Callao

Callao, city of Peru (2006 population 839,271) and the port for the capital city of Lima, located about 10 miles from the heart of Lima. Although Callao was separated from the capital throughout most of its history, today the two cities merge into one megalopolis. But Callao has retained its uniqueness, and chalacos, as its citizens call themselves, still like to distinguish themselves from the residents of Lima.

Callao was founded in 1537 and served as a small way station along the Rímac River and a port of entry for Lima, which was founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1535. Its harbor, protected by San Lorenzo Island, is one of the best along Peru's generally open desert coastline, and by the end of the colonial period Callao had taken on a naval and commercial importance of its own.

It has witnessed many earthquakes, coups, and sieges, beginning as long ago as 1624, when Dutch raiders bombarded the port. A terrifying earthquake and tidal wave destroyed the entire city in 1746. The fortress of Real Felipe, which emerged in the rebuilt city of the late eighteenth century, played an important role in the independence of Peru, its control often being key to the control of the capital.

On 2 May 1866 Callao withstood a bombardment by a Spanish fleet bent on reducing the port to ashes, and that day is remembered as one of the grandest in the history of Peruvian arms. The action also persuaded the Spanish to give up their amorphous pretensions to reestablish their empire in that part of the world.

Facing the sea, Callao played an important role in the commercial history of Peru. In the nineteenth century a series of export-based booms focused attention on the port. Guano exports triggered the first modernization of the country from the 1840s through the 1870s, and Callao prospered from the hundreds of ships employed in that trade that visited annually to refit and revictual after loading guano at the Chincha Islands south of Callao. Later in the century the railroad boom in Peru spurred further economic growth of the city, and when the great copper and silver mines of the interior were once again tapped by modern technology and foreign capital in the early twentieth century, much of the prosperity flowed through Callao.

Callao emerged in the twentieth century as an industrial leader and the first fishing port of Peru. From cement factories to beer breweries, Callao grew as industry located there to take advantage of its proximity to the sea and to the capital. And when Peru became the world's leading fish-exporting nation in the 1950s, based on the rich catches in the waters of the Humboldt Current, Callao was the leading seaport for this booming industry, servicing the fleets and building the boats and ships in its shipyards.

Streetcars, modern sanitation, and constantly improving port facilities kept Callao as the nation's major port. When Lima relocated its principal airport to Callao with the opening of the modern Jorge Chávez International Airport in 1962, Callao also became the principal port of entry for air travelers to Peru.

See alsoHumboldt Current .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jorge Basadre's Historia de la república del Perú 7th ed. 11 vols. (1983) contains numerous references to the history of Callao.

Additional Bibliography

Catalán, Alfonso Cerda. La Guerra entre España y las repúblicas del Pacífico, 1864–1866: El bombardeo de Valparaíso y el combate naval del Callao. Providencia: Editorial Puerto de Palos, 2000.

Quiroz, Francisco. Descripciones del Callao: Textos, planos grabados y fotografías (siglos XVI al XIX) Callao: Centro de Investigaciones Históricas del Callao: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 1990.

                                    Lawrence A. Clayton