Colombia is a country situated in the north of Panama, northwest of South America, and bordered on East by Brazil and Venezuela. In the south, the country is bordered by Ecuador and Peru and shares maritime limits with several countries including Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Honduras. The Republic of Colombia obtained its independence from Spain in 1819 after a long struggle for liberty (Hudson, 15).
The process of how Colombia obtained its independence from Spain and what they did to achieve
In 1810, leaders from different localities in Colombia that had formed criollo councils agreed to unite the colony of New Grenada. From the starting of their attempts, disagreement emerged on the constitutional form the new government should take. The provincial council was against the centralist authoritarian type of government that was suggested by the Bogota council (Brown,33). The provincial council preferred a federal government claiming it would blend well with the liberal principles of the Enlightenment such as that of the American Revolution. This represented the first ideological differences between the two leading council groups. Federalists rallied on Camilo Torres; Centralists relied on Antonio Nariño (Bushnell,12). The provincial councils sent representatives to Bogota in 1811 to draft a constitution for the territory and as a way to avoid civil war between the two factions. By November 1811, a Congress was established, and the provinces formed the United Provinces of New Granada. The federal union was made of autonomous provinces joined together by the common interest to fight for liberation. The congress agreed to establish a national army at Bogota.
Also, the neighboring kingdom of the New Granada, Quito, which was a region under the auspices of the viceroy of New Granada, had established an autonomous junta on August 10, swearing devotion to Ferdinand VII, but declining the Viceregal rules. Viceroy Antonio regarded it as a rebellious action, and he became cautious to prevent the same from happening in New Granada. He ordered military force to put down the junta in collaboration with the viceroy of Peru (Echeverri, 235).
Beginning in 1812, individual provinces started declaring independence from Spain. In the same year, Simon Bolivar Palacio considered as the savior of South America, tried for the first period to achieve independence for New Granada. However, lack of reinforcement from several provinces discouraged him. He left the New Granada in 1815 and went to Jamaica (Helg,11). The continuing tension between centralist and federalist forces resulted in the conflict that left New Granada weak and vulnerable to Spain’s attempts to conquer the provinces.
After Bolivar left the country, the spirit to fight for independent in New Granada was deteriorated. Ferdinand VII had been taken back to the Spanish sovereignty and Napoleon’s forces had withdrawn from Spain. A conciliation expedition led by Pablo Morillo on behalf of the king that progressed from the present day Venezuela to Bogota, and those who voluntarily gave out their arms and reaffirmed their devotion to the Spanish Crown were forgiven(Echeverri,235). Morillo then granted freedom to slaves who had assisted in the conquest of the colonies. Due to the disagreement among the masses, the superior class, and inept fighting governance, Cartagena was taken by the Royalists at the end of 1815.
According to Echeverri (2008), in early 1816, Morillo went to conquer New Granada and changed his strategies from forgiving to terror, and as a result, Bogota was conquered within few months. Morillo repressed antiroyalists including the various leaders such as Torres, who was an executing leader. He established the Tribunal of Purification, which was responsible for dealing with prisoners and the board of Seizures. The Ecclesiastical Tribunal, which was in charge of government relations with the church, forced military law on priests who were involved in the rebellion. The Spanish re-conquest installed a military regulation that ruled with violent suppression. Rising dissatisfaction contributed to more radicalization of the liberation movement, spreading to segments of the society which included the subordinate classes and slaves, which had not reinforced the earlier attempt at independence. Therefore, the ground was laid for Bolivar’s return and eventual triumph.
At the end of 1816, Bolivar came back to New Granada; he was convinced that they could emerge victorious from the war of independence from Spanish only with the support of the masses. In the earlier efforts at independence, large sections of the people had been enticed to the royalists’ side by assurances such as repartition of land and eradication of slavery (LaRosa, 63). When the people noticed that the assurances were unfulfilled, they changed their allegiance from Spain to the independence movement. Bolivar was determined to establish the political framework of the revolution; he struggled to broaden its social base. He stood to fight for equality, liberty and to end the racial discrimination in Colombia. His pressure against brutal colonist rules forced the Spanish to abolish the slave trade, however, slavery endured.
Labor and land remained under the control of great proprietors. Bolivar was aware of the agrarian structure; he focused on sharing the land confiscated from the royalist to the Republican soldiers, whom he referred as the people in arms. By October 1817, he granted the law on the distribution of national property among the soldiers. The scheme was confirmed to those who fought in the hardest the year 1816-1819 to make every soldier a land-owning citizen ((Hudson, 18). The distribution was based according to the rank a soldier possessed during the war. However, his plans were frustrated by the combined actions of officers and legislators who were against Bolivar idea. Congress suggested that the soldiers should be paid in bonus and not giving them land. Soldiers were convinced easily, and the bonus were brought up by officers and civilian entrepreneurs with ludicrous prices, through this way soldiers were defrauded of their right to the land. Nevertheless, Bolivar was still determined to solve more agrarian problems in Colombia.
Two significant military encounters contributed profoundly to the success of the movement. After achieving several victories in a initiative from Venezuelan coast to present-day eastern Colombia through the Rio Orinoco, Bolivar granted Francisco de Paula Santander the task of liberating the Casanare region, where he conquered the royalists forces in April 1819.After the significant victory over the royalist forces at the war of Boyacá in August 1819, independence forces entered Bogota with no resistance.
As the victory over the Spain became increasingly apparent, leaders from Venezuela, Panama and Colombia assembled a Congress in February 1819 in Angostura and agreed to unite in a republic to be called Gran Colombia. After Bolivar was declared as the president in August 1819, he granted power to his vice president; Santander to be in charge of the Gran Colombia and went to the south to free present- day Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru from colonization. In 1819, the constitution of the Gran Colombia was written under Cucuta congress. The constitution was highly federal and provided for a government centered on common representation with a bilateral parliament, a president and a supreme court made of five magistrates. Also, the constitution guaranteed freedom for the children of slaves, the inviolability of homes, freedom of the press, and the abolition of the forced system of labor (Hudson,18).
The landowners and merchants who were involved in the fight for independence now held social, economic and political control over the new country (Brown, 40). The first economic reform that they agreed consolidated their position by liberalizing trade, which permitted New Granada’s main partner after Spanish free entry in the country. As a result, the emerging manufacturing sectors and prominent people who collaborated with the Spanish during the liberation lost their economic and political powers (Hudson, 20).
Conclusion
The struggle for independence by the Colombians from the Spain colonist entailed great devotion from several individuals and groups. Bolivar, who later became the first president of the New Granada, was a leader who contributed profoundly to the achievement of the independence. He believed the only means to emerge victorious over the Spanish is having the support of the masses. Through his capability of bringing the people of Colombia together and showing them the need to fight as one was the major source of the success in achieving the independence.