The Chincha Islands War, also known as Spanish–South American War (Spanish: Guerra hispano-sudamericana), was a series of coastal and naval battles between Spain and its former colonies of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and Bolivia from 1865 to 1879. The conflict began with Spain's seizure of the guano-rich Chincha Islands in one of a series of attempts by Spain, under Isabella II, to reassert its influence over its former South American colonies. The war saw the use of ironclads, including the Spanish armoured frigate Numancia, the first ironclad to circumnavigate the world.
Military expenditures were greatly increased during Isabella's reign and Spain rose to a position as the world's fourth largest naval power. In the 1850s and 1860s, the Spanish engaged in colonial activities around the world, including in Morocco, the Philippines, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, the last of which it briefly reoccupied.
At the end of 1862, Spain sent a scientific expedition to South American waters with the covert purpose of reinforcing the financial and legal claims of Spanish citizens residing in the Americas. The expedition was under the command of Admiral Luis Hernández-Pinzón Álvarez, a direct descendant of the Pinzón brothers, who had accompanied Christopher Columbus on his voyage that is generally considered to constitute the discovery of the Americas by Europeans. Pinzón's squadron was composed of four warships: the twin screw frigates Nuestra Señora del Triunfo and Resolución, the screw corvette Vencedora and the screw schooner Virgen de Covadonga.
The Spanish ships arrived at the port of Valparaíso, Chile, on April 18, 1863. Spain had recognized Chilean independence since the 1840s, and the two nations had maintained diplomatic relations. The expedition was cordially received, and the admiral exchanged visits with local authorities. The vessels left Chile in July 1863 amicably and moved on to Peru. Even though Spain had never recognized Peruvian independence, which had been declared in 1821, the squadron received a friendly welcome at the port of Callao. It stayed in port for a few weeks and then sailed bound for San Francisco, California, United States.
On August 4, 1863, an incident took place at the Talambo hacienda, in Lambayeque, Peru. The details are fragmentary, but the episode involved a fight that broke out between two Spanish residents and 40 local citizens. As a result, one Spaniard died, and four others were injured.
When news of the incident reached Pinzón, he returned with his fleet to Peru on November 13 and demanded for its government to issue an apology and for reparations to be made to the affected Spanish nationals. In response, the Peruvians took the position that the episode was an internal police matter that should be handled by the Peruvian justice system and that no apology was due. At that juncture, the Spanish government in Madrid decided to demand payment of Peruvian debts stemming from the War of Independence as well, and it sent the representative Eusebio Salazar y Mazarredo to settle the issue directly with the Peruvian authorities.
Salazar arrived in March 1864, bearing the title of Royal Commissary. That was a deliberate insult to the government of Peru because a commissary is a colonial functionary, rather than an ambassador, the normal level of diplomatic contact during consultations between independent states. The snub doomed negotiations with the Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Juan Antonio Ribeyro Estrada.
Occupation of the Chincha Islands
On April 14, 1864, in retaliation for Peru's refusal to pay an indemnity, the Spanish fleet seized the lightly defended Chincha Islands, the main source of Peruvian guano. The Spanish placed the islands' Peruvian governor, Ramón Valle Riestra, under arrest aboard the Resolución, occupied the islands with 400 marines, and raised the Spanish flag. Spain considered the islands an important bargaining chip, as they were a major Peruvian economic asset and produced almost 60% of the government's annual revenue.
The Spanish squadron also blockaded principal Peruvian ports, disrupting commerce and fostering a high level of resentment throughout Latin America. Spain expected little resistance from Peru and believed its military capabilities to be negligible. A proposal to exchange the islands for British-held Gibraltar was even entertained for a time. During the blockade, Triunfo was destroyed by an accidental fire off Pisco on the evening of 25 November 1864.
The new Spanish Prime Minister, Ramón María Narváez, disapproved of the unilateral actions taken by Pinzón and replaced him with Vice Admiral Juan Manuel Pareja, who had been Minister of the Navy. Pareja had been born in Peru, and his father, Brigadier Antonio Pareja, had died in Chile in 1813 while he was fighting for Spain during the Chilean War of Independence. Narváez's conciliatory opinion soon changed, and he dispatched another four warships to reinforce the Pacific fleet.
Pareja arrived in Peru in December 1864 and immediately opened negotiations with General Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco, the special representative of Peruvian President Juan Antonio Pezet. The Vivanco-Pareja Treaty was signed on January 27, 1865 on board the screw frigate Villa de Madrid. Popular opinion in Peru considered the treaty as detrimental to its national honor. When the Peruvian Congress refused to ratify it, a general uprising followed, and Pezet's government fell on November 7.
In the meantime, anti-Spanish sentiments in several South American countries, including Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador, increased. Peru and its neighbors still remained wary of any moves that might foreshadow an attempt to re-establish the Spanish Empire. Given the climate of suspicion, no one was surprised when the Spanish gunboat Vencedora stopped at a Chilean port for coal, and President José Joaquín Pérez declared that coal was a war supply that could not be sold to a belligerent nation.
From the Spanish point of view, the Chilean coaling embargo was taken as proof that Chile no longer was neutral. That was reinforced after two Peruvian steamers left the port of Valparaíso bearing weapons and Chilean volunteers bound for Peru. Vice Admiral José Manuel Pareja thus took a hard line and demanded sanctions against Chile that were even heavier than those imposed upon Peru. He then detached four wooden ships from his squadron and dispatched them to Chile while the Numancia and the Covadonga remained to guard Callao.
Pareja arrived at Valparaíso on September 17, 1865 aboard his flagship the Villa de Madrid. He demanded that the Spanish flag be given a 21-gun salute. He deliberately presented his demand on the day before Chilean National Day (September 18). Under the circumstances, the Chileans refused, and war was declared a week later on September 24.
The new Spanish prime minister, Leopoldo O'Donnell, who had replaced Narváez, ordered Pareja to withdraw, but the Spanish admiral chose to ignore the direct order. As he had no troops with which to attempt a landing, he decided to impose a blockade of the main Chilean ports. That action was unenforceable since a blockade of Chile's 1,800 miles (2,900 km) of coastline would have required a fleet that was several times larger than what Pareja had at his disposal. The blockade of the port of Valparaíso, however, caused such great economic damage to both Chilean and foreign interests that the navies of the United States and the United Kingdom, despite remaining neutral in the conflict, issued a formal protest.
Even before Chile and Peru were formally allied, Spain had suffered a humiliating naval defeat at the naval Battle of Papudo on November 26, 1865. The engagement had the Chilean corvette Esmeralda capture the Spanish schooner Covadonga, taking the crew prisoner and seizing the admiral's war correspondence. That humiliation was too much for Pareja, who committed suicide two days later aboard his flagship. The general command of the Spanish fleet in the Pacific was assumed by Commodore Casto Méndez Núñez, who quickly received a promotion to rear admiral.