National Capital and National Development: Financing Chile's Central Valley Railroads

In studying the economic growth of Latin America, historians of widely divergent viewpoints have tended to emphasize the role of foreigners in the developmental process. As a result, they have often overlooked the efforts of Central and South American entrepreneurs in mobilizing capital and adopting technology to foster the growth of their countries. Chile is a case in point. Like their counterparts throughout Latin America, mid-nineteenth-century Chilean businessmen have been generally portrayed as the followers of foreign interests that dominated the nation's economy. This interpretation, however, has ignored the activity of Chileans in building railroads and promoting various other sectors of their economy. In this essay, Dr. Oppenheimer offers conclusive evidence that Chilean businessmen, closely linked to government—but not foreigners—dominated the two firms that brought the iron horse into Chile's Central Valley.