Bogota. The 122 pieces of the Quimbayas Treasure that are in the Museum of America in Madrid must be returned to Colombia, since they were illegally donated in 1892 by the then president Carlos Holguín (1888-1892) to Queen María Cristina, said lawyer Felipe Rincón, author of a legal appeal that led to a ruling by the Constitutional Court that forced the government to manage his recovery.
Rincón explained to The Conference that the pieces, discovered around 1890, were taken to Madrid in 1892 for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to American lands, but President Holguín had the idea of giving them to the queen. Holguín had no constitutional or legal capacity, since the pieces were part of the nation’s heritage and an eventual donation had to be approved by Congress, which did not happen.
, Explain. He regrets that since 2017 no government has heeded the ruling of the Constitutional Court, until last September when President Gustavo Petro declared Colombia’s interest in repatriating them.
William Ospina’s reaction
Attention to the pieces returned to the scene after the statements of the Culture delegate of the Madrid city council, Marta Rivera de la Cruz, before which the writer William Ospina, winner of the Rómulo Gallegos award (2009) for his novel The country of cinnamondid not hide his astonishment and said to The Conference: “I think there are things that cannot be up for debate. Whether Spain plundered and plundered in America is something that does not belong to the order of discussion, so great is the evidence.
u Figure of a chief from the Treasure of the Quimbayas, in the Museum of America in Madrid.Photo Wikimedia Commons
The treasure obtained from the sacking of Tenochitlan effectively traveled to Spain, the treasure obtained from the kidnapping of Atahualpa was taken to Spain by Hernando Pizarro. The galleons traveled to Spain carrying the gold and silver of New Granada, Mexico and Peru. This evidence does not depend on the opinions of officials
he added.
Ospina mentioned the plates of the Botanical Expedition “for whose return I advocate in my novel I’ll put my ear to the stone until I speak. Not only are they an invaluable cultural heritage, but they belong to American memory in an indisputable way. Every day they matter more to us, they were stolen when we had already declared independence, and whoever packed them towards Madrid shot the artists.”