Bernardo O'Higgins accepted the position instead, and became the leader of an independent Chile. He was granted dictatorial powers as Supreme Director on 16 February 1817. On 12 February 1818, Chile proclaimed itself an independent republic. Throughout the war with the royalists, O'Higgins had engaged in an ongoing feud with José Miguel Carrera. After their retreat in 1814, O'Higgins had fared much better than Carrera, who found little support forthcoming from San Martín, O'Higgins' political ally. Carrera was imprisoned to prevent his involvement in Chilean affairs; after his escape, he ended up taking the winning side in the Argentine Federalist war, helping
Martha de San Bernardo Martha de San Bernardo Martha de San Bernardo, P.C.C., was a 17th-century Colettine Poor Clare who was first Filipino woman to become a Roman Catholic nun and renowned Catholic pending for the cause for Beatification alongside with Maddalena de la Concepcion, a religious from the Poor Clares. While her birth name is lost, it is recorded that she was a "ladina" (a Spanish-speaking native of the Philippines who had no Spanish ancestry) who belonged to an affluent and influential family from Pampanga on the island of Luzon, then part of the Spanish East Indies. Inspired by the lives of the