The Crossing of the Andes (Spanish: Cruce de los Andes) was one of the most important feats in the Argentine and Chilean wars of independence. A combined army of Argentine soldiers and Chilean exiles crossed the Andes mountains, which separate Argentina from Chile, to invade Chile, leading to its liberation from Spanish rule.
Led by General José de San Martín and departing from Mendoza—then part of the Province of Cuyo, Argentina—in January 1817, the successful crossing took 21 days. The army navigated heights averaging 3,000 meters.[1][2] The feat has been compared to Hannibal''s and Napoleon''s crossings of the Alps and is considered one of the greatest achievements of its kind in military history.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
The crossing of the Andes was a key part of the strategy devised by General José de San Martín to defeat the royalist forces at their stronghold in Lima, Viceroyalty of Peru, and to secure the Spanish American independence movements.[citation needed] The idea of crossing the Andes had been developed earlier by secret lodges advocating for South American independence and was part of the Maitland Plan, designed by Thomas Maitland. San Martín became aware of this plan during his brief stay in Britain before sailing to South America. After realizing the difficulties of attacking the royalist stronghold of Lima through Upper Peru, he decided to implement this plan.
The Captaincy General of Chile had removed its governor in 1810 and replaced him with the First Government Junta, marking the beginning of a period in Chilean history known as Patria Vieja. However, they were defeated in 1814 at the Battle of Rancagua, and during the subsequent Reconquista, Chile once again became a royalist stronghold. Bernardo O''Higgins and other Chilean leaders fled to Mendoza during the new royalist regime, and O''Higgins later became a key figure in the Army of the Andes alongside the Argentine soldiers.
During this period, the city of Mendoza became a crucial headquarters for the preparations before the crossing. The citizens of Mendoza supported the troops by manufacturing gunpowder and ammunition, and they even learned to make cannons.[citation needed]
The main food supply for the army was a regional dish called valdiviano, prepared with dried meat or charqui, sliced raw onion, potatoes, and boiling water. The army had designated soldiers responsible for transporting food. These soldiers carried forty tons of charqui, maize cakes, meat, brandy to combat the nighttime cold, garlic and onion to stimulate appetite, over 4,000 cattle for the remainder of the campaign, as well as cheese and rum.[8]
On the morning of January 19, 1817, San Martín and his army set out from their base camp, El Plumerillo, and began their journey across the Andes mountain range. San Martín crossed with 4,000 men, though he ultimately lost one-third of them during the trek. The number of auxiliaries reached 1,200.
To manage the crossing, San Martín divided his army into two groups. The main division, which traveled through the Pass of Los Patos, was led by San Martín, Miguel Estanislao Soler, and Bernardo O''Higgins. The secondary division, which took the more southerly Uspallata pass, was led by Juan Gregorio de Las Heras.[8]
On February 13, 1817, San Martín, O''Higgins, and their army successfully entered Santiago, Chile, after crossing 500 kilometers of mountain range.[9] By this time, the royalist forces had advanced north to avoid San Martín''s army, but one royalist leader remained behind with 1,500 men at a valley called Chacabuco, near Santiago.[10] This led to the Battle of Chacabuco.
In 2010, the Argentine and Chilean armies recreated the crossing during the bicentennial celebrations of the Revolution.[11]
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The Army of the Andes (Spanish: Ejército de los Andes) was a military force created by the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (Argentina) and assembled by General José de San Martín as part of his campaign to liberate Chile from the Spanish Empire. In 1817, it crossed the Andes Mountains from the Argentine province of Cuyo (with its staging point being the present-day province of Mendoza, Argentina) and succeeded in its objective by driving the Spanish out of Chile.
These two divisions formed the main body of the army, but smaller detachments were sent to the north and south as flanking forces. The smaller northern division consisted of about 130 infantrymen and a group of Chilean expatriates under the command of Juan Manuel Cabot. To the south, a group was led by the Chilean Ramón Freire Serrano.
In all of these regiments, commissioned officers should have been white under the laws of the time. But San Martin sought to change the rules so that at least the black soldiers were promoted to corporals and sergeants. Traditionally, the Spanish colonial army battalions were divided into castes of black slaves and free blacks, but San Martin was against segregation and believed in unifying people of color and whites, fighting as soldiers in the same unit. Later both regiments 7th and 8th would be unified in Peru as the black regiment of the Río de la Plata. The 4th Infantry Battalion would also later be converted into an all-black unit.
Combined Argentine–Chilean units
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Martín’s military strategy led the soldiers over difficult terrain; the army crossed the Andes Mountains at various points to confuse the Spanish Royalist forces. This had been meticulously planned with supplies stored in places in advance. The independence fighters gained victory in the Battle of Chacabuco on 15 February 1817 and subsequently entered and took control of Santiago. There is a short description of the Battle of Chacabuco in the podcast above by Natalia Sobrevilla.
A more detailed analysis of the strategy of the Andean assault is given in the documentary below. It was made by the Argentine television channel Canal Encuentro and features the War and Nation researchers Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz and Alejandro Rabinovich. Alejandro Rabinovich has also written extensively about the plight of the troops from the Río de la Plata region in his book Ser soldado en las Guerras de Independencia. La experiencia cotidiana de la tropa en el Río de la Plata, 1810 – 1824.
While the Andean mission was successful, the Royalist Forces still had control of the South of Chile and fighting would continue with them for many years, however San Martín now had his eyes set on the more powerful region of Peru and his next major step would be to set sail for Lima.
In the podcast below, Alejandro Rabinovich tells a tale about a black soldier from San Martín’s army.
One of the most famous mulatto soldiers in San Martín’s army was José Romero. Romero was the son of a white aristocrat and a black servant. His aristocratic father had ensured that the boy received a good education but he did not officially recognise the boy as his son or pass on his name to him, as was customary in those times. Nonetheless with his father’s support, Romero would go on to be a soldier. He joined the army at the age of 13 in a regiment that was specifically for mulattos.
Romero’s first battle was the Combate de San Carlos. Later he helped capture a Spanish frigate at Talcahuano, fought in Chilllán and in the Battle of El Roble. He was commissioned to form a regiment of slaves called the Regimento Ingenuos de la Patria, but this mission failed as the slave owners began to hide their slaves. Romero was taken prisoner at the battle of Rancagua, but was later released and would fight in the Battle of Chacabuco and in the Battle of Maipú.
By 1817, Chile had been functioning independently from Spain for several years, although no formal declaration of independence had been made. Five years earlier the issue of independence had been addressed in José Miguel Carrera’s Provisional Constitutional Regulations of 1812. This document states that no decree or ruling order issues outside of Chile will have any effect and anyone who tries to give them force will be published as a criminal of the state. However the document also recognised the authority of Fernando VII.
After the Battle of Chacabuco, Chile entered a period known as the Patria Nueva. By this point it had all the hallmarks of an independent state: its own currency, flag and coat of arms. The Chilean Declaration of Independence was finally drafted in January 1818 and approved by Supreme Director Bernardo O’Higgins on February 12, 1818 at Talca. The document was then back dated to January 1 1818 in Concepción.
Ossa Santa Cruz, Juan Luis. Armies, Politics and Revolution. Chile, 1808-1826. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014.
Rabinovich, Alejandro. Ser soldado en las Guerras de Independencia. La experiencia cotidiana de la tropa en el Rio de la Plata, 1810 – 1824. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2013.
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