NEW GRANADA, VICEROYALTY OF

Spanish Virreinato De Nueva Granada, in colonial Latin America, a Spanish viceroyalty, established temporarily between 1717 and 1724 and permanently in 1740, that included present Colombia, Panama (after 1751), Ecuador, and Venezuela and had its capital at Santa F (present-day Bogot). The separation of these territories from the viceroyalty of Peru, one of the principal colonial administrative changes effected by the Bourbon monarchs of Spain, reflected the growing population and increasing commercial importance of the area in the early 18th century. Subsequent commercial and political reforms and rising European demand for colonial products led to a period of prosperity and intellectual and cultural activity, which, however, exacerbated the divisions between peninsular Spaniards and middle- and upper-class Creoles. The viceroyalty ceased to exist in 1810, when most of the component jurisdictions ejected their Spanish officials. Initially the new governments swore allegiance to the Spanish monarch, and they did not begin to declare independence until the following year. A series of civil wars facilitated the temporary reconquest of the United Provinces of New Granada by Spain between 1814 and 1816, and the liberation of the area from Spanish rule was not completed until 1823. The name Estado de Nueva Granada (State of New Granada) was adopted by Colombia in the period 183058.