History of El Banco

In 1541, Melchor de Valdez member of the expedition of Jimenez de Quesada, returned to Santa Marta when she saw that the town had been destroyed by the natives. Founded on the remains of a town called Santiago Sompayón. Sompayón was the name the Spanish gave the word with which the Indians designated an Indian Bearded: sompachai. The latter settlement also disappears by the constant attacks of the natives who became insecure place.

In 1544, Martin Lorenzo founded another village by the name of Tamalameque , to remember the chief of that name. Later the town was moved six leagues north of the remains of Santiago de Sompayón who had settled in the lands of cacique Tamalaguataca, in the place where today is located the village of Bethlehem. The town continued to call again Sompayón Santiago with a population of 40 residents and six Indians.

n 1680, José Domingo Ortiz black freedman Loba mines, baptizes the existing village at the confluence of Cesar and Magdalena Benkos with the name. This is the only foundation that is recognized and so they celebrated the tercentenary in 1980. Also why a street in the town is named after José Domingo Ortiz, 5th Street today.

In 1747, the Government of Santa Marta sent to José Fernando de Mier y Guerra to rename it or rebaptized the town with the pompous name of Our Lady of Candelaria OF THE BANK. When Mier y Guerra arrived at the Bank, there was already a settlement of free blacks who, since 1680, the venerated image of the Virgin of Candelaria , the patron saint of the town.In this name are linked religious legend, great