Francisco Antonio Garcia Carrasco

Francisco Antonio García Carrasco Díaz (Ceuta, December 15, 1742—Lima, August 10, 1813) was a Spanish soldier and Royal Governor of Chile from 1808-1810.

Carrasco was the last Spanish governor before the emancipatory actions of Chile.

Last Governor of Chile

Most of his life was spent in the camps, away from social life and courtly treatment. Once the governor of Chile Muñoz de Guzmán died in February 1808, in accordance with the disposition dictated by Carlos IV in 1806, it corresponded to take command of the highest ranking soldier. After threatening the Royal Court to comply with the royal decree, he definitively took the post of Governor of Chile. Because of that threat to the court, there was a great antagonism between the governor and the Audiencia.

Fall as Governor

An epidemic that devastated the wheat crops of Bolivia and Peru, for which Chile became the granary of both, caused problems. The appearance of the French in 1800 was added, generating a boom in trade in the South Pacific with the appearance of huge amounts of banditry and corruption.

The invitation of the Central Supreme Board to designate a deputy was received with indifference, both by García Carrasco and by the criollos. After a process of social unrest in Buenos Aires and the interventions of the viceroys caused García Carrasco to arrest the city attorney, Juan Antonio Ovalle, José Antonio de Rojas, a patriot from a wealthy family, and the lawyer Bernardo Vera y Pintado, sending them to Valparaíso to be shipped to Peru and put at the disposal of Viceroy Abascal (May 25, 1810). These measures, based on simple suspicions and denunciations, provoked the most violent reaction in the Creole aristocracy. In addition, the news had been received in Chile that the Buenos Aires Government Junta had deposed Viceroy Cisneros, which further exacerbated the spirits in Chile.

The news of the estrangement of Ovalle, Rojas and Vera from Callao caused popular riots and the agitation caused the people of the capital, encouraged by rich Creoles, to arm themselves ready to obtain the resignation of García Carrasco and replace him with a Board of Government. The case of the Scorpion frigate was the last straw. After the assault on the English smuggler ship, he lost the little prestige that García Carrasco had. After this event, Martínez de Rozas retired to Concepción. The Royal Court intervened, to prevent the constitution of the Junta and proposed to the lobbyists to obtain the resignation of García Carrasco, replacing him with the highest ranking military man. At the request of the Tribunal, García Carrasco handed over command to Brigadier Mateo de Toro Zambrano before an assembly of the members of the town council and the high chiefs of the army and the militias (July 16, 1810). This fact was a great support for the formation of the First National Board