Magdalena River - History

History

Due to its geographical position in the north of South America, the Magdalena River was since precolumbian times a route towards the interior of today Colombia and Ecuador. Several Carib speaking peoples such as the Panche and the Yariguí ascended trough the western bank of the river, while its eastern portion was inhabited by the Muisca civilization, which called the river 'Yuma'.

Likewise, the Spanish conquistadores who arrived to today's Colombia early in the 16th century used the river to push to the wild and mountainous inland after Rodrigo de Bastidas discovered and named the river on April 1, 1501. During the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the river was the only transport link communicating Bogotá with the Caribbean Sea port Cartagena de Indias and thus with Europe.

In 1825, the Congress of Colombia awarded a concession to establish steam navigation in the Magdalena River to Juan Bernardo Elbers, but his company closed shortly after. By 1845, steamboats regularly travelled on the river until 1961, when the last steamers ceased operation.

Read more about this topic:  Magdalena River

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.
    Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)