His father died in 1801, leaving O'Higgins a large piece of land, the Hacienda Las Canteras, near the Chilean city of Los Ángeles.

In Chile, the commercial and political elite decided to form an autonomous government to rule in the name of the imprisoned king Ferdinand VII; this was to be one of the first in a number of steps toward national independence, in which O'Higgins would play a leading role.

The anti-Royalist camp in Chile was deeply split along lines of patronage and personality, political beliefs, and geography (between the rival regional groupings of Santiago and Concepción).

The Carrera family had already seized power several times in different coups, and supported a specifically Chilean nationalism, as opposed to the broader Latin American focus of the Lautaro Lodge grouping,[10] which included O'Higgins and the Argentine José de San Martín.

[citation needed] Much of O'Higgins' early military knowledge stemmed from Juan Mackenna, an immigrant of Irish descent and a former client of Ambrosio's,[12] whose advice centred mainly on the use of cavalry.

[9] In 1813, when the Spanish government made its first attempt to reconquer Chile—sending an expedition led by Brigadier Antonio Pareja—Carrera, as a former national leader and now Commander in Chief of the Army, was by far the more prominent figure of the two, and a natural choice to lead the military resistance.

O'Higgins was back on his estates in Laja, having retired from the Army the previous year due to poor health, when news came of the invasion.

O'Higgins mobilised his local militia and marched to Concepcion,[13] before moving on to Talca, meeting up with Carrera, who was to take command of the new army.

The unsuccessful Siege of Chillan followed, where O'Higgins produced a brave but unspectacular performance; however, as commander, Carrera took most of the blame for the defeat, weakening his prestige with the Junta back in Santiago.

[citation needed] In October, fighting at the Battle of El Roble under Carrera, O'Higgins took effective command at a crucial moment and gave one of his more famous orders: Lads!

The Junta in Santiago reassigned command of the army from Carrera, who had retreated during the battle, to O'Higgins, who then appointed Juan Mackenna as commandant-general.

Carrera was subsequently captured and imprisoned by the royalist forces; in his absence, in May 1814 O'Higgins supported the Treaty of Lircay, which promised a halt to the fighting.

Once released, however, Carrera violently opposed both O'Higgins' new role and the treaty, overthrowing the Junta in a coup in July 1814 and immediately exiling Mackenna.

Further conflict was postponed by the news that the royalists had decided to ignore the recent treaty, and were threatening Concepción under the leadership of General Mariano Osorio.

[18] While in exile, O'Higgins met the Argentine General José de San Martín, a fellow member of the Lautaro Lodge, and together the men returned to Chile in 1817 to defeat the royalists.

Argentine General Miguel Estanislao Soler's troops had to go down a tiny path that proved long and arduous and took longer than expected.

[citation needed] The ensuing firefight continued into the afternoon, and the tides turned for the Patriots as Soler captured a key Spanish artillery point.

San Martín was initially offered the position of power in the newly free Chile, but he declined, in order to continue the fight for independence in the rest of South America.

Carrera was imprisoned to prevent his involvement in Chilean affairs; after his escape, he ended up taking the winning side in the Argentine Federalist war, helping to defeat the directorate in 1820.

O'Higgins remained concerned about the threat of invasion, and had declared after the battle of Chacabuco that "this victory and another hundred shall be of no significance if we do not gain control of the sea".

O'Higgins continued in his desire to see independence across Latin America, utilising his new forces to support San Martín, sending the Liberating expedition to Perú.

In this regard he tasked the Scottish naval officer, Lord Thomas Cochrane, in a letter dated 12 November 1821, expressing his plan to conquer Guayaquil, the Galapagos Islands, and the Philippines.

O'Higgins' proposed radical and liberal reforms, such as the establishment of democracy[clarification needed] and the abolition of titles of nobility, were resisted by the powerful large landowners.

The government became bankrupt, forcing O'Higgins to send Antonio José de Irisarri to the United Kingdom to negotiate a £1 million loan—Chile's first foreign debt—whilst a massive earthquake in central Chile added more difficulty for the ruler.

The deaths of his political enemies, including Carrera and Manuel Rodríguez, returned to haunt him, with some accusing him of abusing state power.

No action was taken on O'Higgins' arguments, but in 1842 Chile began to organise an expedition to settle the strait following a request by an American to be allowed to establish a tug boat service in the area.

In 2004, his body was temporarily stored at the Chilean Military School during the building of the Plaza de la Ciudadanía, before being finally laid to rest in the new underground Crypt of the Liberator.

There is a bust of Bernardo O'Higgins on a marble plinth on the east side of Avenida da Liberdade in downtown Lisbon, Portugal.

[citation needed] The Chilean Base General Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme research station in Antarctica is named in his honour.

The stamps honour two men with Irish backgrounds, who played a crucial role in the quest for Chile's liberation, Bernardo O'Higgins and John MacKenna.