Qualla: Siege of Cartagena (1815)

Siege of Cartagena (1815): Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Generoso Jaspe, Public domain. In the final weeks, they boiled their shoes. The leather belts went first, then the straps from saddles and harnesses, then anything that could be softened in water and chewed. Inside the walls of Cartagena de Indias, 18,000 people - soldiers, families, refugees from the surrounding countryside - were starving to death while a Spanish army waited patiently outside. The siege of 1815 lasted 105 days. By the time it ended, a third of those trapped inside were dead. The city that had defied pirates, buccaneers, and the British Empire fell not to cannon fire but to hunger, and in doing so earned a name that Colombians still use with reverence: La Heroica.

Image: Generoso Jaspe | Public domain

Siege of Cartagena (1815): A Republic Divided Against Itself

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Generoso Jaspe, Public domain. The tragedy of Cartagena's siege began long before Spanish General Pablo Morillo arrived at its gates. The United Provinces of New Granada had declared independence from Spain in 1811, but the new republic immediately fractured. Between 1812 and 1814, the New Granada Civil War pi...

Image: Generoso Jaspe | Public domain

Siege of Cartagena (1815): Morillo's Patience

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Generoso Jaspe, Public domain. King Ferdinand VII of Spain, restored to his throne after Napoleon's defeat, dispatched Morillo with a powerful fleet and veteran troops to crush the American rebellions. Morillo landed at royalist Santa Marta and added 3,000 llaneros - the fierce horsemen of the Colombian and Ve...

Image: Generoso Jaspe | Public domain

Siege of Cartagena (1815): The Slow Horror

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Generoso Jaspe, Public domain. Famine set in within a month. Disease followed, accelerated by the overcrowding and the tropical heat that made sanitation impossible for so many people confined in so small a space. As the weeks dragged on, the situation inside the walls became almost incomprehensible. Horses an...

Image: Generoso Jaspe | Public domain

Siege of Cartagena (1815): Surrender and the Reign of Terror

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Generoso Jaspe, Public domain. On 6 December 1815, Spanish troops entered a city of corpses. The streets were littered with the dead. Of the 18,000 people who had sheltered inside the walls, roughly 6,000 had perished from starvation and epidemic disease. Many Republican leaders had escaped by sea in the final...

Image: Generoso Jaspe | Public domain

Siege of Cartagena (1815): Why Colombians Remember

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Generoso Jaspe, Public domain. Morillo's reconquest failed. Within five years, Bolivar returned from exile, crossed the Andes, and liberated New Granada at the Battle of Boyaca in 1819. Cartagena itself was freed in an 1820-21 siege that reversed the roles, with patriots blockading the Spanish garrison. But it...

Image: Generoso Jaspe | Public domain