The
Viceroyalty of New Granada (Spanish
Virreinato de la Nueva Granada) was the name given in
1717 to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern
South America, corresponding mainly to modern
Panama,
Colombia,
Ecuador, and
Venezuela. Before the
nineteenth century independence struggles, the Viceroyalty of New Granada existed as a political and administrative entity which also extended to include oversight over local authorities in
Ecuador,
Guyana,
Panamá,
Trinidad and Tobago, and
Venezuela, as well as small parts of
Brazil and
Peru.
After the establishment of an Audiencia (a "court of hearing") at Santa Fé de Bogotá and of the New Kingdom of Granada in the sixteenth century, whose governor was loosely dependent upon the Viceroy of Peru at Lima, the slowness of communications between the two capitals led to the creation of an independent Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1717 (and its reestablishment in 1739 after a short interruption); other provinces corresponding to modern Ecuador and Venezuela, and eventually Panama, until then under other jurisdictions, came together in a political unit under the jurisdiction of Bogota, confirming that city as one of the principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World, along with Lima and Mexico City. Sporadic attempts at reform were directed at increased efficiency and centralized authority, but control from Spain was never very effective.
The rough and diverse geography of northern South America and the limited range of proper roads made travel and communications inside the Viceroyalty difficult. The establishment of a Captaincy General in Caracas and an Audiencia in Quito, still legally subordinated to the Viceroy, was a response to the necessities of effectively governing their surrounding regions, and some analysts consider that it was also reflecting a degree of local traditions that, much later, eventually contributed to creating differing political and national differences between the newly independent territories that the unifying efforts of Simón Bolívar could not overcome.
New Granada was estimated at having 4,345,000 inhabitants in 1819
