Colombian Civil War ( 1860 – 62 ) 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 . 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 government ' s 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 . Progress of the war . On August 28 , 1860 , the rebel army marched on Manizales and united with various leaders from the other sovereign states that supported Mosquera . On August 29 , an agreement was formed that would result in Mosquera and his forces retiring to Cauca and disbanding , with Mosquera being granted the position of President of the Granadine Confederacy in return . Ospina , however , declined to ratify the proposed agreement and the liberal forces resumed the war . Following a successful invasion of the region of Antioquia by the rebel army , the capital Bogotá fell to them on July 18 , 1861 . Mariano Ospina Rodriguez , his brother Pastor , Bartolomé Calvo and his cabinet were taken prisoner . The following day , Mosquera ordered the execution of a number of politicians and officials from the Confederacy , including Plácido Morales , Andrés Aguilar and Ambrosio Hernández . Following the collapse of the Confederacy government and the assumption of power by Mosquera , a number of renegade generals in command of the remaining Confederate forces continued to resist , including Julio Arboleda in the Cauca , General Braulio Henao in Antioquia and General Leonardo Canal in Santander , however with the assassination of the first on November 12 , 1862 , the defeat of Henao at the battle of Santa Barbara , and the capitulation of Canal in Pasto , Nariño , resistance to Mosquera ' s new government was relatively short lived , and on May 8 , 1863 , the United States of Colombia was officially created from the Rionegro Convention . Consequences of the war . Aside from the fall of the Granadine Confederation and the formation of the United States of Colombia , which would itself eventually fall during a civil war which saw the founding of the modern day Republic of Colombia in 1886 , Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera ' s assumption of power in 1861 also had a profound social and economic impact on Colombia . Fearing the strength of Mosquera ' s power , other political leaders in Colombia worked to avoid a repeat of what Mosquera had done with the conservative government , by strengthening a federal government based on a laissez - faire policy , in which the regional and local autonomy were protected and there was no National Army , with new rules and powers given to the nine Sovereign States and their Presidents . The new government also clashed with the positions of the church when , to help rejuvenate an economy ravaged by civil war , was put under secular control with its lands being sold to industrialists and developers . The government confiscated the property of religious communities and organizations such as schools , hospitals , monasteries , churches , land , houses and other properties that could be sold .