- published: 01 Dec 2015
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Tairona was a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira Departments of Colombia, South America, which goes back at least to the 1st century AD and had significant demographic growth around the 11th century.
The Tairona people formed one of the two principal linguistic groups of the Chibcha family, the other being the Muisca. Genetic and archaeological evidence shows a relatively dense occupation of the region by at least 200 BC. Pollen data compiled by Luisa Fernanda Herrera in the 1980 shows considerable deforestation and the use of cultigens such as yuca and maiz since possibly 1200 BC. However, occupation of the Colombian Caribbean coast by sedentary or semi-sedentary populations have been documented to have occurred by ca 4000 BC. Ethnohistorical data shows that initial contact with the Spanish was tolerated by the Tairona but by the 1600 confrontations built and a small part of the Tairona population moved to the higher stretches of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. This movement allowed them to evade the worst of the Spanish colonial system during the 17th and 18th centuries. The indigenous Kogui, Wiwa, Arhuacos (Ijka, Ifca) and Cancuamo people who live in the area today are believed to be direct descendants of the Tairona.
Rafael José Urdaneta y Faría (1788–1845) was a Venezuelan General and hero of the Spanish American wars of independence in several countries in northern South America.
Urdaneta was born in the province of Maracaibo in Venezuela to an elite family of Spanish descent on October 24, 1788. He died in Paris, France, on August 23, 1845, while performing his diplomatic duties for Colombia, due to complications from kidney stones.
Urdaneta, was often referred to as "el Brillante" ("The Brilliant") in Venezuelan historiography.[citation needed].
Urdaneta began his elementary education in Maracaibo and then his high school education in Caracas. Later he traveled to Santa Fe de Bogotá to continue with his college education. Prior to the independence war he was a student of Latin and philosophy, and a pay officer for the viceregal troops in Bogotá, New Granada.
Right after the events of July 10, 1810, “el Grito de Independencia”, Urdaneta decides to join the revolutionary army. He is enlisted as lieutenant of the battalion “Patriotas de Cundinamarca”.