The independence of Colombia was the process that led to the end of the period of dominance of the Spanish Empire in the current territory of the country. This process was fought in the middle of a conflict developed between 1810 to 1819 to emancipate the territories that then included the Viceroyalty of New Granada. The process was part of the Spanish-American wars of independence , a series of struggles that emerged in America, motivated by French Invasion of Spain in 1808, which was part of the napoleonic Wars in Europe
THE INDEPENDENCE
Authors
We are students of the Juan de castellanos university foundation, of different programs: Public Accounting, Law, Physical Education and Agricultural Engineering. Gathered in the subject of foreign language level 3, developing the independent work we will tell you of important data of what was the independence of Colombia.
Background
The wars of independence of Spanish America were inspired by those of the United States and Haiti, as well as the French Revolution and the previous insurrection of the commoners. The Creole of the United States wanted the independence of English domination for economic, political and social reasons.
The French invasion of Spain in 1808 led to the crisis of the Spanish monarchy, with the abdication of Ferdinand VII. Most of the former subjects of King Ferdinand did not accept the government of José Bonaparte, who was appointed to the office of King of Spain by his brother Napoleon I. The process to create a stable government took two years.
The Boba Homeland
The period between 1810 and 1816 is known as the Boba Homeland, as it was characterized by intense fighting between the independentists to define the form of government that the new state should have. The constant struggle between federalists and centralists produced, in this nation only in formation and development, political instability and several regional and civil wars throughout the territory. Each province and also some cities created their own boards, which declared themselves independent of each other. Although the Board of Santa Fe de Bogotá called itself "Main Board of the New Kingdom of Granada," the territory continued to be politically divided, as smaller cities created their own boards and pretended to be independent of the provincial capital boards. and this led to military conflicts. In the following months there were two failed attempts to establish a provincial congress.
The Liberating Campaing
From 1818 onwards, the situation was definitively in favor of the patriots, which allowed Bolívar, from Venezuela and Francisco de Paula Santander, from Nueva Granada to begin coordinating joint actions from their areas of influence that would foster a military unit.
By then there was an important focus of revolutionary resistance in the New Granada against the troops of Morillo in the plains of Casanare, an area adjacent to the plains of Apure and Arauca, where some of the most committed neogranadino revolutionaries withdrew to resist the violence of the Counterrevolution of the military commander Sámano as a patriotic stronghold under Santander, whom Bolívar promoted to the rank of Brigadier and appointed him as Military Commander of the Vanguard Division.
Both had developed a plan in which Santander had to prepare the province of Casanare, unify the guerrillas in the south and give Bolívar reports on Spanish troops to begin the invasion of New Granada.
That is when Bolívar made the Paso de los Andes, in which the patriotic troops advanced through the Pisba Páramo, until reaching the royalists on July 25, 1819 in the Battle of the Vargas Swamp, in which the troop Realist finally fled, a situation that allowed the patriots to reach the city of Tunja on August 4.
There he meets with the patriotic troops that were under the command of Santander in the town of Tame (currently located in the department of Arauca), where the Liberating Campaign of New Granada begins.
Bolivar's attack managed to surprise the Spaniards who, in the face of the disaster, tried to take action. Barreiro still thought he could control the situation but the state of his troops forced him to be on the defensive so he decided to retreat to the city of Bogotá where conditions would be much more favorable.The Act of Independence
The revolution did not have the projections that were to be expected because a large part of those who intervened were Indians and inhabitants of the Savannah populations, who had to return to their villages; something that induced Acevedo Gómez, one of the chiefs of the Creole oligarchy, to gather some of the open Cabildo and declare himself invested with the character of "tribune of the people." He built the famous Governing Board with which he would replace the viceroyalty, signing the Act of Independence.
The so-called "Act of Independence" of Bogotá was not the declaration of independence itself, because as the same document states, it was not intended (in the name of New Granada) "to abdicate the imprescriptible rights of the sovereignty of the people to another person who to that of his august and unfortunate Monarch Don Fernando VII. »In contrast, other acts of independence, such as that which was promulgated in the city of Tunja on December 9, 1811, Mompox on August 6, 1810 and in Cartagena de Indias On November 11, 1811, they did seek real independence from Spain.