COLOMBIA A NATION IN SPITE OF ITSELF

CHAPTER 1

INDIGENOUS AND SPANISH

No geographical feature has determined the history of Colombia as much as the Andes, the
which give the Colombian landscape its basic structure, as well as its temperature,
climate and access facilities. As one ascends through the different ranges
In mountainous areas, the average temperature drops and nature changes.

PRE-COLUMBIAN COLOMBIA.

It can be assumed that the first humans who arrived in Colombian lands were the
American natives, however, no physical traces of almost any of them have yet been found.
from the first inhabitants of the country. Stones from years prior to 10000 were found.
a.C. near the Tequendama Falls, the earliest culture from which remains have been found
monumental development took place in the high Magdalena, the most spectacular are figures of
Animals or humans some exceed three meters in height.

The indigenous people who inhabited the northwestern corner of South America belonged to
unlike the Caribbean, Arawak, Chibchan groups and others. The term Chibchan is a
linguistic designation, then the Taironas and the Muiscas were included. The former
they lived on the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, revealed to the
Colombians, among these are impressive engineering works that are not
found in no other nation, the Taironas were undoubtedly the Amerindian people
outstanding among the pioneers of modern Colombia.

The Muiscas were perfect in the manufacturing of cotton textiles, eminently

THE ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS

The first attempt at colonization took place in the Gulf of Urabá, where the settlement was founded.
population of San Sebastián in 1510. Santa Marta was founded in 1526. Cartagena, around the
west of the river. It was founded in 1533; with a bay much better than that of Santa Marta, soon
it would eclipse it. In April 1536, the expedition that would conquer left Santa Marta.
the Muiscas, under the leadership of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, commissioned by the
Spanish crown to explore the birth of the Magdalena River. Jiménez de Quesada was
lawyer by profession. He had initially come to serve as the chief magistrate of
Santa Marta, but he proved to be a commander as tough as any of the soldiers.
from the Conquest.

In Tunja, the Spanish took possession of a large amount of gold. They were particularly
delighted with those golden blades that hung from the eaves of the main buildings.
The conquistadors had collected an impressive amount of gold throughout the territory.
Muisca. They had established their control in a densely populated and fertile area that allowed them
offered salt and potatoes, corn and emeralds, as well as gold utensils.

In 1538, Jiménez de Quesada founded Bogotá as a Spanish city and made it the capital of
recently conquered territory, which he named New Granada in
memory of his birthplace in Spain. In 1536 Belalcázar had founded several
cities, among which the most notable were Popayán and Cali. The two became,
respectively, in the main urban centers of southern Colombia. Jiménez of
Quesada received numerous honors and few rewards, including the authorization to
to conquer huge portions of land in the Plains. Their hope was to find rich there
empires, but it was not so. Without gold and with few Indians to force to work, the Spaniards
they considered that the Plains had almost no value.

THE COLONIAL NEW GRANADA: SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS

For almost the entire colonial period, present-day Colombia was part of the viceroyalty of
But, but the Viceroy of Lima could not have much real authority over such distant lands.
from the Peruvian capital. For this reason, in 1564 a Captain General was appointed for the New
Granada. In 1717, the General Captaincy of New Granada was elevated to the level of
viceroyalty by right, and the ties that united it with Peru were broken. Six years
Later, the previous divisions were restored because the cost of maintaining a court
The viceroyalty in Bogotá seemed greater than the benefits.

The territorial distribution would exist at the time of Independence and would actually serve
as a basis for the delimitation of the borders of the new nations. Below the level of the
Viceroyalties, general captaincies, and presidencies had smaller territorial divisions.
that can be generically called provinces, each with its respective
governor. n. The members of the Cabildo were chosen in a non-democratic manner, very much to
due to some form of summary appointment, New Granada had a lot to
offer, especially in the Muisca territory and in other mountainous areas populated by
sedentary farmers who were already accustomed to a social and political organization
more than rudimentary. In such areas, the Spaniards established themselves as the class
dominant, imposing its rules over the conquered peoples through its own
local leaders and also through new control systems that foreigners
they established.

In the encomienda, groups of indigenous people were literally entrusted to the care of a
Spanish so that he could teach them the way toward the and, in return for such guidance and
protection, the Spaniard received tribute from the indigenous people. The tribute owed to an encomendero.
the indigenous person was initially represented in labor or in goods, or in both. The
The Spanish government declared the payment of the tax with labor illegal, but it was required.
widely, in violation of the law. Although the crown eventually abolished the system
of the encomiendas.

The natives who were conquered suffered a demographic catastrophe in the two centuries.
following their first contact with Europeans. By the end of the 17th century, the language of
the Muiscas had virtually disappeared, except in place names and terms for
designate the local fauna and flora that were adopted in the Spanish language.

New Granada was one of the least dynamic Spanish colonies in America.
common lands or reserves were protected by the laws of the same
conquerors. Many of the best lands, however, had fallen, in one way or another.
another, in the hands of the conquerors and their descendants and had become
haciendas. The largest concentration of artisans was found in the city of Bogotá, which
On the eve of Independence, it already had around 25,000 inhabitants. By the
made the political capital of the colony.
Popayán had much in common with the central area of the colony. However, it also
There were several gold deposits along the Pacific coast. In Popayán there was
more Spanish noble titles than in Bogotá, whose only noble was the Marquis of San
Jorge. Moreover, the first marquis, who had obtained his title around the end of the century.
XVIII, stopped paying the fee that the crown charged for the granting of such an honor and
he had found himself entangled in a lengthy lawsuit about his right to continue holding the
title.

Quito maintained some jurisdiction within the area of Popayán. The city of Pasto.
away from Bogotá. She sent her cases to the Audiencia of Quito and belonged to the diocese of
the current Ecuadorian capital until the end of the colonial period. The inhabitants of Pasto, thus
like many from Popayán, seriously considered the idea of becoming part of the
new Republic of Ecuador and not of the independent New Granada.

The Antioquian terrain is steep almost in its entirety, making it unsuitable for
the formation of large estates, although some existed. Likewise, Antioquia
I needed a constant power supply to support the mining fields. The
New Granada was, in fact, the main producer of metal in the Spanish Empire, so the
the amount of New Granadian gold is minimal compared to that of silver coming from
Mexico or Peru and thus the mines will employ a very small portion of the total population
from the colony.

The construction of a canal that connected Cartagena with a small tributary of the river and
allowed water transport from the upper valley of the Magdalena River to the Caribbean Sea,
it prevented Santa Marta from playing an important commercial role until the 19th century.

Panama became part of New Granada in the mid-18th century, when it was
included in the newly created viceroyalty. Previously, it had depended on Peru and the
Panamanians were not very satisfied with the change.

In the city of Socorro, the main product was cotton textiles, but there was no
nothing like a factory system. On the contrary, this was an industry of units
individual family members, who spun and wove by hand. The final product was a fabric of
thick cotton for local use and the surrounding provinces. The industry employed several
thousands of people, and although no one got rich, many people - mainly whites
the poor and mestizos-- acquired greater economic independence.

Although they were not a prominent region except in terms of area, the Llanos
Easterners were more important in the Colony than in other periods prior to the century.
XX.

The Church played an important mediating role between the State and society.
Hispanics and the indigenous communities of the Andean highlands. To the communities
Spanish and mestiza women, the Catholic Church not only provided them with religious care, but also
also the majority of 40 social services available at the time, including the
education. To fulfill its functions, the Church maintained a clergy that, in the end, the
colonial era, had about 1,850 men and women, both regulars and laypeople. The
The clergy was relatively wealthy, as they received income from parish rights and tithes.
(required not only by ecclesiastical law but also by civil law) and enjoyed
the benefits of extensive properties that he had acquired through donations and
investments.

The Church was not as strong in the coastal areas as it was in the Andean interior: the contrast
faithfully reflected the clergy's greater interest in the creoles and indigenous people of the interior who
by the Africans who made up a large part of the population of the coastal plains. The
The colony didn't even have a printing press until one was brought to Bogotá in 1738. In the
field of the arts, apart from a lot of utilitarian and religious popular art, New Granada
produced the painter Gregorio Vázquez de Arce y Ceballos.

Higher education was relatively developed for the children of the colonial 'elite'.
In Bogotá, there were two universities, controlled respectively by the Jesuits and the
Dominicans, where degrees in law and theology were offered. The spark that provoked
Advances in the sciences were ignited in 1760 by the arrival in the country of José Celestino Mutis, a learned man.
Spanish naturalist who arrived in Bogotá as the personal physician of one of the last viceroys.
colonial. He founded the Botanical Expedition, an ambitious research project designed
in order to register all the botanical species of the South American strip located to the north
from the equator line.
Although Mutis was Spanish, he chose his collaborators mainly from the community
creole scientific and some of the members of the Expedition would become leaders of the
independence movement of the beginning of the next century.

The mainland officials sometimes didn't even know where it was or what it was:
officials of the Consulate of Cádiz refer to the 'island' of Santa Marta, as if the most
the old Spanish foundations on the Colombian coast was another small point
lost in the waters of the Caribbean. The image that emerges from the archives is that of an economy
neogranadine sleepy and subsistence, presided over by a high class descended from
the conquerors or later Spanish immigrant settlers.

For the mestizo element, the relative stagnation of the colony was not entirely
harmful. Although the obligation to pay taxes could lead the indigenous people to become hired laborers.
to the Creole landowners of New Granada for at least the shortest possible time
to earn the equivalent of their annual quota, they did not face the rigors of the mita
Potosí, mandatory recruitment to work in the bowels of the great 'mountain of silver'
what the Peruvian and Bolivian villagers were forced to.

The modern profile of Colombia as a country of multiple urban centers, each with
vibrant life of its own comes from the colonial era. In those colonial cities, things were already
gestating a contingent of future leaders -notaries and lawyers, businesspeople,
landowners who lived outside their estates, or the mix of all the previous ones - that
they would soon undertake the formation of a new nation
It could be said that the most important change for the indigenous people was the economy and the
trade. The Spaniards provided them with a new, more advanced economic system and
evolved although this was a direct consequence of the objectives of the Spanish
to obtain riches from those lands.

The indigenous people also acquired a new language, Spanish, which today continues to be
a great bond of union between the two continents, although it must also be said that
due to the colonization by the Spaniards and Portuguese, some native languages
they lost.

Many breeds of the New World were preserved and the population increased, although also
Some native races disappeared due in some cases to diseases that were brought.
by the Europeans and that were unknown to them.

In some cases, it must be said that although Spanish legislation regarding the new
the world could be said to have had a humanitarian character for the time, in practice it
they committed many abuses against the indigenous people, and the reality was that they were in the most
lowering of the social hierarchy.

The indigenous people discovered new innovations such as baking cereals and the wheel.
who were unknown to them. On the other hand, new...
crops, and livestock. The culture of the indigenous people was also enriched, and a fact
notorious for this was the creation of new universities in the new continent, as well as the
the spread of the printing press that contributed to the propagation of culture.

the Spaniards found a great source of wealth that led them to be the Empire
the largest in history. Spain found in America a great source of wealth, on
all precious metals, spices, and other items. They also acquired new products.
agricultural products until then unknown such as tobacco, tomato, corn, potato,
chocolate, etc.

The conquest not only brought certain customs from the European continent but also
a new way of governing. Since the beginnings of the conquest, the priests came
willing to evangelize the indigenous people and convert them to Christianity, with what they
it fulfilled the spiritual purpose of colonization.

The religious institution played a very important role in the colonization of the new...
Granada and in general of America.

One could say that the most important change for the Indigenous people was the economy and the
trade. The Spaniards provided them with a more advanced and evolved economic system
although this was a direct consequence of the Spaniards' objectives to obtain wealth
from those lands.