Cobija (Chile)
Coordinates: 22 ° 33 ′ S , 70 ° 16 ′ W
Cobija (formerly Lamar ) is now a ghost town on the Pacific coast in the Atacama Desert in the South American Andean state of Chile . Cobija is located about 130 km north of Antofagasta in the Región de Antofagasta .
history
After its founding on December 28, 1825, Cobija was initially a Bolivian port city on the Pacific. The Bolivian government recognized the importance of the port and, according to a decree of July 17, 1839, invested around 30,000 pesos in the ailing port facilities. In 1842, Chile began exporting guano to the Mejillones area . There were always border disputes with Bolivia. On August 10, 1866, Chile and Bolivia settled their disputes in a border treaty.
Cobija was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1868 . In 1869 a yellow fever epidemic hit the city. After another severe destruction by a tsunami after the earthquake in Iquique in 1877 , trade and administration relocated to the port city of Antofagasta, which has now emerged.
Before the Saltpeter War (1879–1883), around 15,000 people lived around Cobija, over 90 percent of them Chileans. Another treaty in 1874 on the border issue and tax levies could not prevent a war. To finance the reconstruction after the seaquake of 1877, the Bolivian government under President Hilarión Daza decided in 1878 to impose a special tax of 10 centavos on every hundredweight of saltpeter extracted. Chile saw this as a violation of the agreement of 1874. The Chileans refused to pay the tax and were partially arrested or their property was confiscated. The dispute was the cause of the saltpeter war.
On March 27, 1879, Cobija fell into Chilean hands without significant resistance. Bolivia lost its access to the Pacific. After the construction of the railway lines from the Bolivian highlands to Arica and Antofagasta at the beginning of the 20th century, Cobija sank into insignificance.
In memory of the Pacific port lost in the Saltpeter War, the city of Bahía in Bolivia was renamed Cobija in 1908 .