Chacabuco, Battle of
Chacabuco, Battle of
Battle of Chacabuco (12 February 1817), a clash between the Spanish Royalists and the pro-independence Army of the Andes. Chacabuco was an important military encounter in Chile's struggle to win independence from Spain. The rebel force, raised in Mendoza by the Argentine general José de San Martín and Chilean patriot Bernardo O'Higgins, crossed the Andes at Uspallata and Los Patos, surprising and defeating the troops of Francisco Casimiro Marcó del Pont before he could mass his soldiers. Although some Spanish troops remained in Chile, requiring additional mopping up, the insurgent victory at Chacabuco constituted the first successful step in the struggle which culminated in Chile's independence.
See alsoO'Higgins, Bernardo .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Luis Galdames, A History of Chile (1941), pp. 195, 209.
Stephen Clissold, Bernardo O'Higgins and the Independence of Chile (1968), pp. 144-146, 148.
Additional Bibliography
Archer, Christon I., ed. The Wars of Independence in Spanish America. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000.
Jocelyn-Holt Letelier, Alfredo. La independencia de Chile: Tradición, modernización y mito. Santiago: Planeta/Ariel, 1992.
Ibáñez Vergara, Jorge. O'Higgins, el Libertador. Santiago: Instituto O'Higginiano de Chile, 2001.
William F. Sater