Between the Pacific War and the Monroe Doctrine: Peruvian foreign policy against the intervention of the United States after the fall of Lima (1881–1884)

The United States was aware of the evolution of the trajectory that the Pacific war was taking. As a regional power and within the framework of the Monroe doctri-ne, it did not allow the diplomatic intervention of Europe to carry out mediation before the belligerent countries. North American diplomacy offered its good offices from the beginning of the conflict, but it was done with greater emphasis with the assumption of the republican president James Garfield and after the fall of Lima (January 1881). The present investigation, based on information from unpublished files, monitors the actions of North American diplomacy from the perspective of Peruvian foreign policy and its legation in Washington, since the Monroe doctrine was interpreted and readjusted by the North American Secretary of State to the extent in which the Peruvian defeat was imposed with the treaty of Ancón (1883); moving from supporting Peru to unequivocal support for Chile.