Isle of mystery and lore: archaeologists and historians are uncovering a rich body of cultural and natural heritage on San Lorenzo, off the coast of Lima, Peru.

What secrets does San Lorenzo hide? Located in the Pacific Ocean only two and a half miles from Peru's capital, Lima, this island has long piqued the interest of scientists and travelers. In 2003, a team of Peruvian researchers from the Project for the Recovery of the Natural and Cultural Heritage of San Lorenzo Island (PASL)--created by the Peruvian Navy with the backing of the Grau Foundation--began a series of excavations on the island. At only five miles long and a little over a mile wide, San Lorenzo is the largest of a group of uninhabited islands--Fronton, Cabinza, and Palomino are the others--clustered just off the coast. However, people along this shoreline have had a special relationship with San Lorenzo since pre-Columbian times. First the island was a cemetery, later a pirate hideout, a guano-extraction site, a sanitary and health station for immigrants at the port of Callao, a concentration camp, and a naval base. It has even been the site of presidential meetings.

One of the PASL team's first finds were the remains of a young man born half a world away.

The year was 1855, and Li You was about to change his life. From the Zinhui district near Guangzhou (Canton), the capital of Guangdong Province, in China, he had just turned twenty when he decided to journey across the Pacific Ocean to Peru. He was leaving China with hopes of creating a better future than the one his country could offer him. China was going through one of its most difficult political and economic times. It had just been defeated by the United Kingdom in the Opium Wars (1839-42)--its first war against a European power. At home, frustrated peasant farmers had found support in the Taiping religious movement (1848-64), which called for an independent, egalitarian state based on Christian rather than Confucian principles and an end to abuses by foreigners. In the midst of these problems, hundreds of thousands of Chinese undertook a massive exodus to various parts of the world where they were forced into manual labor. Some were treated like slaves. They traveled to the Pacific Islands, Australia, the United States, and Latin America, particularly to Panama, Cuba, and Peru. Between 1849 and 1874, some 100,000 of these laborers arrived in Peru.

One of them was a young Cantonese man named Li You.

Li You arrived with an eight-year labor contract specifying that he would be required to do all the work asked of him except that of collecting guano. He would be a low-level servant under the orders of a Peruvian landowner and politician, Domingo Elias. A man of great power and influence, Elias had become Peru's main importer of Chinese laborers. But this young man who had sought a new life in Peru would never work under Elias. Li You died from dysentery, probably contracted during the long trip aboard a ship with deplorable sanitary conditions, and was buried on San Lorenzo.

Two years ago, when Li You's mummified body was first found and examined by the PASL team, forensic doctors Uriel Garcia Caceres and Guido Lombarda concluded that his death was the result of "a depressed immunological system, a case of severe dehydration, malnutrition, and respiratory deficiency." According to archaeologist Jose Antonio Hudtwalcker and anthropologist Jose Pinilla, the project's leaders, Li You's body was found "in an extraordinary state of conservation, along with his clothing." Next to the body was a blue linen bag with unusual objects--a stash of about 150 grams of dried white Chinese olives wrapped in a cotton cloth; a bronze coin probably forged during the time of Emperor Tao Kuang (1821-50); two other coins, one bronze and the other copper, probably made during the reign of Emperor Ch'ienlung (1736-95); a polished bone brush; a wooden domino piece marked with the numbers 5 and 6 on opposite ends; a bundle of twelve sticks cut from bamboo; Chinese bamboo chopsticks; a bamboo support for the chopsticks; a double comb used traditionally for removing lice and nits; a decorative wooden comb; and a , spool of dark thread wrapped around a piece of corncob.

Li You's story is but one example of San Lorenzo's history that is just coming to light. Between 2003 and 2004, the PASL team uncovered the remains of soldiers, marines, women, and children, along with a large number of objects ranging from personal effects to projectiles from ships that took part in the War of the Pacific between Chile and Peru (1879-83).

Early residents of this coastline called the island Huachac, a Quechua word meaning "she who gives birth." Anthropologist Maria del Pilar Fortunic, who has done extensive research on San Lorenzo for the Peruvian Navy Museum, believes that the island had a sacred use for the pre-Columbian peoples who settled in the valleys of the Lurin, Rimac, and Chillon rivers. Anthropologist Pinilla believes so, too. He links the burial sites found in the island's La Cruz Cove to sanctuaries located in Armatambo (in the Chorrillos district in southern Lima) and Pachacamac, about twenty miles south of the city.

Archaeologists have shown that the pre-Columbian funeral bundles were built on a thick base of pacae leaves or of sweet grass that formed a kind of a nest where the body and all of its personal belongings fit. Two cane bars of sticks placed vertically on both sides of the back of the body helped to provide a firmer support for the structure. "From what we have been able to see, there is also a custom of placing a Spondylus princeps or Argopecten purpuratus shell on the skull of the body. We have found several of these perforated shells in the immediate areas of the tombs that were looted years ago," report Hudtwalcker and Pinilla.

In 1835, Charles Darwin became the first scientist to visit the island during his famous journey to South America aboard the Beagle. His impressions of Peru were not favorable. The young nation had gained independence from Spain in 1821 and was in a state of political chaos and social disorder. The English naturalist was unable to travel inside the country, but he did take advantage of his self-confinement to explore the beaches of San Lorenzo, observing its geology and collecting shell samples.

In 1906 and 1907, German archaeologist Max Uhle undertook the first excavations of the southern end of the island. While Uhle found hundreds of pre-Columbian metal objects in a cemetery on La Cruz Cove, many of the pieces have since been lost and those that remain are stored with the National Museum of Anthropology, Archaeology, and History (MNAAHP). Uhle also found damaged burial bundles containing the skeletal remains of women, ceramics, and an impressive painted cloth over twenty-five feet long, which is also in the MNAAHP.

Another seventy years went by before the island was further explored. Then in 1999, archaeologist Mercedes Cardenas located and registered nearly twenty-one archaeological and historical sites, four cemeteries, and seventeen shell mounds. Stone structures, such as walls and platforms, built during the years of guano extraction were also identified, as well as ceramics, clay pots, porcelain, skeletal remains, stone and shell artifacts, as well as munitions of more recent vintage.

So far, PASL archaeologists have prospected during April and June 2003 on Cemetery Cove in the northeastern part of San Lorenzo, and between November 2003 and April 2004 in Sanitary Cove and La Cruz Cove on the island's southern end. Their efforts have yielded findings of buried human remains from pre-Columbian times (probably from the Ichma culture); temporary settlements from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; levees and platforms associated with guano exploitation; and artillery equipment from nineteenth-century vessels. Archaeological work also confirms the "cosmopolitan nature" of the findings from both excavation periods. "Some of the burials are of foreigners with blond hair and beards that stand out from the rest because of their extraordinary state of mummification," state Hudtwalcker and Pinilla.

Because of regular outbreaks of disease during the mid nineteenth century to early twentieth century, ships' passengers were examined in the island's sanitary station (from which the cove got its name) before they made their final journey into Callao. If they were very ill, they were held in quarantine in the station, and if they died, they were buried on the island. This is what probably happened to Li You.

One of the excavations on Cemetery Cove turned up the remains of five uniformed men--probably soldiers in the 1866 war against Spain and the War of the Pacific--three from Italy, one from Spain, and the fifth, a member of the Peruvian Army Grenadier Corps. Hudtwalcker and Pinilla note: "Apparently the Peruvian soldier was a combatant in the War of the Pacific. It's possible that he was one of the fifteen hundred prisoners from the invasion of Arica who were brought to Lima." San Lorenzo, they point out, was used as a concentration camp for prisoners after Chilean troops took the port of Callao.

Rumors of buried treasure and pirate remains on San Lorenzo have been partially disproved by the PASL team. But historic evidence does show that the island was the center of operations for the Nassau Armada commanded by Admiral Jacques Clerk L'Hermite when he laid siege to the port of Callao in 1624.

Peruvian historian and naval officer John Rodriguez Asti has written about the Dutch expedition led by the feared admiral who, under the orders of the Prince of Nassau, ordered the siege of the port. The blockade was part of a Dutch Armada strategy to wear down the defenses of the Peruvian viceroyalty, which was the largest provider of silver and gold for the royal coffers of the Kingdom of Spain.

Rodriguez points out that "the Dutch expeditions--especially that of Admiral L'Hermite of 1624--were unlike pirate or privateer incursions because of their organization, method of operation, magnitude, and characteristics. They were, rather, offensive actions framed in the context of the Hispano-Dutch wars, struggles in which the Netherlands sought to challenge Spanish control over the American territories and even planned the conquest of the Viceroyalty of Peru." But Rodriguez explains that the objective was not always to conquer, "but rather to try to divert resources from defense and to interfere with the shipments of precious metals to the peninsula's coffers. This was to be the first step in undermining and defeating Spanish power and control. Pirates and privateers played a leading role in these kinds of wearing down and weakening activities since they made up the vanguard."

The fact that the Spanish court had assigned few resources to the forces defending Callao worked to the advantage of Dutch incursions and especially that of L'Hermite. The orders he received were to lay siege to the ports of Arica and Callao and to capture the Armada de la Plata, which was carrying a valuable shipment of precious metals from the mines of Potosi to Spain.

On May 9, 1624, L'Hermite's eleven ships, 278 pieces of artillery, and 1,617 men began the blockade of the port of Callao. Between May 10 and 11, the admiral's men tried unsuccessfully to land on the northern coast of Callao, but they did capture three merchant ships and set fire to nine others. By May 15, it was clear that the admiral was not going to be able to land at the port. Instead, he decided to send ships to Chincha, south of Lima, and north to Guayaquil, looting the latter to secure provisions and goods. In the end, however, the Dutch were overcome and forced to retreat.

While the Spaniards shored up their defense of Callao, on June 3, "unusual activities were occurring on San Lorenzo Island and causing concern on the mainland," states Rodriguez. "This was due to the fact that the previous morning, Admiral Jacques L'Hermite had died of an illness--probably dysentery which had apparently set in some time during the armada's earlier stop in Sierra Leone in Africa." The loss of the commander was probably a factor in the serious setback suffered by the Dutch squadron in the following weeks. On August 14, the defeated ships of the Nassau Armada left San Lorenzo on their way back to Holland.

Rodriguez tells the final chapter of this story: "After the departure of the Nassau Armada, the viceroy ordered the island to be inspected to see what the enemy had done and if there were any survivors. What they found, however, were sixty buried bodies, among them, that of Admiral L'Hermite, who was buried in a box as simple as that of a country preacher. According to a Spanish publication about the 'triumph' of Spain over the Dutch in 1625, the body of the 'religious man' was burned in a bonfire set by 'some curious bystanders' and after two days, the remains of the other enemy navy officers met the same fate."

San Lorenzo is rich in cultural and natural patrimony. According to anthropologist Fortunic, it is regrettable that exhaustive studies of the island's natural resources don't exist, yet there are traces of geological riches and a high concentration of flora and fauna, especially marine birds and sea lions, which might permit the island to receive Historical Sanctuary status, a very particular category that also includes the site of Machu Picchu.

Nevertheless, San Lorenzo has been "protected" since the beginning of the twentieth century by the Peruvian Navy. During the presidency of Augusto B. Leguia the island became a submarine base, and it has been a restricted zone ever since, a status that continues to protect it from fishing as well as tomb raiding and other illegal activities.

Regional authorities from time to time suggest projects to promote tourism on San Lorenzo, an idea that by no means has consensus. Researchers believe that the island should continue to be off-limits until a concrete plan for its future is established. So far tourists are limited to boat excursions around the four islands of San Lorenzo, Fronton, Cabinza, and Palomino. These outings primarily attract bird and whale watchers. There is no doubt, however, that in the next years this island situated so close to the city of Lima, but at the same time so unknown to the great majority of Peruvians, will reveal more of its secrets and history.

Translated by Kathy A. Ogle

Jorge Riveros Cayo is an independent journalist living in Lima. He has written for the major newspapers of his country. In 2003, he received the Biodiversity Reporting Award, given by Conservation International, the International Federation of Environmental Journalists, and the International Center for Journalists.

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Author:	Cayo, Jorge Riveros
Publication:	Americas (English Edition)
Geographic Code:	9CHIN
Date:	Sep 1, 2005
Words:	2426
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Topics:	Excavations (Archaeology) China Forecasts and trends Peru Migrant labor History

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