Iglesia de San Francisco, Santiago de Chile Iglesia de San Francisco, Santiago de Chile The San Francisco Church (Spanish: "Iglesia de San Francisco") is a Franciscan church on Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins, in the downtown of Santiago de Chile. The church, along with the adjacent convent, is one of the oldest colonial-era building in the country. The church was consecrated in 1622. The bell tower was destroyed by an earthquake in 1647, while the rest of the building successfully resisted it. In 1730 another earthquake badly damaged the rebuilt tower, which was demolished in 1751. The current bell tower is of Victorian architecture and was constructed
Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara Bernardo (José Bernardo Maximiliano Gutiérrez de Lara) (August 20, 1774 – May 13, 1841) was an advocate and organizer of Mexican independence and the first constitutional governor of the state of Tamaulipas, and a native of Revilla, today Ciudad Guerrero, Mexico. Gutiérrez de Lara was obsessed with the idea of freeing Mexico from Spain, and he began by recruiting and arming twenty-one men in Texas. Then together with José Menchaca, he spoke with the Indians and convinced them to fight with him against the Spanish. After the suppression of an 1811 insurrection in Nuevo Santander, Gutiérrez