Juan Onofre Chamorro Azócar was born in 1885, in
Talcahuano,
Chile. His father, Juan de Dios Chamorro Hernández, was a member of the
Democrat Party (PD) and edited the newspaper
La Industria. After coming of age, in 1905, Chamorro moved to
Valparaiso, where he was educated as a
mechanic at the . In March 1910, he married Flora Soza Velásquez, with whom he had a son; both his wife and child would later die from malnutrition. Like his father, Chamorro worked as an activist for the PD, within which he
educated himself about
politics and
sociology. He contributed to a series of left-wing newspapers, including
Libertad,
La Defensa Obrera and
La Batalla; he also founded his own newspaper,
Mar de Tierra. In 1907, he became general secretary of the Valparaiso
dockworkers' union and led a
general strike, for which he was imprisoned. The PD subsequently denounced him as a "professional agitator", which provoked his shift towards
anarchism. After he was released from prison, state repression prevented him from returning to work as a mechanic or finding another job in the docks, forcing him to work as a
butcher in order to sustain himself. In 1911, the dockworkers' union resumed its activities, establishing a
social centre with a
library and
night school, where Chamorro worked as a teacher. In 1913, Chamorro organised a demonstration on
International Workers' Day, which saw 15,000 workers participate, and for which Chamorro was again arrested. He subsequently founded the
Chilean Regional Workers' Federation (FORCH), a federation of
benefit societies, for which he served as
general secretary. In October 1913, the FORCH led a general strike; Chamorro was preemptively arrested, but this only strengthened the resolve of striking workers. During this period, Chamorro also formed links with the
Peruvian Regional Workers' Federation (FORP). By the outbreak of
World War I, Chamorro was kept under constant surveillance by the state, which brought him into frequent conflict with the police. In 1916, Chamorro called a congress of maritime workers' unions in Valparaiso, where a general strike to implement the
eight-hour day was declared. Chamorro was imprisoned again and the right-wing press orchestrated a smear campaign against him, prompting Chamorro to carry revolvers with him for self-defense. In order to avoid being recognised by police, Chamorro intentionally distorted his face when appearing in public. In the wake of the strike's suppression, Chamorro started to think that a new form of trade union organisation was necessary. Influenced by the programme of
industrial unionism, in 1918, he established a Chilean branch of the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW-C) and was elected as its general secretary. In 1920, the IWW-C was declared to be a
terrorist organisation and Chamorro was imprisoned for almost a year while its members were prosecuted. In prison, Chamorro formed a mutual aid organisation, which established a prison library and organised an International Workers Day demonstration, drawing the attention of the left-wing press. Even after he was released from prison in February 1921, he continued to visit other prisoners and maintained contact with the mutual aid group. Chamorro kept a low profile after his release from prison, staying out of trade union organising and debates between anarcho-syndicalists and industrial unionists. He only returned to trade union organising in 1925, when he participated in a series of maritime workers' conventions. During the
dictatorship of
Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, Chamorro went into hiding. By the 1930s, he was only attending syndicalist rallies infrequently. Juan Chamorro died in a hospital in Valparaiso, on 23 June 1941. ==References==