[1] The main ideological leader of Gran Colombia was Simón Bolívar, known as the Liberator, who had wanted to create a nation strong enough to maintain its independence and compete economically with the European powers.

[2][clarification needed] Quito and Panama had not had real representation in the 1821 constitutional deliberations in Villa del Rosario, because they didn't formally become part of Gran Colombia until 1822.

[4] The union of the four nations had never been solid due to their uneven economic development and the lack of connecting routes between the three regions of the country, in which cohesion was only maintained during the war years thanks to the prestige and will of Bolivar.

[citation needed] As a result of the constant onslaught of royalist guerrillas and the prevailing fear of a supposed "Holy Alliance" between France and Spain to recover the American colonies, Francisco de Paula Santander decreed on 31 August 1824 a general enlistment of all citizens between 16 and 50 years old, demanding from the department of Venezuela a contingent of 50,000 men to be sent to Bogotá.

The trust that he placed in his closest military collaborators, mostly Venezuelans and British, and their frequent excesses, added to the differences between Bolívar and the Congress, which convened a new Constituent Assembly.

[5] This inability to exercise democracy and to resolve conflicts through dialogue, negotiation and voting, opting rather for abandonment, was a behavior that haunted the traditional parties during the 19th and 20th centuries, and generated violence.

[5] He also projected a constitution that included Peru and Bolivia (since the latter had already seceded from the Río de la Plata), with a strong central government and a presidency with dictatorial powers.

Santander wrote to him expressing his disagreement As a result of the Septembrine conspiracy, fourteen conspirators were put to death, among them Admiral José Prudencio Padilla, naval hero of the war of emancipation.

The constitution triggered insubordination and agitation: battalions began due to ignorance of Bolívar's mandate over them, and the municipal councils of Pasto and Buenaventura, as well as that of Cauca, asked to be annexed by Ecuador.

Discontented military and liberal groups confronted government forces in the Funza savannah on August 27, 1830, which led to the dictatorship of General Urdaneta and the overthrow of Joaquín Mosquera.

[9] After several years of attempts to reconcile the positions of the federalists and centralists, the separation of Venezuela began to materialize in 1826 with the La Cosiata movement of José Antonio Páez.

Bolívar, seeing an imminent separation of that region from Gran Colombia, called a constituent assembly on 20 March 1830 in order to reconcile the different factions that were created in the Republic and avoid dissolution.

That day an Assembly of Notables met in Quito to resolve the separation of this region from Gran Colombia and form an independent State, although initially federated.

After these dismemberments, Gran Colombia was made up only of the central region, which at that time included the departments of Boyacá, Cauca, Cundinamarca, Magdalena and Isthmus.

Due to the crisis caused by the resignation of the liberator and the dismemberment of Gran Colombia, Espinar, supported by the masses of the capital's suburbs, rebelled against the prevailing government, waiting for Bolívar's return to power.

[14] In consequence of what was proclaimed, a Panamanian delegation went to Barranquilla, where Bolívar was located, to invite him to the isthmus to resume power and rebuild the dismembered Gran Colombia.

[14] The second separation was conceived by Venezuelan colonel Juan Eligio Alzuru [es] on 9 July 1831, who initially had the approval of the Panamanian oligarchy, both in the capital and in the interior.

Through the Apulo Agreement (carried out on 28 April 1831), General Rafael Urdaneta, the last president of Gran Colombia, handed over command to Domingo Caicedo (3 May).

On 7 May, a convention was convened in the central departments of the former Gran Colombia, in which representatives from Cundinamarca, Cauca, Antioquia, Isthmus (Panama), Magdalena and Boyacá were to gather.