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United Provinces of New Granada
The United Provinces of New Granada was a country in South America from 1811 to 1816, a period known in Colombian history as the Patria Boba. It was formed from areas of the New Kingdom of Granada. The government was a federation with a parliamentary system, consisting of a weak executive and strong congress. The country was reconquered by Spain in 1816.
Government
The Triumvirate
After two attempts at establishing a congress, the State of Cundinamarca managed to convene a Congress of the United Provinces, which met in late 1811. It issued an Act of Federation on November 27, 1811, which allowed Congress to establish a separate executive branch, if it felt it was required. An executive, consisting of a triumvirate, was created in 1814 after a royalist army from Pasto and Popayan defeated one from Cundinamarca . Congress nominated Manuel Rodriguez Torices, President of the State of Cartagena; Jose Manuel Restrepo, Antioquia's Secretary of State; and Custodio Garcia Rovira, Governor of the Province of Socorro. At the time of the nomination, the nominated officials were exercising their jobs, so they were temporarily replaced by members of Congress: Joaquin Camacho, Representative for the Province of Tunja, Jose Maria del Castillo y Rada and Jose Fernandez Madrid, both Representatives for the Province of CartagenaDemocracy in Colombia: Clientelist Politics and Guerrilla Warfare By Jorge Pablo Osterling [*]. The triumvirate was inaugurated on October 5, 1814.
On January 12, 1815, Congress arrived in Santa Fe de Bogota, after its army, headed by Simon Bolivar, had forced Cundinamarca into the Union in December 1814. The interim triumvirate was replaced on January 21, 1815, by the original nominated members, with the exception of Joaquin Camacho, who had turned down the nomination. The first president of the triumvirate was Jose Miguel Pey de Andrade, who at the moment was serving as the governor of Bogota.
On August 17 Garcia Rovira, who had presented his resignation as President of the Triumvirate to Congress on July 11, was replaced by Antonio Villavicencio.
Administrative Divisions
The Act was ratified by the provinces of Antioquia, Cartagena, Neiva, Pamplona and Tunja. Under the Act of Federation each province was free to write its own constitution and form its own government. Other regions of the New Kingdom of Granada established their own governments and confederations or remained royalist.[Zawadzky, Alfonso], Las Ciudades Confederadas del Valle del Cauca. .
At the beginning of the revolution, the larger Viceroyalty of New Granada consisted of 22 provinces. The provinces were under the jurisdiction of two audiencias. The Royal Audiencia of Quito, whose president had executive powers, had jurisdiction over the provinces of Quito, Cuenca, Loja, Ibarra, Riobamba, Pasto, Popayan, Buenaventura and parts of the Cauca River Valley. These provinces were located in what are now the Republic of Ecuador and the southern part of Colombia. The Royal Audiencia of Santafe de Bogota, had jurisdiction over the provinces of Panama and Veragua in what is now the Republic of Panama, and the provinces of Antioquia, Cartagena de Indias, Casanare, Citara, Mariquita, Neiva, Novita, Pamplona, Riohacha, Santafe, Santa Marta, El Socorro, and Tunja.
The Audiencia of Quito, despite an attempt at establishing a junta in 1809, remained a royalist stronghold throughout the wars of independence.
The territory of the Captaincy General of Venezuela had been part of the viceroyalty, but had become independent of it when the captaincy general was established in 1776, and therefore, never became part of the United Provinces. The Captaincy General had jurisdiction over the Provinces of Cumana, Guayana, Maracaibo, Venezuela or Caracas (central Venezuela), and Margarita Island, and it had its own audiencia and superintendancy based in Caracas. After the Revolution the captaincy general established itself as a republic.
See also
Spanish reconquest of New Granada
Bolivar's campaign to liberate New Granada
Bibliography
Gibson, William Marion (1948). The Constitutions of Colombia. Durham: Duke University Press.
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article United Provinces of New Granada
