Caqueza

Cáqueza lies in the eastern Colombian Andes, where streams descend from the Bogotá highlands toward the Llanos. Before Spanish conquest the area was inhabited by Muisca communities associated with the chief of Ubaque. Their settlements occupied a landscape of steep slopes and valleys, with routes linking the high plain to warmer country farther east. In 1600 the colonial official Luis Enríquez and the Indigenous leader Lorenzo Gaque established the town of San Pablo de Cáqueza, bringing together people from several nearby settlements. Such congregations reorganized Indigenous life under colonial administration and missionary supervision. The town remained a point on the route between the highlands and the eastern foothills.