History of Chile the Spaniards at the Battle of Chacabuco on February 12 and marking the beginning of the "Patria Nueva". San Martín considered the liberation of Chile a strategic stepping-stone to the emancipation of Peru, which he saw as the key to hemispheric victory over the Spanish. Chile won its formal independence when San Martín defeated the last large Spanish force on Chilean soil at the Battle of Maipú on April 5, 1818. San Martín then led his Argentine and Chilean followers north to liberate Peru; and fighting continued in Chile's southern provinces, the bastion of the royalists, until 1826. A declaration
Bernardo de la Torre Bernardo de la Torre Bernardo de la Torre was a Spanish sailor, primarily noted for having explored parts of the Western Pacific Ocean south of Japan in the 16th century. Bernardo de la Torre sailed under the instructions of Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, who sent him in August 1543 on board of the "San Juan de Letran" (St. John of Lateran) to try to find a return route to the Mexican Western coast from the Philippines. This was the fourth such failed attempt to find the route that would be known as the Manila galleon once it was finally established