The Chilean Revolution of 1891 and Its Historiography1

Abstract

ISCUSSION OF THE Chilean revolution of 1891 has been in progress for almost three-quarters of a century, yet, despite this considerable period of investigation and interpretation, the origins, character and consequences of the revolution and the figure of Jose Manuel Balmaceda, protagonist of the revolutionary drama, are still subjects of much dispute among historians.2 This article is in part a study of the historiography of the revolution and in part a contribution to it: it assumes a knowledge of the main outlines of events in Chile during Balmaceda's presidency, 1886-1891, and of the subsequent history of the republic. Historians differ primarily on the question of responsibility for the revolution, but whereas the great majority see the struggle between Balmaceda and his Congress as a battle of political principles in which the contestants were activated by genuine conviction, others, who see the springs of political action primarily in social and circumstances, consider the basic issues in the conflict to have been about the organization and development of the republic. It is, therefore, possible and, indeed, convenient to speak of a dichotomy in the historiography of the revolution between historians on the one hand and economice historians on the other. These terms are not always mutually exclusive, but while the historian may not altogether ignore social and factors in the genesis of the revolution he does consider them relatively unimportant, whereas the economic historian may grant some validity to constitutional factors while still regarding them largely as a veneer.