Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca
Encyclopedia
- See also: Cundinamarca StateCundinamarca StateCundinamarca State was one of the states of Colombia. It was created on 15 June 1857 as Estado Federal de Cundinamarca , in 1858 was recognized as Estado de la Federación, and in the constitution of 1863 re-named as Estado Soberano of the United States of Colombia.- Subdivisions :With the law of...
The Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca (Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
: Estado Libre e Independiente de Cundinamarca) was a rebel state in modern Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
between 1810 and 1815 during the Patria Boba
Patria Boba
The period between 1810 and 1816 in the New Kingdom of Granada was marked by such intense conflicts over the nature of the new government or governments that it became known as la Patria Boba . Constant fighting between federalists and centralists gave rise to a prolonged period of instability...
period at the beginning of the Latin American wars of independence. Its capital was Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
, the former capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada
Viceroyalty of New Granada
The Viceroyalty of New Granada was the name given on 27 May 1717, to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern South America, corresponding mainly to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739...
.
Following the occupation of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, Cundinamarca was one of the states (such as Argentina
United Provinces of South America
The United Provinces of South America was the original name of the state that emerged from the May Revolution and the early developments of the Argentine War of Independence...
and Venezuela) who replaced its viceregal
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
government with a local junta in the name of the deposed Ferdinand VII. The first president was Jorge Tadeo Lozano
Jorge Tadeo Lozano
Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Viscount of Pastrana was a Neogranadine scientist, journalist, and politician who presided over the Constituent College of Cundinamarca and was elected President of Cundinamarca in 1811....
, but Antonio Nariño
Antonio Nariño
Antonio de la Santísima Concepción Nariño y Álvarez was an ideological Colombian precursor and one of the early political and military leaders of the independence movement in the New Granada - Early political activity :Nariño was born to an aristocratic family...
forced his resignation and replaced him. Cundinamarca was initially conceived as an enclave of the Spanish kingdom, but full independence was declared in 1813.
While Cundinamarca, including the old capital and administrative machinery, advocated the establishment of a strong centralist government, other parts of the old viceroyalty banded together as the United Provinces of New Granada
United Provinces of New Granada
The United Provinces of New Granada was a country in South America from 1811 to 1816, a period known in Colombian history as the Patria Boba. It was formed from areas of the New Kingdom of Granada. The government was a federation with a parliamentary system, consisting of a weak executive and...
to support a federal
Federalism
Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...
structure. The United Provinces faced a largely static civil war until the defeat of a Cundinamarcan expedition against Quito
Royal Audience of Quito
The Royal Audience of Quito was an administrative unit in the Spanish Empire which had political, military, and religious jurisdiction over territories that today include Ecuador, parts of northern Peru, parts of southern Colombia and parts of northern Brazil...
allowed General Simon Bolivar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...
to force terms in December 1814. By mid-1815, however, Pablo Morillo
Pablo Morillo
Pablo Morillo y Morillo, Count of Cartagena and Marquess of La Puerta, aka El Pacificador was a Spanish general....
arrived with a large Spanish force and returned the region to submission to the since-restored Ferdinand.