110 Facts About Jose San Martin

Jose Francisco de San Martin y Matorras, known simply as Jose de San Martin or the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru, was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and central parts of South America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire who served as the Protector of Peru.

In 1808, after taking part in the Peninsular War against France, San Martin contacted South American supporters of independence from Spain in London.

On 12 July 1821, after seizing partial control of Lima, San Martin was appointed Protector of Peru, and Peruvian independence was officially declared on 28 July.

San Martin unexpectedly left the country and resigned the command of his army, excluding himself from politics and the military, and moved to France in 1824.

San Martin is regarded as a national hero of Argentina, Chile and Peru, a great military commander, and one of the Liberators of Spanish South America.

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The Order of the Liberator General San Martin, created in his honor, is the highest decoration conferred by the Argentine government.

Jose de San Martin's father, Juan de San Martin, son of Andres de San Martin and Isidora Gomez, was born in the town of Cervatos de la Cueza, in the current Province of Palencia and was lieutenant governor of the department.

Jose San Martin served as a military man to the Spanish Crown and in 1774 he was appointed Governor of the Yapeyu Department, part of the Government of the Guarani Missions, created to administer the thirty Guarani Jesuit missions, after the order was expelled from Hispanic America by Carlos III in 1767.

Jose San Martin was born in Yapeyu, Corrientes, an Indian reduction of Guarani people.

Once in the city, San Martin enrolled in Malaga's school of temporalities, beginning his studies in 1785.

Jose San Martin began his military career as a cadet in the Murcian Infantry Unit.

San Martin took part in several Spanish campaigns in North Africa, fighting in Melilla and in Oran against the Moors in 1791, among others.

Jose San Martin's rank was raised to Sub-Lieutenant in 1793, at the age of 15.

Jose San Martin began a naval career during the War of the Second Coalition, when Spain was allied with France against Great Britain, during the French Revolution.

Jose San Martin continued to fight Portugal on the side of Spain in the War of the Oranges in 1801.

At the outbreak of the Peninsular War in 1808, San Martin was named adjutant of Francisco Maria Solano Ortiz de Rosas.

San Martin was appointed to the armies of Andalusia, and led a battalion of volunteers.

Jose San Martin was nearly killed during the battle of Arjonilla, but was saved by Sergeant Juan de Dios.

San Martin resigned from the Spanish army, for controversial reasons, and moved to South America, where he joined the Spanish American wars of independence.

The first explanation suggests that when the wars of independence began San Martin thought that his duty was to return to his country and serve in the military conflict.

San Martin was initiated in the Lodge of Rational Knights in 1811.

San Martin asked for his retirement from the military, and moved to Britain.

Jose San Martin stayed in the country for a short time, and met many other South Americans at a lodge held at the house of Venezuelan general Francisco de Miranda at 27 Grafton Street, Bloomsbury, London.

Jose San Martin began to organize the Regiment of Mounted Grenadiers with Alvear and Zapiola.

In September 1812, San Martin married Maria de los Remedios de Escalada, a 14-year-old girl from one of the local wealthy families.

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Argentine general Jose San Martin Rondeau laid siege to it, but the Montevidean navy eluded it by pillaging nearby cities.

San Martin was sent with the new Regiment to watch the activities in the Parana River shore.

San Martin watched the enemy ships from the top of the convent during the night.

Oral tradition has it that the premiere took place on 14 May 1813 at the home of aristocrat Mariquita Sanchez de Thompson, with San Martin attending, but there is no documentary evidence of that.

San Martin stayed only a few weeks in Tucuman, reorganizing the army and studying the terrain.

Jose San Martin had a positive impression of the guerrilla war waged by Martin Miguel de Guemes against the royalists, similar to the Peninsular War.

San Martin had health problems in April 1814, probably caused by hematemesis.

Jose San Martin temporarily delegated the command of the Army to colonel Francisco Fernandez de la Cruz and requested leave to recover.

Jose San Martin moved to Santiago del Estero, and then to Cordoba where he slowly recovered.

San Martin initially proposed a regular-sized army, simply to reinforce Chile, but changed to propose a larger one, to liberate the country from the occupation.

San Martin immediately began to organize the Army of the Andes.

Jose San Martin drafted all the citizens who could bear arms and all the slaves from ages 16 to 30, requested reinforcements to Buenos Aires, and reorganized the economy for war production.

Jose San Martin took another leave to restore his health four months after taking power, so Alvear appointed Gregorio Perdriel.

Government of San Martin repeated some of the ideas outlined in the Operations plan, drafted by Mariano Moreno at the beginning of the war.

San Martin stayed on good terms with both the government of Buenos Aires and the provincial caudillos, without fully allying with either one.

Jose San Martin considered that the war of independence took priority over the civil wars.

San Martin proposed to resign and serve under Balcarce, if they would support the campaign.

San Martin proposed that the country declare independence immediately, before the crossing.

Jose San Martin had great influence over the Congress of Tucuman, a Congress with deputies from the provinces, which was established in March 1816.

Jose San Martin opposed the appointment of Jose Moldes, a soldier from Salta who was against the policies of Buenos Aires, as he feared Moldes would break national unity.

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Jose San Martin rejected proposals to be appointed Supreme Director himself.

Jose San Martin supported his friend and lodge member Juan Martin de Pueyrredon for the office.

San Martin supported this proposal, as well as Guemes and most deputies, except for those from Buenos Aires, who undermined the project and prevented its approval.

Jose San Martin proposed a similar measure at the national level, but Pueyrredon encountered severe resistance.

Jose San Martin included as well the Chileans who escaped Chile after the disaster of Rancagua, and organized them in four units, each one of infantry, cavalry, artillery and dragoons.

San Martin organized military intelligence, propaganda and disinformation to confuse the royalist armies, boost the national fervor of his army and promote desertion among the royalists.

Jose San Martin was supported in the south of the city and the countryside.

San Martin organized a pincer movement, with Soler leading the west column and O'Higgins the east one.

Jose San Martin declined the offer and proposed O'Higgins in his stead: he recommended that the Supreme Director should be someone from Chile.

Jose San Martin established a local chapter of the Lodge of Rational Knights, named as Logia Lautaro, in reference to Mapuche leader Lautaro.

San Martin left O'Higgins in charge of the Army, and returned to Buenos Aires to request resources for the campaign to Peru.

Pueyrredon thought that Chile should compensate Buenos Aires for the money invested in their liberation, as the support to San Martin reduced the support to Belgrano, and the Portuguese-Brazilian invasion of the Eastern Bank menaced Buenos Aires.

Jose San Martin wrote from Chile and expected to find him in Buenos Aires, but Bowles had embarked for Rio de Janeiro.

Bowles considered that San Martin was more trustworthy than Alvear, and praised his support for monarchism.

San Martin did not obtain the ships and interrupted the correspondence with Bowles for some months.

Jose San Martin returned to Chile; his wife Remedios stayed in Buenos Aires with her daughter Mercedes because of her health problems.

Unable to get help from either Buenos Aires or foreign powers, San Martin promoted a more decisive commitment from Chile to finance the navy.

San Martin thought that it was not possible to defend Concepcion, so he ordered O'Higgins to leave the city.

San Martin made a brief reconnaissance of the royalist army, and noticed several flaws in their organization.

San Martin ordered the mounted grenadiers led by Hilarion de la Quintana to charge against the regiment.

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San Martin made a new request for ships to Bowles, but received no answer.

Jose San Martin moved again to Buenos Aires, to make a similar request.

Jose San Martin arrived to Mendoza a few days after the execution of the Chileans Luis and Juan Jose Carrera, brothers of Jose Miguel Carrera.

Jose San Martin thought that Chile should organize the navy against Peru, not Buenos Aires.

San Martin discussed with him and finally got financing of 500,000 pesos.

Jose San Martin returned to Mendoza with his wife and daughter and received a letter from Pueyrredon, who said that Buenos Aires could only deliver one-third of the promised funds.

San Martin resigned from the Army, but it is unclear whether his decision to resign was sincere or was to apply pressure to his backers.

San Martin proposed to mediate between Buenos Aires and the Liga Federal led by Artigas.

Jose San Martin thought that the civil war was counter-productive to national unity, and that an end to hostilities would free resources needed for the navy.

Jose San Martin calculated that Artigas might condition the peace on a joint declaration of war to colonial Brazil; so San Martin proposed to defeat the royalists first and then demand the return of the Eastern Bank to the United Provinces.

San Martin knew that most of the soldiers of the Army of the Andes would not be willing to aid Buenos Aires in the civil war, as most were from other provinces or from Chile.

San Martin had doubts as well about the projected arrival of a large military expedition from Spain, as the absolutist restoration of Ferdinand VII had met severe resistance in Spain.

San Martin finally kept the Army in Chile when Belgrano's lieutenant Viamonte signed an armistice with Lopez; he thought that the conflict had ended.

San Martin resigned again, and observed that the Army would not be able to cross the Andes from Chile to Buenos Aires because the winter snow was blocking the trails.

The civil war resumed and San Martin attempted once more to mediate, to no effect.

San Martin returned to Chile and prepared to take part in the naval actions against Peru, ignoring Buenos Aires.

Jose San Martin tried instead to divide the enemy forces in several locations, as he did during the Crossing of the Andes, and trap the royalists with a pincer movement with either reinforcements of the Army of the North from the South or the army of Simon Bolivar from the North.

Jose San Martin tried to promote rebellions and insurrection within the royalist ranks, and promised the emancipation of any slaves that deserted their Peruvian masters and join the army of San Martin.

The viceroy's deputies proposed to adopt the liberal Spanish constitution if San Martin left the country, but the patriots requested instead that Spain grant the independence of Peru.

The Argentine provinces could not send the supporting army that San Martin had requested earlier, and the Army of the North no longer existed.

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San Martin proposed to establish a constitutional monarchy with a European monarch, with a regency ruling in the interim.

San Martin called for an open cabildo to discuss the independence of the country, which was agreed.

Unlike Chile, Peru had no local politicians of the stature of O'Higgins, so San Martin became the leader of the government, even though he did not want to.

Jose San Martin did not abolish slavery completely, as Peru had 40,000 slaveowners, and declared "freedom of wombs" instead, which emancipated the sons of slaves; he emancipated as well the slaves of the royalists who left Lima.

Jose San Martin abolished the Inquisition and corporal punishment, and enacted freedom of speech.

Jose San Martin discussed several of his actions and tried to bypass his authority.

San Martin thought that if he joined forces with Bolivar he would be able to defeat the remnant royalist forces in Peru.

San Martin resigned as Protector of Peru a few days later and returned to Valparaiso, Chile.

The military discipline of the Army of the Andes was compromised, but San Martin was reluctant to take drastic action against his officers.

Unlike Bolivar, backed up by the Colombian government, San Martin did not have more resources than those he already had: Buenos Aires denied him any support, the other Argentine governors supported him but did not have resources to provide, O'Higgins was about to be deposed in Chile, and Cochrane took the navy and left him without naval power.

San Martin had good relations with the federal caudillos and a personal feud with unitarian leader Bernardino Rivadavia, but tried to stay neutral.

Jose San Martin took his daughter Mercedes Tomasa, who was living with her mother's family, and sailed to Europe.

Jose San Martin intended to live there until Mercedes completed her education and then return to Argentina.

Rivadavia visited Brussels and San Martin intended to challenge him to a duel, but was dissuaded by Diego Paroissien.

Jose San Martin sailed to the country when Rivadavia was deposed and replaced by the federal Manuel Dorrego, and the war ended in the interim.

Jose San Martin intended to return anyway, as a federal government would spare him the persecution he would otherwise have received from the unitarians.

The ship arrived in Buenos Aires, but San Martin did not leave it, instead returning to Montevideo.

The Belgian Revolution and the cholera epidemic of 1831 made San Martin leave Brussels and move to Paris, where both San Martin and his daughter became ill.

San Martin bequeathed his curved saber to Rosas, because of his successful defense of the country.

Jose San Martin was almost blind and had many health problems because of his advanced age, but continued to write letters and keep in touch with the news from South America.

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Jose de San Martin died on 17 August 1850, in his house at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

Jose San Martin requested in his will to be taken to the cemetery without any funeral, and to be moved to Buenos Aires thereafter.

San Martin was first acclaimed as a national hero of Argentina by the Federals, both during his life and immediately after his death.

Statues of San Martin appear in most cities of Argentina, as well as in Santiago and Lima.

The most important films featuring San Martin are the 1970 El Santo de la Espada and the 2010 Revolucion: El cruce de los Andes.