| Viceroy of New Granada | |
|---|---|
 Coat of arms of Colonial-era Bogotá | |
 | |
| Appointer | King of Spain |
| Formation | 1718 |
| First holder | Antonio Ignacio de la Pedrosa y Guerrero |
| Final holder | Juan de la Cruz Mourgeón |
| Abolished | 1821 |
Spanish viceroys of the colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717–1819) located in northern South America.
The former territory within the Viceroyalty of New Granada corresponds to present day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. It also encompassed areas of present-day Guyana, southwestern Suriname, northwestern Brazil, northern Peru, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.
From the initial Spanish colonization of northern South American in the 1540s to the Viceroyalty of New Granada's establishment in 1718, the territories were governed by the Viceroyalty of Peru (1542–1824). They included the included smaller colonial Audiencia Real of Bogotá and New Kingdom of Granada. In 1777 the provinces of Venezuela were assigned to the new colonial Captaincy General of Venezuela (1777–1821), governed by Captains General.
The territories of the viceroyalty gained independence from Spain between 1819 and 1822 after a series of military and political struggles, uniting in the republic of Gran Colombia (1821–1831).
| Viceroy | Dates of Administration | Portrait |
|---|---|---|
| Antonio Ignacio de la Pedrosa y Guerrero* | 13 June 1718 – 25 November 1719 |  |
| Jorge de Villalonga** | 25 November 1719 – 11 May 1724 |  |
| Sebastián de Eslava | 24 April 1740 – 6 November 1749 |  |
| José Alfonso Pizarro | 6 November 1749 – 24 November 1753 |  |
| José Solís Folch de Cardona | 24 November 1753 – 25 February 1761 |  |
| Pedro Messía de la Cerda | 1761–1772 |  |
| Manuel de Guirior | 1772–1776 |  |
| Manuel Antonio Flórez | 1776 – 26 November 1781 |  |
| Juan de Torrezar Díaz Pimienta | 1 April 1782 – 11 June 1782 |  |
| Antonio Caballero y Góngora | 1782–1788 |  |
| Francisco Gil de Taboada y Lemos | 1788–1789 |  |
| José Manuel de Ezpeleta | 1789–1797 |  |
| Pedro Mendinueta y Múzquiz | 2 January 1797 – 16 September 1803 |  |
| Antonio José Amar y Borbón | 16 September 1803 – 20 July 1810 |  |
| Francisco Javier Venegas*** | 20 July 1810 - 21 March 1812 |  |
| Benito Pérez Brito | 21 March 1812 – November 1812 |  |
| Francisco Montalvo y Ambulodi | 16 April 1816 – 9 March 1818 |  |
| Juan José de Sámano y Uribarri | 9 March 1818 – August 1819 |  |
| Juan de la Cruz Mourgeón | 1819–1821 |  |
*Acting viceroy (without the formal title).
**In 1723, the Viceroyalty was dissolved. Its government returned to the Presidency of the New Kingdom of Granada, part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, until the reestablishment of the separate viceroyalty in 1739.
***He was named to the post but did not formally occupy it.
The Viceroyalty of New Granada also called Viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada or Viceroyalty of Santafé was the name given on 27 May 1717, to the jurisdiction of the Spanish Empire in northern South America, corresponding to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. Created in 1717 by King Felipe V, as part of a new territorial control policy, it was suspended in 1723 for financial problems and was restored in 1739 until the independence movement suspended it again in 1810. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739, and the provinces of Venezuela were separated from the Viceroyalty and assigned to the Captaincy General of Venezuela in 1777. In addition to those core areas, the territory of the Viceroyalty of New Granada included Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, southwestern Suriname, parts of northwestern Brazil, and northern Peru.
Upper Peru is a name for the land that was governed by the Real Audiencia of Charcas. The name originated in Buenos Aires towards the end of the 18th century after the Audiencia of Charcas was transferred from the Viceroyalty of Peru to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776. It comprised the governorships of Potosí, La Paz, Cochabamba, Chiquitos, Moxos and Charcas.
The Viceroyalty of Peru officially known as the Kingdom of Peru was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed from the capital of Lima. Peru was one of the two Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
A Real Audiencia, or simply an Audiencia, was an appellate court in Spain and its empire. The name of the institution literally translates as Royal Audience. The additional designation chancillería was applied to the appellate courts in early modern Spain. Each audiencia had oidores.
The Ecuadorian–Peruvian territorial dispute was a territorial dispute between Ecuador and Peru, which, until 1928, also included Colombia. The dispute had its origins on each country's interpretation of what Real Cedulas Spain used to precisely define its colonial territories in the Americas. After independence, all of Spain's colonial territories signed and agreed to proclaim their limits in the basis of the principle of uti possidetis juris, which regarded the Spanish borders of 1810 as the borders of the new republics. However, conflicting claims and disagreements between the newly formed countries eventually escalated to the point of armed conflicts on several occasions.
The decolonization of the Americas occurred over several centuries as most of the countries in the Americas gained their independence from European rule. The American Revolution was the first in the Americas, and the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was a victory against a great power, aided by France and Spain, Britain's enemies. The French Revolution in Europe followed, and collectively these events had profound effects on the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies in the Americas. A revolutionary wave followed, resulting in the creation of several independent countries in Latin America. The Haitian Revolution lasted from 1791 to 1804 and resulted in the independence of the French slave colony. The Peninsular War with France, which resulted from the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, caused Spanish Creoles in Spanish America to question their allegiance to Spain, stoking independence movements that culminated in various Spanish American wars of independence (1808–33), which were primarily fought between opposing groups of colonists and only secondarily against Spanish forces. At the same time, the Portuguese monarchy fled to Brazil during the French invasion of Portugal. After the royal court returned to Lisbon, the prince regent, Pedro, remained in Brazil and in 1822 successfully declared himself emperor of a newly independent Brazilian Empire.
The Gran Colombia–Peru War of 1828 and 1829 was the first international conflict fought by the Republic of Peru, which had gained its independence from Spain in 1821, and Gran Colombia, that existed between 1819 and 1830.
The Captaincy General of Venezuela, also known as the Kingdom of Venezuela, was an administrative district of colonial Spain, created on September 8, 1777, through the Royal Decree of Graces of 1777, to provide more autonomy for the provinces of Venezuela, previously under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo and then the Viceroyalty of New Granada. It established a unified government in political (governorship), military, fiscal (intendancy), ecclesiastical (archdiocese) and judicial (audiencia) affairs. Its creation was part of the Bourbon Reforms and laid the groundwork for the future nation of Venezuela, in particular by orienting the province of Maracaibo towards the province of Caracas.
Jorge de Villalonga, segundo conde de la Cueva was a Spanish lawyer, general and the first official viceroy of New Granada, from November 25, 1719 to May 11, 1724.
Antonio Caballero y Góngora was a Spanish Roman Catholic prelate in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, and from 1782 to 1789 the viceroy of New Granada.
The New Kingdom of Granada, or Kingdom of the New Granada, was the name given to a group of 16th-century Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America governed by the president of the Royal Audience of Santafé, an area corresponding mainly to modern-day Colombia. The conquistadors originally organized it as a province with a Royal Audience within the Viceroyalty of Peru despite certain independence from it. The audiencia was established by the crown in 1549. Ultimately the kingdom became the Viceroyalty of New Granada first in 1717 and permanently in 1739. After several attempts to set up independent states in the 1810s, the kingdom and the viceroyalty ceased to exist altogether in 1819 with the establishment of the United Provinces of New Granada.
Gran Colombia, or Greater Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, was a state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central America from 1819 to 1831. It included present-day Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru, northwestern Brazil and Guyana. The terms Gran Colombia and Greater Colombia are used historiographically to distinguish it from the current Republic of Colombia, which is also the official name of the former state.
The Real Audiencia 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. It was created by Royal Decree on 29 August 1563 by Philip II of Spain in the city of Guadalajara. It ended in 1822 with the incorporation of the area into the Republic of Gran Colombia.
The Spanish American wars of independence were numerous civil wars in Spanish America with the aim of political independence from Spanish rule during the early 19th century. These began shortly after the start of the French invasion of Spain, during the Napoleonic Wars, as a struggle for sovereignty in both hemispheres, between those who wanted a unitary monarchy (Royalist) rather than a plural monarchies or Republics (Patriots). Thus, the strict period of military campaigns would go from the battle of Chacaltaya (1809), in present-day Bolivia, to the Battle of Tampico (1829), in Mexico.
The Colombian Declaration of Independence occurred on July 20, 1810 when the Junta de Santa Fe was formed in Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, to govern the territory autonomously from Spain. The event inspired similar independence movements across Latin America, and triggered an almost decade-long rebellion culminating in the founding of the Republic of Gran Colombia, which spanned present-day Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru and northwestern Brazil.
Guayana Province (1585−1864) was a former province of Spanish Colonial Venezuela and independent Venezuela, located in the Guyana region of northeastern South America.
The Governorate of New Andalusia was a Spanish Governorate of the Crown of Castile in South America which existed between 1534–1617.
Spanish expeditions led by Columbus and Alonso de Ojeda reached the coast of present-day Venezuela in 1498 and 1499. The first colonial exploitation was of the pearl oysters of the "Pearl Islands". Spain established its first permanent South American settlement in the present-day city of Cumaná in 1502, and in 1577 Caracas became the capital of the Province of Venezuela. There was also for a few years a German colony at Klein-Venedig.
Captaincies were military and administrative divisions in colonial Spanish America and the Spanish Philippines, established in areas under risk of foreign invasion or Indian attack. They could consist of just one province, or group several together. These captaincies general should be distinguished from the ones given to almost all of the conquistadores, which was based on an older tradition. During the Reconquista, the term "captain general" and similar ones had been used for the official in charge of all the troops in a given district. This office was transferred to America during the conquest and was usually granted along with the hereditary governorship to the adelantado in the patent issued by the Crown. This established a precedent that was recognized by the New Laws of 1542, but ultimately the crown eliminated all hereditary governorships in its overseas possessions.
Colombian-Spain relations are the bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Colombia, formally established in 1881, several decades after Colombia's independence from the Spanish Empire. Both nations are members of the Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.