The conflict, resulting in Colombia’s independence from Spain, took place between 1810 and 1819. In the beginning, there was a dispute between a group of American rebels and the Spaniard José González Llorente in Bogotá. The Americans had asked him to leave them a flower vase, and by not doing so, José González Llorente insulted the rebels, who in consequence started a revolte that escalated into a “shout of independence”.
Colombia is one of the countries that was formed as a result of the breakup of Gran Colombia in 1830 (the others being Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela). Until 1861, it was still called New-Granada whose name was changed into Colombia in honor of Christopher Columbus. Until the year 1903, modern-day Panama belonged to Colombia as well. Only in 1886, Colombia was able to unite and became a centrally administrated republic, and put to the proof again in 1898 when persistent internal conflicts erupted into the “Thousand Days War.” Between 1899 and 1902, oppositional liberals fought against the conservative central government without either one of them coming out as the winner. The devastating conflict with over a hundred dead was finally alleviated by a peace contract, assuring the liberals of a government participation in the future. Nevertheless, the “conservative hegemony” from 1886 survived until 1930.
Much more serious than the materialistic devastation of the war, however, was its aftermath regarding foreign affairs, in which the USA took advantage of Colombia’s weakness in 1903 to assert its geostrategic interests in Panama. For Theodore Roosevelt, United States president from 1901-1908, the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama was regarded as a military importance. A separation was created by poor integration of the isthmus into the central state of Colombia as well as a feeling of being infantilized and ignored by those responsible in Bogotá on the part of the local trade oligarchy. Prior to this, the Colombian senate had rejected the construction of the Panama Canal expedited by the USA with reference to an imminent loss of sovereignty where upon the United States, in coordination with the Panamanian separatist movement, enforced the independence of the isthmus department. Colombia had come out of the Thousand Days’ War so weakened that it accepted reluctantly the militarily shielded takeover in Panama City.
In the first half of the 20th century, Colombia underwent a period of economic prosperity. In the 1920s, coffee represented up to 90% of Colombia’s export and facilitated the country’s investment into the expansion of transportation infrastructure and the strengthening of governmental institutions. In the middle of the past century, two political groups with different ideological concepts began to establish their claim of the state leadership: the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. Later on, a breakthrough of other societal groups developed and sought to extend the political spectrum of the country; ethnic minorities, Indian tribes, and independent public campaigns were then integrated into the political events of the country.