Chile Crisis 1891

South America - raw materials
Crises with Chile in 1891 and with Venezuela in 1895 demonstrated U.S. determination to dominate the Western Hemisphere. Chilean-American relations steadily deteriorated, in part because the United States had clumsily attempted to end the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), in which Chile battled Bolivia and Peru to win nitrate-rich territory. Then, at the Pan American Conference, Chile had stood as a fearless critic of the United States. When civil war ripped through Chile in early 1891, the United States backed the sitting government, which had tried to assume dictatorial powers. The U.S. Navy seized arms purchased in the United States and destined for the rebels. When the victorious revolutionary Congressionalists took office, President Benjamin Harrison at first withheld recognition, muttering haughtily that "sometime it may be necessary to instruct them" on "how to use victory with dignity and moderation. The United States had sided with the losers; anti-Yankeeism flourished in the winners. To make matters worse, Washington suspected that Britain, ever the competitor in Latin America, was cementing close ties with the new Chilean regime.

An incident in October 1891, after the end of the civil war, nearly exploded into a Chilean-American war. At Valparaiso, a major port for North American traders, one of the ships of the Pacific Squadron, the heavily armed Baltimore, anchored in the harbor. "She can whip any that can catch her and run away from any that can whip her," bragged Secretary of the Navy Tracy. Commanded by Captain Winfield S. Schley, who had attended the Naval Academy with Mahan and George Dewey, the ship had orders to protect American interests during the civil war. On October 16 its crew went ashore on liberty. The exuberant sailors gave local taverns and brothels considerable business. Outside the True Blue Saloon, rum-drunk Americans and anti-Yankee Chileans quarreled, fists flew, and knives slashed. Two Americans died, others suffered wounds, and some were arrested.

President Harrison reacted bitterly against this affront to the American uniform, especially when the Chilean government did not hurry to apologize. Captain Robley D. ("Fighting Bob") Evans of the Yorktown replaced Schley and warned Chileans that "if they could not control their people ... I should arm my boats and shoot any and every man who insulted me or my men or my flag in any way. " A British diplomat observed: "The President and the Secretary of the Navy wish for war; one to get re-elected, the other to see his new ships fight and get votes for more. After a change in the Chilean cabinet in early 1892, the cautious South Americans expressed regret and paid an indemnity of $75,000 in gold. The Yankee Goliath had humbled Chile, and Latin Americans had to wonder what Pan Americanism really meant. Advocates of the expanding U.S. Navy cheered the "victory" over Chile, but a British official thought the incident created a "passionate sense of hatred toward the United States, which will take a long time to remove."

Senator George Shoup of Iowa drew a different lesson from the Chilean episode: "The American Republic will stand no more nonsense from any power, big or little." Indeed, by the mid-1890s, the United States had become far more self-confident and certainly cockier than it had been in 1865, and far more willing to exert the power it had built over the last few decades, especially in Latin America.