Tocaima

Tocaima lies in the warm country west of the high plateau around Bogota, within a landscape of valleys leading toward the Magdalena basin. Differences in altitude connected tropical crops and lowland resources with the needs of cooler highland settlements. Rivers and land routes carried people and goods between these zones, while heat, seasonal rain, and difficult terrain shaped the practical conditions of travel.

Panche communities inhabited the region before the Spanish conquest. Hernán Venegas Carrillo founded the colonial town in 1544 in Panche territory. Flooding by the Patí River damaged the settlement in 1581 and repeatedly thereafter; in 1621 it was moved to a new site. Its valley setting connected the highland interior with the Magdalena corridor.