José de San Martín Manuel Rodríguez had returned to Chile before the crossing, and began a guerrilla war in Santiago de Chile against the royalists, in support of the upcoming army. He was supported in the south of the city and the countryside. The strategy was to occupy nearby villages, seize the royalists' weapons and flee. The attacks on Melipilla and San Fernando, and a failed one at Curicó, demoralized the royalists. The columns that crossed the Andes began to take military actions. The column in the north led by Cabot defeated the royalists in Salala, seized Coquimbo and then Copiapó. In the south,
Bernardo Vieira de Melo captain-general on November 17, 1691. On January 8, 1695, he was appointed Captain-General of Rio Grande do Norte, and on September 25, 1709 Sergeant Major of the Third of Palmares, in which position he took an active part in War of the peddlers. In November 1710, Vieira was the first to call for the creation of a Republic in Brazil, an act for which he was arrested in Recife in 1712 and shipped to Lisbon with his son, André. He died in the Limoeiro prison in 1718. Bernardo Vieira de Melo Bernardo Vieira de Melo was the first Governor of