John Williams Wilson
John Williams Wilson (* 1798 in Bristol , England , † September 14, 1857 in Valparaíso , Chile ; also Juan Guillermos ) was a British frigate captain in the Chilean Navy. He took part in the war of independence against Spain. He later succeeded in asserting sovereignty claims on the Strait of Magellan for the young Chilean republic .
biography
He was born in Bristol, England in 1798 to a family with a long seafaring tradition. His father gave him his first experience at sea on ships of the British East India Company .
Attracted by the news of the independence movements in the Spanish colonies in South America, he entered the Navy of Peru . Soon it seemed more advantageous to him to go to Chile and he went to Valparaíso . There he was immediately accepted into the Navy on January 12, 1824 with the rank of Teniente Primero (about first lieutenant ). On various ships he took part in the final battles in the Chilean War of Independence. After the successful capture of the last bastion of the colonial power Spain on the island of Chiloé in 1826, he was appointed naval governor there.
He Hispanicized his name. In 1827 he married Micaela Rebolledo, with whom he had three children: Horacio Luis, Rafael and Juan .
In 1830 he was promoted to corvette captain.
In an epoch of political instability he supported an unsuccessful uprising by Ramón Freire against the government in 1836 and was subsequently dismissed from the naval service and taken to a prison in Valparaíso. However, he was reassigned to the Navy in 1838 in the war against the Peru-Bolivia Confederation . In 1839 he was critically injured in an accident in the port of Valparaíso, from which he never fully recovered. He then successfully reapplied for the office of Naval Governor of Chiloé.
In June 1843, President Manuel Bulnes commissioned him to take possession of the Strait of Magellan for Chile, because there was a danger that other nations would seize this important sea route. To this end, on a secret mission near Ancud , he equipped a small sailing ship with a crew of 23, which also included the Prussian Bernhard Philippi . Despite adverse circumstances, he reached Puerto del Hambre on the Brunswick Peninsula in the Strait of Magellan, a place where almost 400 people died of starvation or frozen to death in an initial attempt at colonization around 1584. Nearby on September 21, 1843, he founded the fortress Fuerte Bulnes .
In December 1843 he was promoted to frigate captain. In 1844 and 1845 he made three more supply trips to the new Chilean settlement on the Strait of Magellan. Although this settlement could only be maintained for a short time, the action was of lasting importance for the incorporation of the Strait of Magellan into Chilean territory.
In 1849 he was appointed Naval Governor of Talcahuano . Six years later he had to give up the post for health reasons and continued to work at the naval headquarters. At the age of 59 he died on September 14, 1857 after a serious illness in Valparaíso.
literature
- John Williams Wilson: Diario de la goleta "Ancud" al mando del capitán de fragata don Juan Guillermos (1843): para tomar posesión del Estrecho de Magallanes . Ed .: Nicolás Anrique R. Imprenta, Litografia i Encuadernación Barcelona, Santiago de Chile 1901 ( Memoria Chilena - Documents [accessed December 28, 2008]).
- Armada de Chile (ed.): Juan Guillermos - Capitán de Fragata . September 28, 2007 ( online biography of the Chilean Navy [accessed November 19, 2009]).
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Williams Wilson, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Guillermos, Juan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British frigate captain in the Chilean Navy |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1798 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bristol , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 14, 1857 |
| Place of death | Valparaíso , Chile |