Sunday 16 November 2014

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works in Chile

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Humberstone and work of Santa Laura contain more than 200 previous Saltpetre works where workers lived on Chile, Peru and Bolivia in company towns and forged characteristic pampinos culture. This culture is a manifesto into her rich language, creativity, and solidarity, and above all in her pioneer's fight for the social justice which had a deep influence on social history. Put up in the distant pampas, one of the driest deserts on the earth, thousands from pampinos lived and worked in these hostile surroundings for more than 60 years on working on the biggest deposition of the saltpetre in the world from 1880, the fertilizer-sodium nitrate generating, the agricultural lands in the north and South America, and in Europe reshape, and should generate big wealth for Chile. Because of the vulnerability of the structures and the influence of a new earthquake the side was also laid on the list of the world heritage in the danger to help, to mobilize means for his preservation.

Wonderful Universal Importance

In the distant wild pampas, one of the driest deserts on the earth, thousands of people lived and worked from the first half of the 19-th century to work on the biggest deposition of the saltpetre in the world, the fertilizer-sodium nitrate generating which agricultural land reshape in the north and South America, and Europe and big wealth for Chile should generate. Humberstone and work of Santa Laura are preserved the best one, and mostly representing remains from a row of more than 200 saltpetre works are passed which once from which everything were connected by an especially built modern railroad system with each other, and use an unusual report to the technological progress and global exchange which was the cornerstone of the industrial age. In this area lived workers, pulled by Chile, Peru and Bolivia, to these hostile surroundings, in company towns and forged a characteristic Pampinos municipal culture, manifesto into her own rich language, creativity, and solidarity, and above all in the road road for fights for the social justice which had a deep influence in general on the social history.

The industrial heir-page was developed from 1872 and up to middle of the 20-th century; it is laid 45 kms by the harbour of Iquique in the middle of a wild scenery. The property covers a surface area of 573.48 hectares with a buffer zone of 12,055 hectares which encloses two main sides which stand at a distance of about 1 km each other. These complement each other because the industrial zone will better receive from Santa Laura, while Humberstone has better preserved living areas and service areas. The Santa Laura site receives the places to stay of the industrial installations which were used for the saltpetre which goes like industrial installations and equipment, including the only durchfilternden hut and a saltpetre grinder in a procession which intactly today, installations remain for the production iodine, for the energy production and building like the administrative house and the main square. The Humberstone page contains the attributes which express the quality of urban settlements, like the living area, public rooms and the regular grill pattern of the camp with a main square, all around itself the municipal buildings are collected. Other relevant attributes are the places to stay of the railroad line, the Santa Laura and Humberstone, the gravel heaps, the building technologies, architectural styles and materials, in particular costrón and the pampas concrete, characteristic building materials together with the Galmei and timber connected which were brought by other wide.

The places to stay of saltpetre work are also present in the buffer zone which is also significant for the preservation of the qualities of the natural setting of the pampas which illustrate the respect between the built surroundings and the adaptation to the natural setting. Two saltpetre works are the mostly representing remaining tracks of an industry which reshaped the lives of a big relation of the population of Chile, brought big wealth to the land. The production of the industry, nitrate fertilizer, had indirectly a changing influence on available agricultural lands in Europe, and on the recently farmed land in other wide and supported indirectly the agricultural revolution at the end of 19-th century in many parts of the world. The remaining buildings are a report to the social order and technical processes which did the industry.

The social agenda clearing the way of the saltpetre worker's unions had been at a distance far-reaching effects on the labor legislation everywhere in Chile and further. Today the characteristic culture of the Pampinos which developed in connection with the industry which expresses the language, the memory of the saltpetre culture and his influence on the social process has sonority under the local population and is another important attribute of the property. The place still has a strong symbolic and sensory-laden union for the people of the pampas, previous workers and her families who use the place for meetings and memory like saltpetre week.

Historical Data

From pre-Hispanic times local people used in the area, the Atacamenos and the Incas, nitrate as a fertilizer, pulling out and the saltpetre dragging and it on fields spreading out. The first Europeans used the saltpetre for explosive materials. The mineral was diminished and sent on ahead mule to Lima to be worked on in gunpowder. The increase in the inquiry for explosive materials by the end of 18-th century led to investigation of new fields in northern Chile and the discovery of the Tarapaca seams. In the same time a German scientist, Thadeus Haencke discovered how one manufactured potassium nitrate. The first saltpetre work were opened in 1810. These were small individual machine operators who pulled out and crushed the material with the hand, it in easy barrels cooked and left it in the sun to evaporate. The first broadcastings became done to Great Britain in the 1820s and to the USA and France in the 1830s, everything for the use in explosive materials.

Its fertilizing qualities were discovered in Europe in the 1830s, and inquiry started climbing up as a grain production which is begun to spread out to unused lands in the USA, Argentina and Russia. The fertilizer which is also begun to be used for coffee in Brazil, sugar in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Chile became the main world producer of the natural nitrate. What reshaped the scale and the elbowroom of the works a new technology going in a procession develops from the Chilean Pedro Gamboni in 1853 was to dissolve saltpetre. To install the encouraged owner in addition, fastened equipment: Boiler, troughs etc. and wide houses for workers from. The second factor was improved transport: until the railroads came in the second half of the 19-th century, the transport to the coast on packhorse's mules limited the scale of the industry. The railroads wide to itself fast, promoted by the private investment from: before 1905 there were 1,787 kms of the track and before 1913, 5,000 kms.

In 1879 the so-called saltpetre war gave involving Chile, of Bolivia and Peru (who supported Bolivia) superiority of Chile of the industry. The after-effects encouraged European investment, and this acted after the row as a deduction for a wave in the economy of the nation. Before 1890 saltpetre was responsible for 50% of the complete income of the land; before 1913 80% of all his exports. The First World War brought awful results for the saltpetre producers. The lake ways were begun uncertainly and Germany, one of the biggest importers, to develop his own saltpetre being based on synthetic ammonia. However as European investors withdrew, Chilean participation increased. Inquiry still placed away to bend and in spite of the Umstrukturierens, the development of the Chilean saltpetre society (COSACH) gap between state and private investors, and a new production system which permitted the use of lower rank ore the market did not improve, and COSACH was unwound. Before the 1930s only 10% of the nitrate came in the world from Chile, and this had liked on 3% before the 1950s. The successor to COSACH, COSATAN who had a monopoly on the saltpetre, survived till 1961. The Peruvian nitrate society built Humberstone saltpetre work, originally known as a La Palma in 1862. Till 1889 it was to one of the biggest saltpetre pits in Tarapac á zone with about 3,000 inhabitants. With the economic crisis which concerned the whole production of the sodium nitrate, La Palma was closed to be reopened 1933 under the property right of the COSACH and the camp of the name by which this is known now, the Humberstone saltpetre work in the tribute to the Chemotechniker Humberstone. Between 1933 and 1940 the operations were spread out, new buildings built around the marketplace and the population reached 3,700 people.

Work of Santa Laura, built ten years after Humberstone in 1872 by ' Barra y Risco ' society, was smaller and had only 450 families in 1920. After the verges on each other of the following crisis it was also taken over by COSATAN. In 1959 COSATAN was unwound, and two works was closed, in the end. The works were auctioned in 1961. Both were bought from the same private individual for the piece. To avoid them, are destroyed, were explained the qualities national monuments in 1970. This has not stopped quite drastic decay, raids and vandalism and some dismantling. After the owner did in 1995 bankruptcy, the qualities came under the control of ' Ministerio de Bienes Nacionale (National investment ministry), and they have them in the long run from thirty years to the saltpetre museum union, a charitable organization assigned which has taken over the management.
Source:whc/unesco

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