Foolish Fatherland The period between 1810 and 1816 in the New Kingdom of Granada ( today Colombia ) was marked by such intense conflicts over the nature of the new government or governments that it became known as la Patria Boba ( the Foolish Fatherland ) . Constant fighting between federalists and centralists gave rise to a prolonged period of instability . Similar developments can be seen at the same time in the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata . Each province , and even some cities , set up its own autonomous junta , which declared themselves sovereign from each other . The Establishment of Juntas , 1810 . With the arrival of news in May 1810 that southern Spain had been conquered by Napoleon ' s forces , that the Spanish Supreme Central Junta had dissolved itself and that juntas had been established in Venezuela , cities in New Granada began to do the same and established their own . Cartagena de Indias established one on May 22 , 1810 , followed by Cali on July 3 , Pamplona the next day , and Socorro on July 10 . On July 20 the viceregal capital , Santa Fe de Bogotá , established its own junta . ( The day is today celebrated as Colombia ' s Independence Day . ) The viceroy Antonio José Amar y Borbón initially presided over the junta in Bogotá , but due to popular pressure , he was deposed five days later . Although the Bogotá junta called itself a " Supreme Junta of the New Kingdom of Granada , " the splintering of political authority continued as even secondary cities set up juntas that claimed to be independent of their provincial capitals , resulting in military conflicts . There were two fruitless attempts at establishing a congress of provinces in the subsequent months . The First Independent States and Civil War . In the meantime , the province of Bogotá transformed itself into a state called Cundinamarca . In March 1811 it convened a " Constituent Electoral College of the State of Cundinamarca , " which promulgated a constitution for the state the following month . The constitution established Cundinamarca as a constitutional monarchy under the absent Ferdinand VII . ( It would declare full independence only in August 1813 . ) Cundinamarca invited the other provinces to send delegates to a new " Congress of the United Provinces , " which first met in Bogotá , but later moved to Tunja and Leyva to maintain independence from the capital city . The Congress eventually established a confederation called the United Provinces of New Granada on November 27 , 1811 , with a weak federal government , but Cundinamarca rejected the Union . The Congress and Cundinamarca could not agree on whether the former viceroyalty was to have a centralist government or a federal one . At the same time , popular agitation in Cartagena lead it to declare independence on November 11 , 1811 , the first province in New Granada to do so . ( The day is also today a national holiday in Colombia . ) Other regions of the New Kingdom of Granada established their own governments and confederations ( for example , the Friend Cities of the Cauca Valley , 1811 – 1812 ) or remained royalist . The dispute over the form of government eventually erupted into war by the end of 1812 , and once again in 1814 . The first war resulted in a stalemate , which nevertheless allowed Cundinamarca to organize an expedition against royalist regions of Popayán and Pasto . It resulted in defeat and its dynamic president , Antonio Nariño , was captured . Facing an enfeebled Cundinamarca , the United Provinces took the opportunity to send an army against it , headed by Simón Bolívar , who had fled Venezuela for the second time after the fall of the Second Republic of Venezuela . Bolívar and his army forced the submission of Cundinamarca to the Union by December 1814 . However , by mid - 1815 a large Spanish expeditionary force under Pablo Morillo had arrived in New Granada , which bolstered earlier royalist advances made by Santa Marta . Morillo lay siege on Cartagena on August and it finally fell five months later in December with the city suffering large numbers of civilian casualties due to famine and disease . By May 1816 Morillo and royalists from the south had conquered Bogotá and returned all of New Granada to royalist control until August 1819 , when forces under the command of Simón Bolívar retook the central part of the region .