The gang fought initially in the Chilean War of Independence as royalist guerrillas during the Guerra a muerte phase.

[citation needed] After Vicente Benavides was executed and the royalist resistance collapsed, they became armed bandits who sought to live outside the new states of Chile and Argentina.

De lo que prebiene del indulto no podemos porque no somos solos que peliamos pues ustedes saben que el portugues aliado se halla peliando en Buenos ayres i si ustedes gustan invernar invernen que no les hace ningun perjuicio.

José Antonio Pincheira.In 1827 the colonel Jorge Beauchef, under the orders of Chilean general Manuel Bulnes, crossed the Andes and defeated the Pincheira brothers in the battle of Epulafquén, but the outlaws slipped away.

The gang was at large until 1832 when José Antonio Pincheira, who was in exile in Mendoza, negotiated a capitulation to the government of Chile.