Lircay, Battle of

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Lircay, Battle of

Battle of Lircay (17 April 1830), a seminal military encounter which brought the Conservative Party to power in Chile. Tired of political unrest, a combination of Conservative and regional interests selected General Joaquín Prieto Vial to lead a coup. Pro-government forces under General Ramón Freire Serrano advanced from Santiago, only to be defeated at the Lircay River. The Conservative triumph, while perhaps issuing in what became known as the "weight of the night" ended the political anarchy that had plagued Chile since the fall of Bernardo O'Higgins in 1823. After Lircay, Chile would enjoy stability, albeit at some substantial damage to political rights, that would bring economic recovery and national progress.

See alsoChile, Political Parties: Conservative Party .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Luis Galdames, A History of Chile (1941), p. 236.

Simon Collier, Ideas and Politics of Chilean Independence, 1808–1833 (1967), pp. 327-328, 348.

Additional Bibliography

Collier, Simon. Chile: The Making of a Republic, 1830–1865. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Eyzaguirre, Jaime. Historía de Chile. 2 v. in 1. Santiago, Zig-Zag, 1973.

                                            William F. Sater

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