By the time the Spanish encountered the Muiscas, an Indigenous people from Colombia’s central Andes, the conquistadors had already subjugated both the Aztec and Inca empires. Between 1537 and 1540, the Spanish employed a similar divide-and-conquer strategy with the Muisca. The Muisca’s northern capital and trading center was Hunza, now known as Tunja, about 83 miles (130 km) northeast of Bogotá. Although the Muisca were a looser confederation than the Aztecs and Incas, they were bound together by a common language, social structure, calendar, and mythology. It’s here at El…
