First Chilean Navy Squadron

The First Chilean Navy Squadron was the naval force that terminated Spanish colonial rule on the south-west coast of South America and protagonized the most important naval actions in the Latin American wars of independence. The Chilean government organized the squadron in order to carry the war to the Viceroyalty of Perú, then the center of Spanish power in South America, and thus secure the independence of Chile and Argentina.

The Napoleonic wars (1803–1815) had crippled Spain's navy, and the French occupation had destroyed the logistical base of its dockyards. Nevertheless, during the Old Fatherland, the Spaniards or the Royalists were able from Callao, the royalist stronghold in Perú, to blockade any Chilean port, to land in Talcahuano and support the advance of the royalist troops against Santiago de Chile, the main city of the revolutionary forces and crush the rebellion in Chile. Argentine historian Bartolomé Mitre gives the following list of armed Spanish ships in the west coast of South America: frigates Venganza (44 guns) and Esmeralda (1791) (44), merchant corvettes Milagro (18), San Juan Bautista (18) and Begoña (18), second class frigates Governadora (16), Comercio (12), Presidente (12), Castilla (12) and Bigarrera (12), corvettes Resolución (34), Sebastiana (34) and Veloz (22), brigantine Pezuela (18), plus other 3 unnamed ships with 37 guns. All things considered 17 ships with 331 guns. In 1819 came the frigate Prueba and 1824 came the 74 guns and the Aquiles.

Naval capacity played almost no role for the revolutionary forces in the time from the first declaration of independence 1810 to the Spanish "reconquest" of Chile 1814. Two ships bought by the patriots were defeated in a short fight off Valparaíso in May 1813.

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