Main articles: History of Colombia and Timeline of Colombian history
Pre-Columbian era
Petroglyph in a cave in El Abra
Quimbaya "airplane"
Due to its geographical location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of populations between Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, the Andes and the Amazon. The oldest archaeological finds are from sites at Monsú and Pubenza, dating from about 20,000 BC. Other vestiges indicate that there was also early occupation in regions like El Abra between Tocancipá, Zipaquirá and Tequendama in Cundinamarca. These sites correspond to the Paleoindian period. In Puerto Hormiga, traces of the archaic period have been found, including the oldest pottery discovered in America, dating from about 3000 BC.
Approximately 10,000 BC, the territory of what is now Colombia was inhabited by indigenous people including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona. Hunter-gatherer societies existed near present-day Bogotá (at "El Abra" and "Tequendama") which traded with one another and with cultures living in the Magdalena River Valley. Beginning in the 1st millennium BC, groups of Amerindians developed the political system of "cacicazgos" with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques. The Muiscas inhabited mainly the area of what is now the Departments of Boyacá and Cundinamarca high plateau (Altiplano Cundiboyacense). They farmed maize, potato, quinoa and cotton, and traded worked gold, emeralds, blankets, ceramic handicrafts, coca and salt with neighboring nations. The Taironas inhabited northern Colombia in the isolated Andes mountain range of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
Spanish rule
Attack of the British army commanded by the Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon on Cartagena de Indias.
Spanish explorers, led by Rodrigo de Bastidas, made the first exploration of the Caribbean littoral in 1500. Christopher Columbus navigated near the Caribbean in 1502. In 1508, Vasco Núñez de Balboa started the conquest of the territory through the region of Urabá. In 1513, he was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean, which he called Mar del Sur (or "Sea of the South") and which in fact would bring the Spaniards to Peru and Chile.
Alonso de Ojeda (who had sailed with Columbus) reached the Guajira Peninsula in 1500. Santa Marta was founded in 1525, and Cartagena in 1533. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada led an expedition to the interior in 1535, and founded the "New City of Granada", the name of which soon changed to "Santa Fé". Two other notable journeys by Spaniards to the interior took place in the same period. Sebastián de Belalcázar, conqueror of Quito, traveled north and founded Cali, in 1536, and Popayán, in 1537; Nicolas Federman crossed the Llanos Orientales and went over the Eastern Cordillera.
The Caribbean people, indigenous to Colombia, experienced a reduction in population due to conquest by the Spanish as well as European-carried diseases such as smallpox, to which they had no immunity. In the 16th century, Europeans began to bring slaves from Africa.
The Spanish settled along the north coast of today's Colombia as early as the 16th century, but their first permanent settlement, at Santa Marta, was not established until 1525. In 1549, the institution of the Audiencia in Santa Fe de Bogotá gave that city the status of capital of New Granada, which comprised in large part what is now territory of Colombia.
With the risk that the land was deserted, the Spanish Crown sold properties to the governors, conquerors and their descendants creating large farms and possession of mines. Slaves were introduced as labor. Also to protect the indigenous population decimated, and Indian reservations were created. The repopulation was achieved by allowing colonization by farmers and their families who came from Spain. With this began the colonial period. New Granada was ruled by the Royal Audience of Santa Fe de Bogotá, but important decisions were taken to the colony from Spain by the Council of the Indies.
A royal decree of 1713 approved the legality of Palenque de San Basilio founded by runaway slaves from the 15th century, slaves had fled and sought refuge in the jungles of the Caribbean coast. The Spanish forces could not tolerate them and ended up submitting, thereby giving rise to the first free place in the Americas. Its main leader was Benkos Biohó, born in the region Bioho, Guinea Bissau, West Africa. Palenque de San Basilio was declared in 2005 as a "Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO.
In 1717 the Viceroyalty of New Granada was originally created, and then it was temporarily removed, to finally be reestablished in 1739. The Viceroyalty had Santa Fé de Bogotá as its capital. This Viceroyalty included some other provinces of northwestern South America which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru and correspond mainly to today's Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. So, Bogotá became one of the principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World, along with Lima and Mexico City, though it remained somewhat backward compared to those two cities in several economic and logistical ways.
The 18th-century priest, botanist and mathematician José Celestino Mutis (1732–1808), was delegated by the viceroy Antonio Caballero y Góngora to conduct an inventory of the nature of the New Granada. This became known as the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada which classified plants, wildlife and founded the first astronomical observatory in the city of Santa Fe de Bogotá. On 15 August 1801 the Prussian scientist Alexander von Humboldt reached Fontibón where he joined Mutis in New Granada expedition to Quito.
Independence
Main article: Colombian Declaration of Independence
The battle of Boyacá was the decisive battle which would ensure the success of the liberation campaign of New Granada.
Since the beginning of the periods of conquest and colonization, there were several rebel movements under Spanish rule, most of them were either crushed or remained too weak to change the overall situation. The last one which sought outright independence from Spain sprang up around 1810, following the independence of St. Domingue (present-day Haiti) in 1804, which provided a non-negligible degree of support to the eventual leaders of this rebellion: Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander.
A movement initiated by Antonio Nariño, who opposed Spanish centralism and led the opposition against the viceroyalty, led to the independence of Cartagena in November 1811, and the formation of two independent governments which fought a civil war – a period known as La Patria Boba. The following year Nariño proclaimed the United Provinces of New Granada, headed by Camilo Torres Tenorio. Despite the successes of the rebellion, the emergence of two distinct ideological currents among the liberators (federalism and centralism) gave rise to an internal clash which contributed to the reconquest of territory by the Spanish. The viceroyalty was restored under the command of Juan de Samano, whose regime punished those who participated in the uprisings. The retribution stoked renewed rebellion, which, combined with a weakened Spain, made possible a successful rebellion led by the Venezuelan-born Simón Bolívar, who finally proclaimed independence in 1819. The pro-Spanish resistance was finally defeated in 1822 in the present territory of Colombia and in 1823 in Venezuela.
The territory of the Viceroyalty of New Granada became the Republic of Colombia organized as a union of Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela (Panama was then an integral part of Colombia). The Congress of Cúcuta in 1821 adopted a constitution for the new Republic. Simón Bolívar became the first President of Colombia, and Francisco de Paula Santander was made Vice President. However, the new republic was unstable and ended with the rupture of Venezuela in 1829, followed by Ecuador in 1830.
The Gran Colombia.
Colombia was the first constitutional government in South America, and the Liberal and Conservative parties, founded in 1848 and 1849 respectively, are two of the oldest surviving political parties in the Americas.
Internal political and territorial divisions led to the secession of Venezuela and Quito (today's Ecuador) in 1830. The so-called "Department of Cundinamarca" adopted the name "Nueva Granada", which it kept until 1856 when it became the "Confederación Granadina" (Granadine Confederation). After a two-year civil war in 1863, the "United States of Colombia" was created, lasting until 1886, when the country finally became known as the Republic of Colombia. Internal divisions remained between the bipartisan political forces, occasionally igniting very bloody civil wars, the most significant being the Thousand Days' War (1899–1902).
20th century
The United States of America's intentions to influence the area (especially the Panama Canal construction and control) led to the separation of the Department of Panama in 1903 and the establishment of it as a nation. The United States paid Colombia $25,000,000 in 1921, seven years after completion of the canal, for redress of President Roosevelt's role in the creation of Panama, and Colombia recognized Panama under the terms of the Thomson–Urrutia Treaty. Colombia was engulfed in the Year-Long War with Peru over a territorial dispute involving the Amazonas department and its capital Leticia.
The Bogotazo in 1948
Soon after, Colombia achieved some degree of political stability, which was interrupted by a bloody conflict that took place between the late 1940s and the early 1950s, a period known as La Violencia ("The Violence"). Its cause was mainly mounting tensions between the two leading political parties, which subsequently ignited after the assassination of the Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on 9 April 1948. The ensuing riots in Bogotá, known as El Bogotazo, spread throughout the country and claimed the lives of at least 180,000 Colombians.
From 1953 to 1964 the violence between the two political parties decreased first when Gustavo Rojas deposed the President of Colombia in a coup d'état and negotiated with the guerrillas, and then under the military junta of General Gabriel París Gordillo.
After Rojas' deposition, the Colombian Conservative Party and Colombian Liberal Party agreed to create the "National Front", a coalition which would jointly govern the country. Under the deal, the presidency would alternate between conservatives and liberals every 4 years for 16 years; the two parties would have parity in all other elective offices. The National Front ended "La Violencia", and National Front administrations attempted to institute far-reaching social and economic reforms in cooperation with the Alliance for Progress. In the end, the contradictions between each successive Liberal and Conservative administration made the results decidedly mixed. Despite the progress in certain sectors, many social and political problems continued, and guerrilla groups were formally created such as the FARC, ELN and M-19 to fight the government and political apparatus.
The armed conflict in Colombia is rooted in a combination of causes that are based on the economic, political and social situation in the country 50 years ago. In the early period (1974-1982), guerrilla groups like the FARC, the ELN and others focused on slogans of greater equality and economic development, and they came to have support from some sections of the local population. However, the armed action changed since the mid-1980s when Colombia granted greater political independence and strengthened fiscal policy of local governments, that is why the Colombian Government strengthened its institutional presence in the country.
The United States of America has been heavily involved in the conflict since its beginnings, when in the early 1960s the U.S. government pushed the Colombian military to attack peasant self-defense communities in rural Colombia. This was part of the U.S. fight against communism. The position of the USA within the armed conflict in Colombia has been criticized by various organizations in the world.
On July 4 of 1991, a new Constitution was promulgated. The changes generated by the new constitution are viewed as positive by Colombian society.
After the Colombian Government dismantled many of the drug cartels that appeared in the country during the 1980s, left-wing guerrilla groups and rightwing paramilitary organizations resumed some of their drug-trafficking activities and resorted to extortion and kidnapping for financing. These activities led to a loss of support from the local population.
Recent history
During the presidency of Álvaro Uribe, the government applied more military pressure on the FARC and other outlawed groups. After the offensive, many security indicators improved. Since 2002 the violence decreased significantly, with some paramilitary groups demobilizing as part of a controversial peace process and the guerrillas losing control of much of the territory they once dominated. Colombia achieved a great decrease in cocaine production, leading White House drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske to announce that Colombia is no longer the world's biggest producer of cocaine.
In February 2008, millions of Colombians demonstrated against the FARC. More than 15,770 FARC and ELN combatants have decided to demobilize since 2002. The FARC's commander in chief Alfonso Cano was killed by security forces of Colombia in November 2011. He was replaced by Timoleón Jiménez, who assumed the duty of first commander just days after Cano's death. Colombia security forces also killed the leader of the smaller rebel group ELN during a military operation.
The Peace process in Colombia, 2012 refers to the dialogue between the Colombian government and guerrilla of FARC-EP with the aim to find a political solution to the armed conflict. The Colombian government and rebel groups meet in Cuba. Talks have been positive and represent breakthroughs that comprise end the conflict.
Colombia shows modest progress in the struggle to defend human rights, as expressed by HRW. In terms of international relations, Colombia has moved from a period of tense animosity with Venezuela, towards a prosperous outlook to further enhance integration. Colombia has also won a seat on the Security Council of the UN.
Today Colombia is the third largest oil producer in South America and it is estimated that by 2012, Colombia will be producing a million barrels a day.
In 2011, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) reported that 34% of Colombians were living below the poverty line, of which 10.6% in "extreme poverty". 1.2 million Colombians have been lifted out of poverty while 674,000 ceased to be indigent.
In 2012, the Colombian Government launched a policy to deliver 100,000 houses for poor people, a subsidy for to reduce the digital divide and the restitution of land for local farmers displaced by the violence.
Recent economic growth has led to a considerable increase of millionaires: 1.8 million adult Colombians are now newly rich. The number of Colombian entrepreneurs on the list of the richest people on the planet with net worth exceeding US$ 1 billion also increased.
