Bosa

Bosa was a Muisca settlement on the Bogotá savanna, west of the river that drains the high plain. Its people cultivated the cool highland country and lived under their own leaders within the wider Muisca world. In 1538 the expeditions of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, Nicolás de Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar met in the area, each approaching the highlands by a different route.

Spanish conquest brought violence and the imposition of colonial rule. In 1539 the Muisca ruler Sagipa and other leaders were executed on Quesada’s orders. Bosa became an Indigenous settlement within the colonial jurisdiction of Santafé, while the land and labour of its people were subject to new demands. Its history links the older societies of the savanna with the encounter that established Spanish power in the northern Andes.

The later city of Bogotá lies here.