In June 1810 news arrived from Buenos Aires that Napoleon Bonaparte's forces had conquered Andalusia and laid siege to Cádiz, the last redoubt against the French on Spanish soil. Moreover, the Supreme Central Junta, which had governed the Empire for the past two years, had abolished itself in favor of a Regency Council. García Carrasco, who was a supporter of the carlotist group, managed to magnify the political problems by taking arbitrary and harsh measures, such as the arrest and deportation to Lima without due process of well-known and socially prominent citizens under simple suspicions of having been sympathetic to the junta idea. Among those arrested were José Antonio de Rojas, Juan Antonio Ovalle and Bernardo de Vera y Pintado.

Inspired by the May Revolution in Argentina, the autonomy movement had also propagated through the criollo elite. They resented the illegal arrests and, together with the news that Cádiz was all that was left of a free Spain, finally solidified in their opposition to the Governor. Brigadier García Carrasco was suspended from office and forced to resign on July 16, 1810, to be in turn replaced by the next most senior soldier, Mateo de Toro Zambrano Count of la Conquista, even though a legitimate Governor, Francisco Javier de Elío, had already been appointed by the Viceroy of Peru.

Count Toro Zambrano was, by all standards, a very unorthodox selection. He was a very old man already (82 years old at the time) and moreover a "criollo" (someone born in the colonies) as opposed to a "peninsular" (someone born in Spain). Immediately after his appointment in July, the juntistas began to lobby him in order to obtain the formation of a junta. In August the Royal Appeals Court (Spanish: Real Audiencia) took a public loyalty oath to the Regency Council in front of a massive audience, which put added pressure on the Governor to define himself. After vacillating for some time over which party to follow, Toro Zambrano finally agreed to hold an open Cabildo (city hall) meeting in Santiago to discuss the issue. The date was set for September 18, 1810 at 11 AM.

From the very beginning the juntistas took the political initiative. They were able to place their members in charge of sending the invitations, thus manipulating the assistance lists to their own advantage. At the September 18th session, they grabbed center stage with shouts of "¡Junta queremos! ¡junta queremos!" ("We want a junta! We want a junta"). Count Toro Zambrano, faced with this very public show of force, acceded to their demands by depositing his ceremonial baton on top of the main table and saying "Here is the baton, take it and rule". The discussion ended with the establishment of the Government Junta of the Kingdom of Chile, also known as the First Junta, which was organized with the same powers held by a Royal Governor. In the discussion triumphed the idea of a local independent government as opposed to the monarchist idea of submitting themselves to the control of the Regency Council. Nonetheless, this idea of "independence" must not be taken in the modern sense. This junta never intended to sever the relationship with the monarchy, but was only taking advantage of the possibility to assert local rule.

Thus was established the Government Assembly of the Kingdom of Chile, also known as the First Government Junta. It was the earliest step in the Chilean struggle for independence, and the anniversary of its establishment is celebrated as the national day of Chile. In 1971, President Salvador Allende asked that the celebration become more ecumenical, encompassing the diverse religious beliefs throughout the country.

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Sorry to any Chilean comrades; I'm an hour late.

  • TheSiIverLegion [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Hello Hexbear dogs.

    I bet you thought it was all over? Wrong. We are still here. We are still watching. We are hiding in your cracks and crevices. We are under your bed. We are in your driveway.

    The time has come to initiate Operation Overkill. This time we will not miss our target. Our swords are ready, enjoy your precious site while it lasts.

    Sincerely watching you,

    The Silver Legion.

    • Coca_Cola_but_Commie [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Damn, I got here too late. Well, if you make another account. Hey bud. How's it going? You having a good day? My day was alright. Watched a movie. Not an especially good movie. It was Seraphim Falls, with Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan. The first 1/2 is just Brosnan trying to survive in harsh terrain (a mountain pass, then the foothills, then a scrub brush desert, and finally a desert flat) and that was the weakest part of the movie because they hadn't established the stakes. Didn't know if I was supposed to root for Brosnan or Neeson. Brosnan runs into a woodsman and his family, barters for a horse. Neeson finds the family, threatens to hurt them but doesn't, actually. Neeson's travelling with a crew of bounty hunters. Earlier Brosnan killed one, then Neeson kills another one after he gets caught in a bear trap. Brosnan makes it to a railroad build site, hides for a bit. One of Neeson's crew leaves, but Neeson kills his horse for a really dumb reason to try and convince the viewer he's actually a bad guy. Neeson makes it to the railroad. Brosnan has already snuck out. Neeson is on his trail. Brosnan kills the last bounty hunter with Neeson, but Neeson gets the upper hand. Brosnan is on the ground, unarmed. Neeson has a pistol. Then we learn that Brosnan was a Union Colonel, and Neeson was a Confederate Colonel. After the war ended, Brosnan came to capture Neeson at his home. Brosnan's men set Neeson's home on fire. His wife and two children are inside. Brosnan didn't know. Three years later (the present), Neeson has finally captured the man who killed his family.

      While Neeson is gloating, Brosnan kicks his leg, wrestles him, gets the gun. Takes the last living horse and leaves. Tells Neeson to let go. Neeson gets up and follows on foot, into a salt flat. A tinker woman in the desert who I think was the devil gets Brosnan to sell his horse for a bullet. Then later she gets Neeson to sell his water for a gun with a single round. Neeson catches up to Brosnan, who shoots him in the gut. Then Brosnan walks up to Neeson, takes Neeson's loaded gun, puts the gun in Neeson's hand and tells him to take his revenge. But Neeson can't. Brosnan helps him stand. Both men walk out of the desert, going in separate directions, and cinematically fade away to a shot of the empty desert.

      The movie pretended to be an unremarkable pulp Western, then tried to twist into being a philosophical treatise on revenge and war. And it failed at being either. The pulp stuff was boring, because they hid the character motivations from the audience so they could do a twist later where Neeson's character actually wasn't that bad a guy. But there was a part of me, after learning that he had been a slave-owning Confederate until the Union won, that just didn't give a shit about him, even though his weirdly attractive wife and aryan children died in a fire. It's not weird she was attractive, but it was that she was clearly wearing modern makeup and he had this loose, tousled hairstyle that looked very modern to me, but I'm no historian maybe southern ladies did wear their hair like that. Anyway, that made the first half to two-thirds of the movie fairly unengaging, then when they go off the rails and leaning into the mystical, philosophical thing the writing just doesn't have the chops to pull it off.

      After that I ate a bean and cheese burrito.