Colombia’s history began when “The Liberator,” Simón Bolívar, declared Colombia an independent country after a decade of struggle against the Spanish. However, around three centuries before the Spanish conquest, the Indigenous tribes of Zenú and Muisca ruled the land. The Zenú occupied the Caribbean coast with a highly stratified society. Meanwhile, the Muisca called the eastern highlands their home, having an economy based on agriculture, metalwork, and long-distance trade. By the time the Spanish arrived, the Muisca population was around 500,000. The Spanish began to explore Colombia in 1499, building their first settlements in 1510. In 1532, when the Spanish heard about the incredibly wealthy Inca tribe in Peru, they began exploring Colombia deeper to reach Peru. During this exploration, they encountered the Muisca gold mines, which caused them to build what is now the capital of Colombia: Santafé de Bogotá. In 1739, the Viceroyalty of New Granada was formed, uniting Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. However, most of New Granada’s population was displeased, as they were treated much worse than the Spanish population. In the late 18th century, the Creole (people of Spanish descent) and Mestizo (people of mixed Spanish and Native American descent) began the struggle for independence. This all leads back to Simón Bolívar, who, in 1819, declared the Republic of Gran Colombia an independent country. This Republic included the same countries as New Granada. Sadly, this republic did not last long, as, after Bolívar’s death in 1830, Venezuela and Ecuador severed ties with the republic. After independence, Colombia split into two political parties: the Liberals and the Conservatives. These two parties competed, and those competitions caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the War of a Thousand Days (1899 - 1902) and La Violencia (1948 - 1958). The parties reached an agreement, which split political power between the two parties. This lessened political violence, but it worsened conditions for the poor. Starting in the 1960s, guerilla groups such as FARC and ELN fought to expose the failure of the government to better socioeconomic conditions. Colombia also experienced major drug violence from the ‘70s to the ‘90s. Colombia is not extremely diverse, with almost half of the population being mestizo and the other half being white. There are also smaller groups of black and Indigenous people. The mestizo population in Colombia would be explained by the large amount of European settlers and Indigenous peoples: mixing the two ethnicities creates the mestizo population. The European settlers also explain the white population. The Europeans brought African slaves to South America, leaving the small black population in Colombia. Their independence, their political troubles, their drug violence, and their fairly homogeneous population: all form what is now known as Colombia, a country that fights through its severe problems.