Caly

Santiago de Cali lies in the Cauca valley at the foot of Colombia’s Western Cordillera. Rivers descend from the steep Farallones to the fertile valley, and routes over the mountains connect the interior with the Pacific. Indigenous communities inhabited the region before Spanish conquest. Sebastián de Belalcázar founded Cali in 1536, initially north of its present site; it was soon moved to the valley where the city grew.

In the colonial period Cali belonged to the government of Popayán. Nearby gold mines and fertile estates supported its economy, drawing on the labour of enslaved Africans and Indigenous people as well as other workers. The town linked the Cauca valley with Popayán and routes toward the Pacific coast. Its churches, houses and public square formed the centre of a society shaped by landholding, commerce and unequal labour.

The crisis of Spanish rule brought political change to a valley whose towns had developed close ties through their councils, estates and trade routes. In 1810 Cali formed a local junta, and in 1811 its council joined those of Buga, Caloto and other valley towns in a confederation against the royalist governor of Popayán. The prolonged wars that followed disrupted the regional colonial economy throughout the valley but made the city part of the struggle for New Granada’s independence.