Huanillos

Huanillos is a small seaside village in Chile and a big source of huano (guano) in the 19th century.

Location

Huanillos is located in the shore of the region of Tarapaca, Chile. It is 130 km south from Iquique, the capital of the region.

History

Huanillos was one of the most important sources of huano. Huano is seabird excrement and it was used as a fertilizer in the 19th Century in the Peruvian country. It was discovered by Alexander Von Humboldt, a German naturalist who studied the flora and fauna of South America. Between 1845 and 1851 Huanillos was discovered by a Peruvian engineer who was sent by the government, until 1879 the border between Peru and Bolivia was located near the Bolivian city of Antofagasta, Chile took over this territories after the Pacific war.

A new village was born

The extraction of Huano was approved by the Peruvian government in 1874, and with that the creation of the new village called Huanillos. It had a population of 825 people, 729 men and 96 women. Huanillos was a complex village itself, it had hotels, a court house, shops, offices, and houses for the workers. There were three different types of workers; there were Peruvian workers, Chilean workers and Coolies or Chinese slaves. They worked mainly in the extraction of Huano.

The Coolies

Chinese slaves were very common in that time because in 1850 the Peruvian government made a trade agreement with China; the Peruvian government would give 50 soles per Chinese who worked in the different industries of the time. However the Chinese people, especially men, were treated so badly that a large number of them committed suicide and the few who survived were rescued by Patricio Lynch, a Chilean military officer who fought in The Pacific War.

A mysterious Castle

Nowadays Huanillos is a ghost town, a place full of memories and stories from the past; one of those stories is a mysterious castle. The name of the castle is “Garcia-Burr Castle”, nobody knows when it was built, and some people said that the castle is no more than 100 years old. It was built by Freddy Campaña, besides that there are no records of the actual owner of the castle.