José Joaquín Prieto in the context of Ignacio Warnes

The Chilean Declaration of Independence is a document declaring the independence of Chile from the Spanish Empire. It was drafted in January 1818 and approved by Supreme Director Bernardo O'Higgins on 12 February 1818 at Talca, despite being dated in Concepción on 1 January 1818. The ceremony of independence was performed on 12 February 1818, the first anniversary of the Battle of Chacabuco.

The original document, displaying manuscript comments by O'Higgins, was damaged at the Palace of the Real Audiencia of Santiago. In 1832, under President José Joaquín Prieto, a new copy was sent to Peru to be signed by O'Higgins, and later by his former ministers, Miguel Zañartu, Hipólito Villegas and José Ignacio Zenteno, who were still living in Chile. This copy was kept at the Palacio de La Moneda until the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, when it was destroyed during the fighting.

The Constitution of 1833 was the constitution used in Chile from 1833 to 1925 when it was replaced by the Constitution of 1925. One of the most long-lived constitutions of Latin America, it was used to endorse both an authoritarian, presidential system and from 1891 onwards an oligarchic, parliamentary system.

The constitution emerged after the Chilean Civil War of 1829 in which the conservative Pelucones (Whigs) defeated the Pipiolos (liberals). Its main ideologues where Mariano Egaña, Manuel José Gandarillas and Diego Portales all of whom saw from a conservative point of view the necessity of a unitarian state under a strong leadership. The constitution made Catholicism the state religion and forbade the practise of other religions, both in public and private life. The first president to be elected under the constitution was General José Joaquín Prieto. The constitution allowed for five-year terms with the possibility of one reelection, which resulted in three consecutive conservative presidents ruling Chile, each for ten years. Mariano Egaña had initially aimed at not putting any restriction on reelection.