The 851-ton ship was built in 1818 at the Forman Cheeseman Shipyard of New York City under the name Curacio for the Chilean revolutionary government.

The ship, still unarmed, set sail for Buenos Aires on 9 September, together with Horatio (under Captain Joseph Skinner), built in the Adam and Noah Brown shipyard under the same circumstances, and with Sachem following with their respective war materiel.

In Buenos Aires Curacio set sail for Valparaíso, where she arrived on 23 June 1819 to be renamed Independencia and commissioned to the First Chilean Navy Squadron under the command of Captain Carlos F. Foster (also Robert Forster) and up to 1821 Wilkinson.

In 1823 she transported Jorge Beauchef and his regiment from Valdivia to Talcahuano in order to support the Putsch of Ramón Freire against Bernardo O'Higgins.

On 1 April 1826 she was sold for $40,000 to Argentina (for the war against Brazil) and renamed Montevideo, but her bad condition impeded the rounding of Cape Horn, and she sank in Talcahuano.