Author: Rodrigo Escribano Roca
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15432529
John Mackenna was a descendant of a clan from County Monaghan, on the border between present-day Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Mackennas had been prominent among the Catholic lineages that resisted Anglo-Protestant domination during the cycle of rebellions that presided over the 17th century. By the 18th century, part of the family transplanted itself to the Spanish Monarchy. The origins of the migration lay in the marriage of William Mackenna, a thriving agricultural entrepreneur and clan member, to Eleanora O’Reilly whose family also resisted Protestant supremacy Eleanora’s uncle Alexander O’Reilly had already left Ireland for the service of Spain, joining, like many other compatriots, the military elites of the Catholic Monarchy. Having held the high ranks of Governor and Captain General of Louisiana, Alexander showed a vivid interest in one of William and Eleanor’s sons, John Mackenna, born in 1771.
At the age of 13, John went to Spain at the invitation of his great-uncle. He studied mathematics in Barcelona and then engineering at the Royal Military Academy. In 1787, the young Irish migrant was already an army cadet was assigned to the Irish Brigade that fought for the Spanish Monarchy in its war against the Sultanate of Morocco. Due to his distinguished record, in 1792, he attained the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Engineers. In this context, he played a very active part in the war between Spain and revolutionary France. It was on the Catalonian front that he met José de San Martín (1778-1850) the future liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru. His uncle’s patronage would ensure that in 1796 he joined the high military command that served the also Irish-born Ambrosio O’Higgins (c. 1721-1801), Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Chile. In 1797, O’Higgins entrusted Mackenna with the governorship of Osorno and urged him to use his engineering skills to rebuild and modernise the city. Between this year and 1808, Mackenna continued to serve as Governor while participating as a technical supervisor in the civil works promoted by the Captaincy General, such as the Santiago-Valparaíso road.
In 1809 John, generally called Juan by the locals, became related to one of the most influential Chilean families by marrying Josefina Vicuña Larraín. This union proved useful in 1810 when he began to support Chile’s autonomy from the peninsular institutions that sought to supplant the sovereignty of the captive Ferdinand VII in the context of the Napoleonic wars. During this period, Mackenna forged a close friendship with Bernardo O’Higgins, son of his former superior and soon-to-be leader of Chilean independence. Such affiliations forced him into exile on the other side of the Andes a few months before the royalists defeated the independence army at the Battle of Rancagua in 1814.
Once in Argentine territory, Mackenna openly confronted the Carrera brothers, who tried to exercise command of the patriot forces without counterweights. These clashes came to a head in the city of Buenos Aires, where Colonel Luis Carrera challenged John Mackenna to a duel, which the Irishman accepted. On 21 November 1814, they clashed in what is now a public park (Parque Lezama), and John lost his life. Although he died at only 37 years of age, John Mackenna had a fascinating and relevant life. His transition from Catholic Ireland to the military command of the Catholic Spanish Monarchy ironically led to his decisive involvement in the building of independent Chile, giving us an idea of the highly dynamic and interconnected nature of the Hispanic-Anglosphere in the age of revolutions. His legacy was lasting. His grandson Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna (1831-1886) was to become one of the most influential architects of the democratic political culture of nineteenth-century Chile and a leading figure in understanding the intertwining of Latin America and the Anglo world at the time.
Sources: Mackenna, Juan. Memoria sobre los principales sucesos de la revolución de Chile: desde 1810 hasta 1814. Informe del Brigadier Don Juan Mackenna sobre la conducta militar de los Carreras, etc. Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Cervantes, 1900; Collier, Simon, William F. Sater, Milena Grass, y Herminia Bevia. Historia de Chile, 1808-2017. Tres Cantos, Madrid, España: Akal, 2019; Woods, David. Meteor. Cómo una aventura en Nueva York cambió la extraordinaria vida de Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna. Santiago de Chile: Ricaaventura, 2022; Vicuña Mackenna, Benjamín. La guerra a muerte: memoria sobre las últimas campañas de la Independencia de Chile, 1819-1824. Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Nacional, 1868; Barros Arana, Diego. Historia Jeneral de la Independencia de Chile. I-IV. Santiago, Chile: Imprenta del Ferrocarril, 1855.
How to cite: To cite from this page, please use any style (Chicago, Harvard, etc). Our preferred citation form is: Rodrigo Escribano Roca, ‘Mackenna, John [Juan] (1771–1814)’, The Hispanic-Anglosphere: transnational networks, global communities (late 18th to early 20th centuries), project funded by the AHRC and the University of Winchester in partnership with the National Trust and the Centro de Estudios Americanos-Universidad Adolfo Ibañez [ available at https://hispanic-anglosphere.com/individuals/mackenna-john-juan-1771-1814/, accessed – please add date].
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15432529
Thematic categories:
The Hispanic-Anglosphere ... 