The methodological problems involved in studying the political role of corruption and inefficiency have long baffled historians of seventeenth-century Spanish America. Complaints by contemporaries about various forms of corruption (fraudes), abuses (abusos), bribery (cohecho), and other forms of corruption (mala administratión), abound in the extant archivai documents of the period. In addition, successive viceroys and royal inspectors (visitadores) frequently charged that colonial officials were too stupid, lazy, or inexperienced to carry out their duties efficiently. One visitador in 1683, for example, described the administrative practices of high-ranking treasury officials in the viceregal capital of Lima as “la más ciega y descuidada que se ha visto en muchos siglos,” and went on to recommend that such officials be “despoblados de sus plazas, poniendo in su lugar personas capazes y inteligentes.”

The city where trouble began in 1891, Valparaíso, Chile, was a memorable place. Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, the nineteenth-century Chilean historian and political leader, has rightly written that the history of Valparaíso has been the history of the sea. An old port, once a more important city than it is now, built around and especially on top of steep hills reached by rickety lifts, Valparaíso still has a grace and character unlike that of most other ports—its landscape resembles an untamed San Francisco. At one time it was a thriving commercial center and hub of naval activity, important not only for the direction of Chilean history but for that of much of South America as well. In the nineteenth century, with Chilean independence and the later decay of the Peruvian port of Callao, Valparaíso rapidly became the maritime capital of the Pacific and an important focus of naval enterprises for continental defense. Then, after decades of prosperity, its importance declined and the fortunes of other coastal cities arose.

One of the dominant themes stressed in the literature on development and underdevelopment in Latin America, is that the landowners in this region have historically played a negative role. They are portrayed as having been politically reactionary, economically passive, lacking in entrepreneurial drive, and generally unconcerned with promoting the development of the productive forces in their respective countries. Further, their attitudes have been branded as “traditional,” and the policies which they pursued are seen to have been “defective.” As a consequence, the general economic underdevelopment of the area has to be understood as a product of this class' inaction and its “conscious willingness” to be subordinated to foreign capital.

From 1810, when the cabildo of Buenos Aires declared itself free from Spain, through the civil and parochial wars of the post independence period Argentina struggled for constitutional order and political unity. The tyranny of Rosas, the promulgation of the Federal Constitution in 1853, and its ultimate acceptance by the Province of Buenos Aires in 1862 highlighted the drama. Hampered by vast distances, primitive transportation facilities, and the presence of nomadic hostile Indians, the drive for national unity seemed to have reached a significant milestone in 1880. That year saw the creation of the Federal District on the heels of the suppression of a serious revolt against the national government by the Province of Buenos Aires. When the port city of Buenos Aires became the capital of the Republic, and the government of the province moved to the new city of La Plata, it must have appeared to casual observers that Argentina had arrived as a modern nation-state.

As the novels of Machado de Assis make clear, for most Brazilians the War of Triple Alliance against Paraguay in the 1860s was a remote affair which scarcely impinged on their lives. In this respect the impact of the Paraguayan war on Brazil may be compared with that of the Napoleonic wars on the world of Jane Austen. In Argentina it was a different story. The war with Paraguay produced a sense of national trauma and crisis that makes it not hyperbolic to regard it as Argentina's Vietnam. This article seeks to trace the effect of the bloody conflict with Francisco Solano López on Argentine society. To simplify the analysis, the consequences of the war have been considered below under four headings which do not purport to be exhaustive or mutually exclusive: military, political (i.e., relating to the internal politics of Argentina), economic and international (concerned with Argentina's external relations).