Ambrosio O'Higgins

Ambrosio O'Higgins

Ambrosio O'Higgins ( Spanish Ambrosio O'Higgins, marqués de Osorno, marqués de Vallenar, barón de Ballinary , Irish Ambrós Ó hUigínn ; * around 1720 in Ballynary, County Sligo , Ireland ; † March 19, 1801 , in Lima , Peru ) was an Irish-born Spanish governor of Chile and viceroy of Peru . The Chilean independence fighter Bernardo O'Higgins was his illegitimate son. Ambrosio O'Higgins was Marquis of Osorno, Marquis of Vallenar and Baron of Ballynary.

Life

Youth and education

Ambrosio O'Higgins was the son of Charles O'Higgins and Margaret Brehon. Charles O'Higgins' grandfather, Sean Duff O'Higgins, Lord of Ballinary, was married to a woman of the O'Connor clan who ruled Ireland until the year 1000. The O'Higgins family owned large estates in Counties Sligo and Mayo , Ireland , but with the expropriations of the Catholics in Ireland during the reign of Oliver Cromwell and the deportations of the Sligo tenants after the reconquest of Ireland , the O'Higgins possessions were permanent got smaller. Because of this encroachment on their land, the O'Higgins family emigrated to Meath ; there Ambrosio O'Higgins took a job with Lady Jane Rawley. Ambrosio O'Higgins arrived in Cádiz in 1751, attended an Irish trading school and worked as an employee of the Butler Trading House . In 1756, as an Irishman and Catholic, he was legally allowed to emigrate to the Spanish colonies .

Governor of Chile

After O'Higgins entered the service of the Spanish colonial administration , he worked as a merchant and trader in the colony on the Río de la Plata in what is now Argentina , and did some risky business there. He later worked as a draftsman and engineer for the Spanish colonial army. John Garland, another Irish engineer in the Spanish service, convinced Ambrosio O'Higgins to move to the neighboring, economically less developed colony of Chile . He rose quickly, became Marquis of Vallenar, Marquis of Osorno, Mayor of Concepción and on May 28, 1788, Captain General of Chile.

During this time O'Higgins had a relationship with Isabell Riquelme, a Creole whose family belonged to the ruling class of the colony. This unofficial connection resulted in a son, Bernardo O'Higgins , who would later lead Chile to independence from Spanish colonial rule. Although Ambrosio O'Higgins never officially recognized his son Bernardo as the legal heir, he paid for his education in England and left him his property in Peru and Chile.

As governor of Chile, one of the most problematic, poorest and most remote Spanish colonies, O'Higgins endeavored to plan and develop the road between the capital Santiago and the port of Valparaíso , the route of which is still in use today, for the construction of the Moneda in Santiago and the establishment of a reliable postal service between the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata and the General Capitanate of Chile .

Viceroy of Peru

In May 1796, O'Higgins was named Viceroy of Peru . The Viceroyalty of Peru comprised present-day Peru , Chile, Bolivia , northwest Argentina and parts of western Brazil . Peru was the richest Spanish colony in South America and the office of Viceroy of Peru was the most prestigious post in the entire Spanish empire. Ambrosio O'Higgins held this office until his death on March 19, 1801.

Honors

Various cities, bays, and other Spanish foundations and discoveries in America were named after his place of birth during his reign, such as Vallenar (originally called: San Ambrosio de Ballenary , Spanish: Vallenar ) in Chile or the Vallenar Bay in Alaska .

Web links

• Archivo Histórico Nacional de Chile, Escritos de nuestra historia: Personajes de nuestra Historia: O'Higgins, Ambrosio (1720–1801) (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Edmundo Murray: Dictionary of Irish Latin American Biography: Ambrosio O'Higgins Irish Migration Studies in Latin America, 2006.
2. ^ Arsenio Rey-Tejerina: Place Names in Revillagigedo and Gravina Islands: Spanish and Irish heritage of Southeast Alaska. ExploreNorth, 2004.

predecessor	Office	successor
Francisco Gil de Taboada y Lemos	Viceroy of Peru 1796–1801	Manuel Arredondo y Pelegrín