Duncan Bowie on South America
Small Earthquakes by Shafik Meghji published by Hurst
Meghji is a London-based writer of travel guides. This new book focuses on Chile and Argentina, including chapters on the Falkland Islands (the Malvinas to Argentinians) and Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island), which is part of Chile, and a brief chapter on Uruguay. Part travelogue, part history, the book focuses on the area’s British connections – the subtitle is “A journey through lost British history in South America”.
Argentina, Chile and Uruguay were never parts of the British Empire. However, British sailors and soldiers, including the radical MP for Westminster, Admiral Thomas Cochrane, helped to liberate the countries from Spanish colonisation in the 1820’s, and had significant economic as well as political influence in the mid and late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was British engineers who built the railway systems and owned the major industrial corporations – Fray Bentos producing canned meats in Uruguay; the British industrialist William Gibbs investing in the production of guano (sea bird droppings) and Thomas North, the nitrate king, who lived in Greenwich.
Much of Meghji’s book focuses on Patagonia, with a chapter on the settlement from 1862 of idealists from Wales, a quarter of whom came from Mountain Ash in the Rhondda – miners, carpenters, cobblers, brickmakers and tailors, but few farmers. There is still a Welsh-speaking community in the area.
This is an interesting and readable book, which may direct readers to study the more detailed works on the informal and indirect economic British imperialism in this region in the sources used by Meghji.