Amunátegui Aldunate, Miguel Luis (1828–1888)

Miguel Luis Amunátegui Aldunate (b. 11 January 1828; d. 22 January 1888), Chilean historian and public figure. Born and educated in Santiago, and one of the numerous disciples of Andrés Bello, Amunátegui was a brilliant member of a brilliant Chilean generation. A devoted Liberal, he was eight times elected to the Chamber of Deputies and also served in the cabinet during the presidencies of José Joaquín Pérez, Aníbal Pinto, and (briefly) José Manuel Balmaceda. In 1875 he was offered the chance to become the official candidate for the presidency. The government's control over elections would have ensured his triumph, but he declined.

Among the great nineteenth-century Chilean historians, Amunátegui can be ranked as second only to Diego Barros Arana. His chief works were La reconquista española (1851), La dictadura de O'Higgins (1853), Los precursores de la independencia de Chile (3 vols., 1870–1872), and La crónica de 1810 (3 vols., 1876). His numerous other writings cover a range from philology to the Chilean frontier dispute with Argentina. His two-part work on the latter theme, Títulos de la República de Chile a la soberanía y dominio de la extremidad austral del continente americano (1853, 1855), was the first to give coherent shape to Chile's territorial claims.

See alsoChile: The Nineteenth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Munizaga Aguirre, Roberto. Los hermanos Amunátegui, don Claudio Matte. Santiago: Instituto de Chile, Academia de Ciencias Sociales Políticas y Morales, 1983.

                                      Simon Collier