Editing Economy of Peru (section)

====War of the Pacific====
{{main|War of the Pacific}}
{{see also|Peruvian Salpeter Monopoly}}

Chile was devastated by the [[Long Depression]] economic crisis of the 1870s<ref name="salazar">''Historia contemporánea de Chile III. La economía: mercados empresarios y trabajadores.'' 2002. Gabriel Salazar and Julio Pinto. pp. 25–29.</ref> and began looking for a replacement for its silver, copper and wheat exports.<ref name="salazarpinto25-29">Salazar & Pinto 2002, pp. 25–29.</ref> It has been argued that Chile's economic situation and the prospect of new wealth in nitrates were the true reasons for the Chilean elite to go to war against Peru and Bolivia,<ref name="salazarpinto25-29" /><ref>{{Citation|last=Pinto Rodríguez|first=Jorge|title=Crisis económica y expansión territorial : la ocupación de la Araucanía en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX|journal=Estudios Sociales|volume=72|year=1992|author-link=Jorge Pinto Rodríguez}}</ref><ref name="salazar2">''Historia contemporánea de Chile III. La economía: mercados empresarios y trabajadores.'' 2002. [[Gabriel Salazar]] and [[Julio Pinto]]. p. 25-29.</ref> with most historians agreeing that the Chilean government's [[Chilean expansionism|expansionist]] foreign policy and its ambitions to control Atacama's mineral wealth led to the conflict .<ref>J.R. Brown, "The Frustration of Chile's Nitrate Imperialism," ''Pacific Historical Review'' (University of California Press), Vol. 32, No. 4 (November 1963), pp. 383–396.</ref><ref>Riet Delsing, "Issues of Land and Sovereignty: The Uneasy Relationship Between Chile and Rapa Nui," in ''Decolonizing Native Histories'', ed. Florencia Mallon (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2012), p. 56.</ref><ref>Robert N. Burr, ''By Reason or Force'' (1974), pp. 138–139.</ref>

Chile won the war and with the [[Treaty of Ancón]] of 1884, the War of the Pacific ended. Chile obtained half of Peru's guano income from the 1880s and its guano islands, with Chile taking control over the most valuable nitrogen resources in the world.{{sfn|Cushman|2013|p=73}} Chile's national treasury would increase 900% from 1879 to 1902 due to the newly acquired lands.<ref name="Crow">{{cite book|last=Crow|first=J. A.|title=The Epic of Latin America|page=180}}</ref> Meanwhile, Peru's reliance on commodity exports – which continued through its history – resulted the bankruptcy of its economy.<ref name="CL" /> Peru would go on to approve the [[Grace Contract]], which granted ownership of Peru's railroads to holders of sovereign debt, with the Peruvian government not issuing new sovereign debt until 1906.<ref name="SVW">{{cite book|last1=Sicotte|first1=Richard|url=https://www.uvm.edu/~econ/documents/SVWRevisionfinal.pdf|title=Military Conquest and Sovereign Debt: Chile, Peru and the London Bond Market, 1876–1890|last2=Vizcarra|first2=Catalina|last3=Wandschneider|first3=Kirsten|date=2009|publisher=University of Vermont|page=42|access-date=25 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160227171904/http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/blog/hpereyra/2014/12/31/la-pol-tica-salitrera-del-presidente-manuel-pardo-el-tratado-chileno-boliviano-de-1874-su-violaci-n-y-el-comienzo-de-la-guerra-del-pac-fico/|archive-date=27 February 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>