Abstract

PEREZ-PINZON, Luis-Rubén. Bucaramanga 400 Years. Indigenous Inhabitants before (1622) and after (1657) its "Foundation". Hist. Soc. [online]. 2022, n.43, pp.278-297.  Epub Aug 22, 2022. ISSN 0121-8417.  https://doi.org/10.15446/hys.n43.102127.

The origin of Bucaramanga as a territory, reservation and town of indigenous people is associated by regional and local historiography with its supposed "foundation", on December 22, 1622, by the encomendero Andrés Páez de Sotomayor, as commissioned deputy mayor of mines, and by the presbyter Miguel de Trujillo, as a doctrinal priest in the Rio de Oro valley, who proceeded to congregate in the extinct settlement of Bucaramanga the indigenous washers, runaways and those not present, with prior notification from the visiting oidor to Juan de Velasco, governor of Pamplona and encomendero of the natives of Bucarica and Guaca. The interest of academic historians in associating the founding act of the city of Bucaramanga with the rites of conquest presided over by a soldier and a priest to contain the excesses of an encomendero led to the fact that for 400 years the indigenous people who populated and maintained the existence of this territory were disregarded and overlooked. From the files of the Visitas-Santander fund in the Colonia section of the General Archive of the Nation of Colombia, the folios containing the personal and territorial descriptions of the indigenous people who guaranteed, during the 17th century, the existence and jurisdiction of the town transformed into a parish since 1778, were selected and literally transcribed. Likewise, they constitute an unpublished source to study the historical demography of Bucaramanga.

Keywords : town of indigenous people; Amerindian; colony; census; demography; washing crew; province of Pamplona; population; urban history; regional history; Bucaramanga; 17th century.

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