The Chilean Navy ordered at the end of the 1880s, in the shipyard Laird Brothers, the first ships of this type, a subclass of the "Sharpshooter" class, the that were the and . These two ships would have a notable military success during Chilean Civil War of 1891, when they attacked and sunk the ironclad , demonstrating to the world that these types of ships could also destroy battleships. Then in 1896 she acquired .