Table Of Content"DIEGO PORTALES: INTERPRETATIVE
ESSA YS ON THE MAN AND TIMES"
"DIEGO PORTALES:
INTERPRETATIVE ESSAYS
ON THE MAN AND TIMES"
by
JAY KINSBRUNER
Queens College 0/ the City University 0/ New York
•
Springer-Science+ Business Media, B.V. 1967
ISBN 978-94-017-5806-2 ISBN 978-94-017-6240-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6240-3
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1967
Originally published by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands in 1967
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1967
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this booh or parts thereof in any form
For my mother and father
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge first my great debt to the staffs of
the Biblioteca N acional De Chile and the Archivo N acional De
Chile for the manner in which they facilitated the task of re
search ... and at times made it possible. During two research
trips to Chile Professor Eugenio Pereira Salas aided me in
numerous ways, especially in securing fellowships. Professor
Cristian Guerrero Yoacham of the Universidad De Chile both
shared his intimate knowledge of Chilean history with me and
served as a sounding board for the ideas expressed in this book
as they developed. Several colleagues read and criticized the
manuscript. They have been thanked individually.
PREFACE
Since this is a day in which weighty tomes are stylish, I thought
the reader might be interested in a word or two concerning the
slimness of the present volume. It is referred to as an interpre
tation and is meant to be exactly that. It is not a definitive ac
count of the Portales period; nor does it pretend to be. Some
background material is included to aid the reader - both student
and scholar who perhaps does not specialize in nineteenth
century Chilean history - in drawing his own conclusions. The
book's central feature is a discussion of the Constitution of 1833,
framed by essays about Portales.
Of the many problems encountered while researching the
project in Chile and writing it in the United States, two stand
out in my mind as being especially troublesome. After only a
relatively short while in Chile I realized that I would want to
make several rather broad statements covering many decades of
Chilean history and that the documentation which seemed to be
extant did not always satisfy the search for conclusive evidence.
There is no doubt that future researchers will locate pertinent
information, and in fact it is hoped that this book will serve to
encourage intensive examination of Portales, the period, and my
general views. However, I felt what was found did support my
conclusions, the more so since they form part of an exploratory
study.
Then there was the problem of translation. I do not feel that
poor Spanish should be translated into good English. An attempt
was made to preserve the literary quality of the original. Yet
I do not propose to excuse my personal limitations as a translator.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments VII
Preface IX
I. The Man
II. The Constitution 43
III. The Last Years 80
IV. Epilogue 89
V. Historiographical Essay 91
CHAPTER I
THE MAN
If Diego Portales could have been copsulted he certainly would
have thought I6 June I793 a rather fine time to be born. It was
the colonial period in Chilean history, or at least its final chapter,
but of this not even the most extravagantly optimistic dissident
dreamers were aware. Diego Portales' mentality, his personality,
as well as his aspirations all contrived to render him singularly
well suited to the era of Bourbon reform into which he was born.
Had it endured, that era would have provided him one of the
most fundamental social needs of his maturity: public order and
stability. But the political and economic freedoms that ac
companied repUblicanism also became central to his way of life.
This posed a problem that relentlessly taunted him during much
of his maturity: how to create a government that could provide
public order and stability and yet be republican. To the solving
of this he dedicated his last years, and for his efforts was murder
ed. In retrospect, it was not at all a propitious moment for Diego
Portales to be born.
Though never really rich, the Portales family was quite
comfortable, well known, and socially accepted. From I799
Diego's father, Jose Santiago Portales, was superintendent of the
Casa de Moneda, the mint at Santiago. Through him Diego was
related to Francisco de Meneses, governor of Chile between I664
and I668. From his mother, Maria Encarnacion Fernandez de
Palazuelos, daughter of Josefa de Aldunate y Acevedo Borja,
he received some undoubtedly attenuated Borgia blood, a fact
which has caused considerable speculation among biographers.
Portales was one of nearly two dozen children.
Compared to other young Chileans of his class, Diego Portales
received a rather scanty formal education. It was there for the
taking, but books little interested him. Biographers and polemic-
2 THE MAN
ists have found both good and evil in this. At nineteen he began
a course of study in the humanities at the Colegio Colorado. To
placate his father he switched to law two years later, but never
finished the program. He took an exam and won an appointment
as assayer at the Cas a de Moneda, but this too managed to hold
his youthful attention for a short while. Soon he entered the world
of business and found an attraction that would fascinate him for
the rest of his life. In 1819 he married his cousin, Josefa Portales
y Larrain. It must have been an enviable love affair, for her
death two years later shocked him into a lengthy state of de
pression.
After the death of his wife, Portales formed a business corpo
ration with Jose Manuel Cea that took him to Peru between 1821
and 1823. By now his character had assumed its mature form.
He was of average height, but appeared to be on the delicate side.
His finely chiseled facial features, with thin, tight lips, made his
smiles seem sardonic. This merely confirmed the suspicions of
his enemies, and also friends. He was in fact notoriously caustic
in his quick-witted criticisms - friends were not spared - ironic
in his humor, and given to jokes that some have considered
hideous and distorted. It has been suggested that Portales' three
loves were business, horses and women. There is little agreement
as to the order.
Portales' decision to personally handle the Peruvian end of
his new merchant business might well have been influenced by
his recent tragedy. His oldest known letter was written from
Peru late in 1821 to his father. It is a sad, reflective lament:
With the passing of the days, each for me more painful, the eternal
absence of Chepita has done nothing more than increase the pain that
afflicts me. I have a shattered soul, not finding but in religion the conso
lation I need. I have reached the point of persuading myself that I could
not marry again for the constant grief that the memory of my saintly
woman will cause me ... for me no other route remains than to surrender
myself to the pious life, calling upon the habit of some convent.
And then, as it turned out, somewhat capriciously:
I will live always in the celibacy that God has desired to present me,
after having enjoyed an infinite happiness. Believe it that women do not
exist for my shattered heart: I prefer God ... 1
1 Ernesto De La Cruz and Guillermo Feliu Cruz, Epistolario de don Diego Portales,
I8n-I837 (Santiago, 1937), I, 172-173, hereinafter cited as Epistolario.
