Peru Declared Independence / Beatrix Potter born - July 28

Peru declared independence from Spain on this day in 1821. / On this day in 1866, children's author Beatrix Potter was born.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all were rerunning two episodes today, which means that
you'll hear two hosts me and Tracy V. Wilson enjoy
the show. Welcome to this day in history class. It's July.
Peruvian independence was declared on this day in eight You
might wonder why I didn't say Peru declared its independence,

(00:22):
and that's because that's not how it happened. So many
stories of nations becoming independent start with an uprising by
that nation's people, Like there's a declaration of independence that's
often paired with fighting back against a monarch or a
colonizing nation, and that sometimes blossoms into a war that
stretches on before independence truly is achieved, regardless of when

(00:45):
it was actually declared. That is not what happened in Peru, though.
So in eighteen o eight, Napoleon invaded Spain and that
sparked a series of struggles for independence in Spain's colonies.
These went on for more than a decade, from eighteen
ten until eight one, and usually the prevailing force in
these movements was people of European descent who had been

(01:08):
born in these Spanish colonies. So it wasn't so much
the work of indigenous people or of enslaved Africans who
were living in these colonies. But even as its neighbors
fought for independence, Peru really didn't get involved. The Peruvian
aristocracy was still pretty loyal to Spain, and Peru also
had a lot of Spanish residents. The Spanish army also

(01:31):
had a major presence in the Peruvian capital of Lima.
There was an army right there readily available to put
down any kind of revolution, made it a little bit
more of a challenge to actually start a revolution. So instead,
Peruvian independence was largely instigated by its neighbors, was mostly
fought in Chile, not in Peru. In particular, General Jose

(01:55):
Saint Martin was from Argentina and he had already fought
for independence and Buenos Aires, and in Chile he was
basically trying to ensure Argentina's own independence. There had been
a battle for independence and Argentina there was this idea
that if Spain continued to have a presence, then people
were going to continue to be at risk of becoming

(02:16):
a colony again. We're also some silver mines conveniently located
in Peru that he wanted access to, so first Argentina
fought for Chilean independence, which was obtained in eighteen eighteen,
and then he used Chile as a base of operations
to stage an attack on the Spanish forces in Peru.
Chile and Peru don't share much of a land border.

(02:38):
This was planned as a naval operation. In September of
eighteen t Sint Martin's first took the Peruvian port of
Peaceco and then he moved on to Lima after Spanish
forces withdrew from that area, and it was he, not
the people of Peru, who declared its independence. This was
actually the last Spanish colony in South America to become independent.

(03:00):
Even though he had his whole plan that involved surrounding
the Spanish to drive them completely out of South America,
he didn't have an army strong enough to defeat it,
so he went to Simone Boulivard for help. Bolivar had
been fighting for independence in Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador, and
he had been a major force for independence in most

(03:21):
of Spain's northern colonies in South America. It's not totally
clear what happened when these two men met in two
to talk about the situation, but whatever it was that happened,
Saint Martin left Bolivar, refused whatever offer it was that
he had made, He withdrew his force. He resigned his
protectorship at Peru, and Simone Boulivard took over the fight.

(03:45):
After this, Saint Martan went into exile in Europe, where
he died at the age of eighteen fifty, impoverished and
long out of the military action. Eventually, Spain did remove
the rest of his forces from South America, and today
July the day that newly elected Peruvian presidents take office.

(04:05):
Thanks to Christopher Hasciotis for his research work on today's
episode and Tatari Harrison for her audio skills on all
of these episodes. You can subscribe to This Day in
History Class on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever else
do you get your podcasts, and you can tune in
tomorrow for some Civil War espionage. Hi, I'm Eves and

(04:34):
welcome to This Day in History Class, a show that
uncovers a little bit more about history every day. The
day was July eighteen sixty six. Helen Beatrix Potter was
born in South Kensington, London. Potter would become renowned for

(04:58):
her best selling children's books. Beatrix was born into a
wealthy family, one that made his money off of cotton,
a trade that was firmly rooted in the system of slavery.
She was the first child of Rupert and Helen Potter,
who had a passion for the arts and hung around
a lot of artists, writers and politicians. Beatrix had a

(05:20):
younger brother, Walter Bertram, and as was typical for people
of her class, Beatrix was educated at home by governesses
and her care was left to nurses. She was isolated
and her childhood was pretty lonely, though she was allowed
to keep small pets like rabbits, mice and snails. When
Beatrix and her brother spent time in the Scottish Highlands

(05:43):
and the Lake District of northern England, they would wander
around the countryside, which stimulated Beatrix's interest in animals and nature.
But Bertram was sent away to boarding school and Beatrix
remained on her own throughout her adolescence. Her father all
took her to museums and to visit their friends, and

(06:03):
at a young age she was drawing, painting and writing
about her pets. Her parents even sent her to the
National Art Training School for formal art instruction. From eight
one to eighteen ninety seven, she kept a journal that
was written in a secret code that she made up.
In this journal, she recorded her thoughts about politics, society,

(06:25):
and art. Her journal code wasn't cracked and deciphered until
after her death, and she filled sketch books with drawings
of plants and animals. In the early eighteen nineties, Beatrix
sold some of her art for greeting cards and illustrations,
but in her twenties she put a lot of time
into studying natural history. She was especially intrigued by fun Guy.

(06:49):
She drew hundreds of detailed pictures of fun Guy and
was encouraged to make her drawings more scientifically accurate. In
eight seven, with the help of her chemist uncle, her
pay for one the germination of the Sports of Agaricina,
was presented to a meeting of the Linaean Society. She
herself could not present the paper because she was a woman,

(07:10):
and her theories and drawings were rejected for that same
reason and because she was not a trained scientist. But
the inspiration for her famous book, The Tale of Peter
Rabbit came when she was writing illustrated letters to the
children of her former governesses. In she wrote one such
letter to nol More. Seven years later, she submitted the

(07:33):
story to several local publishers. They turned it down, so
she had it printed herself. After seeing the book, publisher
Frederick Warren decided to publish it, with additional colored illustrations
from Potter. The book was successful, and Beatrix went on
to form a lifelong relationship with Frederick and a romantic

(07:54):
one with her editor, Norman Warren. She and Norman married,
though her parents were not approving of the pairing. He
died less than a month after they married. Potter went
on to produce twenty two more books over the next
twenty years, including The Tailor of Gloucester, The Tale of
Squirrel Nutkin, and Apply Dapple's Nursery Rhymes. Her books were

(08:17):
small so children could hold them, and they paired simple
prose with watercolor illustrations. Using the money she made from
her books, she bought Hilltop Farm and Castle Farm and Salary, England,
and thousands of acres of surrounding farmland. She rented out
her property and remained living with her parents until she
was forty seven years old, when she married a solicitor

(08:40):
named William heillis The last book she wrote and illustrated.
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson, was published in nineteen thirty,
though an earlier book she had written was published later.
In her later years, she settled into marriage and turned
her attentions from writing to farming, and she was dedicated
it to breeding herd Wig sheep. She was also passionate

(09:03):
about conservation. In at age seventy seven, Beatrix died in
her home. She left thousands of acres of land to
the National Trust. The Journal of Beatrix Potter was published
in nineteen sixty six. I'm Eves Jeff Coote and hopefully
you know a little more about history today than you

(09:24):
did yesterday. Keep up with us on Twitter, Instagram and
Facebook at t d i h C podcast. Thanks for
joining me on this trip through history. See you here,
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(09:47):
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