José de San Martín
From Freepedia
Image:JSanMartin.jpg José Francisco de San Martín (25 February 1778 – 17 August 1850) was an Argentine general and the prime leader of the successful struggle for independence from Spain of the southern nations of South America.
Together with Simón Bolívar in the north, San Martín is regarded as one of the Liberators of Spanish South America. He is a national hero of Argentina.
San Martín was born in the town of Yapeyú in the province of Corrientes, Argentina, then a Spanish colony (part of the Viceroyalty of the River Plate). His father was a Spanish official. He was educated at the military academy in Madrid, commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1793, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1808. He fought with the Spanish army against Portugal, in the African colonies, and against the invasion by Napoleon I's forces. In 1812 he resigned from the Spanish army and sailed home to Argentina, where he offered his services to the revolutionary forces.
The provisional government set up the Granaderos cavalry unit, who would become the best-trained military arm of revolution.
San Martín led the rebels against the Spanish forces under General José Zavala at the Battle of San Lorenzo on 3 February 1813, which became the first victory of the Argentine War of Independence. He was given the rank of General by the revolutionary government. The following year he took command of the northern army preparing a new invasion of Upper Perú (now Bolivia), a command he resigned to become governor of the province of Cuyo (now the provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luis), from where he crossed the Andes and attacked the Royalists in Chile at the beginning of 1817. With Bernardo O'Higgins, he made a triumphant entry into the liberated city of Santiago de Chile on 17 March 1818.
Next, San Martín turned his attention to the Spanish stronghold of Peru. For more than two years he prepared an invasion by sea. After months of slow advances, he won a decisive victory at the Battle of Pisco on 6 December 1820. The Spanish Viceroy tried to negotiate terms, but as he would not concede complete independence, San Martín turned him down.
San Martín occupied Lima, the capital of Peru, on 9 July 1821. This was a huge loss for the Spanish forces. On 28 July he was voted the "Protector" of the newly independent nation. During the same year, he founded the National Library of Peru, to which he donated his collection of books, and praised the new library as "... one of the most efficient means to spread our intellectual values". San Martín finally declared independence from Spain for Peru on 9 December 1824. After Peru's parliament had been assembled, he resigned his command.
On 26 July 1822 he met with Simón Bolívar at Guayaquil to plan the future of Latin America. Most of the details of this meeting were secret at the time, and this has made the event a matter of much debate among later historians. Some believe that Bolívar's refusal to share command of the combined forces made San Martín withdraw from Perú and resettle as a farmer in Mendoza, Argentina. Another theory claims that San Martín yielded to Bolívar's energy and avoided a confrontation. It is a known fact that both men were members of Masonic societies, and the outcome of the meeting might have been arranged by hidden players.
In 1824, after the death of his wife, Remedios de Escalada, he moved to France with his daughter Mercedes, where he spent the remainder of his days retired at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
His last act on Argentine soil was accepting a gift from Buenos Aires governor Juan Manuel de Rosas and refusing to fight in the civil wars that tore the country apart.
In 1880 his remains were taken to Buenos Aires and reinterred in the Buenos Aires Cathedral.
See also
- ΦΙΑ – A United States university fraternity that takes José de San Martín as one of its "five pillars"
| Preceded by: None | Protector of Peru 1821–1822 | Succeeded by: José de la Mar |
