Quick Facts
- NAME: José de San Martín
- OCCUPATION: Military Leader, Political Leader
- BIRTH DATE: February 25, 1778
- DEATH DATE: August 17, 1850
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Yapeyú, Argentina
- PLACE OF DEATH: Boulogne-sur-Mer, France
Best Known For
Argentine soldier, statesman, and national hero José de San Martín helped lead the revolutions against Spanish rule in Argentina, Chile and Peru.
José de San Martín. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 12:39, Feb 09, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154
José de San Martín [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154, February 09
" José de San Martín." 2012. Biography.com 09 Feb 2012, 12:39 http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154
' José de San Martín', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154 [accessed Feb 09, 2012]
" José de San Martín," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154 (accessed Feb 09, 2012).
José de San Martín [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 09]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154.
José de San Martín, http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
José de San Martín, http://www.biography.com/people/jos%C3%A9-de-san-mart%C3%ADn-37154 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Synopsis
(born , Feb. 25, 1778, Yapey, viceroyalty of Río de la Plata [now in Argentina]—died Aug. 17, 1850, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Fr.) Argentine soldier, statesman, and national hero who helped lead the revolutions against Spanish rule in Argentina (1812), Chile (1818), and Peru (1821).
Early life and career
San Martín's father, Juan de San Martín, a professional soldier, was administrator of Yapey, formerly a Jesuit mission station in Guaraní Indian territory, on the northern frontier of Argentina. His mother, Gregoria Matorras, was also Spanish. The family returned to Spain when José was six. From 1785 to 1789 he was educated at the Seminary of Nobles in Madrid, leaving there to begin his military career as a cadet in the Murcia infantry regiment. For the next 20 years he was a loyal officer of the Spanish monarch, fighting against the Moors in Oran (1791); against the British (1798), who held him captive for more than a year; and against the Portuguese in the War of the Oranges (1801). He was made captain in 1804.
The turning point in San Martín's career came in 1808, following Napoleon's occupation of Spain and the subsequent patriotic uprising against the French there. For two years he served the Sevilla (Seville) junta that was conducting the war on behalf of the imprisoned Spanish king Ferdinand VII. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel for his conduct in the Battle of Bailén (1808) and was elevated to command of the Sagunto Dragoons after the Battle of Albuera (1811). Instead of taking up his new post, he sought permission to go to Lima, the capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, but traveled by way of London to Buenos Aires, which had become the principal centre of resistance in South America to the Sevilla junta and its successor, the Cádiz-based Council of Regency. There, in the year 1812, San Martín was given the task of organizing a corps of grenadiers against the Spanish royalists centred in Peru who threatened the revolutionary government in Argentina.
One possible explanation for this startling change of allegiance on the part of a soldier who had sworn fealty to Spain is that it was prompted by British sympathizers with the independence movement in Spanish America and that San Martín was recruited through the agency of James Duff, 4th Earl of Fife, who had fought in Spain (and who caused San Martín to be made a freeman of Banff, Scot.). In later years, San Martín averred that he had sacrificed his career in Spain because he had responded to the call of his native land, and this is the view taken by Argentinian historians. Undoubtedly, peninsular Spanish prejudice against anyone born in the Indies must have rankled throughout his career in Spain and caused him to identify himself with the creole revolutionaries.
In the service of the Buenos Aires government, San Martín distinguished himself as a trainer and leader of soldiers, and, after winning a skirmish against loyalist forces at San Lorenzo, on the right bank of the Paraná River (Feb. 3, 1813), he was
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