Colombia is a unitary republic made up of thirty-two departments and a Capital District. Each department has a governor (gobernador) and an Assembly, elected by popular vote for a four-year period. The governor cannot be re-elected in consecutive periods. Departments are country subdivisions and are granted a certain degree of autonomy.
The Spanish reconquest of New Granada in 1815–1816 was part of the Spanish American wars of independence in South America. Shortly after the Napoleonic Wars ended, Ferdinand VII, recently restored to the throne in Spain, decided to send military forces to retake most of the northern South American colonies, which had established autonomous juntas and independent states. The invaders, with support from loyal colonial troops, completed the reconquest of New Granada by taking Bogotá on 6 May 1816.
Antonio Amador José de Nariño y Álvarez del Casal, was a Colombian ideological precursor of the independence movement in New Granada as well as one of its early political and military leaders.
The First Republic of New Granada, known despectively as the Foolish Fatherland, is the period in the history of Colombia immediately following the declaration of independence from Spain in 1810 and until the Spanish reconquest in 1816. The period between 1810 and 1816 in the Viceroyalty of New 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 that eventually favored Spanish reconquest. Similar developments can be seen at the same time in the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. Each province, and even some cities, set up its own autonomous junta, which declared themselves sovereign from each other.
Manuel de Bernardo Álvarez del Casal was an influential Criollo figure in New Granada at the time of the independence movement. He occupied several important positions in the rebel government. He was also the uncle of Antonio Nariño, forerunner of independence. He served as president of the rebel State of Cundinamarca in 1814.
José Miguel Pey y García de Andrade was a Colombian statesman and soldier and a leader of the independence movement from Spain. He is considered the first vice president and first president of Colombia. He was a centralist.
The Granadine Confederation was a short-lived federal republic established in 1858 as a result of a constitutional change replacing the Republic of New Granada. It consisted of the present-day nations of Colombia and Panama and parts of northwestern Brazil. In turn, the Granadine Confederation was replaced by the United States of Colombia after another constitutional change in 1863.
Francisco José de Caldas was a Colombian lawyer, military engineer, self-taught naturalist, mathematician, geographer and inventor, who was executed by orders of Pablo Morillo during the Spanish American Reconquista for being a forerunner of the fight for the independence of New Granada. Arguably the first Colombian scientist, he is often nicknamed "El Sabio".
The Colombian Civil War began on 8 May 1860 and lasted until November 1862. It was an internal conflict between the newly formed conservative Granadine Confederation and a more liberal rebel force from the newly seceded region of Cauca, composed of dissatisfied politicians commanded by General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, its former president. The Granadine Confederation, created a few years earlier in 1858 by Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, was defeated in the capital Bogotá, with Mosquera deposing the newly elected president Bartolomé Calvo on July 18, 1861. Forming a provisional government, with himself as president, Mosquera continued to pursue the conservative forces until their final defeat in 1862. The resulting formation of the new United States of Colombia would have significant cultural and economic consequences for Colombia.
José Luis Álvaro Alvino Fernández Madrid was a Neogranadine statesman, physician, scientist and writer, who was President of the interim triumvirate of the United Provinces of New Granada in 1814, and President of the United Provinces of the New Granada in 1816. After the Spanish retook New Granada, he was barred from the country and was exiled in Havana, where he continued his scientific studies and worked as a doctor. He was later pardoned and allowed to come back to Colombia, and was appointed ambassador to France and to the United Kingdom where he died in 1830.
The constitutional history of Colombia is the process of formation and evolution of the different constitutions that Colombia has had since its formation.
Antonio Villavicencio y Verástegui was a statesman and soldier of New Granada, born in Quito, and educated in Spain. He served in the Battle of Trafalgar as an officer in the Spanish Navy with the rank of Second Lieutenant. He was sent as a representative of the Spanish Crown to New Granada, where his arrival was used as an excuse in Santafé de Bogotá to start a revolt; this was known as the Florero de Llorente, which culminated in the proclamation of independence from Spain. After this incident he resigned his office and joined the cause of independence. He was later captured and became the first martyr executed during the reign of terror of Pablo Morillo.
Manuel Rodríguez Torices was a Neogranadine statesman, lawyer, journalist, and Precursor of the Independence of Colombia. He was part of the Triumvirate of the United Provinces of New Granada in 1815, and served as Vice President of the United Provinces after the triumvirate. He was executed during the Reign of Terror of Pablo Morillo in 1816.
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.
The Republic of Gran Colombia was a former independent country in northern South America, a post-Spanish colonial country that existed from 1819 to 1831. Its initial subdivisions, created in 1820, were revised and expanded in 1824 to 12 departments.
The Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca was a rebel state in colonial Colombia, replacing the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada from 1810 to 1815. It was part of the Foolish Fatherland period at the beginning of the Spanish American wars of independence. Its capital was Bogotá, the former capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada.
States of Colombia existed from February 27, 1855, in the Republic of New Granada and the Granadine Confederation, where they were called "federal states". In the United States of Colombia they were called "sovereign states".
The New Granada Civil War was a civil war between 1812 and 1814 in New Granada between Federalists and Centralists. The war ended with a victory for the Federalists.
The Nariño Southern Campaign was a series of military actions between December 1813 and May 1814, under command of Antonio Nariño, leader of the Republican State of Cundinamarca, against Spanish forces in the south of New Granada.
It had the objective of dislodging the Royalist presence in the south after the defeat of the first independence movement in the province of Quito (1812), a fact that put the New Granada provinces, that had retained their early independence, at risk. Nariño's army took the city of Popayán and the surroundings of Pasto, but was decisively defeated in the Battle of Ejidos de Pasto, ending the campaign in total failure.
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