Battle of the Vargas Swamp: The Day Rondón Saved the Homeland

Published at: 25/07/2025 09:34 AM

On July 25, 1819, in the district of the municipality of Paipa, in what is now Boyacá, the Battle of the Vargas Swamp was fought, where the Army of Gran Colombia, under the command of the Liberator Simon Bolivar, defeated the royalist forces.

With a force of at least 2,200 fighters, Bolívar faced the royalists who came to block his way and in an advantageous position and greater number of men, the battle began where the patriots were being defeated.

After two hours of combat, the royalist troops forced the patriotic left, which was under the command of Francisco de Paula Santander and which carried bayonets continuously, to retreat, but Bolívar ordered a counteroffensive that regained the ground.

After the bold moves made by the realist troop that diminished the patriots in what seemed like an imminent defeat, at six o'clock in the afternoon, Bolívar decided to send the last reserves of his army, made up of laneros laneros led by the Venezuelan Juan José Rondón.

“Colonel, Save the Fatherland!” , the Liberator would have said to the patriotic colonel who, after answering “Rondón hasn't fought yet”, went into battle accompanied by 14 lancers who would later be joined by the other horsemen who had not fought yet, began the fight, facing the realistic army, which was already disordered and unable to react, to assume its defeat and retreat from this decisive battle.

In this way, the Battle of the Vargas Swamp ended, which culminated in the patriotic victory and which resulted in 350 casualties in the patriot army and 500 in the realist army.

“The glory of the Vargas Reservoir belongs to Colonel Rondón and Lieutenant Colonel Carvajal; no one else was given the reputation of being courageous on that glorious day,” Santander acknowledged, stressing the importance of Colonel Juan José Rondón's claw, ferocity and determination for the triumph of the patriots.

Mazo News Team