José de San Martín (25 February 1778 – 17 August 1850) was President of Peru from 28 July 1821 to 20 September 1822, preceding Francisco Xavier de Luna Pizarro. San Martín was Argentine-born and Spanish-educated, and he emerged as a leader of the South American independence struggles during the 1810s. San Martín was a monarchist who believed that the military was needed to provide control and order, but he ultimately lost an ideological battle with the republican Simon Bolivar, who forced San Martín into retirement in 1822.
Biography[]
Born in Yapeyu, Argentina, San Martín was raised in Spain and served as an army officer, fighting the French in the Peninsular War. Returning to South America in 1812, he aided Argentinian officers asserting independence against the Spanish royalists. He founded a regiment of mounted grenadiers that won a skirmish at San Lorenzo in 1813 and repulsed a royalist invasion in northern Argentina the following year. In January 1817, with exiled Chilean rebel Bernardo O'Higgins, he marched a 5,000-strong army over the high Andes into Chile to defeat the royalists at Chacabuco. Chilean independence was confirmed by a subsequent victory at Maipu. San Martín went on to take control of Peru in 1821, but had withdrawn to private life within a year.