ollowing the collapse of the Potosi mining boom, the region became so deteriorated that by the time of Independence (1825) a British diplomat described the country as a complete ruin. He specifically detailed that the roads were only fitted to accommodate mules and that a carriage road in good conditions just didn't exist (Gall, pg 4).
             Once the colonial time was over and Bolivia started to keep the silver and gold, two consecutive wars came along. The first one was fought with Chile and only lasted for 2 months, at the end, Bolivia lost all its western territory to Chile, therefore blocking the nation's access to the Pacific Ocean. Immediately the government of Paraguay declared war on the East, and a debilitated nation succumbed again in a short time and lost great part of the East territories that gave Bolivia access to the Atlantic Ocean. These two wars left Bolivia landlocked and unable to share the advantages of direct contact with new ocean steamship routes and also unable to export goods to Europe or Asia (Gall, pg 4).
             In 1940, Bolivia was still struggling with the aftereffects of these wars. At this time, tin became the star product for export and started to sustain the nation's economy. Tin was Bolivia's main 20th century export commodity and peaked in 1929 at 47,082 metric tons but gradually fell to 18,014 metric tons by 1958, only to recover in 1977 with 33,787 metric tons but to fall again to 17,875 tons by 1984 (Gall, pg 2). The collapse of tin prices in 1985 bankrupted the mining industry and tin production fell dramatically (Wiebelt, pg 3). With the fall of tin production, mining companies were forced to dramatically cut down personnel and suddenly thousands of miners found themselves without a source of work.
             In 1949 a disagreement with the United States over tin prices halted exports and the economy took a deadly drop. At the same time, the fact that land was unequally distributed became an ...