The Emancipation of South America

by Bartolomé Mitre

Cochrane, the eldest son of the ninth Earl of Dundonald, was born at Annesfield, Lanarkshire, on the 14th December, 1775. After leaving Chile he entered the service of Brazil, and again distinguished himself by deeds of daring, which were as ill-requited as were his exploits on the Pacific. In 1825 he returned to England, where he found his popularity had grown during his absence, but soon after joined in the struggle for the independence of Greece, when for the first time in his career he found no opportunity of distinguishing himself.

At the accession of William IV., he received tardy and imperfect reparation for the injustice from which he had suffered. His rank in the British Navy was restored to him, and in 1831 he succeeded his father in the Earldom of Dundonald. In 1841 he became Vice-Admiral of the Blue. During the Crimean War he presented to Government a plan for the total destruction of the Russian fleet, which was not accepted. He died at Kensington on the 30th October, 1860, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Güemes was Governor of Salta from May, 1815, to May, 1820. In the former year he made himself master of the city and Province of Jujui also, and refused to recognise the authority of the National Government, and even went so far as to harass the march of the Army of the North, which was then retreating from Upper Peru, under command of General Rondeau. But the citizens of Jujui refused to obey him, and he was outlawed by Rondeau, who seized the city of Salta, but came to a peaceable understanding with him in the following year.

In 1821 he led an expedition from Salta against Tucuman, in conjunction with another expedition from Jujui, but was defeated. On his return he found the citizens of Salta in insurrection against him, but their army passed over to him, and he easily re-established his authority. In June of that year the city of Salta was captured by a party of Royalists under Valdés. After nightfall he rode with a small escort into the principal square, not knowing what had occurred, and was received by a volley. He was severely wounded, but kept his seat in the saddle, and returned to his encampment, where he died ten days afterwards.

Las Heras was in April, 1824, elected Governor of the Province of Buenos Ayres, in succession to Don Martin Rodriguez, under whose beneficent rule the country had made great progress. Las Heras followed in the steps of his predecessor, but was in March, 1826, deposed by the National Constituent Congress, which assumed the powers of a sovereign congress, and decreed the federalization of the province. Las Heras refused to listen to those of his friends who wished him to resist this unconstitutional proceeding, and retired into private life. He died in Chile in the year 1866, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

Lavalle, after the conclusion of the War of Independence, returned to Buenos Ayres, and commanded a division in the Argentine army, which was sent against Brazil in the year 1826. At Ituzaingo he again displayed the same reckless daring for which he was distinguished in Chile and in Peru. In November, 1828, he returned to Buenos Ayres, after the conclusion of the war, in command of the first division of the army, and encamped to the north of the city. On the 1st December he headed a revolt by which Don Manuel Dorrego, who was then Governor, was deposed, and was named Provisional Governor in his stead. On the 9th of the same month he completely defeated the Government forces at Navarro, and on the 13th ordered the summary execution of Dorrego, who had been taken prisoner the day previous. On the 26th April in the following year he was attacked at the Puente Marquez by greatly superior forces under Rozas and Lopez, but maintained the unequal fight till sundown. He eventually came to terms with Rozas, and retired to Monte Video. Some years afterwards he joined the Argentine refugees in that city in a conspiracy against the Dictatorship of Rozas, and in 1840 headed an expedition into Argentine territory, where, after several defeats, he was on the 9th October, 1841, killed by a scouting party of Government troops near to the Bolivian frontier.

Miller was born at Wingham, Kent, in the year 1796. For four years he served in the Royal Artillery, under Wellington, in Spain. In the year 1817 he went out to Buenos Ayres with the intention of engaging in commercial pursuits, but was diverted from that intention by an English lady then resident in that city, who said to him, “Were I a young man I would never abandon the profession of arms for one of mere money-making.” He was presented to Don Juan Martin Pueyrredon, who gave him a letter of introduction to General San Martin, who gave him a commission in the artillery under Colonel Plaza, with whom he was present at the disaster of Cancha-Rayada.

In 1826 Miller returned to England, and met with a very flattering reception. In 1844, and again in 1851, he represented the British Government in the Sandwich Islands. In the latter year he returned to Peru, where he enjoyed the title of Grand Marshal of Ayacucho, and died on board H.M.S. Naiad at Callao on the 31st October, 1861, and was buried in the English cemetery. Before his burial two bullets were extracted from his body, which showed the marks of twenty-two wounds.

Necochea was banished from Peru in 1826, at the same time as Alvarado and other Argentine officers, but afterwards returned to Lima, and died at Miraflores near to that city in the year 1849. He also was a Marshal in the Peruvian army.

O’Higgins never returned to Chile after his banishment, and died at Lima on the 24th October, 1842, in the seventy-third year of his age. In the year 1869 his remains were taken back to his native country, and in 1872 an equestrian statue of him was erected in the great square of Santiago.