Chilean Independence

Chile's independence from Spain was formally proclaimed in 1818, after a campaign led by Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín broke Spanish royal power in the country. The victory at Chacabuco in February 1817 opened the way, and the decisive Battle of Maipú in April 1818 secured it. Chile's liberation mattered far beyond its borders, because it became a launching point for the campaign against Spanish rule in Peru, the stronghold of royalist power in South America.

The roots of the conflict lay in the crisis of the Spanish monarchy. In 1808 Napoleon's invasion of Spain removed King Ferdinand VII from the throne, and colonial elites across the Americas debated who held legitimate authority. In Chile, a first governing junta was established in September 1810, at first professing loyalty to the captive king. Over the following years the movement radicalized and divided into factions, including rivalries among patriot leaders such as O'Higgins and José Miguel Carrera. In 1814 royalist forces from Peru defeated the patriots at Rancagua, and the period known as the Reconquista began, with Spanish rule restored and many patriots fleeing across the Andes.

In exile in Mendoza, in what is now Argentina, O'Higgins joined San Martín, who was organizing the Army of the Andes. Over several years San Martín trained and equipped a force of regular troops, then led it across the high Andes passes in early 1817, an enormous logistical feat. Dividing his army among several routes, he surprised the royalists. On 12 February 1817 the patriots won the Battle of Chacabuco, and Santiago fell soon afterward. San Martín was offered the leadership of Chile but declined, and O'Higgins became Supreme Director.

The war was not yet over. A royalist counterattack gained ground in early 1818, and independence was formally declared on 12 February 1818, the anniversary of Chacabuco. Soon afterward, on 5 April, the patriots won a decisive victory at Maipú near Santiago, effectively ending Spanish control of central Chile. Fighting continued in the south for several years, and the last royalist holdouts, on the island of Chiloé, were not defeated until 1826.

The consequences were significant. Chile built a navy, with British officer Lord Cochrane in command, and in 1820 it carried San Martín's army north to Peru. O'Higgins governed as a reformer but alienated powerful conservative and landed interests, and he resigned in 1823. Chile then went through a turbulent period before gaining relative stability in the 1830s under a centralized constitutional order. Today O'Higgins and San Martín are honored as founding heroes, and Chile commemorates independence each September, tied to the 1810 junta rather than the 1818 declaration.