The oldest traces of human occupation of Callao date back more than 10,000 years and are the stone workshops on
Chivateros Hill. Throughout the pre-Inca period, various peoples settled in the area, primarily dedicated to fishing. In the mid-15th century, the territory of Callao was annexed to the
Inca Empire, with the Inca Palace of Oquendo being one of its strategic centres.
Spanish period Callao had been settled by Spaniards in 1535, when in January of that year the ships that the conquistador
Pedro de Alvarado sold to
Francisco Pizarro and
Diego de Almagro landed in the port. Later that same month, the city of
Lima (then called
Los Reyes) was established. On March 6, 1537, the Spaniard Diego Ruiz obtained a license to inaugurate a
tambo (an administrative structure with supplies) in the port of Lima. In 1555, the construction of the first Spanish neighbourhood began. In 1556, Viceroy
Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza appointed Francisco López as the port's first mayor. The
Lima city council recognized him by presenting him with the staff of justice, a symbol of his municipal authority. However, the first municipal authority of the port was Cristóbal Garzón, who served as "Port Constable," having been appointed by the "Chief Constable of Lima," Juan Astudillo Montenegro. He also oversaw the adjacent lands of Daniel Gustavo Fonseca Arroyo, a landowner in Callao's countryside. Due to its status as the main port of the
Viceroyalty of Peru, it was a constant target of pirate and privateer attacks. In 1579, English pirate
Francis Drake violently attacked the port, and in 1624, the Dutchman
Jacques l'Hermite did the same. In response, the Spanish government ordered the construction of defensive walls around the city, which were erected between 1634 and 1647. These defensive installations reached their culmination in October 1747 with the start of construction on the
Real Felipe Fortress, the first phase of which was completed in 1773. On the 1635 map by cartographer Guiljelmus Blaeuw (1571–1638), it is listed as the
Villa del Callao (V. del Callao), just as Lima appears as "Los Reyes" or
Villa de Lima ("V. Lima"). Due to its proximity to the Peruvian capital, it was colloquially known by the Spanish as the
Port of Lima or as
Callao de Lima, a situation that was abandoned as the territory of Callao grew naturally and, like many European cities, developed to achieve city status in 1671. Following this upgrade, it soon became the main port for Spanish commerce in the
Pacific. At the height of the viceroyalty, virtually all goods produced in the Lower Peru,
Upper Peru, and the
River Plate were carried over the
Andes by
mule to Callao, to be shipped to
Panama, carried overland, and then transported on to Spain via
Cuba. The port of Callao was also a node in the
Manila galleon route connecting America and Asia through
Acapulco and
Manila. A number of natural disasters claimed many lives and caused widespread destruction in the port. Among the most devastating was the
earthquake of October 28, 1746, which was accompanied by a tsunami that destroyed the city and decimated its population. Of the five thousand people who lived in Callao, only 200 survived. In response to this disaster and seeking to prevent its recurrence, Viceroy
José Manso de Velasco, the 1st Count of Superunda, founded the city of
Bellavista on a plain three kilometers inland. However, this did not cause the residents of Callao to abandon their original location on the seashore. In 1780, direct trade between
Manila,
Philippines at Asia; and Callao,
Peru; in South America, was officially approved by the Spanish King, and organized by the Royal Philippine Company, leading to much immigration of Filipinos to Peru and Peruvians to the Philippines. Callao took great importance during the
Peruvian War of Independence since it not only controlled the traffic of goods, but also the use of the military fleet. In that sense, it changed hands several times, and in 1821, the first capture of the Real Felipe Fortress by the troops under the command of General
José de San Martín took place. Following the
Battle of Ayacucho on December 9, 1824, that sealed the independence of Peru and South America, Spain made unsuccessful attempts to retain its former territories. One of these attempts led to a
13-month siege by nationalist forces backed by
Simón Bolívar, concluding in 1826 with the surrender of the fortress to General
Bartolomé Salom by General
José Ramón Rodil.
Republican period In a session on March 8, 1834, the
National Convention presided over by
Francisco Xavier de Luna Pizarro decorated the port as "The Faithful and Generous City of Callao, Asylum of the Laws and Liberty," as a reward for defending the government of General
Luis José de Orbegoso against the coup attempts of General
Pedro Pablo Bermúdez. The province last belonged to the
department of Lima in 1836, after which it would be allowed an autonomy that has since remained. The
Littoral Province of Callao () was created on August 20, 1836. Its creation was ordered by
Andrés de Santa Cruz, then Protector of
North Peru, a newly created state that would become a constituent country of the
Peru–Bolivian Confederation later that year. As a
littoral province, it operated under a special autonomous regime separate from the country's departments, but equal in status to them. The
Peruvian Civil War of 1856–1858 saw the troops of provisional president
Ramón Castilla face of against those of
Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco due to ideological differences regarding the constitution at the time. On the night of April 21, 1857, an by Vivanco's troops on the port of Callao continued into the morning of the next day, where they were defeated by local pro-government militias. This action led to Castilla again changing the province's status. The
Constitutional Province of Callao () was the new name under given to the province by Castilla. Like its predecessor, it meant that the province was independent of any department, but equal in status to them. The difference was in name only: all of the other provinces had been given their names by law, while this had been granted through a constitutional mandate. The new province's first mayor was Colonel Manuel Cipriano Dulanto. Between 1850 and 1851, the Lima-Callao railway, the second in South America, began operating. This railway departed from the port and ran along the entire length of
Colonial Avenue to
San Juan de Dios Station. There was also another, smaller railway, called "El Urbanito," which only transported people within the port itself. Callao was a pioneer in urban health and safety, and on December 5, 1860, the first fire company in Peru, the Unión Chalaca No. 1, was inaugurated in its jurisdiction. In 1864, following an incident which led to the death of a Spaniard one year prior, the
Spanish Navy occupied the
Chincha Islands, leading to a
military confrontation that would last from 1865 to 1871. On May 2, 1866,
a battle between the forces of Spanish Admiral
Casto Méndez Núñez and those of Peruvian Colonel
Mariano Ignacio Prado and
José Gálvez Egúsquiza took place in the coast of Callao. The latter, then
Minister of War, was killed in action and subsequently commemorated as a war hero. During the
War of the Pacific, Callao was one of the populated places near Lima that were
occupied by Chilean troops in early 1881. On January 17 of the same year, the Peruvian fleet was scuttled on site, and the port city surrendered the following day.
20th century In 1921, the Bureau of Public Works granted a concession to
M.I.T. engineer John Tinker Glidden for paving, administering, and inaugurating a public cart road between Callao and Lima, further coalescing a
metropolitan area between both cities. On the afternoon of April 28, 1947, the
Kon-Tiki, a raft crewed by a team led by Norwegian adventurer
Thor Heyerdahl left Callao. By 1949, the city was known as one of the biggest centers of
coca-based products and
cocaine traffic in the world. Callao was one of many places affected by the
period of terrorism and instability that began in 1980. On June 19, 1986, the Peruvian government
executed a number of prisoners in the penal colony of
El Frontón. On July 5, 1989, a
terrorist attack targeting members of the
Soviet Navy injured 33 people in total.
21st century On April 15, 2014, the
Congress of Peru approved that
Mi Perú, then a district of
Lima province's district of
Ventanilla, become a new district of Callao. In January 2022, the province was affected by an
oil spill caused by abnormal waves provoked by the
volcanic eruption in Tonga earlier that same day. ==Politics==