Miguel Iglesias
Encyclopedia
Miguel Iglesias Pino de Arce (June 11, 1830, Cajamarca
, Peru
– November 7, 1909, Lima
, Peru) was a Peru
vian soldier and politician who held the presidency of Peru in 1883-5.
The original name of the family was de la Iglesia. Their ancestor was Captain Alvaro de la Iglesia who fought against the Moors
in Spain in the 8th century. Lorenzo Iglesias Espinach left his home town of Solivella
in Catalonia
in the early 19th century to join three uncles on his mother's side who had founded the Chota silver mine, near the town of Cajamarca
, in the county of the same name,in north Peru, in 1780. Lorenzo Iglesias Espinach became both the heir of his uncles and sub-Prefect of Cajamarca; was a friend of Simón Bolívar who stayed with him in Cajamarca; and was one of the group of dissident Spanish colonists who supported independence from Spain. In 1820 Lorenzo Iglesias married Rosa Pino and their son, Miguel, was born ten years later.
Miguel Iglesias Pino, later General and President, and known to posterity as "El Pacificador" inherited a 250000 acres (1,011.7 km²) estate from his forbears, as well as lucrative silver mines. His power in the town of Cajamarca and the surrounding area was that of a feudal magnate and he had been recruiting troops with his own money - effectively a private army - since the 1866 war with Spain. He had been one of the senior army officers present at the Peruvian victory on the "Dos de mayo", was given the rank of Colonel, and named as Prefect of Cajamarca. In 1874, Iglesias initiated a revolution against the government of President Manuel Pardo
and proclaimed himself political and military Chief of the North. Even though Iglesias's rebellion was a failure, he was not brought to account because no-one in Lima
dared to confront the power of Iglesias in Cajamarca. Thus, Iglesias was able to consolidate his position in his northern Peruvian fiefdom. When war broke out in 1879, between a coalition of Peru allied with Bolivia
, ranged against Chile
, Iglesias commenced to raise a new private militia.
The war, now known as the War of the Pacific
, quickly began to go wrong for Peru. In the campaign of November 1879 the Peruvian Navy
had their two most important warships sunk by Chilean ironclads which had been supplied to Chile by British shipyards; the southern department of Tarapacá
was overrun; and the professional Peruvian army was broken. Subsequently, Iglesias's friend, Nicolás de Piérola
, launched a successful coup d'etat
, declaring himself Supreme Commander in Chief, and on December 23, 1879 he replaced President Prado
who was considered to have mismanaged the conduct of the war thus far. One of the battalions lending their armed support to Pierola was Iglesias's "Vencedores de Cajamarca" and Pierola appointed Iglesias as Secretary of War in his new government.
Iglesias was no armchair politician, but was a courageous fighting soldier. Iglesias personally took charge of organising the defense of the Peruvian capital city against the advancing Chileans in January 1881. Iglesias's principal defensive lines were at the Morro Solar, a hill just south of Lima. He had 5000 men, mostly recruited from Cajamarca, who had been trained and armed by him at his own expense to defend Lima. After the Peruvian Second Division had been forced to retreat from San Juan, the battle for Lima became concentrated on the Morro Solar. The first Chilean assault on the hill was repulsed but Chilean reinforcements and artillery were then brought up. Iglesias found himself surrounded, and outnumbered, by 9000 Chilean troops and came under a withering barrage. Because the professional Peruvian army had previously been decimated in the south, losing much of its most modern equipment in the process, Iglesias had only primitive, Peruvian manufactured, rifles which were without adequate sights and were inferior to the Chilean Krupps. Of the men who defended the Morro Solar only 280 were taken prisoner. Among those killed was Igleasias's son Alejandro, aged 22. Miguel Iglesias was taken prisoner along with Carlos de Pierola, the brother of the President, and Guillermo Billinghurst
, Secretary of State. These three men, along with other important Peruvian notables, were about to be shot by a firing squad on the orders of a Chilean sergeant who did not believe in keeping prisoners alive. Just in time, Billinghurst stepped forward out of the execution line and managed to persuade the sergeant that he would do better to take them as prisoners to the Chilean commander, General Baquedano. Billinghurst and Iglesias were later Presidents of Peru, instead of corpses - such is Providence.
After the defeat on the Morro Solar, Chile did not recognize Pierola as President and replaced him with a puppet in Lima's presidential palace. Having escaped back to Cajamarca, Iglesias continued the war against Chile in the north of Peru, whilst General Andres Avelino Caceres
fought on against the Chileans in the Andes. On the Morro Solar, Iglesias had declared "I will not give in; I will fight while I can" and now saw his mission as "to search out and defeat the enemy wherever we meet him". He achieved a victory over the Chileans at San Pablo, Cajamarca
, on 13 July 1882 but soon afterwards a fresh Chilean force reoccupied the region and carried out brutal reprisals. Following this, Iglesias became convinced that the war had to be brought to an end if Peru was not to be completely devastated.
Iglesias has been severely judged by Peruvian historians because he represented blunt reality as he saw that the fundamental question was whether Peru was going to exist as a nation, or not. Iglesias saw that a few more years of prolonged occupation of Peru by Chile would render Peru into a colony of Chile, rather than a sovereign nation. Because he saw this so clearly he decided to convene a congress of the northern departments of Peru to proclaim him president of the whole country and him empower him with authority to negotiate with the Chileans. This claim to the Presidency recognised by Chile, Iglesias proceeded to the small seaside resort of Ancon
, a short distance from Lima, to fulfill his grim mission of statesmanship. On 23 October 1883 Igleasias signed the Treaty of Ancon
on behalf of Peru thereby ending the hostilities. The Treaty had fourteen clauses. Peru paid with Tarapacá
as war reparations while the southern department of Arica
and Tacna
was to decide in a referendum, to be held ten years hence, whether it wanted to join Chile or remain part of Peru.
When he signed the Treaty of Ancon, Miguel Iglesias expected that his efforts to spare Peru further suffering, in a lost cause, would be rewarded with popular gratitude. It took him almost two years to understand that most Peruvians could not admire the man who had made himself the symbol of their resounding defeat. Iglesias initiated the restoration of the national library which had been sacked by the Chileans, but he did not discover a formula for rebuilding Peru's political institutions. Unable to win allies through the judicious use of money, because of the depleted state of the national treasury, Iglesias turned to increasingly repressive measures to silence the opposition, and his opponents fought back. On 27 August 1884, guerrilla fighters launched an armed assault against Lima and almost managed to fight their way into the presidential palace. The tenacious defense of Iglesias threw back the attackers at the last barricade but they returned to the outskirts of Lima just over a year later. This time large numbers of the ordinary citizens of Lima decided to throw in their lot with the guerrillas and Iglesias realised the full degree to which he lacked popular support. Deciding to avoid further bloodshed, Iglesias renounced the presidency in December 1885, took refuge on an Italian ship, and eventually reached his estate of Udima in Cajamarca.
Iglesias had decided to retire from political life, and dedicate himself to farming, but the new Peruvian Government wanted to see him out of the country and, thereby, severed from the Cajamarca power base from which Iglesias had been able repeatedly to relaunch himself in the past. It was insinuated that Iglesias should leave Peru and in 1886 he and his wife Maria (daughter of Manuel Alonso de Posadas) went into exile in Europe. They took a retinue of servants and socialised for two years in Madrid
and Paris. In 1888 the ban against Iglesias was lifted and he and his wife were able to return to Peru. President Caceres reinstated Iglesias as a General with full pay and sent the news to him by special messenger. However, in overall terms, Peru remained impoverished by its defeat in war and could only afford to give Iglesias a small engraved wooden box from the Peruvian nation by way of thanks for all the troops that he had paid for in the War of the Pacific.
A few years later, in 1895, the people of Cajamarca voted Iglesias in as their Senator in an uncontested election. Iglesias and his wife had eleven children and 1895 was also the year the General's youngest daughter, Gaudencia, married a Scot named Edgar Fraser Luckie who had made a fortune from gold mining in British Guiana
and then bought the Andahuasi sugar farming estate near Sayan, north of Lima.
Cajamarca
Cajamarca may refer to:Colombia*Cajamarca, Tolima a town and municipality in Tolima DepartmentPeru* Cajamarca, city in Peru.* Cajamarca District, district in the Cajamarca province.* Cajamarca Province, province in the Cajamarca region....
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
– November 7, 1909, Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Peru) was a Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian soldier and politician who held the presidency of Peru in 1883-5.
The original name of the family was de la Iglesia. Their ancestor was Captain Alvaro de la Iglesia who fought against the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
in Spain in the 8th century. Lorenzo Iglesias Espinach left his home town of Solivella
Solivella
Solivella is a municipality in the comarca of the Conca de Barberà in Catalonia, Spain.Mentioned for the first time in a document from 1058, it rose around a castle, of which today only ruins remain...
in Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
in the early 19th century to join three uncles on his mother's side who had founded the Chota silver mine, near the town of Cajamarca
Cajamarca
Cajamarca may refer to:Colombia*Cajamarca, Tolima a town and municipality in Tolima DepartmentPeru* Cajamarca, city in Peru.* Cajamarca District, district in the Cajamarca province.* Cajamarca Province, province in the Cajamarca region....
, in the county of the same name,in north Peru, in 1780. Lorenzo Iglesias Espinach became both the heir of his uncles and sub-Prefect of Cajamarca; was a friend of Simón Bolívar who stayed with him in Cajamarca; and was one of the group of dissident Spanish colonists who supported independence from Spain. In 1820 Lorenzo Iglesias married Rosa Pino and their son, Miguel, was born ten years later.
Miguel Iglesias Pino, later General and President, and known to posterity as "El Pacificador" inherited a 250000 acres (1,011.7 km²) estate from his forbears, as well as lucrative silver mines. His power in the town of Cajamarca and the surrounding area was that of a feudal magnate and he had been recruiting troops with his own money - effectively a private army - since the 1866 war with Spain. He had been one of the senior army officers present at the Peruvian victory on the "Dos de mayo", was given the rank of Colonel, and named as Prefect of Cajamarca. In 1874, Iglesias initiated a revolution against the government of President Manuel Pardo
Manuel Pardo
Manuel Pardo y Lavalle was a Peruvian politician and the first civilian President of Peru.Born in Lima, Peru, he was the founder of the most important political party of the era...
and proclaimed himself political and military Chief of the North. Even though Iglesias's rebellion was a failure, he was not brought to account because no-one in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
dared to confront the power of Iglesias in Cajamarca. Thus, Iglesias was able to consolidate his position in his northern Peruvian fiefdom. When war broke out in 1879, between a coalition of Peru allied with Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, ranged against Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Iglesias commenced to raise a new private militia.
The war, now known as the War of the Pacific
War of the Pacific
The War of the Pacific took place in western South America from 1879 through 1883. Chile fought against Bolivia and Peru. Despite cooperation among the three nations in the war against Spain, disputes soon arose over the mineral-rich Peruvian provinces of Tarapaca, Tacna, and Arica, and the...
, quickly began to go wrong for Peru. In the campaign of November 1879 the Peruvian Navy
Peruvian Navy
The Peruvian Navy is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to 200 nautical miles from the Peruvian littoral...
had their two most important warships sunk by Chilean ironclads which had been supplied to Chile by British shipyards; the southern department of Tarapacá
Tarapacá
Tarapacá may refer to:*Tarapacá Province, Chile, a former province, now divided into**Tarapacá Region**Arica-Parinacota Region*Tarapacá Department , a former department of Peru...
was overrun; and the professional Peruvian army was broken. Subsequently, Iglesias's friend, Nicolás de Piérola
Nicolás de Piérola
H.E. Don Jose Nicolás Baltasar Fernández de Piérola y Villena was a prominent Peruvian politician, the Finance Minister and twice President of the Republic of Peru .-Early years:Nicolás de Piérola was born and educated in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa...
, launched a successful coup d'etat
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
, declaring himself Supreme Commander in Chief, and on December 23, 1879 he replaced President Prado
Mariano Ignacio Prado
Mariano Ignacio Prado Ochoa was twice the President of Peru, from 1865 to 1868 and 1876 to 1879).-Biography:Born in Huánuco in 1826, he entered the army at an early age and served in the provinces of Southern Peru....
who was considered to have mismanaged the conduct of the war thus far. One of the battalions lending their armed support to Pierola was Iglesias's "Vencedores de Cajamarca" and Pierola appointed Iglesias as Secretary of War in his new government.
Iglesias was no armchair politician, but was a courageous fighting soldier. Iglesias personally took charge of organising the defense of the Peruvian capital city against the advancing Chileans in January 1881. Iglesias's principal defensive lines were at the Morro Solar, a hill just south of Lima. He had 5000 men, mostly recruited from Cajamarca, who had been trained and armed by him at his own expense to defend Lima. After the Peruvian Second Division had been forced to retreat from San Juan, the battle for Lima became concentrated on the Morro Solar. The first Chilean assault on the hill was repulsed but Chilean reinforcements and artillery were then brought up. Iglesias found himself surrounded, and outnumbered, by 9000 Chilean troops and came under a withering barrage. Because the professional Peruvian army had previously been decimated in the south, losing much of its most modern equipment in the process, Iglesias had only primitive, Peruvian manufactured, rifles which were without adequate sights and were inferior to the Chilean Krupps. Of the men who defended the Morro Solar only 280 were taken prisoner. Among those killed was Igleasias's son Alejandro, aged 22. Miguel Iglesias was taken prisoner along with Carlos de Pierola, the brother of the President, and Guillermo Billinghurst
Guillermo Billinghurst
Guillermo Enrique Billinghurst Angulo was a Peruvian politician. He succeeded Augusto B. Leguía as President of Peru from 1912 to 1914. Billinghurst was of English descent...
, Secretary of State. These three men, along with other important Peruvian notables, were about to be shot by a firing squad on the orders of a Chilean sergeant who did not believe in keeping prisoners alive. Just in time, Billinghurst stepped forward out of the execution line and managed to persuade the sergeant that he would do better to take them as prisoners to the Chilean commander, General Baquedano. Billinghurst and Iglesias were later Presidents of Peru, instead of corpses - such is Providence.
After the defeat on the Morro Solar, Chile did not recognize Pierola as President and replaced him with a puppet in Lima's presidential palace. Having escaped back to Cajamarca, Iglesias continued the war against Chile in the north of Peru, whilst General Andres Avelino Caceres
Andrés Avelino Cáceres
Andrés Avelino Cáceres Dorregaray was three times President of Peru during the 19th century, from 1884 to 1885, then from 1886 to 1890, and again from 1894 to 1895...
fought on against the Chileans in the Andes. On the Morro Solar, Iglesias had declared "I will not give in; I will fight while I can" and now saw his mission as "to search out and defeat the enemy wherever we meet him". He achieved a victory over the Chileans at San Pablo, Cajamarca
San Pablo, Cajamarca
San Pablo is a town in Northern Peru, capital of the province San Pablo in the region Cajamarca....
, on 13 July 1882 but soon afterwards a fresh Chilean force reoccupied the region and carried out brutal reprisals. Following this, Iglesias became convinced that the war had to be brought to an end if Peru was not to be completely devastated.
Iglesias has been severely judged by Peruvian historians because he represented blunt reality as he saw that the fundamental question was whether Peru was going to exist as a nation, or not. Iglesias saw that a few more years of prolonged occupation of Peru by Chile would render Peru into a colony of Chile, rather than a sovereign nation. Because he saw this so clearly he decided to convene a congress of the northern departments of Peru to proclaim him president of the whole country and him empower him with authority to negotiate with the Chileans. This claim to the Presidency recognised by Chile, Iglesias proceeded to the small seaside resort of Ancon
Ancon
Ancon Building Products is a company that designs and manufactures Stainless steel products for the construction industry founded and still based in Sheffield, United Kingdom. The main products being "Wall Tie", and brickwork support systems. Ancon is part of Tyco International...
, a short distance from Lima, to fulfill his grim mission of statesmanship. On 23 October 1883 Igleasias signed the Treaty of Ancon
Treaty of Ancón
The Treaty of Ancón was signed by Chile and Peru on 20 October 1883, in the Ancón District near Lima. It was intended to settle the two nations' remaining territorial differences at the conclusion of their involvement in the War of the Pacific and to stabilise post-bellum relations between...
on behalf of Peru thereby ending the hostilities. The Treaty had fourteen clauses. Peru paid with Tarapacá
Tarapacá
Tarapacá may refer to:*Tarapacá Province, Chile, a former province, now divided into**Tarapacá Region**Arica-Parinacota Region*Tarapacá Department , a former department of Peru...
as war reparations while the southern department of Arica
Arica
Arica is a city in northern Chile. "Arica" may also refer to:Places* Arica and Parinacota Region, Chile* Arica Airport , Chile* Arica, Amazonas, town in Colombia* Rio Aricá-açu, tributary of the Cuiabá River south of Cuiabá, BrazilOther...
and Tacna
Tacna
- Rail :Tacna is served by a cross-border standard gauge railway to Arica, Chile.It is also the location of the National Railway Museum of Peru.-Air:Tacna is served by the Crnl. FAP...
was to decide in a referendum, to be held ten years hence, whether it wanted to join Chile or remain part of Peru.
When he signed the Treaty of Ancon, Miguel Iglesias expected that his efforts to spare Peru further suffering, in a lost cause, would be rewarded with popular gratitude. It took him almost two years to understand that most Peruvians could not admire the man who had made himself the symbol of their resounding defeat. Iglesias initiated the restoration of the national library which had been sacked by the Chileans, but he did not discover a formula for rebuilding Peru's political institutions. Unable to win allies through the judicious use of money, because of the depleted state of the national treasury, Iglesias turned to increasingly repressive measures to silence the opposition, and his opponents fought back. On 27 August 1884, guerrilla fighters launched an armed assault against Lima and almost managed to fight their way into the presidential palace. The tenacious defense of Iglesias threw back the attackers at the last barricade but they returned to the outskirts of Lima just over a year later. This time large numbers of the ordinary citizens of Lima decided to throw in their lot with the guerrillas and Iglesias realised the full degree to which he lacked popular support. Deciding to avoid further bloodshed, Iglesias renounced the presidency in December 1885, took refuge on an Italian ship, and eventually reached his estate of Udima in Cajamarca.
Iglesias had decided to retire from political life, and dedicate himself to farming, but the new Peruvian Government wanted to see him out of the country and, thereby, severed from the Cajamarca power base from which Iglesias had been able repeatedly to relaunch himself in the past. It was insinuated that Iglesias should leave Peru and in 1886 he and his wife Maria (daughter of Manuel Alonso de Posadas) went into exile in Europe. They took a retinue of servants and socialised for two years in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
and Paris. In 1888 the ban against Iglesias was lifted and he and his wife were able to return to Peru. President Caceres reinstated Iglesias as a General with full pay and sent the news to him by special messenger. However, in overall terms, Peru remained impoverished by its defeat in war and could only afford to give Iglesias a small engraved wooden box from the Peruvian nation by way of thanks for all the troops that he had paid for in the War of the Pacific.
A few years later, in 1895, the people of Cajamarca voted Iglesias in as their Senator in an uncontested election. Iglesias and his wife had eleven children and 1895 was also the year the General's youngest daughter, Gaudencia, married a Scot named Edgar Fraser Luckie who had made a fortune from gold mining in British Guiana
British Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...
and then bought the Andahuasi sugar farming estate near Sayan, north of Lima.