Pamplona, Colombia

Pamplona (pronounced ) is a municipality and city in Norte de Santander, Colombia.

History

Colonization

Nueva Pamplona del Valle del Espíritu Santo, the name by which Don Pedro de Ursúa and Don Ortún Velasco de Velázquez paid tribute to the capital of the province of Navarre in Spain, was founded on 1 November 1549. From they divided the expeditions there that founded - among others the populations of Mérida, San Cristóbal and the Outcry, in the sister Republic of Venezuela, and Ocaña, Salazar of the Palms, Chinácota, San Faustino, Bucaramanga and Cúcuta in Colombia.

The natives, called Chitareros by the Spanish, were the first inhabitants of the old Province of Pamplona. They were called thus by the Spaniards, because of the general custom that the men had to carry hanging from the waist calabazo or totumo with chicha or maize wine as the Spaniards called it. Asking how the thing they carried was called, the natives responded that it was a chitarero.

When the area was occupied by Pedro de Ursúa and Ortún Velasco in 1549, they reduced the primitive settlers to the regime of encomiendas. Around 100 groups or capitanejos were distributed in 53 encomiendas through all the territory, according to investigator Jaramillo Uribe.

The town's location allowed it to become an important commercial route between the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Captaincy of Venezuela, with territories of great fertility and auriferous deposits in the mountains, it became one of the...
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