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Putumayo Department
Putumayo is a department of Colombia. It is in the south-west of the country, bordering Ecuador and Peru. Its capital is Mocoa.
The word putumayo comes from the Quechua language. The verb putuy means "to spring forth" or "to burst out", and mayo is a variant of mayu, meaning river. Thus it means "gushing river".
Municipalities
Colon
Mocoa
Orito
Puerto Asis
Puerto Caicedo
Puerto Guzman
Puerto Leguizamo
San Francisco
San Miguel
Santiago
Sibundoy
Valle del Guamez
Villa Garzon
History
Originally, the south west of the department was territory of the Cofan Indians, the north west of the Kamentxa Indians, and the center and south belong to tribes that spoke Tukano languages (such as the Siona), and the east to tribes that spoke Witoto languages. Part of the Kamentxa territory was conquered by the Inca Huayna Capac in 1492, who after crossing the Cofan territory, established a Quechua population on the valley of Sibundoy, that is known today as Ingas. After the Inca defeat in 1533, the region was invaded by the Spanish in 1542 and since 1547 administered by catholic missions.
The current territory of Putumayo was linked to Popayan during the Spanish Colony and on the firsts Republican decades belonged to the huge "Department of Asuay, that included territories in Ecuador and Peru. Later starts a ling process of territorial redistributions:
1831: Province of Popayan.
1857: Estado Federal del Cauca.
1886: Departament of Cauca.
1905: Intendencia del Putumayo.
1909: Intendencia del Caqueta.
1912: Comisaria Especial del Putumayo.
1953: Departament of Narino.
1957: Comisaria Especial del Putumayo.
1968: Intendencia Especial del Putumayo.
1991: Departament of Putumayo.
A dark chapter in the history of Putumayo was the "Caucho Fever", unleashed on the end of the XIX century until the XX century. During this period, the Casa Arana slaved and killed thousands of natives from the Amazonia, these were used to extract the caucho. Nowadays exist, however, a few native communities that withstood the Spanish Colony, the Caucho exploitation, the recent Oil extraction and the modern colonization.
External links
Government of Putumayo official website
Territorial-Environmental Information System of Colombian Amazon SIAT-AC website
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Putumayo Department
