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The Spanish created Quito in 1563, which was at times under control of the viceroyalties of both Peru and New Granada. Land disputes occurred between Ecuador and Peru, so Simon Bolivar determined that nation-states should keep the same borders and he added Quito to Gran Colombia. Bolivar named himself dictator of Peru in 1824, and the harsh changes he made to Gran Colombia caused larger rebellions. Gran Colombia fell apart when internal disputes caused Bolivar's resignation.

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Gran Colombia-Peru War | 3 Minute History

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When Napoleon was defeated, the Italian peninsula became independent states. When the first war of independence failed, Giuseppe Garibaldi took another thousands of soldiers to Naples. Victor Emmanuel II was able to proclaim the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 when Garibaldi handed over the land. Italy later joined Austria's war as part of their army, but they were quickly defeated. Eventually, Rome became the capital of Italy, but after suffering economic and cultural problems, Italy would go on to create its own empire, upsetting the balance of power in Europe.

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Spain still wanted authority over colonies, and regions of the Rio de la Plata. With help from Bolivian guerrillas, Argentina kept royalist forces from advancing into the country. These forces adopted scorched earth policies, bringing down cities, halted attacks, and meant that Spanish influence had ceased. Argentinian representatives declared independence, and Spain lost most of their colonies in Latin America.

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Argentinian Independence | 3 Minute History

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After the French Invasion of Spain, there were disputes over the empire, and civil wars began, but Colombian general Francisco de Paula Santander built reorganization. In 1819, Simon Bolivar invaded Colombia and defeated the Spanish forces, but this followed with battles in 1821 and 1822. In 1830, Bolivar resigned and left for Santa Marta, where he died Dec. 17, 1830. At this point, Venezuela and Ecuador were no longer part of Gran Colombia, and New Granada was left on its own.

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Table of Contents

history of Colombia, a survey of the important events and people in the history of Colombia from the time of European settlement. Located in northwestern South America, Colombia has coastline that is bathed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea to the north and washed by the Pacific Ocean to the west. Named for Christopher Columbus, the "discoverer" of the New World, it presents a remarkable study in contrasts, in both its geography and its society. Colombia's political instability has been historically tied to the unequal distribution of wealth, and the illicit trade in drugs remains a major disruptive factor in Colombian life.

Preconquest

Even before the Spanish conquest, the western mountainous part of Colombia attracted the bulk of the population. The more advanced Indigenous cultures were found in this region, and the most favourable location for the growth of civilization was the high plateau in the Cordillera Oriental of the Colombian Andes. The present capital city of Bogotá is located near the southern terminus of the plateau, which extends northward to the mountains dividing it from the drainage of the Cesar River. There the Spanish found the major concentration of the Chibchan-speaking peoples. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Chibcha were in the process of consolidation by warfare and had not achieved firm union and political institutions.

Except for the invading Carib peoples in the deep mountain valleys, there was considerable similarity among the Chibcha, sub-Andean, and other cultures of Colombia. All were characterized by intensive agriculture, fairly dense populations living in villages, organized religion, class divisions, and matrilineal inheritance of political and religious offices. The sub-Andean culture in the Cordillera Central and the narrower portions of the Cauca valley generally lacked large villages because the terrain was unsuitable for them. The more advanced Chibcha made war for political ends, using large forces armed with darts and dart throwers.

Geographic and climatic conditions placed limits on the development of the Chibcha and other cultures in Colombia. Of the total Indigenous population at the time of the conquest, probably about one-third were Chibcha. None of the larger domesticated animals and their wild related species found in the Central Andes existed in Colombia. The Chibcha were craftspeople whose work shows interest in utility and the expression of ideas.

Conquest

European exploration of the Colombian coastline was accomplished by Rodrigo de Bastidas, who in 1500-01 sailed the Caribbean coast from Cape of La Vela to Point Manzanilla in Panama, and by Francisco Pizarro, who sailed the Pacific coast in 1525. The actual conquest of Colombia began in 1525 when Bastidas founded Santa Marta on the north coast. In 1533 Pedro de Heredia founded Cartagena, which became one of the major naval and merchant marine bases of the Spanish empire. Bogotá was founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada in 1538. By the end of 1539 all but one of the major inland colonial cities had been founded, as well as the most important communications centres along the routes connecting them. By mid-century the conquest was complete.

Colonial period

The audiencia

Establishment of the audiencia (an administrative and judicial tribunal) of Santafé de Bogotá in 1549 opened the colonial era. The conquerors had organized local governments in accordance with the terms of their contracts with the crown. The crown then rapidly repossessed the broad powers granted the conquerors and formed its own institutions to rule the empire. The governments of Popayán, Antioquia, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Ríohacha, the New Kingdom of Granada (Bogotá), and the llanos of Casanare and San Martín were made subject to the new audiencia. The president of the audiencia was the executive head of government, subject to the viceroy of Peru in administrative matters. The difficulties of travel, however, impeded communications and checked centralized control. The Indigenous population of the area declined through the introduction of European diseases and the economic demands made upon them.

As elsewhere in the Spanish empire, the downward trend in population seems to have reversed itself at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. Acculturation and intermarriage rapidly destroyed most of the special cultural traits of the remaining Indigenous people. Subordinate political jurisdictions developed strong regional characteristics as a result of isolation, which fostered intense local loyalties and rivalries. The economy was based on mining and agriculture, but a small yet important textile industry grew up in Socorro, north of Bogotá, by the mid-18th century. Slavery was introduced during the conquest and became common in the placer mining areas of the Chocó and western Antioquia and in the agricultural regions of the Cauca valley, the lower Magdalena valley, and the coastal lowlands. Indigenous persons were treated much like enslaved people; from the early 16th century they were subject to the encomienda system (requiring tribute in the form of gold or labour). By 1700 most of the privately held encomiendas had reverted to the crown, and they were rarely granted thereafter, but the Indigenous population continued to be abused.

During the era of the audiencia, from 1549 to 1740, the population was politically quiet. The Roman Catholic Church played an important role, providing most welfare services and operating most schools. The church was an effective instrument of the crown, since the latter controlled much of its activity.

Viceroyalty of New Granada

The Viceroyalty of New Granada, which included present-day Colombia, Panama (after 1751), Venezuela, and Ecuador, was created in 1717-23 and reconstituted in 1740, opening a new era. In the next decades the crown introduced political and economic measures to reorganize and strengthen the empire by greater centralization of authority, improved administration and communication, and freer development and movement of trade within the empire. Population grew, trade increased, and prosperity touched the colonial subjects. There was a spurt of intellectual activity and the formation of a corps of intellectuals and professional men among Creoles (whites born in Spanish America), many in government positions. The small Creole officer corps came into being when Charles III, then king of Spain, authorized militia defense units in the colonies. A relatively large group of wealthy landowners and merchants constituted the economic community that supported these new groups. In 1781 peasants and artisans at Socorro originated the Comunero Rebellion in response to tax increases; although some Creoles helped lead the rebels to Bogotá, most hesitated to support the uprising or even helped to undermine it. Between 1785 and 1810 in New Granada the outlook of the Creole upper and middle groups changed from resistance against political and economic change to a quest for specific changes in imperial policies. In 1809 they moved toward the free enterprise system, the abolition of slavery, restrictions on government, and worldwide freedom of trade.

Educational reforms played an important role in the changing outlook of the Granadine Creoles. Archbishop Caballero y Góngora as viceroy (1782-88) made education one of his main interests. He modernized the program of studies in the schools, opened a school of mines, and initiated the botanical expedition under the able guidance of naturalist José Celestino Mutis. The new institute trained many of the major figures of the independence movement. The first newspaper and theatre were introduced during the 1790s. A new interest in writing developed, and intellectual gatherings for discussion were introduced. In 1808 the allegiance of the Granadines to the crown remained unquestioned except for a few individuals. The once warm loyalty of the Creole middle and upper classes, however, was cooling under the pressure of economic interests, scandals in the royal family, and persistent social tension between Creole and European Spaniards.

Revolution and independence

The French invasion of Spain in 1808 caused an outburst of loyalty to the king and country and excited grave concern for the church. Profound Granadine anxiety over the fate of the empire and conflicting courses of action attempted by colonial and peninsular subjects over control of government during the captivity of the Spanish king Ferdinand VII led to strife in New Granada and to declarations of independence. In 1810 the subordinated jurisdictions in New Granada threw out their Spanish officials, except in Santa Marta, Ríohacha, and what are now Panama and Ecuador. The uprising in Bogotá on July 20, 1810, is commemorated as Independence Day in Colombia, although these new governments swore allegiance to Ferdinand VII and did not begin to declare independence until 1811. Idealists and ambitious provincial leaders desired federation. Creole leaders sought to centralize authority over the new governments. A series of civil wars ensued, facilitating Spanish reconquest of the United Provinces of New Granada between 1814 and 1816. A remnant of republican forces fled to the llanos of Casanare, where they reorganized under Francisco de Paula Santander, a Colombian general who remained a prominent figure in Granadine politics until his death in 1840.

Any remaining loyalty to the crown was alienated by the punitive arbitrary conduct of the European and partisan troops, whose actions gave validity to the attack on Spanish civilization that began late in 1810 and continued through the 19th century. The rebel forces in Casanare joined those of Simón Bolívar in the Orinoco basin of Venezuela. By 1819 arrangements for a regular government were completed, and a constitutional convention met at Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela) with delegates from Casanare and some Venezuelan provinces. In that same year Bolívar invaded Colombia and decisively defeated the Spanish forces on August 7 at Boyacá. There followed the decisive Battle of Carabobo, Venezuela, in 1821 and that of Pichincha, Ecuador, in 1822. Mopping-up operations were completed in 1823, while Bolívar led his forces on to Peru.

The Congress of Angostura laid the foundation for the formation of the Republic of Colombia (1819-30), which was generally known as Gran Colombia because it included what are now the separate countries of Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The republic was definitively organized by the Congress of Cúcuta in 1821. Prior to that time the government was highly military and hierarchically organized, with regional vice presidents exercising direct power while its president, Bolívar, was campaigning. Organized as a centralized representative government, the republic retained Bolívar as president and acting president Santander as vice president.

Gran Colombia had a brief, virile existence during the war. Subsequent civilian and military rivalry for public office and regional jealousies led in 1826 to a rebellion in Venezuela led by Gen. José Antonio Páez. Bolívar returned from Peru to restore unity but secured only the acknowledgment of his personal authority. As discontent spread, it became clear that no group loved the republic enough to fight for its existence. By 1829 Bolívar had divided the land into four jurisdictions under Venezuelan generals possessing civil and military authority. Meanwhile the convention of Ocaña had failed to reorganize the republic, and the brief dictatorship of Bolívar (1828-30) had no better success. Bolívar then convoked the Convention of 1830, which produced a constitution honoured only in New Granada (the name then referring only to Colombia, with the Isthmus of Panama). During this convention Bolívar resigned and left for the northern coast, where he died near Santa Marta on December 17, 1830. By that time Venezuela and Ecuador had seceded from Gran Colombia. New Granada, a country of 1.5 million inhabitants in 1835, was left on its own.
Robert Louis Gilmore

The republic to 1930

Santander, the vice president under Bolívar and then leader of the opposition to Bolívar's imperial ambitions in 1828, held the presidency from 1832 until 1837 and was the dominant political figure of that era. The 1830s brought some prosperity to the new nation, but a civil war that broke out in 1840 ended nascent industrial development, disrupted trade, and discouraged local enterprise. The seeds of political rivalry between liberals and conservatives had already been sown, and they bore fruit in the bloody revolution and costly violence that ravaged the country in the years between 1840 and 1903.

Conservative-Liberal struggle, 1840-80

Rather than eliminating the institutional barriers to self-fulfillment by the people, however, the reforms of 1850 tended to eliminate the traditional proscriptions that had stood as safeguards against the exploitation of the poor by the rich. The reforms, despite the liberal rhetoric that accompanied them, legalized-indeed encouraged-a redistribution of landed property and tended to strengthen the position of the wealthy landowners, merchants, and professionals against the mass of poor Indigenous people, peasants, and artisans. Since there were only 25,000 enslaved people (in a country of 2,000,000 in 1851), the effects of manumission were small compared with those of the breakdown of the Indigenous communal system, which affected a third of the population. The Indigenous people were induced to give up their little plots of land and the small amount of independence they enjoyed. Within a few years the ownership of the land of Indigenous people was concentrated in a few hands; the Indigenous people had become tenants, their land used for grazing cattle.

While class conflict seethed under the surface in Colombian society, the struggle between members and groups within the elite was more open. Two issues in particular divided the upper class: first, whether a centralist or federalist political system would be the best arrangement for Colombia and, second, what role was appropriate for the Roman Catholic Church and particularly for its clerics in Colombian society. Adherents of federalism were strongest in the years between 1863 and 1880, during which time the country was called the United States of Colombia. Subsequent government publications were to refer to that period as the "Epoch of Civil Wars." In 51 of the 240 months that passed in the 1860s and '70s, there was some form of civil conflict taking place within the country. The Colombian army was so small that public order could not be maintained.

The power of the anticlerical faction reached a peak in the early 1860s. A revolutionary government headed by Mosquera expropriated church lands in 1861, and a constitution adopted in 1863 guaranteed freedom of religious practice, thus bringing to an end the traditional intimate relationship between church and state in Colombia.

The return of the Conservatives, 1880-1930

Both actions were reversed during the period of Regeneration (1880-95) under Rafael Núñez and the Conservatives who followed him. After further civil conflict in the 1880s, Núñez was able to promulgate a new constitution in 1886, to reestablish relations with the Vatican via the Concordat of 1887, and to promote some internal improvements and industrial development. But the political struggle between Liberals and Conservatives was far from over. Armed civil conflict reached its peak in the War of a Thousand Days (1899-1903). The estimates of the number of deaths in that struggle range from 60,000 to 130,000.

The devastating civil war was followed by the loss of Panama. The Colombian Congress refused an offer from the United States to build a canal across the isthmus, and in 1903 the Panamanians revolted against the government in Bogotá. They negotiated a treaty with the United States that created a Canal Zone 10 miles (16 km) wide under U.S. sovereignty in exchange for an agreement by the United States to build the canal and to provide a regular annual payment to Panama. Although the U.S. government later agreed to pay $25 million to Colombia, the episode embittered Colombian-U.S. relations for many years.

Colombia's internal development quickened after 1905, with coffee exports expanding by nearly 10 percent per year between 1909 and 1928. At the beginning of the 20th century, Colombia supplied about 3 percent of world coffee exports; by 1923 its share had risen to nearly 10 percent. In the late 1920s coffee accounted for nearly one-fifth of Colombia's gross domestic product.

Colombia, 1930-2000

The new dependence on exports was not without its pitfalls. In the late 1920s coffee, petroleum, and bananas accounted for, respectively, 69, 17, and 6 percent of total Colombian exports, and all three dropped precipitously in value during the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s. This economic collapse had an immediate political result: the Conservatives lost the presidential election of 1930 to Enrique Olaya Herrera, a Liberal who served until 1934.

The era of the Liberals, 1930-46

In addition, the Liberals came to power because of popular opposition to Conservatives' use of the army against labour unions in the banana industry and because of the lack of unity in the Conservative Party itself. Although Olaya ruled much like his Conservative predecessors had, the presidency of Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934-38) brought a series of reforms called the "Revolution on the March." The most important social act of the López regime established effective occupancy as the legal basis for tenure (1936), thus upholding the rights of thousands of peasant squatters against the claims of landowners who had been holding land without using it productively. In the coffee-growing zone of Cundinamarca, west of Bogotá, thousands of families obtained recognition of their ownership by occupation. (Subsequent governments took a more conservative stance toward the question of land rights of the poor, but in 1961 continuing social pressure finally resulted in legislation to create the Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform. By the mid-1970s more than 135,000 land titles had been distributed by the institute.)

Rapid industrial development started in the 1930s. Medellín became the principal producer of cotton textiles and other fabrics. The limited availability of imports during the Depression was a major factor that enabled local manufacturing to get its start.

La Violencia, dictatorship, and democratic restoration

Liberal hegemony continued through the 1930s and the World War II era, and Alfonso López Pumarejo was reelected in 1942; however, wartime conditions were not favourable to social change. In the elections of 1946, two Liberal candidates, Gabriel Turbay and Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, stood for election and thus split the Liberal vote. A Conservative, Mariano Ospina Pérez, took office. Conservatives had been embittered by political sidelining and, since 1930, had suffered violent attacks at the hands of Liberal supporters. With the electoral victory of 1946 they instituted a series of crude reprisals against Liberals. It was the initiation of the period that was dubbed La Violencia. On April 9, 1948, Gaitán, leader of the left wing of the Liberal Party, was assassinated in broad daylight in downtown Bogotá. The resulting riot and property damage (estimated at $570 million throughout the country) came to be called the bogotazo.

La Violencia originated in an intense political feud between Liberals and Conservatives and had little to do with class conflict, foreign ideologies, or other matters outside Colombia. Authoritative sources estimate that more than 200,000 persons lost their lives between 1946 and 1964. The most spectacular aspect of the violence, however, was the extreme cruelty perpetrated on the victims, which has been a topic of continuing study for Colombians. La Violencia intensified under the regime of Laureano Eleuterio Gómez (1950-53), who attempted to introduce a fascist state. His excesses brought his downfall by military coup-Colombia's first in the 20th century. Gen. Gustavo Rojas Pinilla assumed the presidency in 1953 and, aided by his daughter, María Eugenia Rojas, began an effort to end La Violencia and to stimulate the economy. Rojas was a populist leader who supported citizens' demands for the redress of grievances against the elite. Support for Rojas began to collapse when it appeared that he would not be able to fulfill his promises, when he showed reluctance to give up power, and when the economy faltered as a result of a disastrous fall in coffee prices in 1957. He was driven from office that year by a military junta.

The arrangement for the National Front government-a coalition of Conservatives and Liberals-was made by Alberto Lleras Camargo, representing the Liberals, and Gómez, leader of the Conservative Party, in the Declaration of Sitges (1957). The unique agreement provided for alternation of Conservatives and Liberals in the presidency, an equal sharing of ministerial and other government posts, and equal representation on all executive and legislative bodies. The agreement was to remain in force for 16 years-equivalent to four presidential terms, two each for Conservatives and Liberals. The question of what governmental structure would follow the National Front was left unsettled.

It had been contemplated that a Conservative would be the first to occupy the presidency in 1958. When the Conservative Party could not agree on a candidate, however, the National Front selected Lleras, who had previously served in that office for 12 months in 1945-46. During Lleras's tenure an agrarian reform law was brought into effect, national economic planning for development began, and Colombia became the showcase of the Alliance for Progress (a U.S. attempt to further economic development in Latin America). But severe economic difficulties caused by low coffee prices, domestic unemployment, and the apparent end of the effectiveness of import substitution were only partially offset by Alliance aid. The Alliance increased Colombia's economic dependence on the United States, which, to some Colombians, had serious disadvantages. By 1962 economic growth had come almost to a standstill.

The precarious state of the economy and the degree of social tension were revealed when only about half of those eligible to vote did so in the 1962 presidential elections, which brought Guillermo León Valencia, a Conservative, to the presidency. During Valencia's first year in office internal political pressures led to devaluation of the peso (Colombia's currency), wage increases among unionized workers of some 40 percent, and the most rampant inflation since 1905. Extreme deflationary policies were applied in the next three years, raising the unemployment rates above 10 percent in the major cities and turning even more Colombians against the National Front. Less than 40 percent of the electorate went to the polls in the 1964 congressional elections.

Marxist guerrilla groups began appearing in Colombia during Valencia's presidency. The first was the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional; ELN), which was created by a group of Colombian students who had studied in Cuba. Founded in 1964, the ELN followed strategies espoused by Che Guevara. Another guerrilla group, which followed two years later, was the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia; FARC), which was more connected to Soviet-influenced communist movements. Much of the FARC originated in the "resistance committees" that had appeared in Colombia during La Violencia.

Carlos Lleras Restrepo was the third National Front president (1966-70). He returned the economy to a sound footing, improved government planning for economic development, and pushed through political reforms essential to an orderly end to the Front (which seemed increasingly to constitute a monopoly of power by the Conservative-Liberal oligarchy). Although the constitutional reform of 1968 stipulated that elections would become competitive again after 1974, the president was still required to give "adequate and equitable" representation to the second largest political party in his cabinet and in the filling of other bureaucratic posts.

Also during the Lleras years, some semiautonomous government corporations expanded their services to the private sector: the capital and reserves of the Institute of Industrial Development, for example, were increased from 6.6 million pesos in 1967 to some 77 million pesos in 1969. Colombia achieved its best rate of economic growth near the end of the Lleras administration, when the real gross domestic product increased by some 7 percent. These successes were in part due to high coffee prices, but effective government policy was of undeniable importance.

In the 1970 presidential election Misael Pastrana Borrero, the Conservative candidate backed by the National Front, nearly lost to former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla as the urban vote went strongly against the Front. (For the first time Colombia's population was more than 50 percent urban.) A rapid migration from country to city had created new urban interest groups-particularly in the lower middle and working classes-that felt unrepresented by the traditional parties; nonetheless, the traditional parties prevailed and were not again successfully challenged.

The growth of drug trafficking and guerrilla warfare

The process of change brought with it new political, economic, and social problems, which stemmed from uneven development, unequal gains, and a growing perception that the benefits of higher income were not widely shared. Since 1974 limited progress has been made on those issues; however, the Colombian economy has grown despite pervasive violence, fed both by guerrilla insurgencies and traffic in narcotics.

As the National Front era was ending, a new problem surfaced in Colombia: narcotics. The country's role as a supplier in the international drug market developed rapidly following the major interdiction efforts launched by officials in Mexico in 1975. Colombia soon was providing as much as seven-tenths of the marijuana being imported into the United States. Using the profits from marijuana, drug leaders-especially from Medellín-diversified to cocaine trafficking, and shipments grew from individuals carrying small amounts to large quantities on boats and low-flying airplanes. Two major Mafia-like organizations-dubbed drug cartels-evolved from this illicit, lucrative trade: the first in Medellín, led by Pablo Escobar, and the second in Cali.

In 1982, however, the Liberal vote was split, and Belisario Betancur Cuartas, the Conservative candidate, was elected president. His presidency was marred by extremes of violence that tested Colombia's long-term commitment to democracy. In 1984 individuals linked to the international drug trade assassinated the minister of justice. The next year M-19 guerrillas entered the Palace of Justice in Bogotá and took scores of hostages; when the military assaulted the building, some 100 people were killed, including half of the Supreme Court judges. These events pointed to an ominous growth in the power of drug traffickers and to an apparent inability of the government to control terrorist activities.
William Paul McGreevey
Betancur attempted to end guerrilla violence. In November 1982 he signed a law granting amnesty to almost all insurgents, and in the following years he was able to persuade the FARC and the M-19 to enter into cease-fire agreements. At the same time there was an increase in vigilante groups in the country, which, depending on one's point of view, were called either "self-defense" or "paramilitary" organizations. In many cases these groups represented attempts by landowners to protect themselves from guerrillas. Quite often the Colombian army helped equip and train the groups, which existed within the law and had been encouraged by the government since the 1960s.

The presidency of Virgilio Barco Vargas, a former mayor of Bogotá, began in August 1986 with hopes of improving civil order, but instead guerrilla groups became more active than ever, and paramilitary groups caused even more deaths than the leftist insurgents. Drug groups, especially the Medellín cartel, also began using terror to increase their bargaining power with the government. As a result, homicide became the leading cause of death in the country, and 1989 was the most violent year in Colombia's brutal history, with more deaths per capita from violence than during any year of La Violencia.

Barco's other main challenge was to reverse the long-term decline in the rate of economic growth, which was confounded by low efficiency in manufacturing. The discovery in 1985 of a large petroleum reserve was a major boost toward improving the economy and reducing Colombia's dependence on external energy sources.

The drug trade, while always a political problem, was at times an economic asset, making annual trade balances positive when they were negative for legal goods. Further, as drug dealers became wealthier, they spent money refining cocaine, organizing groups for protection, and constructing buildings (both residential and commercial), ironically benefiting more Colombians than the legitimate economy.

In the 1990 presidential campaign, three candidates, including the poll-leading Liberal Luis Carlos Galán, and hundreds of other people were killed by drug traffickers in a backlash against tougher drug-trade policies. Despite threats of terrorism, however, about half of the population voted in the peaceful May election, which was won by former finance minister and hard-line anti-drug candidate César Gaviria Trujillo of the Liberal Party.

During the Gaviria years the question of continuing violence was addressed more than ever before. The president played a leading role by calling a constituent assembly, which replaced the 1886 constitution with the constitution of 1991; negotiating with the FARC and ELN, especially in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1991 and in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in 1992; and striking plea-bargain agreements with drug cartel chiefs and with paramilitary leaders.

The constitutional changes were significant, at least on paper. Presidents, who were limited to one term, were to be elected by an absolute majority, with a second-round vote if need be. The Senate was to be elected by a national constituency, which in theory gave minority parties a chance to elect a senator with only 1 percent of the vote. New electoral rights (including initiative and recall) were instituted, and a new National Prosecutor's Office (Fiscalía) was set up to make the Colombian prosecutorial system more like that of the United States.

Gaviria's negotiations with the guerrilla groups yielded no agreements. Plea bargaining did lead to the surrender of most leaders of the Medellín drug group, although the most notable one, Pablo Escobar, escaped after only 13 months in jail. (Following an extensive manhunt, Escobar was killed soon afterward by government forces.) Statistics indicate that violent activities were as common at the end of the Gaviria years as they were previously, despite the attempts to negotiate peace.

The Gaviria government continued the economic opening begun by Barco. In keeping with the neoliberal mood throughout Latin America, the Colombians began a new economic order, with lower tariffs on imports, fewer subsidies for the poor, and a lower role of the government in the economy. The fact that Colombia privatized fewer state-run industries than did other Latin American countries did not indicate a lower enthusiasm for the neoliberal order; rather, it reflected a lower level of initial governmental ownership.

Although Congress later refused to impeach Samper, he was considered guilty by the extralegal guerrillas and paramilitary units and by the U.S. government. Violence increased over previous levels, and the paramilitary groups, under the leadership of Carlos Castaño, founded a national organization called the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), who emblazoned their group's initials (AUC) across their battle fatigues but typically wore ski masks to conceal their identities.
Harvey F. Kline

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History of Colombia | Independence, Government, & Facts

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History of Colombia, a survey of the important events and people in the history of Colombia from the time of European settlement. Located in northwestern South America, Colombia has coastline that is bathed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea to the north and washed by the Pacific Ocean to the west.

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Argentina was wanted by Spain starting in 1526. By 1776 it was also part of Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, and other regions of the Rio de la Plata. Argentina gained independence from Spain in 1816, but was taken control of by Col. Juan Peron in 1946. After a number of interim presidents took charge in Argentina, the country experienced a major economic crisis, but Nestor Kirchner (and later his wife) was elected as president, and helped to stabilize the economy.

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Argentina, officially Argentine Republic, Country, southern South America. Area: 1,077,919 sq mi (2,791,810 sq km). Population: (2023 est.) 46,655,000. Capital: Buenos Aires. The people are mostly of European ancestry, especially Spanish, with smaller mestizo, Indian, and Arab populations. Language: Spanish (official). Religions: Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic; also Protestant); also Islam, Judaism. Currency: Argentine peso. Argentina can be divided into four general regions: the North, the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Andes Mountains. The subtropical plains in the northeast are divided by the Paraná River into Mesopotamia to the east and Gran Chaco to the west and north. The Pampas, south and west of the Paraná, is one of the world's most productive agricultural areas and the country's most populous region. Patagonia lies south of the Colorado River. The Argentine Andes include the continent's highest peak, Mount Aconcagua. Argentina's hydrology is dominated by rivers that include the Paraná, Uruguay, and Pilcomayo, which drain into the Río de la Plata. Argentina has a developing economy based largely on manufacturing and agriculture; it is Latin America's largest exporter of beef and beef products. It is a federal republic with two legislative houses; the head of state and government is the president. Little is known of the indigenous population before the Europeans' arrival. The area was explored for Spain by Sebastian Cabot beginning in 1526; by 1580 Asunción, Santa Fe, and Buenos Aires had been settled. Early in the 17th century it was attached to the Viceroyalty of Peru, but in 1776 it was included with regions of modern Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, whose capital was Buenos Aires. With the establishment of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in 1816, Argentina achieved its independence from Spain, but its boundaries were not set until the early 20th century. In 1943 the government was overthrown by the military; Col. Juan Perón took control in 1946. He in turn was overthrown in 1955. He returned in 1973 after two decades of turmoil. His third wife, Isabel, became president on his death in 1974 but lost power after another military coup in 1976. The military government tried to take the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) in 1982 but was defeated by the British in the Falkland Islands War, with the result that the government returned to civilian rule in 1983. The government of Raúl Alfonsín worked to end the human rights abuses that had characterized the former regimes. Hyperinflation, however, led to public riots and Alfonsín's party's electoral defeat in 1989; his Peronist successor, Carlos Menem, instituted laissez-faire economic policies. In 1999 Fernando de la Rúa of the Alliance coalition was elected president, but his administration struggled with rising unemployment, heavy foreign debt, and government corruption; he resigned later that year, amid antigovernment protests. Under a succession of interim presidents, Argentina experienced one of its worst economic collapses at the beginning of the 21st century. Néstor Kirchner won the 2003 presidential elections and helped to stabilize the economy. Four years later his wife became the country's first elected female president.

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Argentina and its independence from Spain

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Argentina, officially Argentine Republic , Country, southern South America.

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The Italian governments were opposed to ideas of the French Revolution, but many Italians viewed the Revolution as one of the only ways to solve problems in the country. Victor Emmanuel II governed in Piedmont with parliament, and Piedmont's place was promoted in Italy and beyond, but even with military and government interventions, it was one of the only places for possible reform.

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The French Revolutionary period

When French troops invaded Italy in the spring of 1796, they found fertile ground for the revolutionary ideas and practices of their native country. Since the 1780s, Italian newspapers and pamphlets had given full play to news from France, especially to the political struggle between the king and the Parlement of Paris. As the Revolution unfolded in France, news reports became more frequent and more dramatic. After 1791 they were further enhanced by the personal testimonies of political émigrés. Vigilant censorship by the Italian governments could not stop the spread of revolutionary ideas. Yet Italians viewed the French Revolution simplistically as a struggle between monarchists and revolutionaries.

The early years

As the reformist impulse of the 1780s waned, Italians took a growing interest in the French Revolution. Educated landowners and entrepreneurs who had put their trust in the enlightened rulers of their own states and had looked forward to important administrative and political reforms were disappointed. The French example gave them new hope. During the 1780s Masonic lodges had begun to replace scholarly academies and agrarian societies as loci of political discussion. In the 1790s more-radical secret societies emerged, modeled after the Illuminati ("Enlightened Ones") founded in Bavaria by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of canon law, which promoted free thought and democratic political theories.

The Italian governments opposed French Revolutionary ideas, recognizing them as a potential threat to stability. The outbreak of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars confirmed their fears. After French armies in 1792 occupied Savoy and Nice, which belonged to the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (ruled by the house of Savoy), the kingdom joined the First Coalition, an alliance formed in 1793 by powers opposed to Revolutionary France. The arrival of the French fleet in the Bay of Naples in December 1792 prevented the king of Naples from following the Piedmontese example, but other governments resorted to stern repression of French-inspired protests. Many Italians, however, viewed the Revolutionary French legal and administrative system as the only answer to their own grievances against traditional elites. In Piedmont and Naples, where discontent was especially widespread, proponents of democratic ideas organized actual conspiracies. Arrested conspirators who escaped death or jail found refuge in France, where they became influential and active.

Italian émigrés helped to give a sharper focus to the aims of revolutionary protest and to prepare the ground for French intervention in the peninsula. The best-known émigré, the Tuscan nobleman Filippo Buonarroti, served as national commissioner in the Ligurian town of Oneglia, captured by French armies in 1794. Oneglia became the location for the first revolutionary experiment on Italian soil when Buonarroti introduced a republican constitution and the cult of the Supreme Being and abolished seigneurial rights. The "Oneglia experiment" ended abruptly in 1795 with the fall of Maximilien Robespierre's government in France, but Buonarroti persisted in his radical beliefs, becoming a supporter of the French left-wing agitator François-Noël (Gracchus) Babeuf. The precedent he had set was not forgotten.

The French campaign in Italy, which assured the political future of Napoleon Bonaparte, began in March 1796. According to the Peace of Paris (May 15, 1796), King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia-Piedmont was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France and to grant safe passage to the French armies. On the same day, Napoleon's army drove the Austrians out of Milan, pursuing them into the territory of the Republic of Venice. By April 1797 the French controlled the entire Po valley, including Bologna and the northern reaches of the Republic of Venice, which the pope had ceded to them in the Peace of Tolentino (February 19, 1797). French armies also occupied the duchy of Modena and most of the grand duchy of Tuscany, including the port of Livorno. After defeating the Austrians on Venetian territory during the winter of 1796-97, Napoleon turned his offensive northward, crossing the Tagliamento River and driving for the Habsburg capital, Vienna. In April 1797, at Leoben, Austrian envoys offered to negotiate. In exchange for an end to the French offensive, Austria agreed to partition Venetia and to recognize French sovereignty over Austria's former possessions in the Low Countries and Lombardy. For the next two years the Italian peninsula enjoyed a period of relative freedom and democracy, which ended with the Austro-Russian campaign against France in April 1799.

The origins of the Italian Risorgimento-the great national "resurgence" of the 19th century-date to this period, insofar as the period gave rise to political groups that affirmed the right of the Italian people to a government suited to their desires and traditions, as well as to the growth of a sense of nationalism and individual responsibility.

In 1800 the Neapolitan historian Vincenzo Cuoco argued that the Italian revolution of the 1790s had been a "passive revolution" without real roots in Italian soil or a national ruling elite. Later generations of historians repeated and endorsed this view, arguing that Italian Jacobinism had imitated Robespierre's ideology. They tried to distinguish between Jacobin republicanism and more moderate, indigenous political movements. However, in reality, the Italian Jacobins often modified their positions from political necessity. Some who had advocated radical republicanism and democracy in the 1780s and '90s accepted important offices in the Napoleonic governments of the early 1800s. The essential difference between moderate and radical Francophiles lay in the different meanings that each group gave to the concept of democracy. The doctrine of equality, for instance, could be restricted to equality before the law, or it could be expanded to include social and economic equality, which would shake the foundation of private property. Depending on their definition of equality, the two groups could take very different approaches to taxation, economic regulation, and public education.

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Italy - Revolution, Restoration, Unification

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Italy - Revolution, Restoration, Unification: When French troops invaded Italy in the spring of 1796, they found fertile ground for the revolutionary ideas and practices of their native country. Since the 1780s, Italian newspapers and pamphlets had given full play to news from France, especially to the political struggle between the king and the Parlement of Paris.