Manuel Bulnes

His presidencies were characterised by educational and cultural expansion, supported by the encouragement of foreign intellectuals to come to Chile. The National Institute was reformed and several junior schools were established along with the José Abelardo Núñez Upper School. In Santiago the University of Chile was founded during his watch, in 1842, as well as a technical training school from which the University of Santiago is descended.

Bulnes also presided over a general amnesty in order to reconcile the groups who had opposed one another in the Civil War of 1829.

Regarding the nation's strategic goals, Bulnes founded Fuerte Bulnes in 1843 in order to establish and enforce sovereignty over the Magellan Straits. The settlement was relocated to Punta Arenas six years later because the original site offered insufficient space for the development of a settled community: it was and remains the most southerly municipality in the world, and has been a focus for economic development in the south of the country. Germans were targeted to colonise the hitherto very sparsely inhabited southern part of Chile in the wake of the 1848 revolutions which provided an impetus for emigration from the European perspective.

It was also during the presidency of Bulnes that the former colonial power, Spain, acknowledged the independence of Chile and became involved in the construction of Chile's first railway.

Manuel Bulnes Prieto died in Santiago.

• Juan B. Alberdi, Biografia de general Bulnes (Santiago, 1846)
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)