Between 1810 and 1826 Spain lost most of her possessions in the Americas, and the inhabitants of Spanish America ceased to be subjects of the king, and became citizens of a series of new republics such as Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia. This thesis explores how the transition from colonial to republican rule was experienced by the inhabitants of the provinces of Santa Marta and Riohacha (Colombia), and the extent to which the transition implied a radical break with the colonial past. Santa Marta was among the most important royalist strongholds in the northern part of Spanish South America, and the thesis offers an interpretation of the much-neglected theme of Spanish American royalism during the independence period. It focuses on the social and 'ethnic' configuration of the provinces, and it discusses how different social/ 'ethnic' groups were constructed in the colonial period, how they responded and acted during the wars of independence and what the transition to republican rule implied for the make-up of nineteenth-century society. The analyses of late colonial and early republican society are done principally (but not exclusively) through a detailed discussion of marriage practices and patterns. The study is based primarily on archival sources from Spanish and Colombian depositories.