Dissolution of Gran Colombia
Gran Colombia dissolved in 1830 into Venezuela, New Granada and Ecuador, eleven years after Bolívar had proclaimed it. The republic had been created at Angostura in December 1819, weeks after Boyacá, and covered what is now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama — a territory the size of western Europe with no roads between its parts, three mountain ranges, and populations that had never had anything to do with one another. Bolívar's design was centralist because he believed the alternative was disintegration, and the centralism was itself a cause of the disintegration. Venezuela resented being governed from Bogotá; Ecuador had been conquered rather than joined; and the federalists led by Francisco de Paula Santander regarded the constitution as monarchy under another name. The economy never recovered from the wars, the treasury was empty, and the armies that had won independence had no wars left and were owed pay. Bolívar assumed dictatorial powers in 1828 after a constitutional convention deadlocked at Ocaña, and survived an assassination attempt in his bedroom the same year by escaping through a window while his mistress Manuela Sáenz delayed the conspirators. José Antonio Páez declared Venezuela separate in 1829; Ecuador followed in May 1830 under Juan José Flores. Bolívar resigned in April 1830 and died of tuberculosis at Santa Marta that December at forty-seven, writing that he had ploughed the sea. Sucre, his intended successor, was assassinated in June. Panama left Colombia in 1903 with American help. Every attempt at Latin American federation since has failed on the same arithmetic of distance and local interest.
- Year: 1830 CE
- Category: Political
