The Colombian Civil War began on 8 May 1860 and lasted until November 1862. It was an internal conflict between the newly formed conservative Granadine Confederation and a more liberal rebel force from the newly seceded region of Cauca, composed of dissatisfied politicians commanded by General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, its former president. The Granadine Confederation, created a few years earlier in 1858 by Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, was defeated in the capital Bogotá, with Mosquera deposing the newly elected president Bartolomé Calvo on July 18, 1861. Forming a provisional government, with himself as president, Mosquera continued to pursue the conservative forces until their final defeat in 1862. The resulting formation of the new United States of Colombia would have significant cultural and economic consequences for Colombia.
Background
The Granadine Confederation was formed in 1858 out of the Republic of the New Granada, however, during the last few years of the previous Republic, there had been a call for more autonomy from various member states of Colombia, such as Azuero, Chiriquí Province, Panamá and Veraguas. In order to satisfy the member states and avoid a repeat of past mistakes that had led to Venezuela and Ecuador leaving the previous union during the formation of the Granadine Confederation, the central government created a number of sovereign states from the different regions of Colombia.
The Province of Antioquía became the Sovereign State of Antioquía, and the Sovereign State of Santander, which included the provinces of Socorro and Pamplona, was created May 13, 1857. The Sovereign State of Bolívar, which included the Province of Cartagena, the Sovereign State of Boyacá, which included the provinces of Tunja, Tundama, Casanare, and the cantons of Chiquinquirá and Vélez. The Sovereign State of Cauca, which included the provinces of Buenaventura, Chocó, Pasto and Popayán and the region of Caquetá. The Sovereign State of Cundinamarca, which included the province of Mariquita, Bogotá, Neiva, Sovereign State of Tolima, and finally the Sovereign State of Magdalena, which included the provinces of El Banco, Padilla, Santa Marta, Tenerife and Valledupar.
Thus, by the time of the formation of the Granadine Confederation, Colombia consisted of a number of sovereign states, governed by the Congress of Colombia as the office of vice presidency was abolished. Despite the creation of these states, the government under Mariano Ospina Rodríguez became centralist, contrary to the wishes of the States who wanted more power and autonomy, thus increasing the levels of friction between the two levels of government.
On April 8, 1859, the congress of the Granadine Confederation awarded to the president the power to remove the governors of the member states, and on May 10, 1859, it created a second law that allowed the president direct control of the resources and governments of the member states through the creation of a number of administrative departments. Among many angered by these laws was respected and popular politician, leader of the Granada Liberal Party, Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, who denounced the laws as unconstitutional and rallied Liberal support. On May 8, 1860, the newly appointed Supreme Director of War Mosquera declared the Sovereign State of Cauca a separate nation from the Granadine Confederation and civil war broke out.
Response of the Granadine Confederation
In the years prior to the outbreak of civil war, the central government under Mariano Ospina Rodríguez had attempted to thwart growing Liberal movements by supporting counter-insurrections in the member states. Most notable of these was Eustorgio Salgar and the State of Santander in 1859. Salgar and politician Aquileo Parra were both captured by the army of the centralised government after Santander sided against the centralised government on the outbreak of the civil war, however the unrest continued to spread to other regions of the country, including Bolívar and Antioquía, which extended down to the River Chinchiná near Manizales. Salgar, who would later go on to become president of Colombia, was released in 1861.