During the colonial epoch Chile had vegetated in obscurity amid peace and plenty, but the Provinces of the River Plate had lived in a state of almost constant warfare with their neighbours the Portuguese, with the English, and with the Indians, which gave them some knowledge of their own strength, and inoculated them with new ideas. These ideas filtered across the Cordillera to Chile, and there smouldered till, in the year 1810, the flames of revolution burst out in both countries almost simultaneously.
The kingdom of Chile, as it was called, was colonized under the auspices of Peru, but was, in 1778, separated from this Viceroyalty and placed under the orders of a governor, who was at the same time President of the Real Audiencia. These two authorities, with the Cabildos granted to some cities, constituted the whole political, judicial, and municipal system of the colony. The separation from Peru inspired the colonists with instinctive ideas of independent autonomy, till the death of the then governor, Muñoz Guzman, on the 10th February, 1808, plunged the hitherto pacific colony into a fever of expectancy.
The Home Government followed no fixed system in the appointment of the superior authorities in the colonies. Their nomination came from the Crown direct; sometimes vacancies were provided for beforehand, sometimes the colonists were empowered to make a provisional appointment; but, latterly, that power was, as a rule, vested in the Audiencia. In 1806 all this was changed by Royal decree, which enacted that, in case of a vacancy, the military official of the highest rank then in the colony should assume the vacant post. On the death of Muñoz Guzman, the Audiencia of Chile raised its own President to the vacant office. The officers stationed on the frontier of Araucania protested against this appointment, and proclaimed Colonel Don Francisco Garcia Carrasco Provisional Governor and Captain-General, and the Audiencia was forced to yield.
The new Captain-General took with him to the capital, as his secretary and councillor, a man who had for many years resided at Concepcion, who had great influence in the south and was highly thought of throughout the country. This was Dr. Don Juan Martinez de Rozas, an Argentine, born in Mendoza, who was at that time forty-nine years of age. He was a graduate of the University of Cordoba, and a fellow-student with Dr. Castelli, through whom he afterwards entered into political relations with Belgrano. In various official positions in Chile he had gained experience of public affairs, and his wife was a daughter of one of the principal families of the South. Of a passionate character, he was at the same time prudent, was well read in the current literature of the day, and was the leading spirit in a group of men who discussed among themselves the future destinies of America.
The new Captain-General was a man of limited intelligence, violent in his proceedings, and with no firmness of character. Thus he soon made himself hated, and was despised by all. His one passion was cock-fighting, his greatest pleasure was in listening to jokes, and his affections were concentrated upon a domestic of African race, through whose hands all favours were bestowed. The whole aim of Rozas was to make him an instrument for social and political reform. To this end he strove to raise the Cabildo of Santiago into a position analogous to that of Buenos Ayres, and to use it as a counterpoise to that of the Audiencia. The Governor, by his advice, added twelve new members to this body, influential citizens, most of whom were men of advanced opinions. The immediate result of this innovation was to inoculate this assembly with revolutionary ideas.
Ferdinand VII. being now a prisoner of Napoleon, the Creoles thought that the time had come to replace the colonial system by a government of their own, but the Spaniards, who thought only of preserving their own privileges, protested against the idea. The two parties soon came into collision. The Governor cancelled the decree which added twelve members to the Cabildo, and quarrelled first with the Audiencia and then with Dr. Rozas.
The Spaniards strove to reconcile him with the Audiencia, and advised him to fortify the hill of Santa Lucia which commands the city, and to arm their partisans; but finding their counsels set at nought, they denounced him to the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres as unfit for the post he held. He, on his part, appealed for help both to the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres and to him of Peru.
At the same time several leading Chilians, aided by young Argentines resident at Santiago, opened communications with the popular leaders of Buenos Ayres. Carrasco then tried what intimidation would do. On the 25th May, 1810, the same day on which the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres was deposed by the people, he ordered the arrest of three of the principal citizens of Santiago, as advocates of revolutionary ideas. The municipal authorities protested, and convened an open Cabildo, which cited the Governor before them. He thought at first of resistance, but 3,000 men filled the Plaza. He could not depend upon the troops, and at the request of the Audiencia he presented himself, amid the shouts of the populace who clamoured for his deposition.
A new Procurator, elected by the Cabildo, the previous one being among the prisoners, opened the case by declaring that it was the will of the people that the prisoners should be set free, and that the Cabildo would remain sitting till it was done. This was the first time that such a thing as “the will of the people” had been heard of in Chile, and the speech of the new tribune was loudly applauded.
Carrasco yielded, and decreed not only the liberation of the prisoners, but also the dismissal from their posts of those who had aided in the arbitrary measure. He also accepted the control of an Assessor, without whose authorization his judicial acts should, in future, be invalid. These decrees were endorsed by the Audiencia, which was a virtual dismissal from office of the last Governor and Captain-General of Chile.