Heroes of Independence of Peru

José de San Martín

José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (25 February 1778 – 17 August 1850),
known simply as José de San Martín or El Libertador of Argentina, Chile and
Peru,was an Argentine general and the prime leader of the southern part of South
America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire who
served as the Protector of Peru. Born in Yapeyú, Corrientes, in modern-day
Argentina, he left his mother country at the early age of seven to study in Málaga,
Spain.

In 1808, after taking part in the Peninsular War against France, San Martín
contacted South American supporters of independence from Spain. In 1812, he set
sail for Buenos Aires and offered his services to the United Provinces of the Río
de la Plata, present-day Argentina. After the Battle of San Lorenzo and time
commanding the Army of the North during 1814, he organized a plan to defeat the
Spanish forces that menaced the United Provinces from the north, using an
alternative path to the Viceroyalty of Peru. This objective first involved the
establishment of a new army, the Army of the Andes, in Cuyo Province, Argentina.
From there, he led the Crossing of the Andes to Chile, and triumphed at the
Battle of Chacabuco and the Battle of Maipú (1818), thus liberating Chile from
royalist rule. Then he sailed to attack the Spanish stronghold of Lima, Peru.

On 12 July 1821, after seizing partial control of Lima, San Martín was appointed
Protector of Peru, and Peruvian independence was officially declared on 28 July.
On 22 July 1822, after a closed-door meeting with fellow libertador Simón Bolívar
at Guayaquil, Ecuador, Bolívar took over the task of fully liberating Peru. San
Martín unexpectedly left the country and resigned the command of his army,
excluding himself from politics and the military, and moved to France in 1824. The
details of the 22 July meeting would be a subject of debate by later historians.

San Martín is regarded as a national hero of Argentina and Peru, and one of the
Liberators of Spanish South America. The Order of the Liberator General San
Martín (Orden del Libertador General San Martín), created in his honor, is the
highest decoration conferred by the Argentine government.

He died in France at the age of 72 years in 1850.

Simón Bolívar

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco (24
July 1783 – 17 December 1830), generally known as Simón Bolívar and also
colloquially as El Libertador, was a Venezuelan military and political leader who
played a leading role in the establishment of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, and Panama as sovereign states, independent of Spanish rule.

Bolívar was born into a wealthy, aristocratic Criollo family and, as was common for
the heirs of upper-class families in his day, was sent to be educated abroad at a
young age, arriving in Spain when he was 16 and later moving to France. While in
Europe, he was introduced to the ideas of the Enlightenment, which later
motivated him to overthrow the reigning Spanish in colonial South America. Taking
advantage of the disorder in Spain prompted by the Peninsular War, Bolívar began
his campaign for independence in 1808, appealing to the wealthy Creole population
through a conservative process. The campaign for the independence of New
Granada was consolidated under the auspices of Francisco Mariño y Soler with the
victory at the Battle of Boyacá on 7 August 1819. Later he established an
organized national congress within three years. Despite a number of hindrances,
including the arrival of an unprecedentedly large Spanish expeditionary force, the
revolutionaries eventually prevailed, culminating in the patriot victory at the
Battle of Carabobo in 1821, which effectively made Venezuela an independent
country.

The Peruvian congress named him dictator of Peru on 10 February 1824, which
allowed Bolívar to reorganize completely the political and military administration.
Assisted by Antonio José de Sucre, Bolívar decisively defeated the Spanish
cavalry at the Battle of Junín on 6 August 1824. Sucre destroyed the still
numerically superior remnants of the Spanish forces at Ayacucho on 9 December
1824.

Following this triumph over the Spanish monarchy, Bolívar participated in the
foundation of the first union of independent nations in Latin America, Gran
Colombia, of which he was president from 1819 to 1830. Through further military
campaigns, he ousted Spanish rulers from Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, the latter of
which was named after him. He was simultaneously president of Gran Colombia
(present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador) and Peru, while his
second-in-command, Antonio José de Sucre, was appointed president of Bolivia.
Bolívar aimed at a strong and united Spanish America able to cope not only with
the threats emanating from Spain and the European Holy Alliance but also with
the emerging power of the United States. At the peak of his power, Bolívar ruled
over a vast territory from the Argentine border to the Caribbean Sea.
Bolívar is viewed as a national icon in much of modern South America, and is
considered one of the great heroes of the Hispanic independence movements of
the early 19th century, along with José de San Martín, Francisco de Miranda and
others. At the end of his life, Bolívar despaired of the situation in his native
region, with the famous quote "all who served the revolution have plowed the sea".
In an address to the Constituent Congress of the Republic of Colombia, Bolívar
stated "Fellow citizens! I blush to say this: Independence is the only benefit we
have acquired, to the detriment of all the rest.

On 17 December 1830, at the age of 47, Simón Bolívar died of tuberculosis.

José Olaya

José Silverio Olaya Balandra (1789 – June 29, 1823) was an Afro-Peruvian hero in
the Peruvian War of Independence.

Son of Jose Apolinario Olaya and Cordoba and doña Melchora Balandra. He had 11
siblings. In the struggle for the independence of Peru, the hero acted as secret
emissary carrying messages between the Government of Callao and Lima Patriots
by swimming. He was discovered, arrested and subjected to torture and sentenced
to death despite the torture, he never revealed his mission and willingly swallow
the letters assigned to the mission. The independence of Peru, first declared in
Huaura in November 1820 and July 28, 1821 in Lima, had become effective only in
Lima and in the north, but Cuzco, the central highlands and south were still under
the rule of the royal army.

When José de San Martín recognized the little support that give political and
military forces, he resigned to the Constituent Congress of Peru, 1822. The
congress appointed as President of the Republic José de la Riva Agüero and
Congress President Francisco Xavier de Luna Pizarro. The royal army, taking
advantage of the patriotic troops were far, took Lima and members of Congress
felt compelled to take refuge in the Real Felipe Fortress in Callao. It is at this
stage where José Olaya, a fisherman by trade, did not hesitate to serve as a link
between the ships of the squadron Liberator (formed by units of the Republic of
Chile) and the soldiers of the patriotic forces (Argentina, Chile and Peru) located
in Lima, even if it meant walking across fields and swimming the sea.

Imprisoned by the royal army, he was tortured in order to obtain information

about the patriotic forces. José Olaya Balandra was not frightened to pain. He
suffered two hundred whips and two hundred beatings with sticks, not yielding
even though they tore his nails. Finally, on the morning of June 29, 1823 he
uttered the phrase: “If a thousand lives I had, gladly would I give them for my
nation.” And then was shot in the passage of the Plaza Mayor of Lima called
“Pasaje de Petateros”. Now there is a street called Pasaje Olaya.

Hipólito Unanue

José Hipólito Unanue y Pavón (August 13, 1755–July 15, 1833) was a physician,
naturalist, meteorologist, cosmographer, First Minister of Finance of Peru,
Minister of Foreign affairs, Protomédico (equivalent to Minister of health
combines with head of "Escuela de Medicina del Peru"), university professor,
founder of the San Fernando Medical School (now the Medicine faculty of San
Marcos University), representative of Arequipa in the Cádiz Cortes, President of
the Junta de Gobierno (highest executive power in the Peruvian government at
that time), President of the first Peruvian congress, Protector of the province of
Arequipa (during the Spanish Empire), independence precursor and a Peruvian
politician, active in politics in the early years after independence.

He was one of the founders of Sociedad Académica de Amantes del País in 1790.

In 1824 he was a government functionary as Finance minister for a short period of

time. His contributions to Peruvian science were "largely forgotten," during the
turbulent period of Peruvian independence.