Shooting Them Down

After several years where strikes became common among increasingly radical mine workers over their poverty and destitute condition, a vast strike of nitrate miners camped out for weeks in the regional capital at a school. On December 21st, the Chilean military arrived and gave the strikers an hour to leave. When they refused, the soldiers opened fire, killing what is believed were two thousand of the mineworkers, their wives and their children.

A postage commemorating the 1907
Santa Maria de Iquique Massacre