page_title: Diego Portales
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Diego Portales / Political career
context_page_description: Diego José Pedro Víctor Portales y Palazuelos was a Chilean statesman and entrepreneur. As a minister of president José Joaquín Prieto's government, he played a pivotal role in shaping the state and politics in the 19th century, delivering with the Constitution of 1833 the framework of the Chilean state for almost a century. Portales' influential political policies included unitarianism, presidentialism and conservatism which led to the consolidation of Chile as a constitutional, authoritarian republic with the franchise restricted to upper class men.
  While deeply unpopular during his lifetime, his murder in 1837, during a mutiny, has been judged a decisive factor during the War of the Confederation. Chilean public opinion shifted to support the war against the Peru–Bolivian Confederation.
  Many Chileans and historians view him as the power behind the throne of the early republic era, particularly in his shaping the Constitution of 1833. While he never assumed the presidency, his influence permitted him to serve simultaneously as the Minister of War, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Foreign Relations.
  He was an early proponent of Chilean expansionism.
context_section_description: Soon after, he aligned with the conservatives in the political fights that were wracking Chile at the time. As aforementioned, in 1824, Portales’ business firm acquired control over the government's monopoly of tobacco, tea, and liquor; however, the country's troubled conditions soon thwarted his profitable business. For these reasons, Portales finally entered into the political sphere, and very soon he would become the intellectual leader of the conservative side. He helped to reorganize the conservative party, and, in 1827, founded El Hambriento (or The Starveling), a journal attacking liberal idealists known as the pipiolos (“white beaks”) from Portales' party's (a.k.a. the pelucones or "old wigs") perspective. Portales was an effective satirist, contributing several popular articles to The Starveling.  Portales' articles placed him in the limelight and paved the way for his political career.
  After the triumph of the conservatives in the Revolution of 1829, President José Tomás Ovalle y Bezanilla named him Minister of the Interior and Foreign Affairs on April 6, 1830 remaining until May 1831. He was named again to that position by President Fernando Errázuriz Aldunate on July 9, 1831 and remained until August 31, 1831 and named once again by President José Joaquín Prieto from November 9, 1835 to January 1837. Something similar happened with his nomination as minister of war and navy from April 6, 1830 until May 1831; then from July 9, 1831 until December 1832 and from September 21, 1835 to September 1836.
  Though Portales was never president officially (and in fact avoided this position for fear of being tied up by factional promises), he became a dictator and with this powerful position, he quelled anarchy. Portales set up a civil militia (which ended one of the worst stages of militarism in Chile's history); supported an oligarchic control for landowners, miners, and merchants; and made Catholicism the state religion. As a result of his campaign for peace, order, and thus progress, business also improved.
caption: Early print (1854)
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