The Cundinamarca Schism: Colombia's First Civil War

Lucas: If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you’ve seen how modern Colombia is often painted with broad strokes of twentieth-century violence—cartels, paramilitaries, and decades of guerrilla warfare. But the roots of those fractures go back much further, right to the moment the empire collapsed and no one knew who would pick up the pieces. Luna: So we are looking at the very beginning of the republic? Lucas: Exactly. We’re talking about the 1820s, just a few years after independence from Spain. The dream was Gran Colombia, a massive union of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. But the glue holding it together was already cracking almost immediately. Lucas: The core issue wasn’t really about money or land initially; it was about power. Two men dominated this early political landscape: Simón Bolívar, the liberator who wanted a strong, centralized government modeled somewhat on European empires, and Francisco de Paula Santander, his vice president, who believed fiercely in local autonomy and strict constitutional limits. Luna: I remember hearing Santander was called the man of the laws. Lucas: That’s right. Santander was a lawyer by training, meticulous and cautious. He saw Bolívar’s desire for a lifetime presidency as a step toward monarchy, which terrified the liberal factions. Bolívar, meanwhile, felt that without a strong hand, the new nation would tear itself apart into warring provinces. Lucas: This tension came to a head in the capital, Bogotá, but also in nearby Tunja. There was a specific region called Cundinamarca that essentially tried to break away from the national authority, declaring itself a separate republic under its own constitution. It was a mini-civil war within the larger revolution. Luna: Did the regular people care about these constitutional debates? Lucas: It trickled down quickly. When the central government in Bogotá clashed with the provincial militias in Cundinamarca, it wasn’t just politicians arguing. Soldiers who had fought alongside each other against the Spanish were now ordered to fire on their former comrades. The loyalty of the army became the most dangerous variable in this equation. Lucas: A key figure here was General José María Córdova, a brilliant commander from Antioquia. He was initially aligned with Bolívar but grew increasingly frustrated with the corruption and the centralization. His defection and public criticism signaled to many officers that the military did not necessarily support Bolívar’s authoritarian turn. Luna: So the military started turning on the leadership? Lucas: In essence, yes. By 1826, the situation was so volatile that Bolívar attempted to seize dictatorial powers to stabilize the country. He issued decrees suspending certain constitutional guarantees, which outraged Santander and the congress. Santander didn't fight back with armies; he fought back with legal challenges and public letters, exposing what he saw as tyranny. Lucas: This led to the arrest and eventual exile of Santander in 1828. It was a devastating blow to the liberal cause and created a permanent rift in Colombian politics. The country wasn't united; it was split between Bolívar’s Conservatives and Santander’s Liberals, a division that would shape every election and coup for the next hundred years. Luna: It feels like that shadow has followed them ever since. Lucas: Undoubtedly. Before we go deeper into the aftermath of Santander’s exile and the disastrous Congress of Ocaña, I want to pause for a quick honest thing. A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these episodes without ads. It keeps the research deep and the production clean. Luna: Yeah, it really supports the work directly. Lucas: Thanks for listening. Now, back to 1828. After Santander was forced into exile, Bolívar called for a constituent assembly in Ocaña to rewrite the constitution and formalize his power. It was supposed to be the solution, but it turned out to be the nail in the coffin for Gran Colombia. Luna: Why did the assembly fail if Bolívar was in charge? Lucas: Because the delegates couldn't agree. The federalists refused to attend or cooperate, believing the process was rigged. Without the moderates and the liberals, the assembly deadlocked. Bolívar arrived expecting a rubber stamp, found a room full of opponents, and walked out in disgust. He never returned to preside over the government again. Lucas: His withdrawal was catastrophic. With the leader gone and the constitutional framework broken, the regional caudillos—the local strongmen—began to assert total control. Venezuela declared independence from Gran Colombia in 1829, followed shortly by Ecuador. The great union dissolved into three separate nations, all carrying the same internal wounds. Luna: So the dream of one big Andean state just vanished? Lucas: It vanished because the ideological compromise was impossible. Bolívar needed order through strength; Santander needed liberty through law. Neither side could tolerate the other’s definition of freedom. In Bogotá, the streets became battlegrounds of rhetoric and occasional violence. The Bogotazo later in the century would echo this same pattern: elite disagreement spilling into street chaos. Lucas: What’s interesting is how this shaped the Catholic Church’s role. With the state weak and divided, the Church stepped in as a stabilizing moral authority. They backed conservative caudillos who promised to restore order, further entrenching the Conservative-Liberal divide that defined nineteenth-century Colombia. Luna: It seems like religion and politics were inseparable then. Lucas: Completely. You couldn’t be a Liberal without being suspicious of the Church, and you couldn’t be a Conservative without aligning with it. This wasn’t just theological; it was about who controlled education, land, and justice. The Cundinamarca schism wasn’t just a political dispute; it was a cultural war over what it meant to be Colombian. Lucas: Santander, from his exile in Jamaica, continued to write and advise, becoming a martyr for the liberal cause. His death in 1840 was met with mourning across the entire continent, even by some of his enemies. He remained a symbol of constitutional integrity while Bolívar faded into a more distant, mythic figure. Luna: Does that mean Santander’s ideas won in the long run? Lucas: In a way, yes. The Constitution of 1886 and eventually the 1991 Constitution both drew heavily on Santander’s emphasis on checks and balances and federalism. Bolívar’s centralist dreams were largely rejected by the practical realities of governing such a rugged, diverse terrain. Geography favored the local strongman, not the distant emperor. Lucas: So when we look at modern Colombia’s persistent regionalism, we are seeing the legacy of that 1820s failure. The tension between Bogotá’s central authority and the provinces’ desire for self-determination started there, in the heated arguments of Tunja and Bogotá. Luna: It makes the current political landscape feel much older than it looks. Lucas: Precisely. History doesn’t repeat, but it certainly rhymes. The battles over power, autonomy, and identity are still being fought, just with different weapons and different faces. Understanding this first fracture helps explain why unity is always so fragile in the Andes. Luna: It’s a powerful reminder of how fragile beginnings can be. Lucas: It is. And it leaves us wondering: if Bolívar and Santander had found a middle ground, would Gran Colombia have survived? Or was the conflict inevitable given the terrain and the ambitions involved? Luna: Probably inevitable, but the cost of that failure was high. Lucas: Very high. We’ll keep exploring those costs in future episodes, tracing how these early ideological wars evolved into the armed conflicts of the twentieth century. For now, let’s just appreciate the complexity of that first decade.