Huanillos is a small seaside village in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

and a big source of huano (

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

) in the 19th century.

Location

Huanillos, sometimes Guanillos is located in the shore of the region of Tarapaca,

. It is 130 km south from

Iquique Iquique () is a port city and commune in northern Chile, capital of both the Iquique Province and Tarapacá Region. It lies on the Pacific coast, west of the Pampa del Tamarugal, which is part of the Atacama Desert. It has a population of 191,468 ...

, the capital of the region.

History

Huanillos was one of the most important sources of guano. Guano is seabird excrement and it was used as a fertilizer in the 19th Century in the

Peruvian Peruvians ( es, peruanos) are the citizens of Peru. There were Andean and coastal ancient civilizations like Caral, which inhabited what is now Peruvian territory for several millennia before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century; Peruvian p ...

country. It was discovered by

Alexander Von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...

, a German naturalist who studied the flora and fauna of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. Between 1845 and 1851 Huanillos was discovered by a Peruvian engineer who was sent by the government, until 1879 the border between

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

and

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

was located near the

n city of

Antofagasta Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669. After the Spanish American wars ...

, Chile took over this territory after the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

Founding

The extraction of guano was approved by the Peruvian government in 1874, and with that the creation of the new village called Huanillos. It had a population of 825 people, 729 men and 96 women. Huanillos was a complex village, with hotels, a court house, shops, offices, and houses for the workers. There were three different types of workers; Peruvians, Chileans and coolies, or Chinese slaves. They worked mainly in the extraction of guano.

Coolies

Chinese coolie were very common in that time because in 1850 the Peruvian government made a trade agreement with China; the Peruvian government would give 50 soles per Chinese coolie who worked in Huanillo's different industries. However, the Chinese people, especially men, were treated so badly that a large number of them committed suicide and the few who survived were rescued by

Patricio Lynch Patricio Javier de los Dolores Lynch y Solo de Zaldívar (Valparaíso 18 December 1825 – 13 May 1886) was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and a rear admiral in the Chilean Navy, and one of the principal figures of the later stages of the War of ...

, a Chilean

military officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent context ...

who fought in the

Present day

Nowadays, Huanillos is a ghost town, a place full of memories and stories from the past; one of those stories is a mysterious

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

. Named “Garcia-Burr Castle”, nobody knows when it was built, and some believe that the castle is no more than 100 years old. The only records pertaining to the construction and ownership of the castle is that it was built by Freddy Campaña.

External links

Guanillos

Huanillos
{{coord, -21.20027032439648, -70.093403718619, display=title Populated places established in 1836 * 1836 establishments in Chile Coasts of Tarapacá Region Populated coastal places in Chile