From San Gil left to Zapatoca, Antonio de Rueda Ortiz and Cristobal de Rueda Sarmiento. To San Vicente, Sacramento Tristancho. To Galn, Ignacio Jose de Rueda. To Pinchote, Pedro Santos. To Contratacion, city of pain, the priest Antonio Ramon Martinez. To Socorro, Jose Diaz Sarmiento. To Aratoca, Domingo de Rojas.
From San Gil left the ones who were to found, years later, in the seventeenth century, some urban centers. The town of Zapatoca belongs to the ancient province of Guanent next to Barichara, Cabrera, Betulia and Galn. Mr. Jose Serrano y Solano and Ignacio de Pinilla were fathers of the country, as stated by the historian Carlos Arturo Diaz: “One of the founders of San Gil and the first political authority was Cristobal de Rueda y Sarmiento, brother of Don Jose Rueda y Sarmiento, and another founder, was Antonio de Rueda y Ortiz, the uncle of Captain Gabriel Angel Ortiz and close relative of the Ruedas mentioned before”. Antonio de Rueda y Ortiz was the owner of the land where the town of Zapatoca is located. Domingo de Rojas and Francisco Espinoza founded Aratoca. The founder of San Vicente de Chucuri was Sacramento Tristancho, native of the town of Aratoca and descendant of Sangilentildeas families. Ignacio Jose de Rueda founded Galn in 1759. Pedro Santos, father of the heroine, founded Pinchote in 1874 (32). Dr. Antonio Ramon Martinez, priest of high altruistic and evangelic merits, founded the Lazareto de Contratacion, today, city of pain and center of flourishing commerce and industry with its sui generis political division as National Territory. Manuel Rueda Lineros and Roque Ortiz, direct descendants of the founders of Zapatoca, established the town of Hato in 1820.
As the historian and academic Horacio Rodriguez Plata states about the foundation of his native town Socorro, Jose Diaz Sarmiento, brother of Captain Francisco Diaz Sarmiento, who “After seeing his dominium invaded by colonists, he gave it with pleasure to them to legalize their situation of irregular possessors and arrange for a population which would have good progress”. Such deed of donation was given on June 16, 1683, before witnesses and neighbors of San Gil who had accompanied Diaz Sarmiento and Jose Archila in a friendly solution with the possessors without just title. The protocolization took place before Ignacio Gonzlez Registrar of the Municipal Council of the town of San Gil and later, before Juan de Obando, Royal Registrar and Notary of Santa Fe. Thus, it was that residents of the town of San Gil “donated” the lands near Chanchon which were to become the town of Socorro, dependent of the town of San Gil, for a century, “deo gratias”, of this, her oldest sister and good neighbor. Later, we will have opportunity to refer to the lawsuit of the neighbors of Socorro against the Municipal Council of San Gil since they wanted the limits to be next to the proper gutter of this ancient donator of lands and loyal town.