Juan Martínez de Rozas

Juan Martínez de Rozas Correa (* 1759 in Mendoza , then with the General Capitanate of Chile , today in Argentina , † March 3, 1813 ibid) was a Chilean politician and one of the first leaders of the country's independence movement.

Life

Youth and education

Martínez de Rozas was born in Mendoza as the son of Juan Martínez de Soto Rozas and his wife María Prudencia Correa Villegas. He studied at the University of Córdoba , and from 1780 on at the Real Universidad de San Felipe in Santiago de Chile Law . He completed his studies with admission to the bar before the Real Audiencia (1784) and the doctorate (1786).

Martínez must have acquired extensive knowledge in other subjects during his student days, because he was also a lecturer in philosophy at the Colegio Real de San Carlos and gave lectures in experimental physics .

Martínez de Rozas was married to Maria de las Nieves Urrutia y Mendiburu.

Career in colonial administration

Martínez began his career under Governor Ambrosio O'Higgins as head of administration in Concepción . In 1796, Governor Gabriel de Avilés appointed him his adviser. In 1800 he was transferred back to Concepción. There he was removed from his post, allegedly because of an irreconcilable conflict of interests between his duties as a representative of the city and his work as his wife's lawyer. The dispute moved the courts for a long time, Martínez was supposed to be right in the end, but at that time no longer showed any interest in the office in Concepción.

Secretary to Governor García Carrasco

After the death of Governor Luis Muñoz de Guzmán , Martínez Rozas worked hard to ensure that the new regulation of 1806, according to which the most senior officer should succeed, would also be applied. When Francisco Antonio García Carrasco took office in April, he hired Rozas as secretary.

At this time Rozas' active advocacy for the rights of the native Creoles and later for the self-government and finally the independence of Chile began. He reached around García that the number of local assessors in the city council of Santiago was increased to 12. The resistance of this institution to the Spanish Supreme Court (the Real Audiencia ) and the governor himself led to the dismissal of Martínez Rozas, who fled to Concepción.

The exact timing and possible involvement of Rozas in the Scorpion affair is unclear. Governor García Carrasco had a smuggler's ship (the Scorpion ) ambushed and robbed by police forces in exchange for 85% of the profits . The captain and eight crew members were murdered in September 1808, the perpetrators were later found under guarded arrest and thus out of the reach of the judiciary. This scandal led to García Carrasco, who was already hated by the people, being forced to resign in July 1810.

Member of the government junta

September 18, 1810

Martínez Rozas had actively supported the calls for resignation from Concepción. He sat at the head of the movement of the juntistas who demanded a government junta for Chile, as they had been formed in Spain ( Junta Suprema Central ) in the fight against the Napoleonic attackers.

The governor's successor, Mateo de Toro Zambrano y Ureta hesitated, but the juntistas pressed him more and more. Finally he invited to a meeting in Santiago on September 18, 1810, at which the future government of Chile was to be discussed. At the meeting, the juntistas took the helm, succeeded in resigning the aged governor and immediately elected him as president of the junta . Martínez was also elected to the junta as an ordinary member.

Reign of the junta

Martínez moved to Santiago in November, where he was warmly received. He represented the position of the exaltados , for whom far-reaching reforms should also be initiated with the government junta. The state should be modernized and Chile should be administered autonomously by the locals. He asked the junta in Argentina for a printing press to be able to print newspapers and notices in Chile.

When the president of the junta, Toro Zambrano, died in February 1811 and his deputy, the 79-year-old Bishop of Santiago José Martínez de Aldunate, was dying seriously ill, Martínez de Rozas initially took over the office.

Figueroa coup

On April 1, 1811, the royalist officer Tomás de Figueroa launched a coup against the government. He wanted to prevent the election of the delegates for the National Congress, which was scheduled for that day. The government fled from the government building to the house of Marquez de la Plata before the advancing coup plotters, so that the coup plotters moved on without having achieved anything. The government commissioned the commander Juan de Dios Vial to put down the uprising militarily. With 500 men, he put the putschists who were defeated after a short firefight. Figueroa fled to a monastery, which the militia stormed. He was briefly put on trial that same night. The wording of the death sentence, which Figueroa's actions verbally condemned, came from the pen of Martínez Rozas. Figueroa was executed in the early hours of April 2nd.

The flight from the putschists, the fact that the government itself was not involved in the suppression of the uprising and also the harsh verdict against Figueroa brought the population against Martínes Rozas and his exaltados . Martínez resigned as president of the junta on April 2 and left the presidency to the Chief Justice, Fernando Márquez de la Plata , but remained the junta's stronghold. In the delegate elections , moderate forces ( moderados ) and royalists ( realistas ) had a majority.

Dissolution of the Real Audiencia

The junta used the coup to dissolve the Real Audiencia, loyal to Spain, as the Supreme Court at the end of April ; they were accused of participating in the conspiracy. The members were given safe conduct to Lima . Former governor García Carrasco was captured.

National Congress

On July 4, 1811, the First National Congress of Chile met. Some of the elections took place under chaotic conditions. The number of deputies from Santiago (6 or 12) remained controversial for a long time, especially since the majority (9 of 12) were moderate or even royalist-minded. The Exaltados did not have a majority in the entire National Congress .

The Concepción Junta

While the Congress began its sessions, Martínez stayed in Santiago. In mid-August, several radical delegates close to him announced their resignation in protest at the irregularities and went back to Concepción with him. There they formed a new junta as a counter-government on September 5, 1811. Almost at the same time (but without consultation) José Miguel Carrera took power in Santiago on September 4, 1811 - Roza's demands were thus invalid. The coup was ostensibly a success, and the Concepción junta dissolved. But the rivalry between the two leaders of independence grew.

After the second Carrera coup

Even if the radicals now had power, the debates between Carrera and Rozas continued, temporarily mediated by the mediator Bernardo O'Higgins . In November 1811, Carrera staged another coup and dissolved the Congress. He now ruled with absolute power. While Carrera wanted to reform the state in its own power (and took important steps towards it), Rozas demanded elections and representative participation on a broad basis. On February 12, 1812, he again formed a government junta in Concepción to force parliamentary elections and a vote on the new constitution. On July 8, 1812, Carrera violently put an end to the activities in Concepción, arrested the leaders and banished Martínez de Rozas on October 10, 1812 into exile in Mendoza.

exile

He was received with great honor in Mendoza. He died in the autumn of the following year on March 3, 1813 at the age of 54 in Mendoza and was buried there. The Chilean President José Manuel Balmaceda had his remains transferred to Chile in 1889.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Martínez de Rozas, Juan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Martínez de Rozas Correa, Juan (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Chilean independence fighter
DATE OF BIRTH	1759
PLACE OF BIRTH	Mendoza , Argentina
DATE OF DEATH	March 3, 1813
Place of death	Mendoza , Argentina