Real Audiencia of Santiago or Appeals Court. With the temporary return of royalists to power after the Battle of Rancagua, the body was reconstituted by the new Governor-Captain General, Mariano Osorio. It functioned until 1818, when it was finally shut down by the independent government of Bernardo O'Higgins, again replaced by a new appeals court, this time called the "Cámara de Apelaciones". This was in turn the ancestor of today's Chilean Appeals Court in Santiago. Real Audiencia of Santiago The Royal "Audiencia" of Santiago () was an "Audiencia Real" or royal law court that functioned in Santiago de Chile during the Spanish colonial period.
José de San Martín that it was not possible to defend Concepción, so he ordered O'Higgins to leave the city. 50,000 Chileans took cattle and grain and moved north, burning everything else, so that they did not leave supplies for the royalists. As he had done with the Tucumán Congress, San Martín urged a declaration of independence, to legitimize the government and the military actions. The Chilean Declaration of Independence was issued on 18 February 1818, one year after the battle of Chacabuco. San Martín, Las Heras and Balcarce met in Curicó, and the royalists in Talca, in a plain known as "Cancha rayada".