Consequences of the War of the Pacific

Examples are the Chilean attempts to establish friendly relationships between Ecuador and Colombia, both countries with serious territorial disputes with Peru in the Amazon.

[1] Despite Chile's overall good relations with Ecuador, both countries had a minor diplomatic crisis resulting from the capture of the Peruvian torpedo boat Alay in Ecuadorian territorial waters during the war.

In Peru, a strong anti-Chilean sentiment exists because it lost "a large chunk of its southern territory to Chile" in the War of the Pacific.

[11] Peru lost its provinces of Tarapaca and Arica and then suffered the indignity of having its capital, Lima, occupied by Chile at the end of the war and essentially ransacked.

[13] During the occupation of Tacna and Arica (1884–1929) the Peruvian people and nation were treated in racist and denigrating terms by the Chilean press.

[14] During the war Peruvians were disrespectfully referred to as "cholos" (a slur for persons of mixed European and non-European ancestry) by Chilean officers.

[17] An extreme example of such journalism is Revista del Sur, which stated that firearms obtained in Peru, while useless in the hands of Peruvian "fags" (Spanish: maricas), would be useful by Chileans to "kill indians" (Mapuches).

The War of the Pacific also sparked an indigenous peasant guerrilla movement throughout the central Sierra against Chileans and collaborationist landlords.

The lack of rule of law in central sierra was such that in one particular case, a landowner was able to recover his occupied estate only in 1902 after a massive mobilization of military, police, and gunmen.

[20] Miguel Grau became an important figure in Peru because of his alleged gallantry during the conflict, especially his treatment of Prat's family and rescue of Chilean sailors in Iquique,[24] which gained him recognition as the Caballero de los Mares ("Gentleman of the Seas").

Despite the concessions, the loss of the litoral (the coast) remains a deeply-emotional and political issue for Bolivians,[10] as was particularly evident during the 2003 natural gas riots.

[27] During the war, Chile dropped its claims on more than 1,000,000 km2 (390,000 sq mi) of Patagonia in the 1881 Chile-Argentina treaty to ensure Argentina's neutrality.

The war shook the whole social order of Peru: armed indigenous peasants sacked and occupied haciendas of landed elite criollo "collaborationists" in the central Sierra, Chinese coolies revolted and even joined the Chilean Army, indigenous and mestizo Peruvians murdered Chinese shopkeepers in Lima, Peruvian mobs sacked Chiclayo, and different criollo elite remained deeply divided in opposing camps.