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|combatant2 = Spanish Empire * Viceroyalty of Peru Mapuche allies |commander1 = | Bernardo O'Higgins | Ramón Freire | Lord Cochrane | José de San Martín | | }} |commander2 = | }} |notes = }} The Chilean War of Independence was an armed conflict between pro-independence Chilean criollos seeking political and economic independence from Spain and royalist criollos supporting continued allegiance to the Captaincy General of Chile and membership of the Spanish Empire. Traditionally, the beginning of the war is dated as September 18, 1810. Depending on what terms are used to define its end, it lasted until 1821, when royalist forces were expelled from mainland Chile; or until 1826, when the last Spanish troops surrendered and the Chiloé Archipelago was incorporated to the Chilean republic. A declaration of independence was officially issued by Chile on February 12, 1818 and formally recognized by Spain in 1844, when full diplomatic relations were established.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Chile )〕 The Chilean War of Independence was part of the more aroused Spanish American wars of independence. Independence did not have unanimous support among Chileans, who were divided between independentists and royalists. What started as a political movement among elites against the colonial power, ended as a full-fledged civil war. Traditionally, the process is divided into three stages: the ''Patria Vieja'', 1810–1814; the ''Reconquista'', 1814–1817; and the ''Patria Nueva'', 1817–1823. == Background == At the start of 1808, the Captaincy General of Chileone of the smallest and poorest colonies in the Spanish Empirewas under the administration of Luis Muñoz de Guzmán, an able, respected and well-liked Royal Governor. In May 1808 the overthrow of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, their replacement by Joseph Bonaparte and the start of the Peninsular War plunged the empire into a state of agitation. In the meantime, Chile was facing its own internal political problems. Governor Guzmán had suddenly died in February of that year and the crown had not been able to appoint a new governor before the invasion. After a brief interim regency by Juan Rodríguez Ballesteros, and according to the succession law in place at the time, the position was laid claim to and assumed by the most senior military commander, who happened to be Brigadier Francisco García Carrasco. García Carrasco took over the post of Governor of Chile in April and in August the news of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain and of the conformation of a Supreme Central Junta to govern the Empire in the absence of a legitimate king reached the country. In the meantime, Charlotte Joaquina, sister of Ferdinand and wife of the King of Portugal, who was living in Brazil, also made attempts to obtain the administration of the Spanish dominions in Latin America. Since her father and brother were being held prisoners in France, she regarded herself as the heiress of her captured family. Allegedly among her plan was to send armies to occupy Buenos Aires and northern Argentina and to style herself as ''Queen of La Plata''. Brigadier García Carrasco was a man of crude and authoritarian manners, who managed in a very short time to alienate the criollo elites under his command. Already in Chile, as in most of Latin America, there had been some independence agitation but minimal and concentrated in the very ineffectual Conspiracy of the Tres Antonios back in 1781. The majority of the people were fervent royalists but were divided into two groups: those who favored the ''status quo'' and the divine right of Ferdinand VII (known as ''absolutists'') and those who wanted to proclaim Charlotte Joaquina as Queen (known as ''carlotists''). A third group was composed of those who proposed the replacement of the Spanish authorities with a local ''junta'' of notable citizens, which would conform a provisional government to rule in the absence of the king and an independent Spain (known as ''juntistas''). In 1809, Governor García Carrasco himself was implicated in a flagrant case of corruption (the Scorpion scandal) that managed to destroy whatever remnants of moral authority he or his office had left. From that moment on the pressure for his removal began to build. In June 1810 news arrived from Buenos Aires that Napoleon Bonaparte's forces had conquered Andalusia and laid siege to Cádiz, the last redoubt against the French on Spanish soil. Moreover, the Supreme Central Junta, which had governed the Empire for the past two years, had abolished itself in favor of a Regency Council. García Carrasco, who was a supporter of the ''carlotist'' group, managed to magnify the political problems by taking arbitrary and harsh measures, such as the arrest and deportation to Lima without due process of well-known and socially prominent citizens under simple suspicions of having been sympathetic to the ''junta'' idea. Among those arrested were José Antonio de Rojas, Juan Antonio Ovalle and Bernardo de Vera y Pintado. Inspired by the May Revolution in Argentina, the autonomy movement had also propagated through the criollo elite. They resented the illegal arrests and, together with the news that Cádiz was all that was left of a free Spain, finally solidified in their opposition to the Governor. Brigadier García Carrasco was suspended from office and forced to resign on July 16, 1810, to be in turn replaced by the next most senior soldier, Mateo de Toro Zambrano Count of la Conquista, even though a legitimate Governor, Francisco Javier de Elío, had already been appointed by the Viceroy of Peru. Count Toro Zambrano was, by all standards, a very unorthodox selection. He was a very old man already (82 years old at the time) and moreover a "criollo" (someone born in the colonies) as opposed to a "peninsular" (someone born in Spain). Immediately after his appointment in July, the ''juntistas'' began to lobby him in order to obtain the formation of a junta. In August the Royal Appeals Court ((スペイン語:Real Audiencia)) took a public loyalty oath to the Regency Council in front of a massive audience, which put added pressure on the Governor to define himself. After vacillating for some time over which party to follow, Toro Zambrano finally agreed to hold an open ''Cabildo'' (city hall) meeting in Santiago to discuss the issue. The date was set for September 18, 1810 at 11 AM. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chilean War of Independence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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