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What were doing some Europeans or Americans in Lima Peru in the XIX century? Why they took a long ship travel to go so far ?
From 1840-1880 Peru enjoyed an spectacular economic growing knows as the "Guano Era'.
Guano is a natural fertilizer made from bird droppings, it was exported by thousands of tons along those years all around the world, to England, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japon, U.S. etc.
Trading Houses, Banks branches, Ship lines from England, France and Germany were set up in Lima in order to ship guano back to Europe for trade and world wide distribution. The representatives and employees of these trades were nationals of these countries: british, french and germans.Those were the first source of immigrants of those countries.
Besides that the Peruvian Goverment starts several public works such as Railroads that were built by british or americans engineers and technicians with peruvian and chinese workers, this is another source of immigrants.
Others arrive to make business like William Grace from Ireland, who became very rich in Peru and then move to New York where he was elected Mayor twice in 1880's. Or like Henry Meiggs who runaway from jail after mishandled financial assets in U.S. and became railroad builder in Peru. Italians also arrived in large numbers.
For decades, guano became a desiderable commodity, like today is oil. It brought economic development to Peru and war as well. Between 1864-1866 Spain seized the Chincha Island the main source of Peruvian Guano. Even U.S. try to take hold of Lobos Island, based on U.S. Guano Island Act of 1856. Finally Chile declared war on Peru (1879-1884) known as the Pacific War or the Guano War.
Also remember that before that Era, some officials and soldiers mainly british and germans arrived to fight the Peruvian Independence War(1820-1824) as a mercenaries in the patriot side.
Regards,
Oscar
More about Guano:
Guano was widely used by the native populations of pre-Spanish Latin America for centuries as a fertilizer to increase crop yields. However, it was not until the early 1800s that guano was rediscovered by the Europeans to have valuable agricultural benefits as a fertilizer. The best source of guano was discovered on a series of islands off the coast of Peru which are barren and rocky with no vegetation due to lack of rain in the area. Peru's
primary guano islands are the Chinchas, the Ballestras, the Lobos, and the Macabi and Guanape islands. Other islands around the world, off Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific islands, also contained abundant guano reserves, however, Peru's guano was considered to be the best for farming.
Guano is made up of bird droppings amassed over hundreds of
years due to weather and ocean currents. What distinguished Peru's guano from guano found at other sources around the world was due to the unique weather conditions found along Peru's coast. Because of
the Humboldt or Peruvian Current, which flows cold water from Antarctica to the equator along Peru's coast, this creates an interesting weather pattern where the cold water and warm air prevents the fall of rain in this part of the world. Due to the lack of rain on the islands along Peru's coast, the accumulated bird droppings are baked in the dry atmosphere which preserves the
nitrates in those droppings from evaporating, thus maintaining its effectiveness. Another factor that made guano an effective fertilizer was that its contents originated from fish-eating birds.
The enormous fish reserves, consisting primarily of
anchovetas, have drawn a huge migration of birds and seals to these islands. Because of there relative isolation from natural predators, the guano producing birds settled on these islands and raised their young there. Over the course of hundreds to thousands of years and favorable weather conditions already explained, these birds had accumulated guano reserves as 100 to 150 feet deep.
Three types of birds are the primary producers of guano, they are the white-breast cormorant, the gray pelican, and the white-head gannet or piqueros. It has been estimated that these birds, around a million can reside on one island, to be able to create over 11,000 tons of guano a year.
It was widely used until the end of XIX century when artificial fertilizers were created.
But even today guano from South America is marketed as the best organic fertilizer available.The reason guano is an ideal fertilizer is its chemical make up. Rich in nitrogen and phosphorous, it provides important chemicals for crops. It also has beneficial fungi and bacteria, which act as a natural fungicide to protect plants from disease. Export of guano as a fertilizer remains a resource for organic farming.
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