A BRIEF HISTORY OF COLOMBIA
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Long before the arrival of Europeans and Africans, many agriculturally-based
societies thrived in what is now Colombia. The largest indigenous community
was the Muisca, dedicated to raising corn and mining salt in the valleys
extending north from present-day Bogotá through the department of Boyacá.
Smaller indigenous groups were also present in the mountainous regions
between Ecuador and Colombia's capital. Some, like those who built the
impressive statuary near San Agustin and the burial caves at Tierradentro,
disappeared before the arrival of the Spanish. Towards the Caribbean coast were
other complex indigenous societies, such as the Sinú who constructed intricate
irrigation systems, and the Tairona in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, who left
the stone foundations of their communities at the El Pueblito site in Parque
Tayrona, and at the "Lost City" deeper in the Parque Nacional de la Sierra
Nevada — both are popular hikes for travelers.
In the sixteenth century, after first establishing settlements on the Caribbean
coast, the Spanish set off to find gold and silver. This expedition, led by Gonzalo
Jiménez de Quesada, encountered the Muisca nation high in the Andes — which
did not have mineral riches comparable to those of the Aztecs in central Mexico
or of the Inca in Peru, but did have a large population. The Spanish quickly took
advantage of the land and cooler climate and established a hacienda system,
using Indians and mestizos (those of mixed European and indigenous descent) as
cheap agricultural labor on large farms.
The conquistadores, and subsequent colonial administrations, certainly treated
the indigenous peoples badly — the conquest was bloody, with rape employed
to terrorize the natives, and torture applied in order to find the supposedly
hidden riches. As in the rest of Spanish America, many died at the hands of
soldiers, and many more from the new diseases brought from Europe. Alongside
the conquest was a cultural colonization, led by missionary clergy who were
charged with converting the Indians and teaching them the Spanish language
and customs. Still, as awful as it was, the Spanish conquest and colonization
differed greatly from that of the British: the conquistadores became dependent