Tairona - Extinction

Extinction

In 1599, the Tairona revolted against the Spanish, apparently because economic and religious pressure from the Spanish had become intolerable. The main aggression was the killing of priests and travellers along the roads connecting the Spanish city of Santa Marta and the Tairona centers of Bonda and the villages of Concha and Chengue. Secondary targets were the churches and houses of known bureaucrats of the colonial administration. However these data are from Spanish testimonies from the trial against the Tairona chiefs in 1602. The Chiefs of Chengue and Bonda were sentenced to death, their bodies dismembered, their villages burned, the populations relocated and incorporated into the Encomienda system. By the mid-17th century, many Tairona populations were completely abandoned and the region was engulfed by forest.

Their descendants today are the Kogi people.