Infrastructure, Commerce, and Conflict: Indigenous Communities in Pacajes, 1900–20

This paper explores the interactions between Liberal governments and indigenous communities in the Bolivian highlands at the start of the twentieth century.  Though a sparsely populated border region, the province of Pacajes was the site of intensive transit of large quantities of international commerce between the Chilean-occupied Tacna/Arica coastline and Bolivia’s principal urban centers.  Far from being isolated from this trade, certain indigenous communities and leaders played a significant role in this transnational flow of goods.  The social relations created by both legal and contraband commercial activities in the region generated a wide web of social relations that crossed boundaries of ethnicity and class.  As Liberal governments attempted to expand the Bolivian state presence in Pacajes and transform the economy of the region through tax reform and infrastructure projects, they directly intervened in these relations, provoking conflict, resistance, and a re-alignment of regional power structures and social relations.  This paper examines the reforms associated with the Arica-La Paz railroad project and the conflicts they provoked, in order to understand their impact on indigenous/state relations.