What was the Florero de Llorente incident in Bogotá?
The Florero de Llorente: Bogotá's 20 July
El florero de Llorente, 20 de julio de 1810
20 July 1810. On Friday 20 July 1810, market day in Santafé de Bogotá, a group of creoles went to the shop of the Spanish merchant José González Llorente to borrow a flower…
Draft: not yet checked against its sources.
Where: Colombia
What happened
On Friday 20 July 1810, market day in Santafé de Bogotá, a group of creoles went to the shop of the Spanish merchant José González Llorente to borrow a flower vase for a dinner in honour of a visiting royal commissioner. The refusal, real or staged, was the excuse the plotters needed: a crowd gathered, and by the end of a heated afternoon the city had its own junta, still headed by the viceroy and still loyal to the captive king. It was not yet independence; a first republic followed from 1811, divided by quarrels between federalists and centralists, until the king's armies retook the territory in 1816. Even so, 20 July is Colombia's independence day, and the broken vase, now in a museum, is its most famous relic.
Say it
El 20 de julio de 1810 una pelea por un florero empezó la revolución en Bogotá.
On 20 July 1810 a quarrel over a vase started the revolution in Bogotá.
Why it matters
The story of the vase shows how independence began in small, local arguments between Spaniards and American-born creoles, and how a nation later chose one of those arguments as its founding day.
Read about it
Connected
- The independence of Spanish America (1808–1826)
- The May Revolution in Buenos Aires (25 May 1810)
- The Battle of Boyacá (7 August 1819)
- The Battle of Boyacá (7 August 1819)
- Before: The Bourbon reforms
- After: Bolívar writes the Jamaica Letter
Sources
- 20 de julio de 1810 — Señal Memoria (RTVC, Colombia)
- Todo por un florero — Señal Memoria (RTVC, Colombia)