Spanish naval units had been blockading the Peruvian coast for months in the Chincha Islands dispute. With the Spanish stretched thinly and Chile pursuing a new, more active policy, the Chilean corvette Esmerelda captured the smaller Spanish dispatch schooner Virgen de Covadonga off the coastal town of Papulo, north of Valparaiso. This so humiliated the already depressed Spanish admiral that he committed suicide a few days later. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
"Battle of Papudo," in Salvatore Bizzarro (ed.), Historical Dictionary of Chile (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005), 536.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Battles/Soldiers
