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“A Country Proud to be Democratic”: Demanding Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Chile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2019

Lisa M. Edwards
Lisa M. Edwards*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MassachusettsLisa_Edwards@uml.edu
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Abstract

This article examines criminal court cases about conflicts related to the electoral process at all stages from determining how elections would be administered to disputes about results. It argues that contemporary allegations of fraud, corruption, and misconduct during elections can inform us not only of the anomalies but also of the ways in which elections worked as expected, according to the laws and norms of the time. We can also see how participants defined and defended the democratic ideal. A careful reading of participants' complaints to local authorities about electoral law violations, including incidents that ended in violence, can provide important insights into partisanship, the mechanics of elections, and the formation of political culture. The use of democratic rhetoric in these complaints suggests a consensus around a democratic ideal based on free and fair elections even though that ideal was not yet realized. Through the analysis of criminal court cases, it also introduces a broad range of questions about how nineteenth-century Chileans understood and practiced democracy that suggest avenues for further research.

Type
Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 585 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2019 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank the Department of History and the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Lowell for the generous financial and moral support that allowed me to research and write this article. I am especially grateful to Michael Pierson for his insightful comments and questions through multiple drafts. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers for the journal for their suggestions, as well as former editor Ben Vinson III and current editor John Frederick Schwaller for their comments and encouragement.

References

1. “he querido con mi grano de arena contribuir al restablecimiento de la moralizacion política en punto a elecciones … No puede mirarse impasible la burla que hoi se hace del primero de los derechos del ciudadano de un pais que precia de demócrata. Por esto he querido por mi parte contribuir con mi continjente de dinero, de tiempo, de paciencia etc. a fin de que se remedie el mal.” Rafael Correa i Toro, Correa i Toro … contra los vocales de la mesa calificadora de la subdelegacion 6a de la Compañia, 1882, Archivo Judicial Rancagua [hereafter AJR], leg. 785, pza. 8, fols. 72–73. The election workers about whom Correa i Toro lodged his complaint were selected at the taxpayers’ meeting by their peers. That process was itself contentious and is addressed elsewhere in this article. All archival sources used in this article are housed in the Archivo Nacional Histórico of Chile [hereafter ANH]. All translations are mine. Where spelling and accent marks are inconsistent in archival documents and newspapers from the nineteenth century, I have used the modern conventions.

2. Correa i Toro…contra los vocales de la mesa calificadora de la subdelegacion 6a de la Compañia, 1882, AJR, leg. 785, pza. 8, f. 72v.

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10. For the text of the electoral reform law, see Lei de elecciones, November 12, 1874, Chile, Boletín de las leyes i decretos del gobierno, vol. 42, part 2 (Santiago: Imprenta Nacional, 1874), 327 (article 16). On the requirements for suffrage and changes with the 1874 reform, see Valenzuela, J. Samuel, “Building Aspects of Democracy before Democracy: Electoral Practices in Nineteenth-Century Chile,” in Elections Before Democracy: The History of Elections in Europe and Latin America, Posada-Carbó, Eduardo, ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), 224Google Scholar. For statistics, see Valenzuela, Democratización via reforma, 150; Valenzuela, J. Samuel, “Hacia la formación de instituciones democráticas: prácticas electorales en Chile durante el siglo XIX,” Estudios Públicos 66 (Fall 1997): 219–220Google Scholar; and Sabato, Republics, 68, 211n19. Valenzuela notes in “Hacia la formación de instituciones democráticas” that the literacy rate for adult men in the late 1870s was about 35 percent (220n6).

11. Sagredo, Rafael, “Prácticas políticas en Chile: 1870–1886,” Estudios Públicos 78 (Fall 2000): 209–242Google Scholar.

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13. Bauer, Arnold J., Chilean Rural Society from the Spanish Conquest to 1930 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Bauer, Arnold J., “Landlord and Campesino in the Chilean Road to Democracy,” in Agrarian Structure and Political Power: Landlord and Peasant in the Making of Latin America, Huber, Evelyne and Safford, Frank, eds. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), 21–38Google Scholar; Baland, Jean-Marie and Robinson, James A., “Land and Power: Theory and Evidence from Chile,” American Economic Review 98:5 (2008): 1737–1765CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baland, Jean-Marie and Robinson, James A., “The Political Value of Land: Political Reform and Land Prices in Chile,” American Journal of Political Science 56:3 (2012): 601–619CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Luca, Giacomo, “Electoral Registration and the Control of Votes: The Case of Chile,” Electoral Studies 34 (2014): 159–166CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. S. Valenzuela, “Hacia la formación de instituciones democráticas,” 220.

14. de León Atria, Macarena Ponce, “La construcción del poder electoral y participación política en Chile, siglos XIX y XX,” in Contribución a un diálogo abierto. Cinco ensayos de historia electoral latinoamericana, Gantús, Fausta and Salmerón, Alicia, coords. (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 2016), 123Google Scholar; Muñoz, Juan Cáceres, “Los contextos y las carencias de la historigrafía electoral. El Chile del siglo XIX,” Revista de Humanidades 32 (July-December 2015): 220Google Scholar. Cáceres Muñoz also noted the importance of using judicial records in electoral history (216). Macarena Ponce de León Atria noted recently that Chilean electoral history remains understudied: “Estado y elecciones. La construcción electoral del poder en Chile, siglos XIX y XX,” in Historia política de Chile, 1810–2010. Tomo II, Jaksić and Rengifo, eds., 243–270.

15. Patricio Ibarra Cifuentes, “Guardias cívicas y prácticas electorales en el siglo XIX (Nacimiento, 1858),” Cuadernos de Historia 30 (March 2009): 66.

16. Provinces were divided into departments. Congressional deputies represented departments and senators represented provinces. The electoral law of 1833 elaborated on the electoral provisions of the Constitution of 1833. Reglamento de elecciones, Boletín de las leyes, y de las órdenes y decretos del gobierno. Reimpresión oficial. Tomo segundo, que contiene los libros V, VI y VII (Valparaíso: Imprenta del Mercurio, 1846), 280–293. On the changes in procedures, see J. Samuel Valenzuela, “Building Aspects of Democracy before Democracy,” 226–227. The following general description of the mechanics of elections is informed by Valenzuela's foundational work on elections, but is primarily based on my readings of newspapers, archival documents, and election laws from the 1870s and 1880s. For a criminal court case regarding the identity of a taxpayer, see José del C. Salinas contra Gregorio Bravo, 1885, AJR, leg. 861, pza. 3. For examples of the more typical disputes regarding inclusion or exclusion on the list of largest taxpayers, see the published judicial rulings for Los Andes, Talca, La Ligua, and Rengo, published in El Estandarte Católico (Valparaíso; all citations in this article are from the Valparaíso edition), October 23 and 26, 1884. Lists of designated representatives for conservative taxpayers’ disputes regarding the list of highest taxpayers were published regularly in newspapers such as La Libertad Católica, including October 4, 1884. For examples of criminal charges or judicial investigations into taxpayers’ absences from the junta meeting, see Sumario sobre la inasistencia de algunos mayores contribuyentes a al Junta que tuvo lugar el 20 de Noviembre de 1887, 1887, Archivo Judicial Tal-tal - Criminales [hereafter AJT], leg. 400, pza. 2; Sobre inasistencia de Mayores Contribuyentes a la Junta del 10 de Marzo, 1888, AJT, leg. 407, pza. 1; Por el delito de inasistencia a las Juntas de Mayores contribuyentes, 1890, AJT, leg. 424, pza. 2; Causa criminal iniciada el 21 de Nov. de 1887 por Delito Electoral, 1887, Archivo Judicial Copiapó [hereafter AJC], leg. 1150, pza. 11; Infraccion de la lei de elecciones, 1888, Archivo Judicial Linares - Criminales [hereafter AJL], leg. 48, pza. 8; and Infraccion de la lei electoral, 1884, AJL, leg. 37, pza. 24.

17. See for example the Conservative Party circular of December 6, 1884, published in La Libertad Católica, December 9, 1884, and the same party's circular of March 5, 1886, published in La Libertad Católica, March 10, 1886.

18. Querella por abusos entablada contra don Felipe Valdés, November 15, 1875, AJR, leg. 741, pza. 62.

19. Delito electoral contra Pedro Fernández Concha, December 13, 1884, Archivo Judicial Santiago [hereafter AJS]. The records for Santiago are grouped by year and unindexed, so they lack the legajo and pieza numbers that the other collections of judicial records have.

20. Delito electoral, 1887, AJC, leg. 1140, pza. 8.

21. Querella criminal iniciada el 29 de nov. de 1884 por delito electoral, 1884, AJC, leg. 1137, pza. 5. In their complaint, the minority group asked the judge to impose jail time and fines on the leaders of the majority. After the judge agreed, the case was overturned on appeal and fines were levied but no jail time was assigned. The case was appealed again to the Supreme Court, where the finding was not overturned but the fines were ordered returned to the accused.

22. Querella criminal iniciada el 29 de nov. de 1884 por delito electoral, 1884, AJC, leg. 1137, pza. 5, fol. 62.

23. Querella criminal iniciada el 13 de dic. de 1869 por fraude en asuntos políticos, 1869, AJC, leg. 1141, pza. 10, fol. 1.

24. “La mesa presenció todos estos abusos i prestó su aprobacion a ellos, ocupándose de inscribir a los individuos que habian entrado de una manera fraudulenta.” Querella criminal iniciada el 13 de dic. de 1869 …, 1869, AJC, leg. 1141, pza. 10, fol. 2.

25. Blas Urzúa contra los vocales de la mesa calificadora de Maipo, sobre infraccion de la lei electoral, 1884, AJR, leg. 841, pza. 16.

26. Urzúa Valenzuela, Historia política de Chile, 82. For the text of the law, see Boletín de las leyes i decretos del gobierno, vol. 37 (1869) (Santiago: Imprenta Nacional, 1869), 204.

27. Don José Luis Salamanca contra el subdelegado de las Hijuelas y contra la junta calificadora de dicha seccion, sobre infraccion de la lei electoral, 1882, AJR, leg. 787, pza. 21, fol. 1.

28. Don José Luis Salamanca contra el subdelegado …, AJR, leg. 787, pza. 21, fol. 1-1v. The inference is that Moran took charge of the index between registration sessions, which occurred for four hours daily for 15 days. A registration official from among those designated by the taxpayers’ meeting was supposed to keep the registration materials secure between sessions. As an administrative official (that is, one designated by the executive branch of government), Moran was not supposed to be involved.

29. Don José Luis Salamanca contra el subdelegado …, AJR, leg. 787, pza. 21, fols. 3-7.

30. Sumario para averiguar la sustraccion de rejistros electorales, en blanco de la subdelegacion de Longavi, 1890, AJL, leg. 53, pza. 26.

31. Indag.o sobre la ruptura de un rejistro electoral, 1876, AJR, leg. 903, pza. 267.

32. Asalto de mesas electorales, desórden publica y lesiones, February 9, 1885, AJS, 1885. The incident was recounted and discussed in many newspapers. For examples, see El Estandarte Católico, February 10, 1885, and “La honradez de los liberales,” El Chileno March 3, 1885.

33. Abuso de la libertad de imprenta, January 19, 1885, AJS, 1885.

34. The relevant issue of El Estandarte Católico is included in the court documents. The article in question was reprinted elsewhere at the time to report on the case initiated by Galvez. See El Chileno 2, 373 (January 23, 1885).

35. Indag.o sobre un desórden público ocurrido en Buin, homicidio, lesiones i atentado contra la fuerza pública, 1884, AJR, leg. 842, pza. 20. Hilda Sabato discusses the “culture of mobilization” in late nineteenth-century Buenos Aires, which included both voters and non-voters, in her “Citizenship, Political Participation and the Formation of the Public Sphere in Buenos Aires 1850s-1880s,” Past and Present 136 (August 1992): 151Google Scholar. She also notes in “Citizenship, Political Participation, and the Formation of the Public Sphere,” 144–145, that political mobilization and violence were common in late nineteenth-century Buenos Aires. For several examples of violence surrounding elections, see Sabato, The Many and the Few, 58–62.

36. Testimony of Juan Ramírez y Lopes, AJS, February 9, 1885, fol. 5-5v.

37. Mücke, Ulrich, “Elections and Political Participation in Nineteenth-Century Peru: The 1871-72 Presidential Campaign,” Journal of Latin American Studies 33:2 (May 2001): 321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Testimony of Juan Ramírez y Lopes (on two occasions during the investigation) and of Andres Ramírez, AJS, February 9, 1885, fols. 6v, 51, 52v.

39. Causa criminal por injurias a la mesa calificadora, 1869, AJC, leg. 1146 pza. 4, fols. 2-3.

40. Causa criminal por injurias a la mesa calificadora, 1869, AJC, leg. 1146 pza. 4, fol. 2v.

41. Contra Luis Cano por falsificacion i contra Manuel Espinosa, 1882, AJR, leg. 785, pza. 5.

42. Causa criminal de oficio, 1886, AJC, leg. 1131, pza. 11.

43. Nulidad de elecciones de municipales, 1888, AJC, leg. 1147, pza. 8; Nulidad de eleccion de municipales, 1888, AJC, leg. 1147, pza. 9; Causa criminal de oficio, Delito: Nulidad de eleccion de municipal de Caldera, 1888, AJC, leg. 1144, pza. 4.