Chile Declares Independence: O'Higgins Breaks Spanish Rule

The illegitimate son of an Irish-born Viceroy of Peru signed his name to a declaration that shattered Spanish authority in South America’s most geographically isolated nation. Bernardo O’Higgins proclaimed Chile’s independence on February 12, 1818, near the city of Concepcion, formalizing a break from Spain that had been fought over in blood for eight years. Chile’s independence movement began in 1810, when a local junta took advantage of Napoleon’s occupation of Spain to assert self-governance. But the Spanish Crown fought back. Royalist forces crushed the Chilean patriots at the Battle of Rancagua in 1814, sending O’Higgins and thousands of rebels fleeing across the Andes to Argentina. For three years, Chile returned to direct Spanish rule. The liberation came from Argentina. Jose de San Martin, the Argentine general who conceived a continental strategy to defeat Spain, crossed the Andes with O’Higgins and an army of 5,000 men in January 1817. They defeated the royalists decisively at the Battle of Chacabuco on February 12, 1817, and O’Higgins was installed as Supreme Director. Exactly one year later, he signed the formal declaration of independence, though fighting would continue until the royalists were crushed at the Battle of Maipu in April 1818. O’Higgins governed for six years, abolishing noble titles, establishing public schools, and building roads. His reforms alienated the conservative landholding class, and he was forced into exile in Peru in 1823, where he died in 1842 without returning to the country he had freed. Chile’s independence was won not by a popular uprising but by a coordinated military campaign spanning two nations and the highest mountain range in the Western Hemisphere.