page_title: Colombian Civil War (1860–1862)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Colombian Civil War (1860–1862) / Background
caption_attribution_description: Estados Unidos de Colombia
context_page_description: The Colombian Civil War began on May 8, 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.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: The Nine Sovereign States
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