Manuel Pardo, President of Peru

Borrowing from the future, residents of the coastal region of Peru enjoyed a heady period of boom, even as they courted disaster. The foreign debt soon gobbled up all revenues from guano exports. Anxious to obtain income from nitrate beds in Tarapaca, Peru found it could not secure a good price in Europe without an arrangement with Bolivia.

In 1871, attempts were made in London to damage Peru's credit abroad. Detractors emphasized the decrease and potential disappearance of guano as an export commodity. Elections approached and Manuel Pardo was one of the candidates. Born in 1834, Pardo was a self-made millioonaire, a founder of the 1862 Banco del Peru and one of the major native guano merchants. (Gootenberg, 1993, p. 71)

On the 22nd of July, 1872, Colonel Tomas Gutierrez with his brothers, also military officers, staged a coup to prevent Manuel Pardo, the newly-elected President, from taking office. Then-president Balta was taken prisoner and subsequently assassinated in retribution for the death of one of the brothers (Williams, 1938, p. 591) The revolutionaries were captured, hung and buried in the public square and Mr. Pardo came to power. In his administrative period (he was president from 1872 to 1876), he had difficulties with Dreyfus and raised funds with the Societe General in Paris and with Raphael Raphael and Co. of London.

In 1873, he negotiated a secret treaty of alliance with Bolivia (Williams, 1938, p. 574). Peru passed laws limiting the nitrate production and established a monopoly. Henry Meiggs, who at that time had a great deal of influence in the country, sought to obtain control of certain mines previously promised to him by President Pardo.

In 1878 he was assassinated.

Resources
Gootenberg, Paul. 1993. Imagining development: economic ideas in Peru's "fictitious prosperity" of guano, 1840-1880. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California. 243 pp.

Williams, Mary Wilhelmine. 1938. The people and politics of Latin America. Boston: Ginn. 889 pp.