Juan Enrique Rosales

Juan Enrique Rosales Fuentes († 1825 in Chile ) was a member of the first government junta that ruled Chile from September 1810 to July 1811.

He was married to Maria del Rosario Larraín Salas. Through this connection he was considered a member of the influential Larraín family.

Member of the government junta

With Napoleon's invasion of Spain, the imprisonment of King Ferdinand and the formation of the Junta Suprema Central , the urge to set up a junta also arose in Chile. On September 18, 1810, the governor of Chile, Mateo de Toro Zambrano y Ureta , called a meeting to deliberate on the government of the country.

At the assembly that marked the beginning of Chile's independence , a government junta was elected, chaired by Toro Zambrano. Among the dignitaries who belonged to the body (such as the Vice-President of the Bishop of Santiago, José Martínez de Aldunate ) was Rosales.

During the coup carried out by José Miguel Carrera in the fall of 1811, not only should the Congress be brought in a more independence-oriented direction, Carrera confided in his diary that the weakening of the Larraín family was also a major motive for the coup.

Exile and death

When the Spanish rebuilt the colonial administration after the Battle of Rancagua in autumn 1814, Rosales - like many other representatives of the independence movement - was exiled to the Juan Fernández Islands . After the final victory of the independence movement in the aftermath of the Battle of Chacabuco in February 1817, the exiles were allowed to return to Chile. Eight years later, Rosales died.

swell

• Ismael Espinosa: El Cabildo Abierto del 18 de septiember de 1810 near Aurora de Chile (Spanish)
• José Miguel Carrera: Diario militar at Memoria chilena (Spanish)