Tame

Tame lies at the foot of the eastern Colombian Andes, where mountain streams enter the savannas of the Llanos. Indigenous communities inhabited this transition between forested slopes and open plains before Spanish colonization. Around 1628 Alonso Pérez de Guzmán established a Spanish settlement in the area. Jesuit missionaries later founded Nuestra Señora de Tame among the Indigenous peoples of Casanare.

During the wars of independence, Tame became a gathering place for republican forces in the eastern plains. In June 1819 Simón Bolívar met Francisco de Paula Santander there before the army marched toward the Andes. Its difficult crossing of the mountains led to the campaign culminating in victory at Boyacá. The town’s position between the plains and highlands made it an important point on that route.