The conspiracy of the three Antonios (1781) ( es, conspiración de los tres Antonios) was a minor failed conspiracy against the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

colonial authorities in the captaincy-general of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, that was led by two Frenchmen, Antoine Gramusset and Antoine-Alexandre Berney, and a

criollo Criollo or criolla (Spanish for creole) may refer to: People * Criollo people, a social class in the Spanish race-based colonial caste system (the European descendants) Animals * Criollo duck, a species of duck native to Central and South Ameri ...

, José Antonio de Rojas. It was so named because all three conspirators shared the same first name.

Events

In 1780 Antonio Berney was a Frenchman living in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

where he worked as a teacher of Latin and Mathematics. He was a constant reader of the

Encyclopédie ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...

, and inspired by the Enlightenment ideals he formulated a plan to establish Chile as an independent republic. He converted Antonio Gramusset, another Frenchman living in Chile to his ideas, and he in turn enlisted the aid of one of Chile's most prominent citizens, José Antonio de Rojas. The idea of the three revolutionaries was to set up a republican government based on an inclusive electoral process. Social classes were to be eliminated and slavery abolished, according to a plan that actually anticipated nineteenth-century socialism. An ambitious program of agrarian reform was included in their plans, along with a broad policy of free trade with the world at large. Nearly a decade before the French Revolution, the three Antonios conjured up one of the most democratic conspiracies in the Spanish Empire.

Discovery and trial

During a trip to a nearby town Gramusset lost his valise which contained detailed plans of their conspiracy. The valise was actually found and returned to the local policemen ( es, Serenos) who, because they could not read were unable to identify the owner, forwarded it to their headquarters in Santiago. Once the documents were in the hands of the authorities they quickly lead to the discovery of the plotters who were secretly arrested at night during new year's on January 1, 1781. Berney and Gramusset were rapidly shipped to Peru to be tried in the viceregal courts, while Rojas, because of his high social standing in Chile managed to avoid prison for a while. The Frenchmen were treated with utmost courtesy and after a year of imprisonment in Lima were shipped to Spain to be tried there. The '' San Pedro de Alcantara'' that was carrying them sank off the coast of Portugal during a storm, and Berney drowned while Gramusset managed to survive only to die three months later as a consequence of the exposure. Meanwhile Rojas, after a short exile in Spain, returned to Chile. He was arrested again in 1809 under suspicions of plotting to bring down the government but this time without any proof. His arrest hastened the downfall of the Royal Governor Francisco Garcia Carrasco who ordered the arrest and was one of the detonants of the Chilean independence movement.

Events

Discovery and trial

See also

Sources