Patria Nueva

Patria Nueva (new homeland), a term applied to the period of Chilean history that began with the battle of Chacabuco on 12 February 1817 and the liberation of the country from Spanish rule by José de San Martín (1777–1850) and his army of the Andes. It is used in contrast with Patria Vieja, but, unlike that term, which refers to a very precise four-year period (1810–1814), Patria Nueva has no commonly accepted terminal point, and could easily be assumed to have continued to the present day. The expression is used much less frequently than Patria Vieja. Insofar as it has a more specific meaning at all, it is probably most applicable to the few years immediately after 1817 and to the heroic events of the first phase of the new Chilean state: the Proclamation of Independence in February 1818, the defeat of the final royalist offensive in April 1818, the creation of the Chilean navy, and the mounting of San Martín's expedition to liberate the Viceroyalty of Peru (1820–1821).

See alsoChacabuco, Battle of; Patria Vieja.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Simon Collier, Ideas and Politics of Chilean Independence, 1808–1833 (1967), chaps. 3 and 6-9.

Additional Bibliography

Díaz Meza, Aurelio. Patria vieja y patria nueva. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Antarctica, 1969.

Ibáñez Vergara, Jorge. O'Higgins, el Libertador. Santiago, Chile: Instituto O'Higgiano de Chile, 2001.

Villalobos, R. Sergio. Tradición y reforma en 1810. Chile: Ril, 2006.

                                        Simon Collier