Juan Friede

Juan Friede Alter (Wlava, Russian Empire, 17 February 1901 - Bogotá, Colombia, 28 June 1990) was a Ukrainian-Colombian historian of Jewish descent who is recognised as one of the most important writers about Colombian history, the Spanish conquests and a proponent of indigenism; the defense of the rights and descriptions of the oppression of indigenous people.

Juan Friede Alter was born in a village called Wlava,[2] indicated as Ukrainian or Polish, close to the border with Germany,[3] part of the Russian Empire on February 17, 1901, in a Jewish family.

The new regime drove the family to Germany and Friede studied Economical and Social Sciences at the Hochschule für Welthandel in Vienna, graduating in 1922.

Juan Friede first settled in Manizales, working for J. Stern & Co in trading coffee, automobiles and other imports,[3] a job offering him to travel through Colombia.

[9] During the Holy Week of 1942, Friede made the first documentary about the important archaeological and UNESCO World Heritage Site San Agustín.

[12] Friede is considered together with Jaime Jaramillo Uribe, Luis Eduardo Nieto Arteta and Luis Ospina Vásquez, one of the founders of "New History" in Colombia, after writing a voluminous work about the conquests and indigenous history in his 1955 publication Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de Colombia.

[4] Friede has published various books and articles about the indigenous peoples of Colombia, among others the Muisca, Andaquí, Arhuaco, Kofán and Quimbaya.

[21][22][23] Friede also published about the post-Spanish history of Colombia and Peru; the Battle of Boyacá in 1819, the Battle of Ayacucho in 1824, the foundation of the Mint in Bogotá in the seventeenth century, the history of Pereira and Popayán, especially Juan del Valle,[24] and the Colombian painters Carlos Correa and Luis Alberto Acuña.