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Wayuu

The clan-bound horsemen and pearl-divers of the desert Guajira, who took the Spanish horse and gun and turned the arid peninsula into ground Spain could never hold.

Never conquered — they rose again and again (1701, 1727, 1769) and remained autonomous through the colonial era; today some 600,000 Wayuu, the largest Indigenous nation of Colombia and Venezuela, still hold the Guajira across both countries.

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Borders over time

The atlas holds 2 border frames for Wayuu — the shape you scrub through changes in 500 · 1499.

Moments from the Chronicle

• 1769 The great Wayuu rebellion After Spaniards seize Wayuu to labor on the fortifications of Cartagena, the Guajira rises; on 2 May 1769 at El Rincón near Riohacha the Wayuu burn the church, and as many as 20,000 take up arms, leaving the peninsula unconquered.

Further reading

• Indios y españoles en la antigua provincia de Santa Marta, Colombia Carl Henrik Langebaek · 2007

  Langebaek on the indigenous peoples of northern Colombia including the Guajira (broad regional context).

• The Other Slavery Andrés Reséndez · 2016

  Reséndez on Native enslavement across the Americas, the slaving frontier the Wayuu resisted (broad context).

Sources

• Wayuu people — Wikipedia