Colombian War of Independence

Colombian War of Independence
Part of the Atlantic Revolutions, Spanish American wars of independence, Decolonization of the Americas and Napoleonic Wars

From left to right and top to bottom: Battle of Calibío, Battle of Juanambú, Battle of the Palo River, Siege of Cartagena (1815), Battle of Boyacá and Congress of Cúcuta.
DateJuly 20, 1810 – April 2, 1825
Location
Northern South America, Andean South America, the Caribbean, Central America, Florida
Result
Colombian and Allied victory
Territorial
changes
Spain cedes New Granada to the Republic of Colombia
Belligerents
  • Republic of Colombia (from 1819)
  • New Granadine Patriots (1816–1819)
  • United Provinces of New Granada (1811–1816)
  • Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca (1811–1815)
  • Supreme Governing Junta of Santa Fe in New Granada (1810)
  • First Republic of Venezuela (1811–1812)
  • Second Republic of Venezuela (1813–1814)
  • Third Republic of Venezuela (1817–1819)

Supported by:
  • Bourbon Kingdom of Spain (from 1813)
 and its territories:
  • Viceroyalty of New Granada
  • Captaincy General of Venezuela
  • Captaincy General of Puerto Rico
  • Viceroyalty of Peru

  • Napoleonic Kingdom of Spain (1808–1813)
Commanders and leaders
Simón Bolívar
Francisco de Paula Santander
Antonio Nariño (POW)
Camilo Torres Tenorio 
Antonio Baraya  
Antonio Villavicencio 
José Miguel Pey
José María Córdova
José Prudencio Padilla
José María Cabal 
Manuel del Castillo y Rada 
Manuel Serviez 
Policarpa Salavarrieta 
Manuel de Bernardo Álvarez 
Francisco José de Caldas 
José de Leyva  
Atanasio Girardot 
Antonio Ricaurte 
Juan Nepomuceno Moreno
Fernando VII
Juan de Sámano
Pablo Morillo
Melchor Aymerich
Miguel Tacón y Rosique
José María Barreiro 
Melchor Aymerich
Agustín Agualongo 
Isidro Barrada
Sebastián de la Calzada
Ignacio Asín 
Casualties and losses
400,000 deaths[1][2] (15% of the population of the Viceroyalty of New Granada and Venezuela in 1810)[note 1]

The Colombian War of Independence began 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 South America, and triggered an almost decade-long rebellion culminating in the founding of the Republic of Colombia, which spanned present-day Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru and northwestern Brazil. Colombia was the first Spanish colony in South America to declare independence from Spain in 1810.[note 2]

Although Gran Colombia would ultimately dissolve in 1831, it was for a time among the most powerful countries in the Western Hemisphere, and played an influential role in shaping the political development of other newly sovereign South American states. The modern nation-state of Colombia recognizes the event as its national independence day which broke away from Spanish rule that led the first independent nation of South America as well as the third oldest independent republic in the Western Hemisphere after the United States from the American Revolution against the British and Haiti from the Haitian Revolution against the French and white settlers.

  1. ^ Nineteenth Century Death Tolls
  2. ^ Silvio Arturo Zavala (1971). Revista de historia de América. Numbers 69-70. Mexico City: Pan American Institute of Geography and History, p. 303. “Para el primero, de 1400000 habs. que la futura Colombia tendría en 1809 (entre ellos 78000 negros esclavos), (...) mortaldad que él mismo señala a tal guerra (unos 400 000 muertos para la Gran Colombia, entre ellos, 250 000 venezolanos).”


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