Itata incident

The incident concerned an arms shipment by the Chilean ship Itata from the United States to Chile, to assist insurgent Congressionalist forces in the war.

Supporters of the Congress, including members of the dissolved parliament and their backers among multinational nitrate interests, purchased weaponry from Europe and from the United States.

He had the weaponry rail freighted to the Port of Los Angeles where it was loaded on the schooner Robert and Minnie, which intended to transfer it at sea to the Chilean steamer Itata.

At 5:30 pm on May 7 Itata raised anchor and illegally left San Diego, and carrying the deputy marshal, who was put ashore by the crew the same evening at Ballast Point.

[1] The United States navy dispatched several ships, under two admirals, to chase the Itata, which press reports claimed was expected to meet and supply the Chilean warship Esmeralda with arms and munitions.

The Harrison Administration appointed William Howard Taft, the US Solicitor General (and later U.S. president), and Los Angeles-based federal prosecutor Henry Gage (later Governor of California), to investigate the Itata and prosecute its crew and suppliers.