Major interest in Colombia for the UK has lain in environmental protection and for Colombia the direct financial investment from the UK, military assistance, and gas production. Bilateral trade currently stands at £1 Billion.[1]
History
Early contact with the area known today as Colombia began in the 16th century with the limited expeditionary forces of
Elizabeth I's
privateers, most famously in the search for the mythical city of
El Dorado. Until the
early modern period British maritime activity, exploration and trade was limited to these skirmishes in the Caribbean such as the
Battle of San Juan de Ulúa (1568), which would lead to the
Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) and other successive Anglo-Spanish wars in the area.
By the 17th century the British began to become interested in the South American continent due to these trade and naval rivalries with
Spain, with the British fighting Spain over a
european regional conflict resulting in their defeat in the
War of Jenkins' Ear (1739 to 1748), which lead to the British withdrawing to focus naval efforts on their
North American wars (1775-1783) and resulting in the
Anglo-Spanish War in the Americas (1779–1783). British maritime activity in the late 1790s became more aggressive and began actively gaining territory in the Caribbean (see
Trinidad remained Spanish until 1797) to enable greater British mercantile trade in the area. At the time, they also furthered their interest against Spain, (see the
Black Legend). After Napoleonic Invasion of Spain in 1808 looking to gain independence, the Venezuelan Junta formed in
Caracas by 1810 was the first Junta to engage in diplomacy to gain ties to Great Britain.
In June 1810
Simon Bolivar travelled to
London with
Luis Lopez Mendez and
Andrés Bello to explain why the Junta of Caracas broke relations with the Spanish Monarchy; to the British
Foreign Office under secretary
Richard Wellesley; seeking British naval and diplomatic protection, however the Spanish ambassador on the grounds Bolivar had at the time no diplomatic capacity to demand self-rule, engaged the British Foreign Office to turn Bolivar away. Bolivar instead returned to
Venezuela and his entourage stayed behind in
Somers Town, London, and in the following years did not gain further in their activities due to the fluctuation and instability of the parties and states they represented. Their case was also not helped by how in-flux the first statehoods of Venezuela were also viewed by the British as being too unstable to consider offering support to. But in a bid to engage British assistance, Colombian and
Cartagena de Indias officials began to trade with
British Caribbean colonial officials, failing to attract any substantial aid. However local naval trade did increase between British Caribbean Naval officials and Venezuela and
New Granada, coming into the British sphere of influence.
By 1814, the United Province of New Granada sent
José Maria del Real as an envoy to London for British support against Spanish military intervention, but as part of a long delay tactics on Britains part due to the defeat of Napoleon and the return of
Fernando VII's restoration, Britain did not immediately recognise the new states representatives, denying requests for British assistance against Spanish attack by the Spanish General
Pablo Morillo in 1815. Cartagena de Indias, under siege of Spanish fleet, even declared itself a
British dominion, but was denied the request eventually falling back under Spanish control by 1816. However Bolivar, exiled in
Jamaica in 1815, wrote from Kingston to
Richard Wellesley, asking for military support against Spain, yet this was ignored based on the foreign policy of the British Foreign secretary Mr.
Castlereagh who was aiming to keep the peace amongst the
French,
Spanish and
European powers following a fine tightrope which British foreign policy makers walked in regards to South America after the close of the Napoleonic wars, culminating in the 1814–1815
Grand Alliance at
Congress of Vienna, under which France supported Spain keeping its American colonies, and thus Britain supporting Spanish rule in the Americas. However around this time Lopez Mendez had begun recruiting what became the British Legions, over 7,000 ex-military Irish and Englishmen who had been dismissed after the Napoleonic wars ended; who went on to fight for Colombian Independence.
The British Government on paper however were still in support of Spain in official channels, apart from a number of liberal politicians, but British public favour went with Colombian patriots and favoured pressuring government to open new trade markets with these newly formed Spanish American groups in 1817 and 1818. However, by 1822 at the
Congress of Verona, Castlereagh shifted position to favour Colombian independence, after the accession of British interest to the Western Question, due to the fluctuating relations with regards to the French Empire and its interests and power relations with the Spanish Empire. With the independence of several Spanish colonies such as Mexico and Peru between 1817 - 1821, and the success of Bolivars armies in the North South-Americas and in 1824 with the signing of the United States-Colombia Trade agreement, the UK under
George Canning eventually recognised the Colombian state in 1825.[2]
Canning in the
House of Commons defended his policies regarding France, Spain and Spanish America in a speech stating: "I resolved that if France had Spain it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the
New World into existence to redress the balance of the
Old" - 12 December 1826
In the later half of the 19th century British merchants came to the area for the Coffee which in this century has become an important import once more.
Steamships and
steam trains began to be invested in the 1870s–1890s by English merchants and the Colombian government to transport goods such as Bananas, tobacco, coffee and European imports, which proved to create a flourishing community of British expats in Colombia and spread out across the South Americas.[3] The British expat community later controlled a portion of the railways in Colombia such as the Cartagena Railway line, the Colombian Northern Railway and the Southern Bogota Railway line by 1906, with all railways returning to Colombian ownership by the 1930s.[4]
1595 -
Raleigh's El Dorado Expedition for the city
El Dorado takes place with the crew travelling the
Orinoco River in modern day Venezuela, with two Englishman left behind with local Indian chiefs, to whom he exhibited a portrait of Queen
Elizabeth and promised to return and liberate them from
Spanish dominion ... [whom were] promptly arrested by the Spanish colonial [authorities], who warned local chiefs to only trade with the
Spanish[6]
1596 -
Francis Drake ransacks the city of Riohacha, sailing away with 100 slaves as part of his booty[7]
1617 -
Watt Raleigh with an expedition traverses the Orinoco, until he was killed in a battle with the Spanish[8]
1739-1748 -
Battle of Cartagena de Indias occurs due to British mercantile expansionism in South Americas, with Britain withdrawing to North America not to return to the area until the 1790s
1758 -
Battle of Cartagena whereby the British blockaded the French in the port of Cartagena occurs during the North American Seven Years War
1815 - British Cartagenas de Indias is declared and fails, but Annual trade with Spain is replaced by trade between Colombia and British Jamaica via the
Treaty of Utrecht in the
Atlantic slave trade
1819 - Battles of
Vargas Swamp and
Boyaca. In
Angostura Bolivar proclamated the Republic of Colombia included present-day Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru, northwestern Brazil and Guyana.
1821 -
Francisco Antonio Zea was appointed by Bolivar as special diplomatic agent of Colombia to Europe and United States. In London he negotiated loans of financial creditors Herring & Richardson and gained recognition of his new country only from the United States.
1822 - The ambassador Zea dies in
Bath, and a large amount of British private investment is made in the new state
1822 -
Jose Rafael Revenga as substitute of Zea as Minister Plenipotentiary of Colombia in London, negotiated Great Britain's recognition of Colombia as an independent country.
1824 - Bolivar leases the
Aroa mines to generate revenue to fight the Spanish in the wars of Independence
1825 - The republic of
Gran Colombia was recognised formally by United Kingdom in first South American envoy recognised by European state
1826 - The London stock market crashes reducing the already small number of private brokers willing to invest in what is now considered as a risky financial investment
1826 - Revenga complained to the British government at the direction of Bolívar about the illegal presence of British settlers in Essequibo territory claimed by Colombia.
1831 - Gran Colombia was dissolved due to the political differences that existed between supporters of federalism and centralism, as well as regional tensions among the peoples that made up the republic. It broke into the successor states of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Since Gran Colombia's territory corresponded more or less to the original jurisdiction of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada, it also claimed the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, the Mosquito Coast, as well as most of Esequiba.
1882 - The English merchant Robert A Joy (1818-?) and the Colombian Manuel J. de Mier funded the
Santa Marta Railway in 1882-1906 to connect Bogota with the
Magdalena River, and by 1906 reached its longest length of 94 kilometers stretching to
Fundación, mostly delivering Bananas[4][3]
1889 -
Samuel SmilesSelf-Help is published and put into circulation in Colombia, used from 1891 - 1912 to further the goal of the education of the Colombian working classes[10]
1940 - The British Council establish English examinations in Colombia.[11]
1955 -
Cricket in Colombia became more institutionally recognised on 20 May 1955 with the creation of the Bogotá Cricket Club (BCC) whose first chairman of the club was the Englishman Reginald Brand alongside and Indian Rishiraj Patel.
1975 -
Sebastian Snow crosses the
Darién Gap with the Canadian
Wade Davis in 1975 as part of his unbroken walk from
Tierra del Fuego to
Costa Rica, with the trip documented in The Rucksack Man (1976) and Davis's The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985)
1978-1981 -
Aline Helg travels between England and Colombia to write her 1987 work La educación en Colombia, 1918-1957: una historia social, económica y política
Following
Brexit, the United Kingdom signed a
continuity trade agreement with three
Andean countries (Colombia,
Ecuador, and
Peru) on the 15 May 2019.[16][17] Colombia was not able to ratify the
free trade agreement by 1 January 2021 and could not provisionally apply the agreement. Through the exchange of diplomatic notes the United Kingdom and Colombia agreed to a bridging mechanism arrangement, which was signed on 18 October 2019, allowing the two countries to continue to trading on preferential terms until Colombia could complete its domestic procedures to fully ratify the agreement.[18] Colombia ratified the agreement on 21 April 2022 and the UK-Andean countries free trade agreement entered into force on 28 June 2022 for Colombia.[19]
^
abEmpresas de vapores en el Caribe Colombiano: la navegacion fluvial y los ferrocarriles en el Magdalena Grande y el Bajo Magdalena 1870–1930, Joaquin Valoria-de-la-Hoz, October 2016, No.40, Caudernos de historia Economica y Empresarial, ISSN 1692-3707, p.12 See
[1]
^
abcDawn of the Railway Era in Colombia, J. Fred Rippy, November 1943, The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 23, pp. 650-663
^Researching the history of slavery in Colombia and Brazil through ecclesiastical and notarial archives, Jane Landers, Pablo Gómez, José Polo Acuña, Courtney J. Campbell
p. 259-292, Notaria Primera de Quibdo, Libro de Venta de Esclavos 1810-188, Fol. 132r. Notaría Primera de Riohacha Archive, Protocolo 1, Riohacha, 23 March 1831. Notaría Primera de Riohacha Archive, Protocolo 1, Riohacha, 4 May 1831. Baptism of María Olalla, Book of Baptisms, San Gerónimo de Buenavista, Montería, Córdoba, 20 February 1809
^Case of Venezuela, William Lindsay Scrugg, 1898, p.38
^
abResearching the history of slavery in Colombia and Brazil through ecclesiastical and notarial archives, 2015, Jane Landers, Pablo Gómez, José Polo Acuña, Courtney J. Campbell, pp. 259-292, Notaria Primera de Quibdo, Libro de Venta de Esclavos 1810-188, Fol. 132r. Notaría Primera de Riohacha Archive, Protocolo 1, Riohacha, 23 March 1831. Notaría Primera de Riohacha Archive, Protocolo 1, Riohacha, 4 May 1831. Baptism of María Olalla, Book of Baptisms, San Gerónimo de Buenavista, Montería, Córdoba, 20 February 1809
^Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies: Simón Bolívar, Foreign Mercenaries and the Birth of New Nations, Matthew Brown, 2006, p.185, Liverpool University Press
^Business goals and social commitment. Shaping organisational capabilities - Colombia's Fundacion Social, 1984-2011, José Camilo Dávila, Carlos Dávila, Lina Grisales, David Schnarch, July 2014, p.2, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia