HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 301

M IRANDA , O'Higgins returned to Chile.
There he joined the local manifestation of
the nationalistic revolt that spread through-
out Spanish America in the early 19th cen-
tury. Elected to the provincial assembly, he
played an increasingly important military
and political role until the forces under his
command were routed by the royalists in
1814. O'Higgins led the remnants of his
army across the Andes and formed an alli-
ance with the Argentine leader J OSÉ DE
S AN M ARTÍN . Three years later they invaded
Chile and gained control of that province.
O'Higgins was virtual dictator of Chile
from 1818 to 1823 and imposed many
political and economic reforms on its tra-
ditional society. Conservatives objected to
his progressive ideas, while liberals found
him too authoritarian. In 1824 he aban-
doned what seemed a hopeless struggle
and left Chile forever.

the approval of such notable figures of the
Spanish Enlightenment as G ASPAR J OVELLA -
NOS . Some of Olavide's other ideas, how-
ever, were unpalatable to conservatives. He
disclosed his plans with his accustomed
unreserved frankness to a priest who
denounced him to the S PANISH I NQUISITION .
Tried by the Holy Office, he was condemned
in 1778 to be stripped of his rank as a knight
of Santiago and sentenced to house arrest.
Two years later he escaped to France. Olav-
ide, whose ideas were well known and
much admired by the philosophes, was
hailed by French intellectuals, and various
accounts of his bad treatment by the Inqui-
sition were published. Following the
French Revolution and the fall of the mon-
archy, the National Convention named
him an honorary citizen of the French
Republic. Still unwisely outspoken, he fell
afoul of the Committee of Public Safety
and was imprisoned under the Terror, for-
tunately surviving until the fall of Robespi-
erre (1794). Olavide apparently experienced
a surge of prudence and in 1798 published
a memoir describing the experiences of a
“disillusioned philosophe.” This public pen-
ance earned a reprieve in Spain, where
C HARLES IV repealed the sentence of the
Holy Office and restored his property.
Returning home, Olavide was offered a
government position, but having seen
quite enough of the ups and downs of
public life, he chose to live quietly until his
death in 1803.

Olavide, Pablo de (1725-1803)
Spanish politician
Born in Lima, P ERU , Olavide was appointed
a judge in that city at the age of 20. A mas-
sive earthquake devastated the city a year
later, and the young judge excited indigna-
tion by ordering money designated for the
reconstruction of a church to be used to
rebuild a theater. This early evidence of his
“modernist” tendencies led to his being
summoned to Spain to account for his
actions. Evading punishment, Olavide soon
married a rich widow in M ADRID and turned
her mansion into a center of progressive
society. Appointed intendente of A NDALUSIA
by P EDRO A RANDA , Olavide found new
scope for his reformist ideas. His elaborate
plan for the reorganization of the educa-
tional system published in 1768 won him

Olid, Cristóbal de (c. 1488-1525)
Spanish explorer
Olid came to C UBA as a young soldier of for-
tune and won the patronage of Governor
D IEGO V ELÁZQUEZ DE C UÉLLAR . He was