Chilean Independence

February 12, 1818

A year after Bernardo O'Higgins and San Martin's Army of the Andes crossed the cordillera to surprise the Spanish at Chacabuco, Chile formally declared itself free. The republic was fragile, the church suspicious, and O'Higgins would be exiled within five years. But the continental campaign was rolling north. San Martin was already planning the naval expedition to Peru that would carry the revolution to Spain's colonial capital.