disaster any of the writers had probably ever seen.72 Even La Alborada, an anarcha-feminist biweekly paper initially based in Valparaíso that published regularly in the months prior to the earthquake, was forced to stop printing when the disaster destroyed their printer. The writers moved to Santiago, and their first postearthquake paper did not reach the streets until November 11.73 Second, those involved in the labor movement in Valparaíso probably first sought to take care of their families and friends. Union offices, too, were badly damaged during the earthquake and fires. In a report from Valparaíso weeks later, a writer noted that thirteen different workers’ societies “found themselves in complete ruin.”74 Third, in the years prior to the earthquake, anarchist leaders, thinking that the movement’s presence in central Chile was deep enough, began to send militants to other parts of the country.75 Thus, some of the main anarchist militants who helped to radicalize the local movement may not have been in Valparaíso at the time of the earthquake. The clearest voice from the organized working class after the disaster did not come from a labor periodical published in Valparaíso but rather from La Reforma, a Partido Democrático (PD) newspaper from Santiago. La Reforma’s political orientation might be described as swinging from center left to far left, with occasional ties to anarchist groups up to 1907.76 In the aftermath of the earthquake, La Reforma acted as one of the main newspapers for working-class readers (and listeners, when others read the paper to them); outside of local meetings, La Reforma was probably the main means of gathering information for many working class people. But La Reforma was much more than that. While the paper circulated throughout the city, the editors and writers organized meetings, facilitated the collection and distribution of donations, and offered housing in their printing offices (called the Casa del Pueblo). A few weeks after the earthquake, union members and employers negotiated labor conditions and pay in their offices. In many ways, La Reforma and the Casa del Pueblo functioned as a central point in the production and circulation of working-class solidarity. Although communication between Santiago and Valparaíso was temporarily cut off—prompting one writer from La Reforma to lament the “hours of anguish,” the pain and tears that “await us at the hour that the telegraph gives us knowledge of the unknown but undoubtedly unlucky Valparaíso and other cities”—some residents and union members from Valparaíso began to move to Santiago, bringing with them news of their experiences.77 Before receiving news from Valparaíso, though, La Reforma writers dealt with the situation in Santiago. Although the writing from the first few days after the earthquake is specific to Santiago, it reveals the initial reactions of a significant portion of organized labor. According to the writers of La Reforma, the center of the capital city, filled with sturdy buildings, remained largely intact, while the working-class neighborhoods of the city turned into “camps of misery and desolation.” Public spaces in Santiago immediately became places of impromptu housing, including the Plaza de Armas, Avenida de las Delicias, the banks of the Mapocho River, and Cousiño Park.78 Despite the spatial and class difference in the destruction of buildings, La Reforma declared that class differences no longer existed when facing a disaster of such magnitude: The creaking of buildings that swayed, the crash of the falling walls, the men running toward their homes to help or find death in the midst; the cries of women that ask for mercy from the God they believe in; cries of children that clamor for their father and their mother; fainting of large and small; and, like a somber background of that horrible and anguished picture, the atmosphere charged with electricity and copious water consistently pouring down from the rain that bathes the stretched out groups—without distinction to class—because before Nature we are all equal—in the center of streets fleeing from the danger and confronting ourselves in our misery.79 In another article published the same day, the writer remarked that “the division of classes disappears before the danger [of the earthquake].”80 Although articles in La Reforma recognized class differences in destruction from the earthquake, the authors articulated a view of nature that superseded class, a nature that treated all classes as equals. By the next day, though, the writers of La Reforma began to insert the earthquake and its aftermath into a class analysis. They argued that industrialists, traders, and capitalists must help working class victims of the catastrophe since it was the workers who had created their fortunes in the first place. The state, too, was obligated to help those that it governed, particularly the working class. Further, in this hour of need, the working class must show its solidarity with others affected by the situation: “And we, compañeros of poverty that may still have bread, we will break it in half and take it with us wherever misery looms.”81 In these initial articles, writers of La Reforma recognized the existence of class differences, but their politics from prior to the earthquake left them with the view of a possibility of working through these class differences to support those in need. The first article about the earthquake published by a specific labor organization in La Reforma began circulating on August 20. The statement was signed by Esther Valdés de Díaz, a seamstress, writer for the labor press, and president of the Asociación de Costureras (Seamstresses Association), an all-female association formed one month earlier in order to defend women against the “inhuman demands of capital” and a group La Reforma previously praised for “the awakening of feminism.”82 The association formed to spread solidarity to other women workers, Valdés de Díaz wrote, and in a time when many women workers did not have a roof over their heads or a piece of bread, each member of the association should work their hardest to fulfill the mission of the organization. Valdés de Díaz then laid out three ways in which the association and its members could help, including donating money and clothing, particularly for women. The closing of the statement emphasized the “love and tenderness” of women, who, more than anyone else, should take in those without a home or children orphaned from the disaster. Valdés de Díaz’s article, on the one hand, points to a gendered view of solidarity, the idea that working-class women had an extra responsibility to support those of their class and gender. On the other hand, it might also suggest that male-centered groups may not have stretched out their arms of solidarity equally across genders, and Valdés de Díaz’s emphasis on women helping women functioned as a hidden critique of this marginalization.83 The first trains from Valparaíso began to arrive in Santiago on August 21, bringing with them residents and their stories of the earthquake, fires, and state repression. Writers for La Reforma traveled to the train station to offer help. They found their “old compañero” Hércules Beltrami and his family, to whom they offered shelter and food in the printing office of La Reforma, the Casa del Pueblo. While at the office Beltrami recounted the massive destruction of Valparaíso due to the earthquake and the subsequent “wave of fires.” Beltrami also told of rising prices for meat, condensed milk, and sopaipillas (fried squash dough).84 When more people arrived from the devastated area the next day, La Reforma noted the absence of any assistance from the state in their search for housing. (The state did plan on receiving and supporting people coming from Valparaíso, but officials developed this plan on August 23, two days after Beltrami arrived.85) For La Reforma the lack of assistance was typical, and the paper argued that the people should not forget the state’s willingness to “run over and tyrannize” the working class.86 La Reforma circulated the discourse of working-class solidarity and acted as a space through which to organize as well. La Reforma quickly opened its doors to working-class families displaced from the disaster, began a donation fund for those in need, and held benefits to raise money. Other working-class organizations publicized their actions in La Reforma as well: the Gas Fitters and Tinsmiths society called for a meeting to raise funds; the Sociedad de Resistencia Daniel Platila (Daniel Platila Resistance Society) opened their offices as temporary housing; and the Cosmopolita de Resistencia de Pintores (Cosmopolitan Resistance of Painters), Seamstresses Association, and the Ateneo de Obreras all held meetings to help workers affected by the disaster, particularly women in the case of the last two organizations.87 For many, working-class solidarity was the key to surviving the aftermath of the earthquake. “The most positive and progressive is that which we did ourselves, without every waiting for the help of the powerful, of our current and eternal executioners.”88 With more and more working-class people arriving to Santiago from Valparaíso, writers began to solidify their conceptualization of the “natural” disaster and of class relations in its aftermath. One story, for instance, described a young worker walking down the street who saw a handkerchief fall out of a man’s pocket. The young worker picked it up and approached the owner from behind, who then turned and accused him of stealing the handkerchief. A guard approached, and without hearing the young man’s story, took him to the Gran Avenida de Brasil and executed him, leaving a sign on his body marking him a thief. According to a worker from Valparaíso, workers from the cerros were not allowed to travel through the city without a special note from “some capitalist,” and if they were found without a note, they would be forced to work without pay.89 And as shown above, city authorities hassled some people with the proper “city passport.” For the writers of La Reforma, this example, as well as many others not directly described in the article, revealed the true disaster in Valparaíso: one that the state and capital were inflicting on the working class. While the earthquake and fires destroyed buildings and killed people across the city, the state and elites targeted and coerced working class people into work, fed them barely enough to survive, shot those who refused to work, and killed others for no reason at all besides appearing to be members of the working class. The aftermath of the earthquake revealed a social disaster profoundly marked by class difference. Repression by the state was the real disaster as it allowed the state to revoke the workers’ “constitutional guarantees” and converted them into “slave[s] of the authorities.”90 Whereas just over ten days earlier these writers implored authorities to fulfill their duty and help in the aftermath of the disaster, they were now beginning to rethink the very nature of the state. Yet this narrative is too neat and tidy. One writer discussed how working-class people bore the brunt of the repression, arguing that “they have not only been the victims of hunger and desolation, but also they have had to suffer from the rigors of despotic and hateful militarism as well.” Nonetheless, the author also applauded the authorities for maintaining public order against vandalism.91 Soon thereafter, La Reforma published an article thanking those who helped keep calm and order in the direct aftermath, despite the “natural instincts” of criminality. In the writers’ eyes, the earthquake and fires awoke “the human beast [which], driven by savage instincts and relying on the temporary disorder, began to rob, set fires, and rape.” Further, while they could not “accept” the methods used by the authorities, they could “tolerate” the punishments given the circumstances, while reserving the right to protest the excesses of the process. The author of the article asked for an investigation into the executions, suggesting that some were justified while others were not, and those involved in the punishment should face a trial for their excesses.92 These types of opinions were short lived and somewhat rare, perhaps meaning that these ideas may have been held by a small number of people in the offices of La Reforma who then quickly changed their opinion.93 These opinions may also represent the remnants of previous ideas about the state; political convictions of an issue of such importance can be slow to change. Perhaps these arguments reveal a certain “respectable” working-class anxiety towards the supposedly “lumpen” portion of the proletariat. Regardless, it is important to remember that in such a difficult time, opinions probably varied and shifted. Direct working-class aid in the form of donations, work, and housing was perhaps the most important form of solidarity in the weeks after the disaster. The day after the earthquake, La Reforma published a call for the working class to donate to help those affected.94 In the weeks following this announcement, the newspaper regularly published a running tally of the amount of money it had raised, accompanied with the names of the people or organizations that donated the money. Other organizations held benefits to help those affected by the earthquake as well, which they sometimes handed over to La Reforma for distribution. The Asociación obrera de foot-ball (Workers’ Football Association), for instance, organized a soccer game as a fundraiser. Requesting forty centavos for adults and twenty centavos for children, the association raised fifty pesos.95 Some local bakeries donated bread to the Casa del Pueblo.96 A group called the “18 de Setiembre” held a meeting on August 30 with about twenty of its members and decided to give the money they planned on using to celebrate the Chilean fiestas patrias (Independence Day) to La Reforma to distribute to those in need.97 Other organizations raised money for the victims on their own. The Sociedad de Carpinteros i Ebanistas (Fermín Vivaceta Society of Carpenters and Cabinet-makers) called on its members to donate money, and when they had gathered one hundred pesos, they held a meeting and elected a few people to travel to Valparaíso to distribute the funds.98 The Federación Gráfica (Graphic Federation) announced that it was asking all of its members to donate one peso to a fund to help their compañeros in Valparaíso.99 Some societies published announcements for other types solidarity as well. Fernando Rojas, the secretary of the Partido Demócrata, published an early article calling on workers and working-class organizations to help victims of the disaster find work in Santiago where possible, and the Sociedad de Resistencia Daniel Platila pushed for their members to do the same.100 Towards the end of August, the PD began to plan a velada fúnebre as a “posthumous homage to the memory” of the “fallen workers in the catastrophe of Valparaíso.”101 In the early twentieth century, anarchist and other radical groups organized veladas as a means to recruit new members and spread radical ideas. Veladas typically took the form of theater, music, song, poetry, and speeches on contemporary history, current events, and society.102 By choosing to organize a velada fúnebre, a form of gathering built on the political idea that intellectual exchange could help battle capitalism and prefigure a more egalitarian world, the organizers placed the earthquake within a longer history of radical political and cultural organizing. In the following days the organizers seem to have met almost daily and decided that the event should not only be an “homage to the memory” of the working-class victims of the catastrophe but also a benefit for those still alive and in need. They decided to hold the event in the Caupolicán Theater in Santiago on September 9, placing their working-class funeral—unbeknownst to them—three weeks before the official state funeral for the victims in Valparaíso.103 Luis B. Díaz, the president of the Partido Democrático opened the evening by reading a lengthy poem that recalled how Latin American workers had unselfishly supported the cause of independence, even though it was led by the local elites who were their main oppressors. The poem also called directly on the working class to help those in need: Desperation visits the children and the elderly lacerating their souls, without pity . . . today they seek those who have a heart and in mute silence implore sympathy! Let us hear their laments, let us see the destitution of orphans and widows, who cry out for help, and though our contribution might be small, let us bring it with love to the desolate field of necessity!104 The actor Julian García followed the poem with a monologue written for the night. Luis E. Díaz C., one of the committee members that helped to organize the event, then appealed for donations from the packed house. It was absurd for the working class to wait or ask for protection from above, Diaz argued, for there “remains no other means for the proletariat than to join with others in the struggle and mutually protect themselves.” The editor of La Reforma, J. Joaquin Salinas invoked working-class solidarity and the need to “honor the memory of our fallen compañeros” by continuing to organize to “establish the complete division between the proletariat, which is love and nobility, and the oligarchy, which is all selfishness and ambition, which laughs at death and derides misery.” The author of the first article from a labor organization after the earthquake, Esther Valdés de Díaz closed out the night by calling working-class solidarity “the most transcendent manifestation of being moral,” an act specifically emanating from the workers’ sense of love and affection produced through their working-class status.105 In the coming weeks, the labor movement in Santiago seems to have quickly picked up steam. Historians Peter DeShazo and Sergio Grez have argued that the movement gained strength due to the fact that the number of postquake construction jobs exceeded the number of workers available to fill the positions, giving workers a short-term market advantage and increasing their bargaining power.106 While this might be true, the rather mechanical calculation misses the affective side to the aftermath of the disaster. Small- and large-scale acts of working-class solidarity in the aftermath of the disaster tapped into a previous history of mutual aid societies and union solidarity, helping to build a more solidified and active working class. The rise in organizing developed out of both the short term market advantage and the affective solidarity built through collective, working-class struggle. People reading La Reforma, participating in local meetings, or attending large events felt a powerful sense of working-class solidarity. Similarly, workers in Valparaíso probably experienced the creation of intimate bonds with their compañeros in Santiago who sent aid and occasionally visited the port to personally hand it over, who housed their friends and family that left for Santiago, or who helped them find work. Indeed, the pages of La Reforma are filled with letters of appreciation, such as one from La Sociedad Aurora, which listed five things people could do to help, the last of which was to “congratulate La Reforma for its valiant attitude in favor of the victims.”107 This experience of affective solidarity created a base from which the labor movement could grow in the months after the earthquake. Announcements for the formation of new societies slowly began to appear in La Reforma. The list of meetings planned in one weekend (from September 14 to 16) in Santiago reached a total of twenty-eight.108 By September 4, the Resistance Society of Painters went on strike for better wages, an eight-hour work day, and a closed shop in Santiago; on September 8 cigarette makers declared a strike for an increase in their pay rate; and on September 11 leather tanners struck for a wage increase. Moreover, many of the negotiations between employers and painters took place in the offices of La Reforma.109 In October El Alba, the newspaper of the Federación de Trabajadores de Chile (FTCh; Workers Federation of Chile), compared the earthquake to similar occurrences in California and Italy, arguing that these events made the class antagonism between the elite and the working class all too clear.110 And Luis E. Diaz C., one of the organizers of the velada fúnebre, founded the newspaper El Combate and connected it to the earthquake in its first issue through a reprinting of the poem read by Luis B. Díaz at the velada fúnebre.111 While we do not have any newspapers from Valparaíso to confirm a parallel phenomenon, the case of the labor movement in Santiago suggests that, perhaps after a few weeks or more of taking care of themselves, friends, and family, as well as finding new places to meet, working-class organizations built on their experiences of class solidarity to reenergize the local labor movement. In spite of the earthquake, and because of the actions of the state, working-class people forged new relations of affective solidarity and inserted new energy into the labor movement. Conclusion The 1906 Valparaíso earthquake was anything but a natural disaster. Within days, many elite and working-class people interpreted and understood the social aspects of the earthquake and fires. With an elite portion of the city hit the hardest, some residents sought to use their power to rebuild in their favor. Local state authorities used their funds and arms to control movement in the city, especially among the working class, and showed little hesitation to enforce new laws with lashes and executions. Seeing the opening created by the situation, they attempted to use their social, political, and economic status to assert their ideas of order and rational progress onto the city and its residents. At the same time, state authorities took their time to support working-class people affected by the disaster. As a result, the PD and its Santiago newspaper La Reforma wrote of a state attacking working-class people and totally absent in their time of need. This sector of the organized working class analyzed with clarity the class violence of the situation; for them, this itself was a disaster. Building on a much longer history of mutual aid in Chile, La Reforma and the PD created avenues through which people could create affective bonds of solidarity, created in part with financial resources and in part by direct, personal support. Viewing the earthquake and its aftermath from the perspective of these labor organizers allows for new insights into how working-class people interpreted the disaster and began to question the very nature of the state. Footnotes Many people read this article at various points and their comments greatly improved it. In particular, I would like to thank Ray Craib, Peter Winn, participants of the Cornell University Department of History Colloquium, the anonymous reviewers, and Matthew Karush. Initial funding for this research came from a Tufts University Graduate Student Research-In-Aid grant. 1 D. Comte, et al., “The 1985 Central Chile Earthquake: A Repeat of Previous Great Earthquakes in the Region?,” Science 233, no. 4762 (July 25, 1986), 451, 452 note 24 (for later size estimate); Luis L. Zegers, El Terremoto de 16 de Agosto de 1906 (Santiago,1906), 26, 29–32; Manuel Miranda Marrón, Las Catástrofes de 1906 (Mexico, 1908), 35–6, 39–40; F. Omori, “Notes on the Valparaíso and Aleutian Earthquakes of Aug. 17, 1906,” Bulletin of the Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee 1, no. 2 (March 1907), 103, 108, 111–13. The size of the earthquake here is measured in magnitude of surface waves (Ms). Though it measured on seismographs, this does not mean that people necessarily felt the earthquake. When the “Chacabuco” ship arrived in the Juan Fernández Islands in September 1906, for instance, one official told the commander of the “Chacabuco” that he had not felt a thing on August 16 and another mentioned feeling a “small tremor.” See Dirección Jeneral de la Armada to Señor Ministro de Marina, Valparaíso, 27 de Setiembre de 1906, Archivo Nacional de la Administración [hereafter ARNAD] (Santiago, Chile), Ministerio de Marina [hereafter MM], vol. 1542; Zegers, El Terremoto, 34. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Spanish are my own. 2 Alfredo Rodríguez Rozas y Carlos Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe del 16 de Agosto de 1906 en la República de Chile (Santiago de Chile, 1906), 52. Viewed via Memoriachilena at http://www.memoriachilena.cl/602/w3-article-7734.html. 3 Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (New York, 1998); Ted Steinberg, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disasters in America (New York, 2006); Gregory Clancey, Earthquake Nation: The Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868–1930 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2006); Charles F. Walker, Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and its Long Aftermath (Durham, 2008); Jürgen Buchenau and Lyman L. Johnson, eds., Aftershocks: Earthquakes and Popular Politics in Latin America (Albuquerque, 2009); Robin Derby, The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo (Durham, 2009), ch. 2; Mark Healey, The Ruins of the New Argentina: Peronism and the Remaking of San Juan after the 1944 Earthquake (Durham, 2011). 4 Steinberg, Acts of God, xiv. 5 Davis, Ecology of Fear, 47. 6 Walker, Shaky Colonialism, 172–81; Paul J. Dosal, “Natural Disaster, Political Earthquake: The 1972 Destruction of Managua and the Somoza Dynasty,” in Aftershocks, Buchenau and Johnson, eds. For some exceptions to this, see Mark Healey, “The Fragility of the Moment: Politics in the Aftermath of the 1944 Argentine Earthquake” and Deborah Levenson, “Reactions to Trauma: The 1976 Earthquake in Guatemala,” both in International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 62 (Fall 2002): 50–68; Louise E. Walker, “Economic Fault Lines and Middle-Class Fears: Tlateloco, Mexico City, 1985,” in Aftershocks, Jürgen Buchenau and Lyman L. Johnson, eds., 184–221; Alfredo Riquelma Sergovia y Bárbara Silva Avaria, “Una identidad terremoteada. Chile en 1960,” Revista de Historia Iberoamericana 4, núm. 1 (2011), 83–85; Stuart Schwartz, Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina (Princeton, 2015), 107, 116–17, 136–37, 184, 232–33. 7 María Ximena Urbina Carrasco, Los conventillos de Valparaíso, 1880–1920. Fisonomía y percepción de una vivienda popular urbana (Valparaíso, Chile, 2002), esp. 67, 102–3; “Terremoto Valparaíso 1906: El impacto en las viviendas populares,” Revista CA: Ciudades y Arquitectura No. 126 (Agosto–Septiembre 2006): 30–31; Samuel Martland, “Constructing Valparaíso: Infrastructure and the Politics of Progress in Chile’s Port, 1842–1918” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, 2003), esp. 187–98; “Reconstructing the City, Constructing the State,” Hispanic American Historical Review 87, no. 2 (May 2007): 222–54; “Social and Political Fault Lines: The Valparaíso Earthquake of 1906,” in Aftershocks, Jürgen Buchenau and Lyman L. Johnson, eds. 8 Mark Carey, In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers: Climate Change and Andean Society (New York, 2010), 9. 9 Mario Garcés Durán, Crisis social y motines populares en el 1900, segunda edición (Santiago, 2003), 85. 10 On anarchism in early-twentieth century Chile, see Peter DeShazo, “The Valparaíso Maritime Strike of 1903 and the Development of a Revolutionary Labor Movement in Chile,” Journal of Latin American Studies 11, no. 11 (May 1979): 145–68; DeShazo, Urban Workers and Labor Unions in Chile, 1902–1927 (Madison, 1983); Sergio Grez Toso, Los anarquistas y el movimiento obrero. La alborada de “la Idea” en Chile, 1893–1915 (Santiago, 2007); and Víctor Muñoz Cortés, Sin dios ni patrones. Historia, diversidad y conflicts del anarquismo en la región chilena (1890–1990) (Valparaíso, 2013), ch. 1–4. On the closeness between parts of anarchism and other political parties, see DeShazo, Urban Workers, esp. Appendix 2, 285–86; Raymond Craib, “Students, Anarchists and Categories of Persecution in Chile, 1920,” Acontracorriente 8, no. 1 (Fall, 2010): 22–60; The Cry of the Renegade: Politics and Poetry in Interwar Chile (New York, 2016). 11 For various ways in which bonds of solidarity formed among working class people in Chile, see Charles Bergquist, Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia (Stanford, 1986), ch. 2; Thomas Miller Klubock, Contested Communities: Class, Gender, and Politics in Chile’s El Teniente Copper Mine, 1904–1951 (Durham, 1998); Elizabeth Quay Hutchison, Labors Appropriate to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900–1930 (Durham, 2001); Jody Pavilack, Mining for the Nation: The Politics of Chile’s Coal Communities from the Popular Front to the Cold War (University Park, 2011); Brenda Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (Austin, 2014); Craib, Cry of the Renegade. Of course much of this literature is influenced by E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1991), especially 8–9. For a recent example of affective relations within the Communist Party in the long 1960s, see Alfonso Salgado, “Exemplary Comrades: The Public and Private Life of Communists in Twentieth-Century Chile” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2016), ch. 5. 12 For this process, see Gabriel Salazar, Labradores, peones y proletarios. Formación y crisis de la sociedad popular chilena del siglo XIX (Santiago, 2000). 13 Urbina Carrasco, Los conventillos de Valparaíso, 70–71. 14 Ibid., 27, 29. 15 For a description of the different cerros, see Juan de D. Ugarte Yávar, Valparaíso, 1536–1910. Recopilación histórica, comercial y social (Valparaíso, 1910), 28–39. 16 Ibid., 34–35. 17 Roberto Hernández Ponce y Jule Salazar González, De la policía secreta a la policía científica. Proceso histórico. Policía de Investigaciones de Chile, 1864–1927 (Santiago, 1994), vol. 1, 68–69. See also the 1888 Valparaíso police report in which they argue for the need for more Sección de Seguridad agents and include a table showing steadily rising numbers of apprehended people in the second half of 1887. Prefectura de Policía de Valparaíso to Señor Intendente, Enero 25 de 1898, ANH, Intendencia de Valparaíso [hereafter IV], v. 849, f. 10–13 of the report. 18 “La policia i la criminalidad de Valparaíso,” Revista de la Policia de Valparaíso, Año 1, No. 1, Octubre 31, 1906, 13. See also the concern over increased crime and topographic difficulties expressed in Proyecto de Aumento de Personal de la Sección de Seguridad para el año 1907, attached to Prefectura de Policia de Valparaíso to Sr. Intendente de la Provincia [de Valparaíso], Valparaíso, Abril 24 de 1906, no. 342, ANH, IV, v. 1184. 19 Intendencia de Valparaíso to Señor Ministro del Interior, 12 de Octubre de 1905; Inspección Jeneral y Almacenes de Policia to Señor Ministro, 31 de Octubre de 1905, ARNAD, Ministerio del Interior [hereafter MI], v. 2970. 20 Urbina Carrasco, Los conventillos de Valparaíso, 160–62, 166; Peter DeShazo, Urban Workers, 7–8, 22–29. Conventillos were often times large single family homes renovated to become multifamily residences, organized around a central patio area, or were sometimes “precarious” collective housing built specifically for this purpose. According to a 1905 El Mercurio article, about one-third of Valparaíso’s population lived in conventillos. El Mercurio article cited in Urbina Carrasco, “Terremoto Valparaíso 1906.” 21 Martland, “Reconstructing the City, Constructing the State,” 241. 22 María Angélica Illanes, “Revolución Solidaria,” 270. 23 Sergio Grez, De la “Regeneración del Pueblo” a la Huelga General. Génisis y evolución histórica del movimiento popular en Chile (1810–1890) (Santiago, 2007), 387–88, quote on 388. 24 María Angélica Illanes, “Revolución Solidaria,” 324–27. 25 Grez, Los anarquistas, 62–63. 26 “Convenio celebrado entre las policías de La Plata i Buenos Aires (Arjentina), de Rio de Janeiro (Brasil), de Santiago de Chile i de Montevideo (R. O. del Uruguay),” Anuario del Ministerio del Interior correspondiente al año 1906 (Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Nacional, 1909), Section 1, 239–300, 240 (for “the necessity of . . .”), 242 (for “subvert . . .” and “agitators”), 275 (for “antisocial” and “changing the actually”). 27 Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, 45. 28 Ibid., 48. 29 “Ecos de la catastrofe,” La Reforma, 6 de Setiembre de 1906. 30 Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, 52, 54. 31 For estimates of 1,500, 2,000, and 3,000, see Miranda, Las catastrofes de 1906, 39. For more than 3,000, see Ugarte, Valparaíso, 128. For over 5,000, see Zegers, El Terremoto, 34. 32 “Ecos de la catastrofe,” La Reforma, 2 and 4 de Setiembre de 1906. 33 Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, 93, 104, 164; Martland, “Reconstructing the City, Constructing the State,” 235. 34 Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, 61; “Aislados en los buques – en busca de viveres,” El Mercurio, 20 de Agosto de 1906; Samuel Marland, “Constructing Valparaíso,” 193. All references to El Mercurio are to the version published in Valparaíso, not the version published in Santiago. 35 Martland, “Social and Political Fault Lines,” 85. 36 Acta de la sesión estraordinaria celebrada por la I. Municipalidad en 22 de Setiembre de 1906, ANH, Cabildo y Municipalidad de Valparaíso [hereafter CMV], vol. 182, 876. 37 Ibid., 880–911. 38 María Ximena Urbina Carasco, Los conventillos de Valparaíso, map between 110 and 111; Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, map between 130 and 131. 39 In June 1905 there was a conventillo at Olivar 216, for instance. See Prefectura de Policía [de Valparaíso] to Intendente de la Provincia, Junio 7 de 1905, no. 775, ANH, IV, vol. 1148. 40 “Lo que queda por hacer,” El Mercurio, 19 de Agosto de 1906. This same article argued for the need for centralized control of the city that should be “blindly obeyed,” especially after the incidents in San Francisco after the earthquake from a few months prior. 41 “Ordenes de las Autoridades,” El Mercurio, 19 de Agosto de 1906. 42 “Los deberes del momento,” El Mercurio, 20 de Agosto de 1906. 43 Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, 178–80; Martland, “Social and Political Fault Lines,” 74–75; Alcaldia Municipal to Sr. Intendente de Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Agosto 17 de 1906, ANH, IV, vol. 1172. For more on the situation at the prison, see “La Carcel de Valparaíso,” El Chileno, 29 de Agosto de 1906; Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, 160–62. Three months after handing out arms to numerous people, some of them were never returned. See Escuela de Injenieros Mecanicos to Señor Intendente de la Provincia, Valparaíso, 20 de Octubre de 1906; Prefecto de Policia to Señor Intendente, Valparaíso, 14 de Noviembre de 1906; Armada Nacional to Señor Intendente de la Provincia, Valparaíso, 24 de Noviembre de 1906; Armada Nacional to Sr. Intendente de la Provincia, Valparaíso, 27 de Noviembre de 1906, all in ANH, IV, vol. 1172. 44 “Decreto que nombra la Comision Jeneral de Socorros. Núm. 4,526,” 2.a Seccion, Anuario del Ministerio del Interior correspondiente al año 1906 (Santiago de Chile, 1909), 183–85. 45 On the 1903 strike, see Deshazo, “The Valparaíso Maritime Strike of 1903”; Garcés Durán, Crisis social, 99–116; Grez, Los anarquistas, 85–92. 46 Alcaldia Municipal de Valparaíso, Decreto No. 407, Valparaíso, Abril 30 de 1906, ANH, IV, v. 1172. 47 Martland, “Social and Political Fault Lines,” 75. 48 El Mercurio, 19 de Agosto de 1906; “Ordenes del dia,” El Mercurio, 22 de Agosto de 1906; Ugarte Yávar, Valparaíso 1536–1910, 26–28. 49 “El orden publico,” El Mercurio, 20 de Agosto de 1906; “El orden publico,” “Los fusilamientos en Valparaíso,” El Chileno, 23 de Agosto de 1906. Martland (“Social and Political Fault Lines,” 76) also points out the location of the executed bodies out for display. On the “guards of order,” see “Disolucion de las guardias del órden” and “La guardia nocturna,” El Mercurio, 30 de Agosto de 1906 and 10 de Setiembre de 1906. 50 “Los fusilamientos en Valparaíso,” El Chileno, 29 de Agosto de 1906. “Zozobras e Inquietudes . . .,” in La Reforma, 21 de Agosto de 1906, writes of “criminal spirits” attempting to scare residents. El Ferrocarril apparently still saw the need to reinforce the idea that people warning about new earthquakes as late as September 5th should be punished, writing that “everybody asks the competent authorities that they apply the punishment of one hundred lashings.” Quoted in the article “¡Si, que se les azote!” La Reforma, 6 de Setiembre de 1906. For a similar situation in 1746 Lima, see Walker, Shaky Colonialism, 158. 51 “Azotes,” El Mercurio, 24 de Agosto de 1906. Again, Martland (“Social and Political Fault Lines,” 76) mentions this case as well. 52 Larrain Alcalde to Ministro de Justicia, 21 Set 1906, telegram, ANH, IV, v. 1162. 53 Martland (“Reconstructing the City, Constructing the State,” 237), following Rodríguez Rozas and Gajardo Cruzat (195), writes of “about 15 people” being executed. For the “a little over 100,” see “El Orden Publico,” El Chileno, 23 de Agosto de 1906. The lower number given by Rodríguez Rozas and Gajardo Cruzat might not be the most reliable source, though. Their book is a key text for any study of the earthquake, but in terms of state violence, Rodríguez Rozas was quite supportive of the state’s actions. In brief letter to El Mercurio, Rodríguez Rozas, a lawyer, wrote: “On my part I can declare that not in the slightest has the constitution not been applied due to the situation in Valparaíso and I think that between my colleagues, there is not a single one that would have words of not only admiration, but also of gratitude for our authorities.” See “La reunion de abogados,” El Mercurio, 6 de Setiembre de 1906. Three years later, in an issue of the Revista de la Policía de Valparaíso printed especially for the anniversary of the earthquake, Antonio Santibáñez Rojas wrote of these measures as “tremendous and painful, but absolutely necessary.” See Antonio Santibáñez Rojas, “La autoridad administrativa ante la catástrofe de Agosto,” Revista de la Policía de Valparaíso, Año III, no. 34, Agosto 16 de 1909, 1–18, 5 for quote. 54 “El Gobierno a los habitantes de Valparaíso,” El Mercurio, 23 and 24 de Agosto de 1906. 55 Ibid.; “La primera comisaria,” El Mercurio, 20 de Agosto de 1906. 56 Policía Urbana, Valparaíso, 28 de Agosto de 1906; Bermudez to Sr. Intendente de la Provincia, Valparaíso, 3 Setiembre 1906, both in ANH, IV, vol. 1172. 57 “Orden del Dia,” El Mercurio, 26 de Agosto de 1906. In a 1925 letter regarding Gómez Carreño’s retirement, his postearthquake activities were the first in a list of four of his great accomplishments in his career. See Ministero de Marina to Señor Vice-Almirante de la Armada, Don Luis Gómez Carreño, Santiago, 18 de Febrero de 1925, ARNAD, MM, vol. 2743. 58 By early September it appears that work was remunerated, and on September 20, Larrain Alcalde wrote to the minister of the interior asking for permission to continue to pay the “large work crews” he had employed to clear the streets. See various letters and tables with job titles and pay beginning in early September in ANH, IV, vol. 1172; Larraín Alcalde to Ministro Interior, telegram, Setiembre 20, 1906, ANH, IV, vol. 1162. 59 “La reunion de vecinos ayer,” El Mercurio, 23 de Agosto de 1906. 60 For a very different interpretation on the group, see María Teresa Figari G., “Bien comun y orden publico. A propósito del terremoto de Valparaíso de 1906,” Revista Archivum No. 5, año IV, 48. President Riesco claimed the group membership was representative of population of Valparaíso: “vecinos más caracterizados de Valparaíso.” See “La reunion de vecinos ayer,” El Mercurio, 27 de Agosto de 1906. 61 “La reunion de vecinos ayer,” El Mercurio, 27 de Agosto de 1906. 62 “Comision Jeneral de Vecinos,” El Mercurio, 28 and 29 de Agosto de 1906, quotes are from the 29th. 63 “Comision jeneral de vecinos,” El Mercurio, 2 de Setiembre de 1906. 64 This phrase translates as “technicians,” but the sense of the word in the letter is used to signify those with specialized technical (scientific, engineering) knowledge. 65 “La espropriacion del Almendral,” El Mercurio, 6 de Setiembre de 1906. These two letters published under the same headline. 66 “La espropriacion del Almendral,” El Mercurio, 9 de Setiembre de 1906. 67 “La espropriacion del Almendral,” El Mercurio, 12 de Setiembre de 1906. 68 “La espropriacion del Almendral,” El Mercurio, 14 de Setiembre de 1906. 69 In their September 22 meeting, council member Claro Melo recognized the concerns of small property owners, only to immediately dismiss them as of little importance and as complaints that should be subsumed under the general good of the city. See Acta de la sesión estraordinaria celebrada por la I. Municipalidad en 22 de Setiembre de 1906, ANH, CMV, vol. 182, 895. E. C. Eberhardt, one of the supporters of the expropriation, on the other hand, thought that there should be a rule against one person buying up multiple pieces of property at the same time, which would be harmful to people with less means to purchase property. See “La espropriacion del Almendral,” El Mercurio, 6 de Setiembre de 1906. 70 This section was written with Raymond Craib’s Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes (Durham, 2004) in mind, esp. 123 and note 102 on 123. See also Tim Cresswell, Place: An Introduction (Malden, MA, 2015), esp. 30, 35. 71 Juan de D. Ugarte Yávar, Valparaíso, 1536–1910, 53; Martland, “Reconstructing the City,” 241–42. 72 The Biblioteca Nacional in Santiago does not have a single anarchist periodical from Valparaíso in their catalog for the time period directly after the disaster. Comparatively, see: Healey, “The Fragility of the Moment”; Levenson, “Reactions to Trauma”; Walker, “Economic Fault Lines and Middle-Class Fears.” 73 “La Alborada,” La Reforma, 16 de Setiembre de 1906; La Alborada, 11 de Noviembre de 1906. 74 “Ecos de la catastrofe,” La Reforma, 4 de Setiembre de 1906. 75 Grez, Los anarquistas, 97. 76 La Alborada, 11 de Noviembre de 1906; Grez, Los anarquistas, 129–31, 133, 166–67. The most complete historical interpretation of the PD is the recently published book by Sergio Grez Toso, El Partido Democrático de Chile. Auge y ocaso de una organizción política popular (1887–1927) (Santiago, 2016). Some chapters of El Partido Democrático de Chile are based on less detailed articles previously published by Grez, such as “El Partido Democrático de Chile: de la guerra civil a la Alianza Liberal (1891–1899),” Historia 46, vol. 1 (enero–junio, 2013): 39–87; “Reglamentarios y doctrinarios, las alas rivales del Partido Democrático de Chile (1901–1908),” Cuadernos de Historia 37 (diciembre, 2012): 75–130. For another take on the founding of the PD, see María Angélica Illanes Oliva, Cuerpo y sangre de la política. La construcción histórica de las visitadores sociales. Chile, 1887–1940 (Santiago, 2006), 58–77; Garcés Durán, Crisis social, 132–35. 77 “Horas de angustia,” La Reforma, 18 de Agosto de 1906. 78 “La noche triste . . .,” La Reforma, 17 de Agosto de 1906. 79 “Horas de angustia,” La Reforma, 18 de Agosto de 1906. Emphasis added. 80 “El duelo popular . . .,” La Reforma, 18 de Agosto de 1906. 81 “Ante el catastrofe,” La Reforma, 19 de Agosto de 1906. 82 “Solidaridad Obrera,” La Reforma, 20 de Agosto de 1906; Hutchison, Labors Appropriate, 114. 83 See, for instance, Hutchinson’s (Labors Appropriate, 115–16) discussion of Valdés de Díaz’s disagreement with J. Joaquín Salinas of La Reforma on gendered participation in the labor movement. 84 “Desolacion i miseria . . .,” La Reforma, 22 de Agosto de 1906. Authorities in Valparaíso went through at least two phases of regulation on meat. See Alcaldia Municipal de Valparaíso to Señor Intendente de la Provincia, Valparaíso, 2 de Setiembre, 1906; Alcaldia Municipal de Valparaíso to Sr. Intendente de la Provincia, Valparaíso, 10 de Setiembre de 1906, both in ANH, IV, vol. 1172. 85 Ministerio del Interior to Oficina de Partes, 23 de Agosto, ARNAD, MI, vol. 3168. 86 “Indolencia infame,” La Reforma, 23 de Agosto de 1906. 87 La Reforma, 24–25 de Agosto de 1906. 88 “Nuestra Accion,” La Reforma, 28 de Agosto de 1906. 89 “En Valparaíso lo que sufren los proletarios,” La Reforma, 26 de Agosto de 1906. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 “Las desgracias de Valparaiso. La human bestia contra la bestia humana,” La Reforma, 29 de Agosto de 1906. 93 Osvaldo Arias Escobedo also briefly mentions this shift in La Reforma’s analysis. See Osvaldo Arias Escobedo, La Prensa obrera en Chile (Chillán, Chile, 1970), 27–28. 94 “La Noche Triste,” La Reforma, 17 de Agosto de 1906. 95 “Asociacion obrera de foot-ball. En favor de los damnificados” and “Pro-Victimas,” La Reforma, 30 de Agosto and 7 de Setiembre de 1906. For more on this group, see Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen, 29–33, 42, 45, with a brief discussion of the benefit on 31. 96 “La cooperacion de las panaderias,” La Reforma, 29 de Agosto de 1906. 97 “18 de Setiembre,” La Reforma 4 de Setiembre de 1906. 98 “Sociedad de Carpinteros i Ebanistas Fermin Vivaceta” and “A Valparaiso,” La Reforma, 29 de Agosto de 1906 and 7 de Setiembre de 1906. 99 “Federacion Grafica,” La Reforma, 29 de Agosto de 1906. 100 “Los democratas i los damnificados,” and “Sociedad de Resistencia Daniel Pinilla,” La Reforma, 22 de Agosto de 1906 and 29 de Agosto de 1906. 101 “Ecos de la catastrophe” and “La gran velada fúnebre,” La Reforma, 28 and 29 de Agosto de 1906. 102 For Chile, see Grez, Los anarquistas, 182–96. For Argentina, see Juan Suriano, Paradoxes of Utopia: Anarchist Cultura and Politics in Buenos Aires, 1890–1910, trans. Chuck Morse (Oakland, 2010), 25–26, 82, 101–4; Juan Suriano, Auge y caída del anarquismo. Argentina, 1880–1930 (Buenos Aires, 2005), 47–50. 103 “La gran velada fúnebre,” “Movimiento social,” and “El Gran acto fúnebre de mañana,” La Reforma, 29 de Agosto de 1906, 4 and 8 de Setiembre de 1906. For the state funeral, see Rodríguez Rozas y Gajardo Cruzat, La Catástrofe, 242. 104 “Homenaje,” El Combate, Noviembre de 1906. Thanks to Thomas Rothe for help translating this stanza. 105 “Homenaje fúnebre de anteayer en honor de las victimas de Valparaíso,” La Reforma, 11 de Setiembre de 1906. 106 DeShazo, Urban Workers, 44, 98, 107, 113; Grez, Los anarquistas, 127–28. According to an interview with Minister of the Interior Vicente Santa Cruz in the newspaper Las Colonias Latina, a paper for foreigners in Santiago, the government was acutely aware of the lack of workers in Valparaíso. See “Nuestro reportajes con el jefe del Gabinete señor don Vicente Santa Cruz,” Las Colonias Latina, 15 de Noviembre de 1906. 107 “Sociedad La Aurora,” La Reforma, 29 de Agosto de 1906. 108 La Reforma, 14–16 de Setiembre de 1906. 109 “Huelga de pintores,” “Sociedad de Resistencia de Cigarreros Daniel Pinilla,” “Huelga de curtidores,” La Reforma, 4–5, 7–9, 11, 14 de Setiembre de 1906. 110 “El lecho de las fieras,” El Alba (Santiago), Octubre de 1906. 111 “Homenaje,” El Combate, Noviembre de 1906. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/about_us/legal/notices)
TI - “Let Us Bring it with Love”: Violence, Solidarity, and the Making of a Social Disaster in the Wake of the 1906 Earthquake in Valparaíso, Chile
JF - Journal of Social History
DO - 10.1093/jsh/shx021
DA - 2017-04-06
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/let-us-bring-it-with-love-violence-solidarity-and-the-making-of-a-qb1T443CX4
SP - 1
EP - 952
VL - Advance Article
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -