Background
José de San Martín was born Feburary 25, 1778, in what is now Argentina, at Yapeyú, a former Jesuit mission on the Uruguay River.
José de San Martín was born Feburary 25, 1778, in what is now Argentina, at Yapeyú, a former Jesuit mission on the Uruguay River.
He received his earliest instruction at Yapeyú, but later went with his parents to Spain, where he entered a school in Madrid. Two years later at the age of eleven he joined the Murcia regiment as a cadet.
Two years later at the age of eleven he joined the Murcia regiment as a cadet. His active military career was begun in the Moorish wars in Africa, and he served in several campaigns against Napoleon. For his brilliant action in the battle of Baylen he was appointed lieutenant colonel of cavalry. In 1811 after the revolution in Buenos Aires had broken out, San Martín left Spain for London, where he met Franciso de Miranda and many others identified with the cause of Spanish American independence. On arrival at Buenos Aires in 1812 he was assigned, at his request, to head a cavalry unit. In 1814 he was given command of the revolutionary army to fight the royalists in Upper Peru, but he soon saw that the Spanish would have to be defeated first in Chile and Peru. On the pretext of illness he resigned and requested the appointment as governor of the province of Cuyo (now Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luis) near the Andes. Here he devoted two strenuous years to the preparation of an army. In January 1817 he led his troops over the lofty passes of the Andes. The battles of Chacabuco (1817) and Maipo (1818) brought to a successful conclusion his effort to free Chile from Spain, and he backed the appointment of the Chilean Bernardo O'Higgins as supreme director of Chile, an office which he himself had refused. San Martín went on to Peru. In July 1821 his armies occupied the city of Lima and he proclaimed the independence of Peru and began, as "Protector, " to govern the country. In 1822 Simón Bolívar, having freed Venezuela and Colombia, arrived in Ecuador. Since there was a strong Spanish army in Peru yet to be defeated, San Martín interviewed Bolívar in Guayaquil about their two armies cooperating to complete the independence movement. The two great leaders could not agree on future plans. San Martín unselfishly decided to eliminate himself and allow BolívarBolivar to lead in the final moves to establish the continent's independence. He resigned his command at Lima, expatriated himself from Argentina, and spent the remainder of his life in Belgium and France. He died in Boulogne, France, on August 17, 1850.
Quotations: He wrote later: "I heard of the Revolution in South America and forsaking my fortune and my hope I desired only to sacrifice everything to promote the liberty of my native land. "
San Martín married María de los Remedios de Escalada, a 14-year-old girl from one of the local wealthy families.