Bernard O’Higgins, the Chilean revolutionary, was born at Chillán in 1778 and was the illegitimate son of Ambrose O’Higgins, Spain’s Irish-born viceroy of Chile and Peru.
The younger O’Higgins played a great part in the Chilean revolt of 1810-1817, and became known as the ‘Liberator of Chile’.
During 1817-1823 he was the new republic’s first president.
His exhortation “Live with honour or die with glory. He who is brave, follow me” is still honoured in modern Chile.
General Bernard O´Higgins 1778 – 1842
founder and first President of the Republic of Chile
Of all the leaders of the ‘patriotic armies’ that fought to end Spanish rule in South America the most famous is undoubtedly Simon Bolivar (‘The Liberator’),
and he came to rely heavily on the Irish ‘wild geese’ that fought for him during his campaigns –
he later referred to the Irish as “Salvadores de mi Patria!” (saviours of my country).
Simon Bolivar with an Irish rifleman and an Irish hussar
The story of Simon Bolivar’s ‘Irish Legion’ that won fame in Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia actually starts in London in 1817 –
as the wars of liberation in South America provided many ex-soldiers of the British army (the biggest proportion of whom were Irish)
with an opportunity to continue their military careers and escape from the prospect of inactivity (and poverty) at home.
The Brits were drastically reducing the strength of their army after the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.
And, as one of the Duke of Wellington’s former Irish officers put it after being retired upon half-pay, it was ‘......South America, flags, banners, glory, and riches!’
Irish infantry repelling French cavalry - Waterloo 1815
The ‘British’ volunteers (the largest proportion was Irish and, given the composition of the British army of those times, this was no coincidence) were recruited in London in 1817
by one of Bolivar’s agents, Luis Lopez Mendez.
During April 1817 Mendez had asked for an interview at the British Foreign Office, perhaps to hear what the official view would be to the recruitment of British volunteers,
and it was around this time that the victor of Waterloo, Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington (a Protestant Irishman), arrived in London on a visit from his army occupation duties in Paris.
It has since been suggested that this was no coincidence, and that Wellington was already putting his mind to the problem of disbanding his large army of occupation.
It is almost certain that Wellington gave more than a passing thought to the possibility of a large number of his men joining the patriot armies in South America
as a way of easing his problem of demobilisation. (And, the idea of tens of thousands of battle-hardened Irish veterans returning from France to an rather ‘unsettled’ Ireland,
was not particularly ‘appealing’ to the English ‘establishment’.)
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
Britain’s greatest EVER general - an Irishman
The Irish volunteers were encouraged by promises of pay equivalent to what they were receiving in the British army and by promotion to one rank above that which they had held in Britain’s service.
Pay was to commence upon arrival in Venezuela, and when the call was heard on the streets of London and Dublin thousands began to volunteer for the expedition and
soon the first regiments began to take shape, amongst which were the 1st and 2nd Venezuelan Hussars and the 1st Venezuelan Lancers.
One of the first to join the ranks of the 2nd Venezuelan Hussars was Daniel Florence O’Leary, who later rose to the rank of general after many years service as aide-de-camp to Simon Bolivar,
and whose memoirs are now recognised as one of the most important sources for the study of the independence campaigns in South America.
The first major detachment of ‘British’ volunteers destined for Venezuela were:
* the 1st Venezuelan Hussars - 30 officers and 160 non-commissioned officers, commanded by Colonel Gustavus Hippisley (an Englishman);
* the 2nd Venezuelan Hussars (the ‘Red Hussars’) - 20 officers and 100
non-commissioned officers, commanded by Colonel Henry Wilson (an
Irishman);
* the 1st Venezuelan Lancers - 20 officers and 200 non-commissioned
officers, commanded by Colonel Robert Skeene (an Englishman);
* the 1st Venezuelan Rifles - 37 officers and 200 non-commissioned
officers, commanded by Colonel Donald Campbell (an Irishman); and
* the Brigade of Artillery -10 officers and 80 non-commissioned officers,
commanded by Colonel Joseph Gilmour (an Irishman) with five 6-
pounders and one 5½ howitzer.
Venezuelan Hussars of the Irish Legion
The formation of the regiments was not without problems, and it wasn’t long before the Spanish authorities in London began their protests to the British government,
calling on it to prohibit British subjects from taking part in the contest between Spain and the South American patriotic armies.
However, in spite of many problems, the 5 ‘British’ volunteer regiments comprising the first contingent finally embarked for South America in December 1817.
Unfortunately for the 1st Venezuelan Hussars, under Colonel Skeene, their transport ship the ‘Indian’ went down in a storm with a loss of 300 lives, thus depleting the force somewhat.
A second contingent of volunteers was soon dispatched from England, which was also largely composed of Irish veterans of the Napoleonic wars.
In Dublin, Daniel O’Connell, the brilliant orator and lawyer who was leading the Irish Catholics in their campaign for civil rights and Irish Independence from Britain,
wrote to Bolivar that he saw The Liberator’s war with Spain as paralleling the Ireland’s own struggle with England.
He roused moral and financial support for Bolivar and sent his 15 year old son, Morgan, to fight for South America’s liberation and Bolivar’s grand vision for the continent.
“Hitherto,” O’Connell wrote to Bolivar, “I have been able to bestow only good wishes upon that noble cause.
But now I have a son able to wield a sword in its defence, and I send him, illustrious Sir, to admire and profit by your example.”
With this letter in hand, Captain Morgan O’Connell landed at Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela on the 12th of June 1820
and presented himself for duty as the Irish Legion’s youngest officer.
The struggle in far-off Venezuela evoked an age-old Irish tradition of sending its sons to serve in foreign wars.
Bolivar’s cause had struck a romantic chord in O’Connell, enabling him to set aside his well-known antipathy to bloodshed.
As O’Connell went, so went the rest of Ireland. In Dublin, supporters organized the ‘Irish Friends of South American Independence’ society,
and 2,000 of Ireland’s leading citizens attended that society’s banquet on the 19th of July 1819.
Attracted by posters and handbills, eager young men volunteered for the Irish Legion.
Daniel O’Connell sponsored fundraising events, and Mrs. O’Connell honoured the Irish Legion’s dashing cavalry regiment
with a public presentation of battle flags.
Not all those attracted to the Irish Legion shared the O’Connell's noble motives.
Indeed, an embarrassing problem began with the Legion’s ‘commander’, John Devereux (County Wexford) –
who had been living in exile in the USA following his participation in the bloody 1798 Irish Rebellion.
A self-styled major-general in the Army of Venezuela, Devereux had no formal military training or experience.
Outfitted in a dazzling uniform and carrying a jewel-studded sword, Devereux was a poster-perfect recruiting agent.
But when his Irish recruits sailed off for war in South America, Devereux remained behind,
living handsomely off the fees he charged Irish officers for their commissions in the Legion.
While working as a supercargo - the commercial officer on a merchant ship - several years previously,
Devereux met Bolivar when his vessel called at the Colombian port of Cartagena in 1815.
Sensing a business opportunity, Devereux offered to raise a force of 5,000 men with arms, ammunition and stores.
Bolivar promised him $175 for each soldier who reached Venezuela.
After returning to Ireland and ingratiating himself with Daniel O’Connell, Devereux exploited the Irish patriot’s prestige to further his moneymaking scheme.
While the Irish Legion attracted many professional soldiers, Devereux also opened the ranks to ne’er-do-wells and idlers.
Although he knew that Bolivar’s local soldiers served without pay, Devereux promised Irish recruits one-third more than the British Army was paying.
And he sealed the deals with visions of land grants and cash bonuses at campaign’s conclusion.
O’Connell could not so easily dismiss the misadventures of his protégé John Devereux. Returning veterans of the Irish Legion accused Devereux of cowardice,
greed and betrayal.
Bolivar’s naval commander wrote to the Dublin newspapers, bitterly describing Devereux’s recruits as bandits.
Embarrassed and in fear for his life, Devereux finally set out for Venezuela.
After searching fruitlessly for his Irish Legion at the port of Riohacha in Columbia and at the British colony of Jamaica,
Devereux reached Margarita Island off Venezuela.
Here, at least, the rogue’s reputation had not preceded him.
Strutting around in a field marshal’s uniform, and waving his jewel-encrusted sword, he threatened personal vengeance on every Spaniard in South America.
Margarita Island
Despite his record, the wily Wexford man managed to re-ingratiate himself with Simon Bolivar.
On reaching Bogota, Devereux was made a member of Bolivar’s general staff.
Displaying a blind spot equal to Daniel O’Connell’s, Bolivar forgave the con man and confirmed him in the rank of major general.
Undeterred by the fact that he had not set eyes on his troops since they left Ireland, Devereux busied himself collecting the commissions promised him
for the men and materiel of his Irish Legion.
Throughout his service under Bolivar, Devereux managed to arrive at engagements too late to see combat, but never too late to claim credit for victory.
Later, Devereux filed a disability claim for injury to his eyesight during field service in Colombia, even though he was safely in Bogota at the time.
By 1824, when he returned to Europe, Devereux had amassed a large fortune for those times of £150,000.
Despite this ‘splendid sufficiency,’ as he described his ill-gotten gains to Daniel O’Connell, he busied himself promoting mining ventures and
other moneymaking schemes in South America.
In stark contrast to his recruits, Devereux lived to the ripe old age of 82, when he died in the fashionable Mayfair district of London’s wealthy west end.
Nonetheless, in spite of all John Devereux’s mischief, and after a 4,500-mile sea voyage from Dublin about 1,000 men of the ‘Irish Legion’ did reach Margarita Island,
off the coast of Venezuela, in August 1819.
However they paid very dearly for Devereux’s double-dealing; Venezuelan officials, unaware that the Irish were coming, had readied neither housing nor rations.
Bolivar, with barely $1,000 in his treasury, could not pay the Irishmen.
The island was a hot, unhealthy place for fair-skinned European soldiers, with unsuitable quarters and a lack of water.
Food was so scarce that many of the Irish cut the buttons from their uniforms in order to pass them off as money to the local people in payment for bread and fruit.
To make matters worse, typhus fever, which was raging in England and Ireland at the time, broke out and others were struck down by yellow fever.
The combination of heat, humidity and impure water provided a perfect breeding ground for disease.
Dysentery, typhus and yellow fever decimated the ranks.
Uniforms and boots deteriorated quickly, leaving many men barefoot and half-naked.
Insect bites and thorn punctures turned infectious, and surgeons amputated limbs wasted by tropical ulcers and gangrene.
The Margarita’s sandy beaches became Irish graveyards.
Every day, burial parties carried the bodies of 10 to 20 men to the shore, interring them in crude coffins fashioned from wooden barrel staves.
Within five weeks some 250 men, women and children had died.
By this time, Gilmour (one of the Irish colonels) had recruited about 100 natives and after some intense drilling had managed to weld them into a fairly cohesive unit.
They sheltered beneath tents made from canvas which had been used by the British army in the ‘Peninsular War’ during the Wellington’s campaign
against the French in Spain.
Language barriers inhibited communication with their new commander, General Mariano Montilla, who spoke no English.
What the Irish Legion wanted most of all, however, was a spell of action and it came as a great relief when, on the 14th of July 1819,
the whole force of about 1,000 ‘British’ (mostly IRISH) and 300 natives at last sailed for the mainland of Venezuela.
Bolivar employed the Irish Legion as an amphibious raiding force, harassing royalist garrisons on the north coast of Colombia
to distract enemy attention from his own inland campaign.
The Irish completed their first assignment in style, landing from their ships in rough surf and charging an enemy stronghold
in the seaside town of Riohacha.
With the Spanish Royalists right royally routed, the Irish Legion hoisted its flag high over Riohacha’s fortress and occupied the town.
Riohacha
From Riohacha, General Montilla was ordered to force-march the Irish Legion southeast across the desolate Guajira Peninsula toward the Venezuelan town of Maracaibo.
But Guajira Indians, armed by the Spanish, put up fierce resistance.
They wiped out the advance guard in an ambush, and picked off stragglers who were searching for water.
One detachment of Irish, left behind to guard the column’s rear, burned to death when Indians set fire to their huts.
Outnumbered and out manoeuvred, General Montilla ordered a retreat.
No sooner had the Irish Legion reached Riohacha that they were besieged by an enemy force of 1,700.
The Irish Lancers, under the command of Colonel Francis Burdett O’Connor (County Cork), provided a last minute counter-attack and saved the day.
Supported by two field guns and a company of sharpshooters, O’Connor led his men in a headlong charge that sent the enemy fleeing.
The feat was all the more remarkable in that the Irish Lancers, supposedly light cavalry, at this stage had not a horse among them.
some relics of Riohacha’s old fortress
Delighted with O’Connor’s bravery, General Montilla ordered another advance, declaring that his Irishmen could overwhelm even the largest royalist force.
But Montilla’s caution soon overcame his confidence: at the first sign of resistance, he again signalled a retreat.
The general’s prudence frustrated the headstrong Irish, still nursing grievances over lack of pay and shortages of water.
Discontent now turned to open mutiny in the ranks. Refusing to take orders from General Montilla, many demanded to be returned to Ireland.
When Montilla tried to starve them into submission discipline collapsed; the soldiers ransacked towns and villages,
looting valuables and drinking all the alcohol they could find.
Fires broke out. And, before they could be extinguished, the power magazine in the fort blew up … and the town burned to the ground.
Although other, non-Irish soldiers were also involved in the incident, General Montilla blamed all the destruction on the Irish Legion.
Furious, he ordered the mutineers expelled to the British colony of Jamaica.
“The soldiers,” wrote the general, “have combined dishonour with barbarity, for they requited the friendship and
kindness of the inhabitants of Riohacha by setting fire to the town.”
Montilla’s assessment was by no means unanimous.
Colonel O’Connor, whose Irish Lancers remained loyal, acknowledged that the mutineers’ complaints - if not their behaviour - were perfectly justified.
Another contemporary observer laid the blame on Montilla’s timid brand of leadership, as well as his inexperience in managing
“such turbulent spirits” as the Irish.
Captain Charles Brown in his ‘Narrative of the Expedition to South America’ (London, 1819) says of General Montilla, “he is a man of considerable talent …
but is false and intriguing, and very little respected.” General Montilla had no love for his Irish Legion and treated them harshly.
Naturally the general had the last word, and O’Connor’s men had the thankless task of disarming their compatriots and loading them
onto transport ships at bayonet-point.
On the 4th of June 1820, some 300 ‘mutineers’ sailed for Jamaica.
Was it a last laugh or a cruel cynicism of the times?
General Mariano Montillo got in touch with the British Colonial government in Jamaica and sold 300 Irish ‘mutineers’
into the virtual slavery of the British Army.
The deal was cast on the 4th of June 1820, and General Montillo, himself, pocketed the proceeds!
General Mariano Montilla
Although the ‘mutiny’ at Riohacha marked the end of the Irish Legion as an integral unit, many Irish soldiers went on to distinguish themselves in Bolivar’s service.
Foremost among them was Colonel Francis Burdett O’Connor.
Battle of Carabobo, June 1821
Colonel O’Connor’s Irish Lancers, reformed after the fighting at Riocacha and the sale of the ‘mutineers’ to the British Army in Jamaica,
were finally given horses and rode to successfully besiege the ports of Cartagena and Santa Marta.
The Irish Lancers repulsed a royalist counterattack on General Montilla’s headquarters at Cartagena, and were in the thick of bloody fighting at
Santa Marta that left 690 royalists dead.
Afterwards, Colonel O’Connor personally accepted the surrender of the city.
scenes from old Cartagena
After the Liberation of Colombia, Colonel Francis Burdett O’Connor and his Irish Lancers went south to participate in the Peruvian campaign of
General Antonio Jose de Sucre.
As General Sucre’s chief of staff, this Irish officer set the strategy for the battle of Ayacucho, which was the death knell for Spanish rule in South America.
In recognition of his gallantry at Ayacucho and his distinguished service on the staff, O’Connor was promoted to the rank of General.
Battle of Ayacucho
In was in Peru, that O’Connor’s Irish Lancers met their end.
The regiment, 170 strong when it charged at Riohacha, could muster fewer than 100 at the end of the Colombian campaign.
By 1824, death and disease had reduced the unit to one enlisted man.
This sole survivor, a young trumpeter named Patrick, was stricken with a fatal fever in the Peruvian mining village of Recuay.
In his memoirs, O’Connor related how young Patrick, with the 17th of March approaching, struggled to survive until his saint’s day, and then gave up the fight.
One of Ferguson’s most spectacular exploits was his forced march over the Andes from Peru to Venezuela in late 1826, with a small force of 120 men.
The purpose of this mission was to put an end to a revolt by General Paez, when Bolivar was absent in Peru,
and Ferguson was tasked with announcing the Liberator’s intention of marching on the rebellious Paez.
After reaching the border of Venezuela, Ferguson found that his companions were exhausted and unable to continue.
Undeterred, he rode on alone and, after a series of single-handed confrontations with military and civilian administrators,
he persuaded a significant number of the rebellious officers and soldiers to remain loyal to Bolivar.
Subsequently, the rebellious General submitted to Bolivar and Ferguson went on to receive the gratitude of his chief, when he joined him in Caracas.
General O’Connor, at General Sucre’s side, went on to liberate Upper Peru and establish there the new nation of Bolivia.
General O’Connor became a Bolivian citizen, and after the war of Independence he became Minister of War in Bolivia, under General Santa Cruz’s presidency –
and later became Governor of Tarija, a post which he held for many years.
He was a man of aristocratic tastes and traditions, distinguished manners and inflexible integrity.
He claimed direct descent from Roderic O’Conor Don, the last High King of Ireland (1180 A.D.)
General O’Connor never returned to Ireland, he lived out his life as a gentleman farmer and family man in his adopted nation, dying at his estancia in 1870.
A wartime friend once suggested that O’Connor invest his money in England. “The English,” retorted O’Connor,
“forced my father off the family farm in Ireland. So I will keep my savings safely in Bolivia.”
O’Connor had come to South America as an ensign in the Irish Legion.
He was made a lieutenant of the ‘Albion’ regiment, and fought all through the campaigns of Venezuela and Colombia between 1819 and 1824.
He won a promotion on every battle field until his regiment was reduced to a handful of men.
He then raised a regiment at his own expense and arrived in Peru in command of it, with the rank of Colonel.
Just three years previously had seen the decisive battle on the plains of Carabobo (1821), where many Irish lives were sacrificed for Venezuela’s liberation.
During this critical battle the misnamed ‘British’ Battalion saw Spanish royalist forces had Bolivar’s cavalry pinned down,
and with typical Irish impetuosity they took the initiative to rout the royalist forces and save the day for Bolivar …
but there was a bloody ‘butcher’s bill’ and heavy Irish casualties.
Battle of Carabobo
In their supreme sacrifice for Venezuela, the so-called ‘British’ Legion lost all of its Irish officers killed or severely wounded and,
led by an Irish Sergeant, they captured the city of Carabobo for Bolivar’s patriot forces.
Honouring the dead and wounded, Simon Bolivar re-named the ‘British’ Legion ‘The Carabobo Battalion’ and conceded it the exclusive and
perpetual privilege to parade with bayonets fixed.
The Irish volunteers had a huge impact of Simon Bolivar and he respected them deeply –
indeed one of them, Lieutenant-Colonel William Ferguson from County Antrim, died defending Bolivar.
While still in his twentieth-nine year, William Ferguson was on duty at Bogotá as aide-de-camp to General Bolívar when a plot
was hatched against the General.
On the 28th of September 1828 William was shot and mortally wounded.
He had been engaged to the daughter of José Manuel Tatis of Cartagena, treasurer in Bolívar's army.
After his death the people of Bogotá honoured William Ferguson with a State funeral and buried his remains in the city’s cathedral,
and erected a handsome monument which bears a grateful inscription to ‘Colonel Guillermo Fergusson’.
Colonel Ferguson’s uniform on display in the ‘Soldiers & Chiefs Exhibition’
National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin
Bolivar appointed a Dr. Thomas Foley (from County Kerry) as Inspector General of his Military Hospitals.
General Daniel Florence O’Leary (1801–1854)
inscription reads: “Erected with the generous support of the Venezuelan Government
& presented to the people of Cork on 12th May 2010”
Daniel Florence O’Leary, a son of County Cork, won Bolivar’s highest esteem.
After observing the young Cork man in action, Bolivar made O’Leary his personal aide-de-camp.
As a member of Bolivar’s headquarters, O’Leary attained the rank of brigadier general and played a key role in plotting political and
military strategy.
O’Leary’s keen historical instincts, combined with his meticulous collection of war documents, has earned this Irishman a place of
honour in Latin America’s history.
His memoirs, published in Caracas by his son, Simon Bolivar O’Leary, fill 32 volumes.
This extraordinary compilation of eyewitness accounts, correspondence and documents has proved an indispensable resource for
every subsequent biographer and historian of the South American Independence period.
In Colombia, where O’Leary died in 1854, a bust of the Irish hero overlooks a plaza in Bogotá.
In 1882, the Venezuelan government removed O’Leary’s remains to its own capital, Caracas.
There, with the highest public honours, this Irish soldier was laid to rest in the National Pantheon,
the sacred burial place of Bolivar himself.
Colonel Arthur Sandes
Another notable Irishman in the service of Bolivar was Arthur Sandes.
Arthur was born in 1793 in County Kerry and fought as a British officer at the Battle of Waterloo.
He left the British army in 1815 and two years later joined the forces of Simon Bolivar.
Initially Arthur commanded the Irish ‘Black Rifles’ Battalion in the South American wars of independence.
And, after achieving great distinction during the critical battle of Ayacucho,
Colonel Sandes was promoted to Brigadier General.
Battle of Ayacucho
Arthur was then appointed as second-in-command of a patriot division, which also included his famous Irish ‘Black Rifles’
amongst that division’s fighting units.
Following the end of the war of independence, Lima overthrew its pro-Bolivarian government and
got rid of Bolivia’s military garrison.
Arthur was immediately appointed as Commandant General of the port of Guayaquil (December 1827).
During 1828 Arthur fought for Columbia in the war against Peru.
After organising Guayaquil’s harbour defences, he led one of the two Colombian divisions at the battle of
Portete de Tarqui (27th of February 1829).
This Colombian victory decided the outcome of the war between Columbia and Peru.
With peace restored, Arthur was appointed Governor of the Department of Azuay and settled in Cuenca.
He died in this city on the 6th of September 1832 and was buried in a Carmelite convent.
With regard to his personal life, O’Connor mentioned in his journals that Arthur Sandes and General Sucre
both coveted the hand of the daughter of the Marquis of Solanda, a beautiful young lady from Quito.
With characteristic chivalry, the Venezuelan General declined to use his more senior rank to press his advantage over the Irishman
(Arthur was still only a colonel at that time).
These two gentlemen agreed the winner of a card game would propose to the girl, the loser would withdraw from the race.
General Sucre won and married his sweetheart, but marital bliss proved fleeting: as the Marshal of Ayacucho was assassinated
in Berruecos in 1830.
Arthur never married, but some of his descendants were said to have been living in Venezuela as recently as 1911
(this is not necessarily a contradiction!).
Ecuador still remembers her adopted Irish son.
There is an Avenida Sandes in Cuenca and the Irishman’s name is engraved on the monument at Portete de Tarqui.
The Battle of Boyaca
Throughout South America’s liberation history you’ll find more records of the Irish than the English …
1,000 men of the IRISH LEGION landed on Margarita Island in Venezuela in August 1819.
And 2,100 more Irish soldiers reached Venezuela in organized Irish regiments during the next years.
A further 12,000 were to follow in their footsteps to secure liberty for South America from brutal Spanish colonialism.
In addition, the rosters of so-called ‘British’ units in Simon Bolivar’s liberation army were also studded with such names as
Murphy, Larkin, Egan, Casey, Lanagan, Doyle and McCarthy, testifying to the presence of hundreds of additional Irish troops.
A modern travesty of history is that the so-called ‘BRITISH Legion’ which is honoured in Venezuela
at each year’s Anniversary of the Battle of Carabobo (24 June 1821), was in fact mostly IRISH !
The truth remains that the overwhelming
proportion of the anglophones were IRISH.
Britain's then colonial connection with the
Emerald Isle has unfortunately perpetuated the
‘British’ misnomer, and dogged historical fact.
