Macaregua

Macaregua became the site of San Juan de Girón in the Colombian Andes. Francisco Mantilla de los Ríos founded the colonial town in 1631; after illness and a locust plague, it was moved to Macaregua in 1638. Set near the Río de Oro, Girón lay on routes between the mountain settlements and the Magdalena valley. Its whitewashed houses and churches grew around the town’s central square.

The surrounding country formed part of Santander, where Indigenous communities had long occupied the valleys before Spanish colonization. Colonial agriculture and exchange linked Girón to neighbouring towns and the river routes beyond the eastern mountains and valleys. The town’s relocation illustrates the importance of local conditions to settlement in a landscape of steep slopes, valleys and streams.

The later city of Bucaramanga lies here.