New Kingdom of Granada

The New Kingdom of Granada (Spanish: Nuevo Reino de Granada) was the name given to the group of Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America corresponding mainly to modern-day Colombia. The Spanish first permanently settled the area from 1514, and control of the coast was established with Santa Marta in 1525 and Cartagena in 1533. Starting in 1536 the conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada followed the Magdalena River into the Andean cordillera, where his force defeated the powerful Muisca and founded the city of Santa Fe de Bogota; he named the region El nuevo reino de Granada — the new kingdom of Granada — in honour of the last part of Spain to be recaptured from the Moors, home to the Quesada brothers. The crown organized the territory as a province with a Real Audiencia within the Viceroyalty of Peru, giving it a measure of independence: the audiencia, a superior court combining executive and judicial authority, was established at Santa Fe de Bogota in 1549, and its president governed the kingdom. Through the 1500–1945 window shown on the map the kingdom stood as the Spanish heartland of the northern Andes until 1717, when the Viceroyalty of New Granada was first established and the kingdom became its core region, ending its separate presidential government.