In the following study we are presenting, as a supplement to our latest book, Las Instituciones del Nuevo Reino de Granada al tiempo de la independencia, a documentary study on the repercussions which the wars of independence had upon the institutional life of the provinces of New Granada that were still in the hands of the Spanish.

Many of the documents which are cited here show us the innermost idéas of the Spanish leaders in those difficult days when so many institutions were crumbling not only overseas but in Spain itself. By comparing documents concerning the metropolis and the colony, we can gain a fairly good idea of the institutional comings and goings, the efforts to obtain regularity in the functioning of the various governmental bureaus, and the useless attempts to control the uncontrollable.