The geography in verse. Cities and populations that integrated the province and its graphs. A Prefect that I must remember. The provincial privileges as a solution against the profusion of Departments.

The ancient Province of Guanent was formed, as the verse used to teach, in 1892, Luis F. French (55) with the following towns: “San Gil, Zapatoca and Onzaga Barichara and Galn San Joaquin and San Vicente Mogotes, Valle and Jordn Aratoca, Curiti Cabrera and Betulia are”. When the levitical town of Zapatoca and the aristocratic metropolis of Aquileo Parra with its bounding populations of Cabrera, Betunia, Galn and San Vicente separated from San Gil, they continued forming for many years the Sangilentilde conglomerate. The beautiful populations of Aratoca, Curiti, Jordn, Mogotes, Pinchote, Onzaga, Valle and San Joaquin which belonged to the distinguished Province of Guanent are considered the younger sisters of the town of San Gil and members also of the Sangilentilde conglomerate. These prominent and smiling populations, as illustrious as forgotten, form, since their constitution, as independent municipalities, a sociological whole with a natural and rightful seat. With the city of San Gil it is not possible to tell or sing the excellences of the Sangilentilde people without saying or blessing the ones from the other contiguous
boundaring and consanguineous populations. Because the vicissitudes and triumphs of a people are common to their neighbors. Because the flower of the generations of the named and dear towns have drunk from the Fonce River waterers wisdom, custom and civility. Because the existence of a capital is nurtured by the torrid zones and abundant boundaring territories. Because the same Fathers of the Country and Lords of lineage and blazon raised the bell towers, roofs, stone masonry murals and the adobe stepping walls of the sunny landscape of the Guane Region. And, because these and those towns so white, of so noble descent, so clean and dreamy are the pride and reserve of the pure Santandereano race.They are the vigorous witnesses of the presence of a renowned civilization. They are ashes and light of a glorious afflatus, Comunero tumultuous hurry in Mogotes, armed eruption in San Gil, patriotic repetition in Socorro with a broken edict, industrious brotherhood of home industries in Curiti, Aratoca and Onzaga. They are the eternal communion of nostalgic feeling of the heroic women of the land and the rigorous Fathers of the Country of Valle de San Jose, San Joaquin and Jordn. It is convenient to describe the city with Jose Asuncion Silva: (59) his sprout born in Bogot. “It receives the foreigner adorned with all the flowers of its gardens and the greenery of its parks. It will offer in big hotels, renement in comfort which will permit to forge the illusion of not having abandoned the smiling home. It will show off wide avenues and green plazas, the marbles of its great men, the pride of its palaces, the melancholic greatness of the old buildings of the colonial times, the splendor of its theaters, dazzling store windows, libraries and bookstores which bookshelves gather European and American books, and it offers noble pleasure to intelligence. As a flower of material progress, it beholds progress of art, science and a pure regional taste book or of poetry which sings the old native legends, the heroic and glorious wars of independence, the natural beauty and glorious future of a regenerated land”. To parody Ricardo Leon in his most brilliant eulogy to Castilla la Vieja in Spain, San Gil, the Capital of the Guanent Province: “town that is mother and wet nurse of peoples. She is severe as the expression of the ancient heroes, austere like the desert, eld of crusade, theater of epics, enclosure of public spectacles, forum, classroom, temple, castle, cradle, grave, coffer,granary, table, altar, seat of patriotism, croslet of gold and anvil of iron. She is poor but nurtures another’s riches. She is old but has new entrails and courage to raise new beings. You are loaded with centuries and disillusionments. You give sons to govern the heredity. You look like the generous sarmentum of your dry and knotty vides, but rich in fecundate sap and loaded with clusters”.
In old times, the cities of Zapatoca, Barichara, San Vicente, Galn, Jordn, Cabrera and Betunia belonged to the Province of Guanent. When the Province was extinguished, they formed: Aratoca, Onzaga, San Joaquin, Curiti, Mogotes and Pinchote. I intend to give the following monographs to each one of the prominent towns of the great Guanentino and Sangilentilde ancestral home. ARATOCA: This town has the honor to count among her famous sons, the notable Colombian writer and historian Don Jose Manuel Rojas Rueda. One of his works has been dedicated to the description of the town called:”Nuestra Sentildera de las Nieves y Santiago el Mayor de Aratoca”.
The most recent edition of the monograph of his dear town was published by the Government of Santander, in 1964, in the official printing offices of the Department with 220 pages of delightful and agile chronicle of terrigenous flavor. According to the illustrious publicist of the “Historia y Tradiciones de la Villa de Aratoca”, it was founded on August 5, 1750, by “Don Francisco Espinoza, Don Domingo de Rojas, Don Antonio Solano, Don Antonio Florez and Don Francisco Javier Florez”, according to the marble in front of the Consistorial House donated by Dr. Augusto Espinoza Valderrama, descendant of one of its founders.
Thus 230 years ago, now, the above mentioned founders left San Gil and in the historical site named “Alto de San Sebastin” planted a church and a few stone masonry buildings, not straw, as it was never the custom of the peoples of Santander. In 1851 came the title of town and on November 3, 1790 of Parish. There were long and expensive suits of the first residents with the neighbors of San Gil, and later with Cepit and Curiti. The ground of Aratoca was shaken in the nineteenth century with the shooting by musketry of her sons Manuel Adarme and Miguel Prada on November 18, 1817, and Captain Sebastin Galvis, dead in Comayagua on December 5, 1822. Also, with the presence of internal wars, Generals Toms Cipriano de Mosquera and Pedro Alcntara Herrn, and Colonels Manuel Gonzlez and Juan Jose Reyes Patria fought there. The municipal territory of Aratoca has an extension of 106 square kilometers. It is 40 kilometers distant from San Gil. It has various climates: from 15 degrees Centigrade on the San Sebastin Plateau or Mesa de los Santos, to 26 degrees in the Chicamocha River bed in “Pescadero”. The very notable Colombian intellectuals such as Juan de Dios Arias, Enrique Otero D’Costa, Enrique Caballero Escobar and Dr. Miguel Aguilera have described the erect landscape of Aratoca. Precisely, Professor Juan de Dios Arias, illustrious adoptive son of Aratoca, thus, declared by the town Municipal Council, states:” The San Sebastin Plateau, in the so called Height of Aratoca, has been separated from the Mesa de los Santos, by the colossal trench of the Chicamocha River. In between them there is an identical geological structure and certain panoramic anomaly. But the Plateau is naturally less extensive and instead of forming a sole block, its last waves melt with the Cordillera.
From the house of the hacienda of San Sebastin situated in the proper Height of Aratoca, the land extends in slow decline cut by small wrinkles spotted with forests and hillocks. The panorama is more arid until the La Laja Brook. It lacks placidity. On the other side of the hacienda and the Chicamocha Canyon, the town of Santos is near the peak where the terrain breaks, and further, there is the plateau called Mesa de Jeridas, probably the recreational site of the Guanent Cacique of remote epoch. “In front, in the distance, the green pasture ground of the rich hacienda named Macaregua in the memory of the Cacique who left well established fame of magnanimous and valiant warrior in the chronicles of the Conquest, in the horizon, in a zig zag, the almost abandoned royal road which goes to Curiti and Jordn…..”. The writer Caballero Escobar states that: “On these lands, along history, wars and guerrillas have ruled. On them, the Santandereano Revolutionary of the nineteenth century, the face shadowed by the wide hat, the muddy lambskins, with silver spurs which rub the flanks of the Velentildea mule, above the haunch bone, the machete and hanging from the lapel the water canteen……”.
“Santander is epic and eloquent. Its lexicon is naturally archaic and pure and the delicious words are pronounced with depreciatory inflection. I do not know what the sociologists say, but the Regiments of Infantry of Spain of the Golden Era have an impressive memory of these pathetic and insolent men who have made a religion of honor and dream of high ventures”.
The historian Miguel Aguilera states: “ This panorama of geological cataclysm which can be seen in the Santandereana Zone framed by the deep basin of the Chicamocha River and by the dry edges of the Macaregua and Jeridas Plateaus, the ravine which sustains the neighborhood of Aratoca offer pleasure to the eyes as hope above the vortex of anguish”.
That region of frightening cataclysms, according to the geologist Don Agustin Codazzi, presents an abrupt surface where the Cordilleras look like a rough sea which waves are rich peaks that raise their tops in disorder, wanting to climb the sky, surprising the traveler with a beautiful spectacle of impressive cliffs and a group of splendid mountains”.
Finally, the historian Enrique Otero D’costa states that: “Aratoca takes advantage of its hidden path and offers the visitor a refuge for the sick spirit, such as a light tonic for the nerves broken by the stress of modern life. There go the travelers looking for relief with its good air and the serene view of its sierras inhabited by people of clear soul and clean heart”.

MOGOTES: One of the more beautiful towns which borders with San Gil and forms part of the Province situated at 6 29’ 30” of North Latitude, and 1 06’ 27” East Longitude from Bogot, with a height of 1,476 meters above sea level, with a mean temperature of 21 degrees Centigrade and a population of 12,500 inhabitants. It is limited on the north by Molagavita, on the south by Onzaga, on the east by San Joaquin and on the west by Valle, San Gil and Curiti, with an extension of 208 square kilometers. It has a beautiful church, magnicent constructions in the urban perimeter, a nice plaza and several attractive sites such as Playon, El Hoyo de los Pjaros, and the basin of the Mogotes River. A cooperative and shelter for the peasants are works of courage of such an important agricultural center. It belongs to the Notary Circuit, to the Judicial Circuit and District of San Gil, a city distant 35 kilometers united by a good road to San Joaquin and Onzaga. Its main industries are agriculture, cattle, textiles of sisal, and the exquisite guava sweet which competes with the Velez one for its fragrance and flavor.
Some tradition states that Mogotes was founded in 1772 by Antenor Arias, Hermogenes Rueda and others, and it was erected Parish three years later. Among its notable sons gure the illustrious Bishop of Bucaramanga, Monsignor Hector Rueda Hernndez, virtuous pastor, who has represented the Colombian Church in the Second Vatican Council and in the Synod. It is the hometown of Bishop Jesus Martinez Vargas who did great deeds in this Department and in the City of Armenia where he has occupied the Episcopal Seat for some time. Also, another Church hierarch, Monsignor Jose Miguel Pinto, present General Vicar of the Dioceses of Socorro and San Gil, theologist and canonist of international fame who, with Monsignor Rueda, have attended in representation of their creed the Vatican Council. In Mogotes saw the first light the most illustrious historians and Colombian writers, Masters Jose Fulgencio Gutierrez, and Juan de Dios Arias. The first one died not too long ago and the second one continues with honor and brilliance the letters tradition of Santander. These two glorious countrymen of letters have published numerous works of the historical nature, which are too numerous to name but they have a special place with the national intellectuals. From Mogotes come the writers Camilo Barrera Vargas and Flaminio and Alberto Luis Barrera among other notable sons of this generous land.

ONZAGA: It is one of the closest towns to San Gil. It is situated at 6 21’ 16” of North Latitude and 1 15’ 55” East Longitude from Bogot.It was founded in 1777 by Don Eladio Mantilla. It is 83 kilometers from San Gil, it has a mean temperature of 18 degrees Centigrade and 11, 700 inhabitants with and extension of 564 square kilometers. It is limited in the north by San Jose de Miranda, Chicamocha River, to the southeast with Boyac and the west with San Joaquin and Coromoro. Its territory is broken and crossed by the Cordillera Oriental. It has two corregidor districts, Susa and Padua. It is seat of Notary Circuit and belongs to the Judicial Circuit and District of San Gil. It is situated on the road derived from the Troncal del Norte which goes to San Gil. The principal industry is agriculture and it has medicinal sulfur waters. It is the cradle of the illustrious Monsignor Jose Joaquin Florez present Bishop of the City of Duitama, young pastor and of the renown chronicler of the things of the earth, Don Camilo Forero Reyes, author of several essays of great country taste such as the work Abejas de mi Colmena (Bees of my hive). Great part of the production of this exquisite writer is dedicated to the land of San Gil which he loved as his own. It is also the hometown of a well known southern jurist, Dr. Nestor Rueda Rueda and of the writer Domingo Salazar Rueda, author of Soles y Estrellas (Suns and Stars), a military biography.

CURITI: It is one of the towns more strangely united to San Gil. Curiti is situated 6 36’ 35” North Latitude and 1 00’ 04” East Longitude from Bogot, with 1,505 meters above sea level. It has a mean temperature of 21 degrees Centigrade, 174 square kilometers of extension and 7, 400 inhabitants. It is 8 kilometers distant from San Gil on the central road which goes to Bucaramanga. The tract is bathed by the Curiti Brook until the Fonce River Mouth in the beautiful natural park of “El Gallineral”, forming stony, shady baths which are a pleasure for the Sangilentildes, Socorranos, Curitentildes and Bumangueses, such as the Pozo Azul (Blue deep hole in a river). It is situated a few steps from the road, which is a temptation to every driver crossing such tropical landscape. Curiti is limited on the North by Aratoca and Jordn to the Chicamocha River, the Corregidor District of Basto and San Gil on the South, on the West with Cabrera and Barichara and on the East is Mogotes. It belongs to the Notary Circuit and the Judicial Circuit and District of San Gil. Its main industry is the manufacture of sisal bags which are made in all houses, urban and rural, even in the Consistorial Priest House. It was founded in 1773, by individuals unknown to this day. In 1803 it was erected a Parish. It is home of the great Colombian poet Ismael Enrique Arciniegas, author of epics which constitute one of the best songs of the Santandereana Land. It is also the hometown of Don Francisco Santos Galvis, who has an erected bust and is the progenitor of former president Eduardo Santos, Journalist Enrique Santos (Calibn) and the Diplomat Gustavo Santos. It is also the home of another Santandereano politician and journalist Dr. Alejandro Galvis Galvis, and his brothers the jurist Guillermo Galvis Galvis, and the Odontologist Rodolfo, of Dr. Roberto Rueda Galvis, illustrious jurist and novelist, of the Magistrate Victor Arciniegas, a Curitentilde through and through, of the Diplomat Mario Acevedo Ardila, of Hector the hygienist, of Telmo the untimely military, Generals Pedro Soler Martinez, Justo L. Durn, Heliodoro Rodriguez G., Urbano Castellanos de Apolinar, Constantino and Timoleon Rueda, and Abdon Espinoza Uribe, trunk of the Espinosa Valderrama.

PINCHOTE: This town, as the previous one, is another daughter of San Gil. It is situated 6 32’ 07” North Latitude and 0 53’ 04” East Longitude from Bogot, with an altitude of 1,328 meters above sea level. It has a mean temperature of 22 degrees Centigrade, 38 square kilometers of extension and a population of 4,700 inhabitants. It was founded by Don Pedro Santos, father of the Heroine Antonia Santos Plata, in 1786, a year after her birth in the neighborhood of San Gil. A kilometer branch communicates this city with Pinchote on the road which goes to Socorro. It is limited with Cabrera and Fonce River on the North, with Pramo on the South, with Pramo and San Gil on the East and Socorro on the West. Its sites of attraction are: Capellania, Guimaro and Congual. Its principal industries are agriculture and sisal made bags. It has like the rest of the mentioned towns, rural and urban public schools, post and telegraph ofces, a good consistorial house, clean stone streets, comfortable and white manor houses made with tiles. It is the land of Colonel Juan Bautista Moreno and the great Lord Don Juan de Jesus Santos descendant of the heroines, one of whom, Antonia, was baptized in the Pinchote Chapel, because her birth occurred like her niece Helena, in the town of San Gil.
SAN JOAQUIN: It is another substantial town like San Gil. It is situated 6 26’ 08” North Latitude and 1 13’ 01” East Longitude from Bogot, with an altitude of 2,003 meters above sea level. It has a mean temperature of 20 degrees Centigrade, 266 square kilometers of extension and 6,400 inhabitants. It was founded in 1778 by unknown individuals and was erected to Parish on December 3, 1780. On the North it is limited by Molagavita and the Chicamocha River, Onzaga on the South, Onzaga and Miranda on the East and with Mogotes on the West. It belongs to the Notary Circuit and the Judicial Circuit and District of San Gil. It has electricity, official rural and urban schools and post and telegraph offices.
PARAMO: It is another beautiful and dreamy town. It is named after its cold lands. It is situated 6 25’ 15” North Latitude and 0 54’ 16” East Longitude from Bogot. It has an altitude of 1,353 meters above sea level, a temperature of 22 degrees Centigrade, 142 square kilometers of extension and a total population of 4,300 inhabitants. It was founded in 1768 by Gamaliel Gutierrez and others. It is limited with San Gil and Pinchote on the North, with Charal on the South, with Ocamonte Valle and Fonce River on the East and Palmas and Socorro on the West. It has as an attractive site, a big cave with stalagmites and stalactites, which I knew as a student, and it is crossed with an underground river of extreme cold waters. It belongs to the Notary and Judicial Circuit and District of San Gil. It is communicated with this city, Socorro and Charal by road. Its main industry is agriculture and its neighborhood people is highly hospitable.
CABRERA: This boundary land was part of the Guanent Province. It is situated 6 34’ 07” North Latitude and 0 50’ 45” East Longitude from the Bogot Meridian. It has an altitude of 980 meters above sea level, a temperature of 23 degrees Centigrade, an extension of 76 square kilometers and a population of 6,400 inhabitants, the majority in agriculture. It is limited with Barichara on the North, Pinchote, Socorro and Fonce River on the South, with San Gil, Galn, Palmar and Surez River on the East and Llanada, a town which produces good tobacco and delicious cheeses which they have not learned how to adulterate, on the West. Its attractive site is called Machamanga. It belongs to the Judicial Circuit and District of San Gil, and the Notary Circuit of Barichara. It is communicated by a road with San Gil, Barichara and Barrancabermeja. It has electricity from Cascada, telegraph and post offices and, also, urban and rural schools.
It was founded in 1809 by Jose Delgado, Rafael and Enrique Nuntildeez, Juan Agustin, Bonifacio and Ramon Afanador and others in the fertile plateau occupied today by the population dedicated to agriculture and the fabrication of the famous Jipijapas hats. It is the cradle of the politician and attorney Rafael Nuntildeez “el de la Cabrera” descendant of one of the founders of the ardent and harborer town. And, nally, I want to remember something about two limpid metropolises of long ago, which were also part of the Guanent Province, founded by a Sangilentilde Levite, impresario of the big things, Presbyter Diego Enrique Melendez, founder also of the Municipality of Suba in 1830. Such nuclei are Jordn and Barichara. JORDAN: Even though the town of Jordn does not border San Gil, It was nurtured by the latter. It is situated 6 44’ 43” North Latitude and 0 58’ 23” East Longitude from Bogot. It has an altitude of 410 meters above sea level, a temperature of 32 degrees Centigrade, an extension of 107 square kilometers and a population of approximately 3,200 inhabitants.It is made up of the districts of Gusimo, Carrizal, Subecito, Morros, Montegrande, Potrero, Pozo, Hato Viejo and the Police Inspection of Leones. It limits with Los Santos, Aratoca, Curiti, Barichara and Umpal. In this locality stayed, a long time, the Priest Founder Diego Enrique Francisco de Paula Melendez, suffering from chronic rheumatism and deafness, with writing, as his memories or chronicles about Jordn, states: “Jordn is bathed by the Chicamocha River and La Laja, La Macaregua, Subecito and Chichire Brooks. Between the brooks of Macaregua and La Laja the Conquistadors and Guanes fought ancient battles, as it has been described earlier. Later, there were also heroic feats of arms between Mosquera, Herrn, Gonzlez and Reyes Patria. Above the Chicamocha River, there is a hanging bridge, a favorite site of vacationers. Jordn belongs to the Notary Circuit and the Judicial Circuit and District of San Gil. Cattle, sisal bags, tapestry and brooms are fountain of modest income for the people of this region”. Some affirm there is oil which would be Providence for the Jordaneros.
BARICHARA: It is Lord and Levite City of Colombia. It is united spiritually and materially with her older sister San Gil. It was also founded by the Presbyter Diego Melendez, Priest of San Gil, according to some historians, in 1705. He laid the first stone for the building of its beautiful temple, one of the most interesting of the Colombian Catholic world. In 1751, Barichara became independent Vice Parish from the town of San Gil. According to some chroniclers, the town was first called Baraflorida, and later, Barechada and from there Barichara. But this is a legend similar to the one of Curi to Curiti.
At present, it has 14,300 inhabitants, a temperature of 23 degrees Centigrade and 1,600 meters of altitude above sea level. It possesses colleges, rural and urban public schools, an industrial school, an agrarian credit bank, hospital, telephones, post and telegraph ofces. Inside the church there are ten monolithic columns ve meters high and eighty centimeters thick. Barichara is called the Levite City of Colombia because she has given the majority of the priests of the Catholic Cult of the country. This writer has ve Levite relatives from this locality that is why I am absolved of all guilt and sin. The society of Barichara was the center of maximum virtues and lineage of Santander. The Barichara social reunions were very famous half a century ago. After Mass, on Sundays, there were high hats on the porch, the fad for such rite. The Jipijapa hats were also famous and made from palms and the beautiful women were evangelic. It is the hometown of the ex-president of Colombia Don Aquileo Parra, also, of Urbano and Antonio Maria Pradilla, Emilio Pradilla, Bishop Rafael Afanador y Cadena, Ramon Navarro, the patrician Don Vicente Rueda and Dontildea Monica Prada de Rueda, the illustrious Bishop Juan Nepomuceno Rueda Rueda, Olegario Ferreira, Dontildea Helvia Rueda de Camacho, the writer Roberto Prada Rueda, the politician Carlos A. Noriega and more than two thousand Catholic priests.
Among the Prefects of the Province of Guanent, dead, that I must remember, logically, is my father Don Rito Rueda Rueda. During this job and as Mayor of the City, he did works of great progress. I would like to bring up the following reference: (60) “Without scal resources, and after eliminating some, the so called ‘dealers of fermented beverages’, he built with the prisoners of the Judicial District Jail the roads which united San Gil with Charal, Socorro, Curiti, Villa Herminia, Montebrujas, and El Mango. He embellished the natural park ‘El Gallineral’ and the principal plaza. He ordered the reforestation of the former and the planting of palms on the latter. He also acquired the majority of the classrooms of the urban and rural schools of the municipality and the houses for benecence centers. Later he initiated to bring to San Gil the Community of ‘Hermanos de las Escuelas Cristianas’ (Brethren of the Christian Schools) to run the ‘Colegio de San Jose de Guanent’ represented by Brother Idinael. In the year 1926, when the President of the Republic, General Pedro Nel Ospina, with his numerous and luxurious entourage, including his Minister of Public Works, Dr. Laureano Gomez, this public man welcomed these most egregious statesmen with a beautiful speech which original was requested by the General to be published in Bogot’s newspapers. No other administrative-political authority of the City has issued as many decrees as this public servant did for the benet and interests of the community which are still current and incorporated by the time factor to the customs and usage of the City and which have been followed by his successors and admirers. In the company of Pedro Vicente Rueda Prada, he brought the first Ford automobiles to San Gil which roamed trough the streets of grass. With Vicente Parra and Juan Francisco Gomez Rueda, he had the initiative to pave the streets with stones, and to build a market covered with tiles”. Thus, I pretend to render a little tribute to the memory of whom was a self denying servant of San Gil. The people loved him dearly, and he received a deifying homage the day of his burial.