SANTIAGO, Chile — From my home here, I look up at the immense mountain range of the Andes and my spirits are lifted. Since my childhood, these mountains have bestowed on me a sense of security and permanence sadly absent from my life, but in these troubling times, they afford me something else: an intimation of hope.
Because, exactly 200 years ago, on Feb. 12, 1817, a group of men crossed these very Andes, impenetrable, colossal, majestic, in an extraordinary journey that was to liberate Chile from colonial rule. Their exploits became a turning point in the emancipation of all Spanish-speaking America.
Starting in 1810, across the continent, patriots stirred by the European Enlightenment and encouraged by the successful revolt of the 13 American …show more content…
Fratricidal conflict between moderates and radicals weakened the cause of reform. By 1814, the Spanish crown had reconquered many of the mutinous territories it had lost, a period known, precisely, as La Reconquista.
In October that year, after defeat at the battle of Rancagua, near Santiago, the remaining contingent of the patriotic army retreated across the Andes to the province of Mendoza, in Argentina, one of the few lands that remained in the hands of the revolutionaries. From there, as they plotted their return, they had to watch the restored Spanish overlords annul the independence movement’s liberal transformations. A Tribunal of Vigilance and Public Security set up a reign of terror — torture, jailings, executions, deportations, expropriations — to curb defiance.
A century and a half later, in 1973, a tyrannical regime of violence visited Chile once more in the name of conservative values and oligarchical interests. The dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet not only attacked the left-wing reforms of Salvador Allende, our democratically elected president who died in that coup, but also systematically erased advances in social and civil rights — indeed, the welfare state — for which generations of Chileans had fought since
Because, exactly 200 years ago, on Feb. 12, 1817, a group of men crossed these very Andes, impenetrable, colossal, majestic, in an extraordinary journey that was to liberate Chile from colonial rule. Their exploits became a turning point in the emancipation of all Spanish-speaking America.
Starting in 1810, across the continent, patriots stirred by the European Enlightenment and encouraged by the successful revolt of the 13 American …show more content…
Fratricidal conflict between moderates and radicals weakened the cause of reform. By 1814, the Spanish crown had reconquered many of the mutinous territories it had lost, a period known, precisely, as La Reconquista.
In October that year, after defeat at the battle of Rancagua, near Santiago, the remaining contingent of the patriotic army retreated across the Andes to the province of Mendoza, in Argentina, one of the few lands that remained in the hands of the revolutionaries. From there, as they plotted their return, they had to watch the restored Spanish overlords annul the independence movement’s liberal transformations. A Tribunal of Vigilance and Public Security set up a reign of terror — torture, jailings, executions, deportations, expropriations — to curb defiance.
A century and a half later, in 1973, a tyrannical regime of violence visited Chile once more in the name of conservative values and oligarchical interests. The dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet not only attacked the left-wing reforms of Salvador Allende, our democratically elected president who died in that coup, but also systematically erased advances in social and civil rights — indeed, the welfare state — for which generations of Chileans had fought since