Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada

Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada also known as the Liberation Campaign of 1819 was part of the Colombian and Venezuelan wars of independence and was one of the many military campaigns fought by Simón Bolívar. In 1819 Bolívar led a combined New Granadan and Venezuelan Army in a campaign to liberate New Granada which had been under Spanish control since 1816.

Bolívar marched his army through the flooded plains from Venezuela and entered the Casanare Province with his army in June of 1819, combining his forces with those of Francisco de Paula Santander at Tame, Arauca, on 11 June. The combined Patriot force reached the Eastern Range of the Andes on 22 June and began a grueling crossing. On 6 July, the Patriots descended from the Andes arriving at Socha and into the valleys of central New Granada. After a brief convalescence, the Patriots fought a series of battles against the III Division of the Royalist army of Spanish colonel José María Barreiro Manjón, with the campaign culminating at the decisive Battle of Boyacá, where Bolivar's forces routed and dismantled the Royalist Army entering Santa Fe de Bogotá triumphantly 3 days later .

Bolivar's victory in New Granada (today: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama) secured the eventual independence of northern South America. It provided Bolívar with the economic and human resources to complete his victory over the Spanish in Venezuela and Colombia.

Bolívar's New Granada campaign is considered one of the most daring in military history, compared by contemporaries and some historians to Hannibal's or Napoleon's crossing of the Alps in 1800 and José San Martín's Crossing of the Andes in 1817.