History of Chile the Spaniards at the Battle of Chacabuco on February 12 and marking the beginning of the "Patria Nueva". San Martín considered the liberation of Chile a strategic stepping-stone to the emancipation of Peru, which he saw as the key to hemispheric victory over the Spanish. Chile won its formal independence when San Martín defeated the last large Spanish force on Chilean soil at the Battle of Maipú on April 5, 1818. San Martín then led his Argentine and Chilean followers north to liberate Peru; and fighting continued in Chile's southern provinces, the bastion of the royalists, until 1826. A declaration
John Higgins of Montoge John Higgins of Montoge Sir John Higgins of Montoge (1678–1729) was an Irish physician. Higgins was a descendent of the O'Higgins of Montiagh, an Irish noble family who lost their lands in Sligo under the English Crown about 1649. His parents were a Dr. Patrick Higgins of Limerick City and his wife Mary Loftus of Annacotty. He was a cousin of Don Esteban de Iguiño (Stephen Higgins) who was Spanish General of the Infantry in the Army of Philippine islands. Sir John Higgins was born in 1678, and after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 left Ireland to live in