Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme (Spanish pronunciation: [beɾˈnaɾðo oˈ(x)iɣins] ; 20 August 1778 – 24 October 1842) was a Chilean military officer, statesman and a major leader of Chile's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire. He was the second Supreme Director of Chile from 1817 to 1823, the first holder of the title to head a fully independent Chilean state, and is considered one of Chile's founding fathers.
Born in Chillán, O'Higgins was of Irish and Basque-Spanish descent and the illegitimate son of Ambrosio O'Higgins, 1st Marquess of Osorno, who would later become the Governor of Chile and subsequently Viceroy of Peru. While studying in London, he became acquainted with Francisco de Miranda, developed a sense of nationalist pride, and became a member of the revolutionary Lautaro Lodge. Returning to Chile in 1802 following his father's death, he inherited a large estate and settled down as a wealthy landowner.
In 1810, a national junta was established following the deposition of King Ferdinand VII of Spain by Napoleon. O'Higgins was elected to the first National Congress of Chile a year later. He soon became embroiled in a conflict with José Miguel Carrera, who espoused a more specifically Chilean brand of nationalism. Their divide ultimately contributed to O'Higgins' disastrous defeat at Rancagua at the hands of the Royalists, leading to the fall of the Patria Vieja.
Following the reassertion of Spanish rule, O'Higgins went into exile in the newly independent Argentina, where he met General José de San Martín and helped assemble the Army of the Andes. In 1817, San Martín and O'Higgins crossed the Andes into Chile and achieved a decisive victory over the royalists at the Battle of Chacabuco. They then re-entered Santiago, where O'Higgins was proclaimed Supreme Director after San Martín declined the post. A year later, Chile formally proclaimed itself an independent republic, and independence was all but assured with the patriot victory at Maipú.
As Supreme Director, O'Higgins sought to create working institutions for the newly independent nation and improve its agriculture. He founded the modern Chilean Navy, and supported San Martín's forces in the liberation of Peru. His push for radical reforms on the other hand antagonized the aristocracy, the church and ultimately the business community. Widespread discontent forced his resignation in 1823, after which he went into exile in Peru, where he died in 1842.
Bernardo O'Higgins, a member of the O'Higgins family, was born in the Chilean city of Chillán in 1778, the illegitimate son of Ambrosio O'Higgins, 1st Marquis of Osorno, a Spanish officer born in County Sligo, Ireland, who became governor of Chile and later viceroy of Peru. His mother was Isabel Riquelme, a prominent local; the daughter of Don Simón Riquelme y Goycolea, a member of the Chillán Cabildo, or town council.
O'Higgins spent his early years with his mother's family in central-southern Chile and was never acknowledged by his father, and later he lived with the Albano family, who were his father's commercial partners, in Talca. From age 10 to 12, he studied under Franciscan teachers.
At age 15, O'Higgins was sent to Lima by his father. He had a distant relationship with Ambrosio, who supported him financially and was concerned with his education, but the two never met in person. At the time of his son's birth, Ambrosio was only a junior military officer. Two years later, Isabel married Don Félix Rodríguez, a friend of her father. O'Higgins used his mother's surname until the death of his father in 1801.
Bernardo's father continued his professional rise and became Viceroy of Peru; at seventeen Bernardo O'Higgins was sent to London to complete his studies. There, studying history and the arts, O'Higgins became acquainted with American ideas of independence and developed a sense of nationalist pride. He met Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan idealist and believer in independence, and joined a non-masonic lodge (the Lautaro Lodge) dedicated to achieving the independence of Latin America. Despite some claims of connection between the Lautaro Lodge and the freemasons, these two were not related. Notably, the Lautaro Lodge members were strong supporters of the Catholic Church, while Freemasons were stiffly against the Church, and they opposed members of the Lautaro Lodge.
In 1798 O'Higgins went to Spain from Great Britain, his return to the Americas delayed by the French Revolutionary Wars. His father died in 1801, leaving O'Higgins a large piece of land, the Hacienda Las Canteras, near the Chilean city of Los Ángeles. O'Higgins returned to Chile in 1802, adopted his biological father's surname, and began life as a gentleman farmer. In 1806, he was appointed to the cabildo as the representative of Laja. In 1808 Napoleon took control of Spain, triggering a sequence of events in South America. In Chile, the commercial and political elite decided to form an autonomous government to rule in the name of the imprisoned king Ferdinand VII; this was to be one of the first in a number of steps toward national independence, in which O'Higgins would play a leading role.
Role in Chilean independence movement
On 18 September 1810, O'Higgins joined the revolt against the now French-dominated Spanish government. The criollo leaders in Chile did not support Joseph Bonaparte's rule in Spain, and a limited self-government under the Government Junta of Chile was created, with the aim of restoring the legitimate Spanish throne. This date is now recognized as Chile's Independence Day. O'Higgins was a close friend of Juan Martínez de Rozas, an old friend of his father, and one of the more radical leaders. O'Higgins strongly recommended that a national congress be created, and was elected a deputy to the first National Congress of Chile in 1811 as a representative of the Laja district. Tensions between the royalist and increasingly pro-independence factions, to which O'Higgins remained attached as a junior member, continued to grow.
The anti-Royalist camp in Chile was deeply split along lines of patronage and personality, political beliefs, and geography (between the rival regional groupings of Santiago and Concepción). The Carrera family had already seized power several times in different coups, and supported a specifically Chilean nationalism, as opposed to the broader Latin American focus of the Lautaro Lodge grouping, which included O'Higgins and the Argentine José de San Martín. José Miguel Carrera, the most prominent member of the Carrera family, enjoyed a power base in Santiago; that of de Rozas, and later O'Higgins, lay in Concepción.
As a result, O'Higgins was to find himself increasingly in political and military competition with Carrera—although early on, O'Higgins was nowhere near as prominent as his later rival. De Rozas initially appointed O'Higgins to a minor military position in 1812, possibly because of his illegitimate origins, poor health, or lack of military training. Much of O'Higgins' early military knowledge stemmed from Juan Mackenna, an immigrant of Irish descent and a former client of Ambrosio's, whose advice centred mainly on the use of cavalry. In 1813, when the Spanish government made its first attempt to reconquer Chile—sending an expedition led by Brigadier Antonio Pareja—Carrera, as a former national leader and now Commander in Chief of the Army, was by far the more prominent figure of the two, and a natural choice to lead the military resistance.
O'Higgins was back on his estates in Laja, having retired from the Army the previous year due to poor health, when news came of the invasion. O'Higgins mobilised his local militia and marched to Concepcion, before moving on to Talca, meeting up with Carrera, who was to take command of the new army. Carrera sent O'Higgins to cut the Spanish off at Linares; O'Higgins' victory there resulted in his promotion to colonel. The unsuccessful Siege of Chillan followed, where O'Higgins produced a brave but unspectacular performance; however, as commander, Carrera took most of the blame for the defeat, weakening his prestige with the Junta back in Santiago. O'Higgins continued to campaign against the royalists, fighting with a reckless courage that would make him famous. In October, fighting at the Battle of El Roble under Carrera, O'Higgins took effective command at a crucial moment and gave one of his more famous orders: