Mariano Osorio

Mariano Osorio Pardo (Seville, Spain, 1777—Havana, Captaincy General of Cuba, 1819) was a Spanish soldier, poet, and governor of the Spanish Crown in the Governorate of Chile. He is one of the fundamental figures of the Independence of Chile and especially of the period of the Spanish Reconquest, since he was the commander of the forces loyal to Spain that triumphed in the Battle of Rancagua and Battle of Cancha Rayada (1818). He was the penultimate Spanish Governor between 1814 and 1816.

Military career

From a very young age he began his military career in the artillery weapon. He fought notably during the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808. Later, in 1812, he was transferred to Lima as General Commander of the Artillery and mathematics professor at the Military School. He was married to Joaquina de la Pezuela, daughter of the future viceroy of Peru, Joaquín de la Pezuela.

Battle of Rancagua

When the viceroy of Peru José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa ignored the Treaty of Lircay, he put Osorio in command of the expeditionary force that would reconquer the Chilean Governorate to return it to the Spanish Empire, made up of the recently arrived Talavera battalion of the peninsula with 374 positions, which before leaving for Chile were raised to 600 with local recruits, and 6 artillery pieces with 70 servers. The expedition set sail from Callao on July 19, 1814 and after 14 days of navigation He disembarked in Talcahuano, from where they would advance north reconquering the Chilean territories for the Spanish Crown. The last confrontation took place on October 1 and 2, 1814, in the famous Battle of Rancagua, where Osorio and his royalist troops defeated the patriotic troops of General Bernardo O'Higgins. In this way Osorio entered Santiago de Chile triumphantly.

Osorio, Governor of Chile

After the battle of Rancagua, Mariano Osorio assumes the governorship of Chile. The governor reinstates the old regime and all its institutions. In the same way, he dissolves everything established by the & # 34; patriots & # 34; during the Patria Vieja period. Osorio, despite having ordered the deportation of a hundred notable patriots to the Juan Fernández archipelago, consciously tried to carry out a government of reconciliation between the opposing sides (patriots and royalists); That is why he ordered the court in charge of prosecuting possible former patriots, with benevolent neighbors who repeatedly pardoned. He also stood out for one of his most distinctive characteristics: a sarcastic humor that helped to relax the atmosphere of the time, plagued by violence. In this sense, one of his sentences is widely quoted, drawn up at the request of a well-to-do resident of Santiago, named Juan Luco y Aragón, who asked that they not charge him taxes because he had been previously released from them; Osorio responded at the bottom of the petition: "As Luco and Aragón, free from Contribution-As a neighbor and wealthy, he will pay the next day."

But apparently, he was not fully in control of the governorship situation. The Talavera Regiment, under the command of Captain Vicente San Bruno, violently repressed many patriots, which did nothing but contribute to darkening the reputation of the Spanish government and producing the transfer to the nationalist cause of the most moderate group, which would be decisive. in the future.

In 1816, the viceroy of Peru published in a renowned Lima newspaper that he was the main person responsible for the reconquest of Chile. This caused Osorio to get upset and send a letter to the same newspaper denying the statements of his superior and claiming responsibility for the royalist triumphs. Evidently this angered the Viceroy, who dismissed him and appointed Casimiro Marcó del Pont in his place.

Maipú and his last days

At the beginning of 1817 the supreme director of the United Provinces Pueyrredón authorized the dispatch of the Army of the Andes to the Captaincy General of Chile in order to reinstate the independence government, prevent a possible invasion from the west and finally invade Lima by the Pacific.

The army, of more than 5,000 men, was led by Captain General José de San Martín, accompanied by his commanders: Brigadier General Soler and Brigadiers O'Higgins and Las Heras. The Army of the Andes undertook the Crossing of the Andes on January 19, 1817 and after various battles they managed to free Chile from the Spanish Crown. However, this was not immediately accepted by the Spanish Crown, which ordered a new expedition led by the former governor of the colony, General Osorio.

Osorio and his troops landed again in Talcahuano. As in 1814, they advanced north and surprised the independence forces, made up of the union of the Army of the Andes and the newly formed Chilean militia corps, in the Battle of Cancha Rayada on March 19, 1818. The army of San Martín was pursued by Osorio's forces. However, the independence rebels managed to organize themselves in the Maipú plains, where they definitively defeated those loyal to the Spanish Crown in the Battle of Maipú. Mariano Osorio managed to escape with some collaborators to Lima, where he is tried for the possible responsibilities that could fit him in the royalist defeat. He was acquitted and undertook a return trip to his homeland, but ended his days in Havana, victim of malarial fever, in 1819.