The glorious renunciation.

• Author: Tennant, Anne W.
• Position: Jose de San Martin cedes the field to Simon Bolivar

In the Argentine province of Mendoza, tucked into the eastern foothills of the Andes near the town of Tunuyan, is an old, gnarled apple tree bearing a brass plaque. It states that General Jose de San Martin had rested in the shade of its branches during his journey back to Mendoza in 1823 after the "Renunciamiento Glorioso," or Glorious Renunciation.

Every Argentine schoolchild knows that the brilliant criollo military strategist had in 1817 accomplished the nearly unimaginable feat of moving his army, quartered in Mendoza, westward over the steep, frigid Andean passes so that they could be united with the Chilean troops of General Bernardo O'Higgins in order to rout the Spanish royalist forces. The patriots' decisive victories in Chile during the next few years revealed the growing vulnerability of the military forces of the colonial overlords. By 1820 the triumphant Army of Liberation, under San Martin's leadership, swept north to Peru to challenge the last bastions of Spanish hegemony in South America.

Then--in one of the most curious incidents in military and political history--San Martin, at the peak of his power and prestige, left Lima abruptly, never to return again, appearing to abandon his victorious troops in Peru. His glorious "renunciation," as it came to be called, departing voluntarily and empty-handed to leave the field of glory and renown to another general, immediately followed an interview with Simon Bolivar in Guayaquil (present-day Ecuador) on July 26-27, 1822.

San Martin has been called both the George Washington and the Abraham Lincoln of South America, and yet his name and historical legacy are not as well known as that of Bolivar. Though Argentine born, San Martin's skills as a military strategist had been honed over a period of twenty years in the Spanish army while serving with the expeditions to Morocco and in the Peninsular War against Napoleon's forces. His grand design for the independence of his beloved homeland was conceived as the natural result of his affiliation with the secret Lautaro Lodge in Cadiz, a hotbed of liberal ideas where, under the king's nose, young American patriots congregated and incubated their plots to expel the colonial oppressors.

Having proven his ability to organize, inspire, and lead a great army of liberation, San Martin also revealed himself to be a compassionate humanitarian. Among the first decrees issued when he became Protector of Peru, an office he accepted reluctantly only...