214 CHAPTER 9 DECOLONIZATION AND THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITIES, 1821–1870
peons discouraged the transformation of the great
landowners into capitalist farmers. A pattern of
small landholdings arose in southern Chile, to
which German as well as Chilean colonists came
in increasing numbers in the 1840s and 1850s.
The rich Central Valley, still dominated by the
latifundio, refl ected ineffi cient techniques and reli-
ance on the labor of inquilinos—tenants who also
had to work the master’s fi elds. Thus, alongside an
emerging capitalist sector based on mining, trade,
banking, intensive agriculture, and some industry,
there existed a semifeudal sector based on the lati-
fundio, peonage, and an aristocracy that hindered
the development of Chilean capitalism.
Although Chile appeared more progressive
than most other Latin American states, militants
like José Victorino Lastarria—historian, soci-
ologist, and a deputy of the Liberal Party—were
dissatisfi ed with the new conservatives’ modest
concessions to modernity. They wanted to acceler-
ate the rate of change and demanded both a radical
revision of the constitution of 1833 and an end to
oligarchical rule.
To the left of Lastarria stood the fi rebrand
Francisco Bilbao, author of a scorching attack on
the church and Hispanic heritage, “The Nature of
Chilean Society” (1844). Later, he spent several
years in France and was profoundly infl uenced by
utopian socialist and radical republican thought.
He returned to Chile in 1850 to found, with San-
tiago Arcos, the Society of Equality, uniting radical
intellectuals and artisans, which advocated these
advanced ideas. The society carried on an inten-
sive antigovernmental campaign and within a few
months had a membership of four thousand.
MONTT’S MODERATE REFORMS
The Society of Equality was founded on the eve of
the election of 1850, for which President Bulnes
had designated Manuel Montt his heir. Despite
Montt’s progressive educational policies and pa-
tronship of the arts and letters, liberals identifi ed
him with the repressive system of Portales and
the constitution of 1833. Liberals like Lastarria
and radical democrats like Bilbao proclaimed the
impending election a fraud and demanded consti-
tutional reforms. The government responded by
proclaiming a state of siege and suppressing the So-
ciety of Equality. Regarding these acts as a prelude
to an attempt to liquidate the opposition, groups of
liberals in Santiago and La Serena rose in revolts
that were quickly crushed. Lastarria was exiled,
and Bilbao and Arcos fl ed to Argentina. Montt be-
came president and immediately crushed another
liberal revolt but thereafter took steps to resolve fu-
ture crises by granting amnesty to the insurgents
and abolishing both entails and tithes.
The abolition of entails, which was designed
to encourage the breakup of landed estates among
the children of the great landowners, affected a
dwindling number of great aristocratic clans. Its
effects were less drastic than the anguished cries
of the affected parties suggested, for the divided
estates were almost invariably acquired by other
latifundists, and the condition of the inquilinos
who worked the land remained the same. The
elimination of the tithe, and Montt’s refusal to
allow the return of the Jesuits, greatly angered
the reactionary clergy. Responding to their at-
tacks, Montt promulgated a new civil code in 1857
that placed education under state control, gave
the state jurisdiction over the clergy, and granted
non-Catholics the right of civil marriage.
The abolition of entails and tithes represented
a compromise between liberals and conservatives,
between the new bourgeoisie and the great land-
owners. In the process, the bourgeoisie gained
little, and the landowners lost almost nothing; the
chief loser was the church. Although Montt’s re-
forms alienated the most reactionary elements of
the Conservative Party, they gained him the sup-
port of moderate liberals, who joined with mod-
erate conservatives to form a new coalition, the
National Party. Its motto was the typically positiv-
ist slogan “Freedom in Order.”
In the last years of his second term, President
Montt faced severe economic and political prob-
lems. The 1857 depression caused a sharp fall in
the price of copper and reduced Australian and Cali-
fornian demand for Chilean wheat. The economic
decline fed the fi res of political discontent, and an-
other large-scale revolt erupted in January 1859.
The rebels included radical intellectuals, northern