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SUMMARY
This article provides a political and social characterization of Chilean deputies in the second half of the nineteenth century. It covers 11 parliamentary elections ranging from 1849, the first election under a relatively recognizable party system to 1879, the last election before the consequences of the War of the Pacific (1879–84) altered the local political landscape. The study of parliamentarians is based on a prosopography derived from the analysis of 405 deputies, and in this case is limited to three criteria: place of birth, profession or occupation, and age of entry into parliament. The latter criterion is a key one, because the authors focus only on members who joined congress for the first time over a period of 30 years. One of the main hypotheses of this article suggests that from the 1861 election congress experienced changes in its composition, allowing the entrance of actors who had hitherto not been part of congress.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Sebastián Hernández for his research work; José Ignacio González for providing the maps of Chile used in –, originally published in José Ignacio González, Rafael Sagredo and José Compan, La política en el espacio. Atlas histórico de las divisiones político-administrativas de Chile. 1810–1940 (Santiago, 2016); and Sofía Wenborne for her help designing the graphs.
Notes
1 Following A.J. Bauer, a ‘large estate’ was defined as having ‘$6,000 or more annual income’ during the period 1854–74. In Chilean Rural Society from the Spanish Conquest to 1930 (Cambridge, 1975), p. 216; see also ‘The Hacienda El Huique in the Agrarian Structure of Nineteenth-century Chile’, Agricultural History 46, (1972), p. 470.
2 T.C. Wright, Landowners and Reform in Chile. The Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura, 1919–1940 (Urbana, 1982), Appendix 1, p. 215. We thank Claudio Robles for this reference.
3 The research and databases can be found online on the site ‘Observatorio de Élites Parlamentarias de América Latina (ELITES)’, http://americo.usal.es/oir/Elites/index.htm, accessed 18 January 2016.
4 R. Cordero, ‘La socialización de la elite parlamentaria en Chile: sitios de interacción social en la formación de los diputados de la antigua (1961–1973) y la nueva democracia (1990–2002)’ (MA thesis in sociology, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, 2003). Part of this material appeared later in R. Cordero, ‘La composición social de la nueva Cámara de Diputados: cambios y continuidades en perspectiva histórica (1961–2010)’, Documento de Trabajo ICSO, Universidad Diego Portales, no. 8, year 2, August 2006, http://www.icso.cl/images/Paperss/decimo.pdf, accessed 25 January 2016.
5 R. Aldunate, M. Kutscher and S. Urzúa, ‘La educación de los parlamentarios’, Documento de Trabajo, Centro Latinoamericano de Políticas Económicas y Sociales de la Universidad Católica, Clapes UC, Santiago, 23 February 2015, http://clapes.uc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/La-Educacion-de-los-Parlamentarios-Rosario-Aldunate-Macarena-Kutscher-y-Sergio-Urz--a.pdf, accessed 18 January 2016.
6 See, for example, H. Hernández Donoso and S. Aguirre León, ‘El perfil profesional de los legisladores chilenos’, Economía y Negocios, El Mercurio, 5 July 2008, http://www.economiaynegocios.cl/noticias/noticias.asp?id=49701 and N. Ramírez, ‘Desde Derecho a secretariado bilingüe: las profesiones de los nuevos parlamentarios’, Emol.com, 23 November 2013, http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/2013/11/21/630968/abogados-secretaria-y-perito-agricola-lasprofesiones--de-los-nuevos-parlamentarios-fin-de-semana.html, accessed 28 January 2016.
7 A. de Ramón, Biografías de chilenos. Miembros de los Poderes Ejecutivo, Legislativo y Judicial, 1876–1973, 4 vols (Santiago, 1999–2003); F. Castillo, L. Cortés and J. Fuentes, Diccionario histórico y biográfico de Chile (Santiago, 1999); P. Pablo Figueroa, Diccionario biográfico de Chile, 3 vols (Santiago, 1897–1901); V. Figueroa, Diccionario Histórico, Biográfico y Bibliográfico de Chile 1800–1928, 5 vols (Santiago, 1925–31); G. Urzúa, Historia política de Chile y su evolución electoral (desde 1810 a 1992) (Santiago, 1992). Among websites, see Memoria Chilena (http://www.memoriachilena.cl) and the section Historia Política Legislativa of the Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile website (http://historiapolitica.bcn.cl/).
8 J. Agirreazkuenaga, M. Urquijo, F. Martínez, E. Alonso, H. Otero and J. Penche, ‘Prosopography of the MPs During the Emergence of Mass Politics: The Basque Country-Spain (1916–23)’, Parliaments, Estates and Representation 32, (2012), p. 140.
9 F. Gantús, F. Gutiérrez, A. Hernández Chávez and M. del Carmen León, La Constitución de 1824. La consolidación de un pacto mínimo (Mexico City, 2008), ch. II.
10 See, for example, C. Andrade Geywitz, Las Comisiones Parlamentarias en la Cámara de Diputados (Desarrollo Histórico y Régimen Actual) (Santiago, 1945); I. Obando Camino, ‘El desarrollo del personal parlamentario chileno, 1834–1924’, UNIVERSUM 26, (2011), pp. 187–213; ‘The Congressional Committee System of the Chilean Legislature, 1834–1924’, Historia 44, (2011), pp. 165–89, and Legislative Institutionalization in Chile, 1834–1924 (Albany, 2009).
11 Urzúa, Historia política de Chile, p. 183. Unless otherwise stated, the translations from Spanish are ours.
12 From the list provided by Heise we can mention the following names: Mariano Fidel Saavedra, José Nicolás Hurtado, Nicolás Peña, Miguel Saldías, Lindor Castillo, José Ramón Contreras, Moisés Vergara, Carlos Lira, Darío Sánchez, Carlos Valdés, Enrique de Putrón, Olegario Soto, Miguel Castillo, Juan E. Rodríguez, Pacífico Jiménez, Luis Urzúa, Luis Jordán, José A. Villagrán, Patricio Calderón, Aníbal Las Casas, Ramón Yávar, Jorge Segundo Rojas, Juan José Ibieta, Egidio Jara, Liborio Sánchez, Ramón H. Rojas and Evaristo del Campo. J. Heise, Historia de Chile. El período parlamentario, 1861–1925, Tomo II. Democracia y gobierno representativo en el period parliamentario (Santiago, 1982), pp. 69–70.
13 Something similar happened with the election of the senate. Out of a total of 37 senators, 15 were pro-government, 16 were from the opposition and 6 were independent. Urzúa, Historia política de Chile, p. 236.
14 See S. Collier, Chile: The Making of a Republic, 1830–1865. Politics and Ideas (Cambridge, 2003), part IV; and I. Jaksic and S. Serrano, ‘El gobierno y las libertades: La ruta del liberalismo chileno en el siglo XIX’, Estudios Públicos 118, (2010), pp. 69–105.
15 Following Heise’s figures on the militancy of parliamentarians, the liberal representation increased significantly between the 1864 and the 1879 elections. In the election of 1864, for example, of the 72 elected deputies, 37 were liberals (51.3 per cent); in 1867, 52 of a total of 96 (54.1 per cent); in 1870, 37 out of 99 (37.3 per cent), the lowest percentage of the period; in the election of 1873, of a total of 96, liberals amounted to 55 (57.2 per cent); in the crucial election of 1876, the liberals won 48 of the 108 seats (44.4 per cent); in 1879, 56 of a total of 106 (52.8 per cent). Heise, Historia de Chile, vol. II, p. 310.
16 J. Victorino Lastarria and F. Errázuriz, Bases de la Reforma (Santiago, 1850).
17 Although not representative of the whole process, the testimony of one of the provincial candidates to the 1849 election, José Joaquín Vallejo, gives an idea of the new political context. In one of his speeches, Vallejo claimed that he did ‘not belong to any of the parties that abound in the capital of the Republic. Provincials have nothing to do neither with their interests, nor with the purposes and objectives they stand and fight for.’ El Progreso, Santiago, 21 February 1849.
18 In the medium term, the nationals concentrated an important part of the votes hitherto under the conservative aegis. In the 1864 election the National Party obtained eighteen seats (25 per cent of the legislature); in 1867, 6 (6.25 per cent); in 1870, 11 (11.1 per cent); in 1873, only 4 (4.1 per cent); and in 1876 and 1879 12 seats (11.1 per cent and 11.3 per cent, respectively). Heise, Historia de Chile, vol. II, p. 321.
19 T. Scully, Los partidos de centro y la evolución política chilena (Santiago, 1992), pp. 65–88; and Urzúa, Historia política de Chile, p. 171 and passim.
20 J. Samuel Valenzuela, Democratización vía reforma. La expansión del sufragio en Chile (Buenos Aires, 1985), p. 150.
21 For the analysis of the meaning and scope of the 1874 reform we have followed A. Joignant, ‘El lugar del voto. La ley electoral de 1874 y la invención del ciudadano-elector en Chile’, Estudios Públicos 81, (2001), pp. 245–75; and J. Samuel Valenzuela, ‘Orígenes y transformación del sistema de partidos en Chile’, Estudios Públicos 58, (1995), pp. 20–22.
22 Until 1874, every 20,000 citizens and a fraction of 10,000 elected a deputy (e.g. a town with 31,000 citizens elected one deputy for the first 20,000 and another one for the fraction of 11,000); from that date, every 20,000 and a fraction of 12,000 elected one deputy, which gives an average of 100 members per legislature. It is interesting to follow the evolution of the number of deputies elected by election, as this can also help understand the process of diversification of the parliamentary spectrum since the 1860s. The following relation electoral year/number of deputies illustrates these changes: 1849/55; 1852/54; 1855/58; 1858/72; 1861/72; 1864/72; 1867/96; 1870/99; 1873/96; 1876/108; 1879/106. The data for the period 1849–58 come from Urzúa, Historia política de Chile, p. 79; those of the period 1861–79 from Heise, Historia de Chile, vol. II, p. 65.
23 J. Fernández, ‘Las guerras civiles en Chile’, in I. Jaksic and J. Luis Ossa (eds), Historia Política de Chile, 1810–2010. Volumen Prácticas Políticas (forthcoming).
24 J. Fernández, ‘Guerra, militarización y caudillismo en el norte chileno: el caso de Copiapó en la Guerra Civil de 1859’, Economía y Política 2, (2015), pp. 41–75.
25 S. Serrano, Universidad y Nación. Chile en el siglo XIX (Santiago, 1993), pp. 172–3. A contemporary witness, the diplomatic, political and painter Ramón Subercaseaux, referred to the influence the legal profession had in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially among young members of the elites and their families:
Without knowing why and what for I found myself the next year [1871] in the first year of Law of the University of Chile. Actually, I was induced to enter that order of studies following most of the young people of my condition, thus fulfilling the desire of my mother, who had the Law profession as the most, if not the only, suitable for me … . Nor there were more paths to take … . The attendance of students was huge.
26 J. Luis Ossa, Armies, Politics and Revolution. Chile, 1808–1826 (Liverpool, 2014).
27 For Chile’s territorial expansion between 1840–1940, see A. Estefane, ‘Países varios: la Biblioteca Fundamentos de la Construcción de Chile y el reconocimiento del territorio nacional’, Anales de Literatura Chilena 24, (2015), pp. 353–70.
28 From 1834, when the conservative project began to settle territorially, we appreciate a slow reversal in the number of parliamentarians belonging to the armed forces. The only exception was the legislature of 1843, with an explosive increase of military men in congress as a result of the victory in the war against the Peru–Bolivian Confederation. In the election of 1834, for example, we find two officers; in 1840, two officers; in 1843, nine deputies and one senator; in 1846, one senator and four deputies; in 1849, one senator and one deputy; in 1852, three deputies; in 1855, one senator and four deputies; in 1861 one deputy. For the list, constituency and military rank of congressmen, see Urzúa, Historia política de Chile, pp. 56–7.
29 Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas de Chile, ‘Enfoque Estadístico: Hombres y mujeres en Chile’, Santiago, diciembre de 2010, 3, http://www.ine.cl/canales/menu/boletines/enfoques/2010/2010/091210web.pdf, accessed 20 March 2016.
30 M. Ponce de León, ‘The Chilean Elections of 1891’, in A. Robertson and E. Posada-Carbó (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Revolutionary Elections in the Americas, 1800–1910 (Oxford, forthcoming).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Andrés Estefane
Andrés Estefane is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Political History and Assistant Professor of the School of Government at Adolfo Ibáñez University, Santiago, Chile. He is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Juan Luis Ossa
Juan Luis Ossa holds a DPhil in Modern History, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Political History at Adolfo Ibáñez University, Santiago, Chile, and he is Associate Professor of the School of Government there. He is the author of Armies. Politics and Revolution. Chile 1808–1826 (Liverpool, 2014).