A History of Latin America

CHILE 213

large, new markets for Chilean wheat, stimulating
a considerable expansion of the cultivated area.
In 1840 a North American, William Wheelright,
established a steamship line to operate on the Chil-
ean coast, using coal from newly developed hard
coal mines. Wheelright also founded a company
that in 1852 completed Chile’s fi rst railroad line,
providing an outlet to the sea for the production of
the mining district of Copiapó. The major Santiago-
Valparaíso line, begun in 1852, was not completed
until 1863. Foreign—especially British—capital
began to penetrate the Chilean economy; Britain

dominated foreign trade and had a large inter-

est in mining and railroads, but Chilean capital-

ists constituted an important, vigorous group and

displayed much initiative in the formation of joint

stock companies and banks.

The great landowners were the principal ben-

efi ciaries of this economic upsurge; their lands

appreciated in value without any effort on their

part. Some great landowners invested their money

in railroads, mining, and trade. But the essen-

tial conservatism of the landed aristocracy and

the urge to preserve a semifeudal control over its

This David Siqueiros mural, Death to the Invader, depicts the fused bodies of Chile’s
indigenous warriors Lautaro, Galvarino, and Caupolicán, joined with Francisco Bilbao,
the mid-nineteenth-century crusader for freedom and social justice. In the back-
ground, Bernardo O’Higgins and José Manuel Balmaceda join in the fi ght against
foreign invasion. [© 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOMAAP, Mexico City]