Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
occupation. His Spanish father had been a career officer in the colonies,
stationed at Yapeyú on the Uruguay River, where San Martín was born.
On his return from Europe, San Martín offered his services to the various
governments at Buenos Aires and avoided participation in the political
intrigue of the old viceregal capital. He reorganized the
porteño
army,
then took command of the patriot forces in the interior. In 1816, he and
his army defeated a loyalist invasion sent across the Andes from Lima.
San Martín identified Lima as the key to securing independence
in South America, for the viceroy in this royalist stronghold had sent
military expeditions to put down rebellions in Ecuador, Bolivia, and
Chile, as well as in Argentina. Not even Argentina would be secure in
its newly declared independence so long as Spanish forces remained
in Lima. He decided that the surest way to eliminate this Spanish
bastion was through Chile; therefore, he established headquarters at
Mendoza, where San Martín trained an expeditionary army composed
of Argentines and Chilean exiles.
The majority of his force, especially the foot soldiers, consisted of
persons of color. San Martín requisitioned slaves from the local gentry,
giving them their freedom on condition that they fight for the cause of
independence. Eventually, 1,500 slaves entered his army. Under his com-
mand, the blacks, mulattoes, and mestizos formed a disciplined fighting
force and did not engage in the sort of pillage that characterized other
military units of the period. “The best infantry soldiers we have are the
Negroes and mulattoes,” said one of San Martín's staff officers. “Many
of them rose to be good non-commissioned officers” (Lynch 2009, 88).
Exiled Chilean patriots led by Bernardo O'Higgins contributed another
important element to this expeditionary force.
General San Martín executed a great military feat in safely leading his
5,000 troops across the Andes Mountains. He misled the royalists as to
his route and reassembled three columns of his troops in time to defeat
a divided Spanish force (led by General Marcó del Pont, brother of the
Spanish merchant exiled from Buenos Aires) at Chacabuco in February
1817. His troops then liberated the Chilean capital of Santiago. Two
more battles ensued, and San Martín decisively defeated the remaining
Spanish forces at Maipo in April. With Chile liberated and now ruled
firmly but not ruthlessly by O'Higgins, San Martín laid the strategy for
the next continental move. He hired a British admiral, Lord Cochrane,
to organize a patriot navy for the expedition. San Martín formed up a
new army, now of Chileans, Argentines, and Peruvian patriots, but was
without a Peruvian leader of the stature of O'Higgins in Chile. Again,
slaves enlisted in his army and were subjected to military discipline
