 José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar inadvertently led a continental-wide pincer movement from southern and northern South America that liberated most of the Spanish American nations on that continent and secured the independence the Southern Cone had more or less experienced since 1810.In South America, royalist soldiers, officers (such as Andrés de Santa Cruz) and whole units also began to desert or defect to the patriots in large numbers as the royal army's situation became dire.During the end of 1820 in Venezuela, after Bolívar and Pablo Morillo concluded a cease fire, many units crossed lines knowing that Spanish control of the region would not last.