O'Higgins

O'Higgins, political family in South America. Ambrosio O'Higgins (1720–1801), born in Ireland and educated in Spain, was governor of Chile (1789–96) and viceroy of Peru (1796). Bernardo O'Higgins (1778–1842), his son, liberated Chile from Spanish rule and became its dictator (1817). His reforms aroused such opposition that he was exiled to Peru in 1823.