Eduardo Abaroa

Eduardo Abaroa Hidalgo; San Pedro de Atacama, 1838 - Calama, 1879) Bolivian patriot, hero of
the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) and symbol in his country of sacrifice in the service of the
country. The War of the Pacific originated in the dispute over the possession of the region
located north of the Atacama desert, rich in potassium nitrate, and pitted Chile against Bolivia
and Peru. A treaty signed in 1874 had granted that region to Bolivia, while exempting Chilean
nitrate companies from paying new taxes for twenty-five years. When Bolivian President
Hilarión Daza demanded that a new tax be levied on these companies in 1878, Chile broke
diplomatic relations with Bolivia and occupied the port of Antofagasta on the Pacific coast. The
occupation of Antofagasta took place on February 14, 1879, two days after the diplomatic
representative of Chile in La Paz requested their passports and informed the Bolivian
government of the rupture of relations. When the taking of the city took place, of its 6,000
inhabitants, more than 5,000 were Chilean and only about 600 Bolivians; the rest were of
other nationalities. The arrival of the Chilean ships Cochrane and O'Higgins, which joined the
Blanco Encalada, anchored in the port for several days before, was celebrated by the Chilean
population.

Similarly, the military operation was greeted by the directors of the Antofagasta Saltpeter
Company, manifestly anti-Bolivian, who regained control of the company's properties. Both
the authorities and the rest of the Bolivian residents in the city were forced to leave. After
controlling Antofagasta, within a few days the Chileans took control of mussels and snails,
populations that could not offer any resistance due to the lack of a garrison.

The same thing happened in the town of Calama, in the interior of the Atacama desert, where
the Bolivian population organized the defense of the national territory under the command of
Ladislao Cabrera. The Chilean troops had to make a great military effort to overcome the
patriotic resistance, in which Eduardo Abaroa, Bolivia's greatest civilian hero, offered his life.
Abaroa, who was in Calama for work reasons, had not hesitated, along with other volunteers,
to enlist as a combatant.

On March 23, 1879, to repel the attack of more than five hundred Chilean soldiers who came
from the town of Tocopilla, the defenders of Calama, supported by the prefect of Antofagasta,
Severino Zapata, and by a troop of more than one hundred troops, They were located at
various points around the town. Although the Bolivian resistance was difficult to crush, the
numerical superiority of the invading troops determined the situation.

In an act of remarkable courage, Eduardo Abaroa tried to defend his position. Wounded in the
throat, he did not join the withdrawal of the Bolivian troops, and from his precarious situation
he managed to stop the advance of the Chilean soldiers until he ran out of ammunition. The
invading troops ordered him to surrender, but Abaroa refused with the now historic phrase:
"Let your grandmother surrender, damn it!" Two enemy shots ended his life. The Chileans, in
an act of recognition of his courage, buried his body in the Calama cemetery.