Exhibition II | Page 4

The first habitants arrive to Bogota in 10.000 b. c. They left so many important things, like, towns, paths, statues, gold, culture, traditions etc. Some treasures of communities like the Muisca, are in the Gold Museum of Bogota. All the history of the country started in the colonial times, around in 1492. When the Spaniards discovered America. Well, they did not discovered it, because it already existed. When they came, most of the indigenous communities were located in “La cordillera de los Andes”. They did not have any communication system among them, because the geography of the area did not allow it, so they were separated.

The towns let the Spaniards govern and control so many different communities, so they used them like their slaves. They also took advantage of their "ignorance" and traded gold for mirrors, because the indigenous people were very impressed by mirrors, since they had never seen their faces before.

Colonial Times

The Spaniards saw that so many indigenous people were dying because of the diseases that they brought to them, so they thought that they needed to bring more people to work for them. There is when they decided to bring the Africans as their slaves. And the Spaniards thought that if you were a black person you were worthless and no smart. Later on, the indigenous, Spaniards and Africans mixed up, so the population started to grow and it got bigger and bigger by the day. The Spanish and African cultures highly influenced our culture and traditions; for example, in music rhythms like “Vallenato”, “Bambuco” and “Cumbia” are a mixture of different cultural roots.

All of this is very important in our culture, because a lot of our culture came from that time,

and it was also the beginning of our country.

Description of the drawing

Title: Looking from the stone

Tecnic: Pencil

High: 21 cm

Width: 28 cm

By: Ana Sofía Ossa Serrano

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Ana Sofía Ossa Serrano