Flag of
Cartagena and
Barranquilla, based on the one for Cartagena State after 1811 and used provisionally for the United Provinces from 1813 to 1814
Flag of the United Provinces, 1814-1816
The period between 1810 and 1816 in the
New Kingdom of Granada (today
Colombia) was marked by such intense conflicts over the nature of the new government or governments that it became known as
la Patria Boba (the Foolish Fatherland). Constant fighting between federalists and centralists gave rise to a prolonged period of instability. Similar developments can be seen at the same time in
Río de la Plata. Each province, and even some cities, set up its own autonomous junta, which declared themselves sovereign from each other.
The Establishment of Juntas, 1810
With the arrival of news in May 1810 that southern Spain had been conquered by Napoleon's forces, that the Spanish
Supreme Central Junta had dissolved itself and that juntas had been established in Venezuela, cities in New Granada began to do the establish their own.
Cartagena de Indias established one on
May 22,
1810, followed by
Cali on July 3,
Pamplona the next day, and
Socorro on
July 10. On
July 20 the viceregal capital, Santa Fe de Bogotá, established its own junta. (The day is today celebrated as Colombia's Independence Day.) The viceroy
Antonio José Amar y Borbón initially presided over the junta in Bogotá, but due to popular pressure, he was deposed five days later. Although the Bogotá junta called itself a "Supreme Junta of the New Kingdom of Granada," the splintering of political authority continued as even secondary cities set up juntas that claimed to be independent of their provincial capitals, resulting in military conflicts. There were two fruitless attempts at establishing a congress of provinces in the subsequent months.
The First Independent States and Civil War
In the meantime, the province of Bogotá transformed itself into a state called
Cundinamarca. In March 1811 it convened a "Constituent Electoral College of the State of Cundinamarca," which promulgated a constitution for the state the following month. The constitution established Cundinamarca as a constitutional monarchy under the absent
Ferdinand VII. (It would declare full independence only in August 1813.) Cundinamarca invited the other provinces to send delegates to a new "Congress of the United Provinces," which first met in Bogotá, but later moved to
Tunja and
Leyva to maintain independence from the capital city. The Congress eventually established a confederation called the
United Provinces of New Granada on
November 27,
1811, with a weak federal government, but Cundinamarca rejected the Union. The Congress and Cundinamaraca could not agree on whether the former viceroyalty was to have a centralist government or a federal one. At the same time, popular agitation in Cartagena lead it to declare independence on
November 11,
1811, the first province in New Granada to do so. (The day is also today a
national holiday in Colombia.) Other regions of the
New Kingdom of Granada established their own governments and confederations (for example, the Friend Cities of the Cauca Valley, 1811-1812) or remained
royalist.
The dispute over the form of government eventually erupted into war by the end of 1812, and once again in 1814. The first war resulted in a stalemate, which nevertheless allowed Cundinamarca to organize an expedition against royalist regions of
Popayán and
Pasto. It resulted in defeat and its dynamic president,
Antonio Nariño, was captured. Facing an enfeebled Cundinamarca, the United Provinces took the opportunity to send an army against it, headed by
Simón Bolívar, who had fled Venezuela for the second time after the fall of the
Second Venezuelan Republic. Bolívar and his army forced the submission of Cundinamarca to the Union by December 1814. However, by mid-1815 a large
Spanish expeditionary force under
Pablo Morillo had arrived in New Granada, which bolstered earlier royalist advances made by
Santa Marta. Morillo lay siege on Cartagena on August and it finally fell five months later in December with the city suffering large numbers of civilian casualties due to famine and disease. By May 1816 Morillo and royalists from the south had conquered Bogotá and returned all of New Granada to royalist control.
See also
