Yauto

Yauto is associated with the country of Popayán, in a high valley between Colombia’s central and western Andean ranges. Indigenous communities occupied the valley before the arrival of Spanish conquerors. In 1537 Sebastián de Belalcázar’s expedition founded Popayán, which became the capital of a vast colonial government extending from the Cauca valley toward the Pacific. Its churches and whitewashed houses grew around the central square.

Popayán’s merchants and landowners profited from gold mining in the Pacific lowlands. Enslaved Africans were bought and sent to work the mines, while grants of Indigenous labour and landed estates supported colonial wealth. The city became a meeting place for officials, miners and merchants, and its religious institutions commissioned churches and works of art. The city’s churches and convents received religious paintings and carved sculptures, some made by local artisans and many others brought across the ocean from Spain, Quito and Lima. The prosperity visible in these buildings rested on unequal systems of labour and power.

During the crisis of Spanish rule, Popayán and the towns of the Cauca valley were divided by competing loyalties. Fighting between royalists and republicans disrupted the region in the wars of independence. The city remained an important centre on the road linking Quito, the Cauca valley and the interior of New Granada.