Where are the 2000 fallen in the confrontation buried?

It is no accident that various historians agree to point out The battle of Maipú as one of the most bloody freed in America. The brutality level deployed by both sides in the remote moors of the Cerrillos del Maipo has been subject to experts, historians and passionate of the independence deeds of the southern cone.

Among the testimonies that historiography offers us, the Samuel Highan English merchant face -to -face witness. In his writings, High recounts that the ferocity unleashed in Maipú far exceeded the violence of Napoleonic battles in Europe.

In the Rinconada sector, at the height of what today is the House of Culture, the last realists were entrenched, led by the relentless ordóñez, determined to resist until the end for the King’s cause. The offensive against this monarchical redoubt was headed by the Coquimbo hunter battalion. However, the royalists, strategically parapeted, unleashed a rain of bullets that left the young patriotic soldiers lying on the narrow path that led to the beautiful, although bloody, Hacienda Mirjo. More than 250 combatants were injured, and most succumbed under the ruthless enemy rifle.

The battle of Maipú He culminated at about five in the afternoon, sealed by the effusive hug between the heroes and the parabienes that the story has immortalized. However, on the battlefield there were 2,500 dead, outside the joy of the victors.

The mystery of the fallen in the battle of Maipú

One of the questions that has intrigued historians and researchers is: Where and how were the dead of the battle of Maipú? What was the chosen place to give rest to patriots and realistic, united in death, beyond the ideologies that faced them?

The most recurring testimony comes from Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, who compiled stories of face -to -face witnesses, including a farmer named Marcos Díaz and a man of indigenous origin, Tadeo Macaya. According to these narratives, a young man named Cyril Álvarez guided Vicuña Mackenna to the place where the remains of the fallen are allegedly rest.

However, until today, the exact site remains an enigma. Recent attempts to solve this doubt include the research led by Dr. Lucio Cañete, an academic at the University of Santiago. His team, with modern tools, tried to locate the remains of the more than 2,000 combatants, who, to date, have not received patriotic recognition or a worthy resting place.

The hypotheses and the known stories

The possibility that the bodies were incinerated is unlikely. More viable is the theory of a common grave, a habitual practice in the 19th century battles. According to oral stories, a Maipucino highway of surname Espinoza, along with realistic prisoners, patriotic soldiers and other workers, was responsible for burying the bodies.

This hard work, which would have taken five days, left more than 2,000 bodies in a large common grave, without rangeing, nationality or origin. According to Espinoza’s family, which transmitted this story from generation to generation, there was a failed attempt to burn the bodies before choosing to bury them.

An old neighbor, Petronila Calderón, narrated that in the place where the fallen fighters rest, small lights in the form of butterflies emerging from the earth, as a mysterious reminder of their sacrifice.

Final reflection

Despite the efforts to unravel this mystery, we still do not know with certainty where the ossuary is keeping the remains of those anonymous heroes. We are never known.

Meanwhile, there is the comfort of dreaming of a homeland that honors, even in spirit, to whom they gave their life for freedom.