The Viceroyalty of New Granada first\u00a0declared independence from Spain\u00a0in 1811\u00a0when the patriot leader Francisco Miranda took control. The Spanish regained control the following year. Simon Bol\u00edvar fled from Venezuela and Francisco Miranda was handed over to the Spaniards. Bol\u00edvar subsequently made another attempt to assert independence. He re-established the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813 and later united with New Granada to form Gran Colombia, but the Spaniards regained control again in 1814.<\/p>\n
In\u00a01820, following the reestablishment of constitutionalism, the Spanish commander Pablo Morillo negotiated with Simon Bol\u00edvar and the discussions\u00a0led to a six month armistice. The\u00a0truce did not hold, however, and within the six months, Bol\u00edvar and P\u00e1ez launched a successful attack on Morillo’s forces. The battle of Carabobo on the 24th June 1821 was the event which consolidated Venezuela’s independence from Spain.<\/p>\n
In 1822, after declaring independence in Venezuela and northern New Granada, Simon Bol\u00edvar turned his attention\u00a0to the royalist stronghold of Popay\u00e1n in New Granada’s southwestern region (an area we now know as Colombia). In this region, the representatives of the Spanish king had managed to mobilise slaves against slave owners to defend the crown. Some Indian communities also sided with the Spaniards, particularly in the interior Andean highlands of Pasto. The indigenous people in Pasto and the slaves in the Pacific lowlands fought against the republican invasion in a rebellion that lasted until\u00a0\u00a01825. As Marcela Echeverri explains, ‘these royalist militias not only threatened the stability of Bol\u00edvar’s dream of an independent republic of Colombia, they also jeopardized his plans to defeat Spain in the heartland of its South American empire, Peru’. (Echeverri 2016, 2).<\/p>\n
Dr Marcela Echeverri explains the involvement of the indigenous, mestizo and slave populations in the following podcast.<\/p>\n