José de San Martín
José de San Martín liberated Argentina, Chile and Peru, and then handed the war to Bolívar and left the continent for good. Born in 1778 in a small settlement in what is now Argentina to Spanish parents, he was taken to Spain at six and spent twenty years in the Spanish army, fighting the French in the Peninsular War and reaching lieutenant colonel. He then abandoned that career at thirty-four and sailed to Buenos Aires to fight against the empire he had served, which is the central puzzle of his life and is usually explained by the masonic and independence circles he moved in at Cádiz and London. His strategic insight was that the revolution could not be secured while Spain held Peru, and that Peru could not be taken by land from the north. The Army of the Andes was the answer: three years of preparation in Mendoza, then a crossing of passes above 4,000 metres in January 1817 with 5,000 men, artillery and mules, most of the animals dying, arriving in Chile on a schedule accurate to days. Chacabuco followed within a week and Maipú a year later. He then built a fleet, hired Lord Cochrane to command it, and landed in Peru, entering Lima in 1821 without a general battle and declaring independence. He met Bolívar at Guayaquil in July 1822 in a private conversation nobody recorded, and afterwards resigned everything and withdrew. He died in France in 1850. Argentina calls him the Liberator and the father of the nation.
- Lived: 1778 CE – 1850 CE
- Nationality: Argentine
- Roles: military_leader, general, revolutionary
