On the positive side, guano-led economic growth—on…

On the positive side, guano-led economic growth—on average nine percent a year beginning in the 1840s—and burgeoning government coffers provides the basis for the consolidation of the state.

With adequate revenues, President Castilla is able to retire the internal and external debt and place the government on a sound financial footing for the first time since independence.

This, in turn, shores up the country's credit rating abroad (which, however, in time will prove to be a double-edged sword in the absence of fiscal restraint).

It also enables Castilla to abolish vestiges of the colonial past—slavery in 1854 and the onerous native tribute modernize the army, and centralize state power at the expense of local caudillos.