page_title: Santa María School massacre
section_title: The 18 Pence Strike and the massacre
hierarchical_section_title: Santa María School massacre / The 18 Pence Strike and the massacre
caption_attribution_description: Relación del general Silva Renard al día sisguiente de la masacre de la Escuela Santa María de Iquique de 1907. Archivo Nacional de Chile.
context_page_description: The Santa María School massacre was a massacre of striking workers, mostly saltpeter works miners, along with wives and children, committed by the Chilean Army in Iquique, Chile on December 21, 1907. The number of victims is undetermined but is estimated by various sources at between 2,000 and 3,600. It occurred during the peak of the nitrate mining era, which coincided with the Parliamentary Period in Chilean political history. With the massacre and an ensuing reign of terror, not only was the strike broken, but the workers' movement was thrown into limbo for over a decade. For decades afterward there was official suppression of knowledge of the incident, but in 2007 the government conducted a highly publicized commemoration of its centenary, including an official national day of mourning and the reinterment of the victims' remains.
  The site of the massacre was the Domingo Santa María School, where thousands of miners from different nitrate mines in Chile's far north had been camping for a week after converging on Iquique, the regional capital, to appeal for government intervention to improve their living and working conditions.
context_section_description: On December 10, 1907, a general strike broke out in Tarapacá Province. This was the start of the 18 Pence Strike (la huelga de los 18 peniques), the name referring to the size of the wage being demanded by workers in one particular mining occupation, workers known as jornaleros. A large contingent of strikers traveled to the provincial capital, the port city of Iquique, carrying the flags of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. As workers from other nitrate works swelled the ranks of this movement, nearly all commerce and industry in the north of the country was brought to a halt. The demands published by the strikers on December 16 in a memorial were as follows:
  *While the tokens are being abolished and pay is starting to be given in legal tender, each oficina, its Manager representing it and pledging compliance, shall agree to accept tokens from every other oficina on a par with its own, paying a fine of 50,000 pesos for every refusal to do so.
  *A day's work to be paid at a fixed wage of 18 pence. Broad and absolute freedom of commerce at the nitrate works.
  *General covering with iron grates of all ore cooking vats (cachuchos) and settling vats (chulladores) in the nitrate works, on pain of an indemnity of from 5,000 to 10,000 pesos to each worker who is injured as a result of noncompliance with this provision.
  *At each nitrate works there shall be a balance and a bar placed outdoors alongside the company store to compare weights and measures.
  *Venues will be provided free of charge for holding night schools for workers, at their request.
  *The Supervisor may not load confiscated [sic] ore into the ore cooking vats. (Editorial Note: the point of this demand was that mine managers were in the practice of cheating the workers by refining the discarded low quality pieces of crushed ore, and getting some little yield from them, without paying the workers corresponding piece rates.) 
  *Neither the Supervisor nor any works employee shall dismiss workers or their leaders who have taken part in the present movement without advance notice of between two and three months, or alternatively an indemnity between 300 and 500 pesos.
  *In the future, a 15-day advance notice will be obligatory for workers and bosses in the event of a contract termination.
  *Upon acceptance of these terms, they will be put into writing and signed by the managements and by the workers' designated representatives.
  On December 16, thousands of striking workers from other industries arrived at Iquique in support of the nitrate miners' demands upon the provincial authorities, with the aim of prodding the authorities to act. Previous entreaties to the government, in particular petitions presented by delegations in 1901, 1903, and 1904, had been fruitless.
  The national government in Santiago sent extra regiments by land and sea to reinforce the two regiments stationed in Iquique. President Pedro Montt appointed General Roberto Silva Renard to handle the situation. Silva Renard, under confidential orders from the minister of the interior, Rafael Sotomayor, was ordered to use all necessary means to force the miners to dissolve and return to work.
  More and more worker contingents joined the strike by the day. It has been estimated that by December 21 the strikers in Iquique numbered ten to twelve thousand. Soon after the journeys to Iquique began, this great conglomeration of workers met in Manuel Montt plaza and at the Santa María School, asking the government mediate between them and the bosses of the foreign (English) nitrate firms to resolve their demands. For their part, the bosses refused to negotiate until the workers went back to work.
  The acting intendant of Tarapacá Province, Julio Guzmán García, mediated negotiations with representatives of the pampinos (plains dwellers) until the arrival at the port December 19 of the titular intendant, Carlos Eastman Quiroga, and General Roberto Silva Renard, chief of the First Military Zone of the Chilean Army, accompanied by Colonel Sinforoso Ledesma. Their arrival was cheered by the workers because a nitrate miners' p
caption: General Roberto Silva Renard's account of the massacre. Collection of the Archivo Nacional de Chile.
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