Silver, Rubber, and Gas - Sam

Silver, Rubber, and Gas: Early Bolivian history from a perspective of geography and resources

Brief Timeline

8,000-10,000 B.C.________People arrive in Bolivia
1,600 B.C. - 1,200 A.D.____Tiwanaku Culture: rise and then fall
1430___________________Incas control Bolivian Highlands
1532___________________Spaniards, led by Francisco Pizarro, conquer the Inca
1544___________________Silver discovered at Potosí
1650___________________Potosí has largest population in Western Hemisphere: 160,000
1825___________________16 years of war in S. America leads to Bolivian independence
1800s__________________ Rubber replaces silver as major export
1825-1985______________ Great political instability (frequent changes of govt and military rule)
1883___________________Bolivia loses access to the Pacific in war with Chile
1952___________________MNR party enacts a reform agenda: land distribution, suffrage.
1980s__________________Natural gas becomes major export

Bolivia’s destiny as a nation has always been tied up with its geography and mineral resources. The first complex civilization in the Bolivian Highlands, centered around the ceremonial site Tiwanaku, was the result of a technological innovation that took advantage of this geography: a series of elevated fields and canals that allowed these early Bolivians to filter the relatively salinated water of Lake Titicaca for crops such as potatoes and quinoa. This system helped regulate drought and flood conditions and supported roughly 100,000 people (in an area that now supports only 7,000). The Tiwanakans expanded to a large area (including parts of Peru, Chile, and Argentina) from 700-1200 C.E.

When the Inca took over the highlands as early as 1430, it was partially in search of gold and other resources. For a great portion of the Spanish colonial period, Bolivia was known almost exclusively for its incredibly profitable silver mine at Potosí. It’s remarkable that during much of the 17th century the city near the mine, in a hard-to-get-to mountainous area in what is now Southern Bolivia, was home to the largest population in the Western Hemisphere. Between 1556 and 1783, 41,000 tons of silver were exported from Potosí by the Spanish.

The workers in the mine were initially indigenous Aymara and Quechua conscripts. Later, African slaves were brought in to fulfill the demand. “Those not actually worked to death or killed in accidents succumbed to pulmonary silicosis [a lung disease] within a few years.” A pattern was developing here that would be repeated (at least in generalities, if not in specifics) many times: Bolivia has access to incredible natural resources, but, through military and other means, is forced to allow outside groups (first Spain, later multinational corporations) to gain most of the profits from the extraction of these resources.

In the early 1800s, independence from Spain led to more local political representation but little change in the distribution of profits from natural resources. For the most part, the local elite now had more political power, and often the same elite now had control over some of the profits of the extraction of silver and, as silver began to run out, rubber and tin.

Conflict over natural resources also played a large part in two wars that lead Bolivia to shrink substantially between 1825 (independence) and 1935. The first of these, in the early 1880s, was over the Atacama Desert, “a six-hundred-mile stretch of Pacific Coast where scarce a drop of rain has ever fallen.” This land represented Bolivia’s only access to the ocean (and easy international trade). When sodium nitrate deposits were discovered there, in the 1870s, both Peru and Chile became interested in the land. In the resulting war, Chile took control of Bolivia’s only access to the ocean. This pattern was repeated again in the Chaco War (1932-35), against Paraguay. The Chaco, like the Atacama, is a desolate area that only became valuable with the discovery of oil. Bolivia’s loss in this conflict meant a doubling in Paraguay’s land area.



Another feature of geography helps explain Bolivia’s history and its tendency to rely on a single cash crop. Bolivia, after the war with Chile, lacked a port. Also, any trade that needed to make it out of Bolivia needed to go through the incredibly steep Andes Mountains. Economist Jeffrey Sachs points out that, because of the prohibitive costs of transporting goods, “the only products that Bolivia has ever been able to export are commodities with a very high value per unit weight because only these commodities can successfully overcome the high transportation costs.” First silver, then gold, rubber, hydrocarbons, and now coca are all products that can make a lot of money even after schlepping them through the mountains. While coca has long had traditional and ceremonial uses in Bolivia (made into a mildly invigorating tea or chewed raw), when refined it becomes cocaine.

A great deal of Bolivia’s contemporary questions and turmoil--from coca production and regulation, natural gas export rights, and questions about access to lithium deposits under the salt flats--are tied to this long history of exploitation and access. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, primarily because it has been unable to retain profits from its natural resources, and to broadly spread these resources in a way that improves infrastructure, education, and the quality of life for the vast majority of its citizens. Have the changes in the last 15 years done anything to disrupt this pattern?

Sources

Augustin, Byron. Bolivia. New York: Scholastic, 2001.

Armstrong, Kate. Bolivia. New York: Lonely Planet, 2007.

Burgess, Joe. New York Times. How Bolivia Lost its Hat. April 3rd, 2012.

Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood and Fire: A concise history of Latin America. New York: Norton, 2001.

Galeano, Eduardo. Open Veins of Latin America. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1971.

Griffin, Brandon et al. The Rough Guide to Bolivia. New York: Rough Guides, 2012.

Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty. New York: Penguin, 2005.