Events on June 17 in history

Cúcuta, Colombia, is discovered by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar.

Juana Rangel de Cuellar (6 October 1649 1736) was the founder of the Colombian city of Ccuta, located in the Norte de Santander Department. She was born and died in Pamplona.

At the age of 23, she was orphaned of her father (1672), and her home was moved to Hacienda Tonchal, (today Carmen de Tonchal district) in the company of Paula, her mother, who died in 1694.

She was the owner of numerous assets, among which were the site of Tonchal, which she obtained by inheritance from her uncle, the priest Alonso Rangel de Cullar; the Estancias El Rodeo, Cazadero, owned by her paternal hereditary good; Morantes, Cerro de Magro, the Guaduas site and the famous Guasimal site.

She was also the owner of numerous head of cattle and owned the Pamplona manor house, donated by her older brother.

The founder signed deeds of freedom of slaves; among them are granted on November 10, 1727, in favor of Jos, 21 years old; and for the benefit of the mulattos Teodora and Jos Prisio, and a last one, in 1733, in favor of Ins Rafaela.

Enterprising and dynamic, she did not lag behind her landowner neighbors; The economic boom based on agriculture and livestock, which lasted 40 years since her arrival in Tonchal, was the main reason why different families chose this place as their preferred place for her home.

Tonchal and Guasimal had everything, except the most important, Parroquia. On the contrary, on the other side of the Pamplonita River, was the Indian Town of Ccuta, with a parish, a good church and a doctrinal priest.

But there, the whites could not access easily because the Indians of the Pueblo of Ccuta did not allow it.

Due to the above and because the part occupied by the whites in her farm is not desmendro, to her patrimony, Juana Rangel de Cullar considered a legal and formal donation to the petitioners of the parish.

At the advanced age of 84 years, he went to the Mayor of Pamplona, so that together with the clerk they would arrive at his estate in Tonchal to make before them, representatives of the crown, a donation of half a stay of larger cattle, which would be a seat to the parish and surrounding town.

The clerk was not present and in his absence, Mayor Juan Antonio de Villamizar y Pinero acted as him. This was the simple birth of the city without borders, on June 17, 1733.

Seven neighbors accepted the deed of donation, three witnesses and 17 people notified as neighbors for the donated lands. The value of the donated land was 50 patacones, the value stipulated in the document that Juana Rangel de Cullar signed as a public deed.

Two years later, June 24, 1735, she assisted as godmother of a baptized child in the chapel of the nascent town, and a couple of months later she granted testamentary memory.

Harassed by the ailments of her age, Juana Rangel de Cullar was taken back to Pamplona, where she died in 1736.

Cúcuta (Spanish: [ˈkukuta] (listen)), officially San José de Cúcuta, is a Colombian municipality, capital of the department of Norte de Santander and nucleus of the Metropolitan Area of Cúcuta. The city is located in the homonymous valley, at the foot of the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes, on the border with Venezuela. It comprises an area of approximately 1119 km2, with an urban area of 64 km2 (divided into 10 communes) and a rural area of 1055 km2 (divided into 10 townships). The city has a population of 777,106 inhabitants, which makes it the most populous municipality in the department and the sixth most populous municipality in the country. Similarly, its metropolitan area (made up of the municipalities of Villa del Rosario, Los Patios, El Zulia, San Cayetano and Puerto Santander) has an approximate population of 1,046,347.The city was founded as a parish on June 17, 1733, by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar, resident of Pamplona in the area under the name of San José de Guasimales, as part of an initiative of the white and mestizo locals to separate themselves from the "Indian Village of Cúcuta" (currently San Luis Quarter). Later, the name was changed to San José de Cúcuta, castellanization of «Kuku-ta», in honor of the indigenous people of the region. From its foundation in the 18th century and throughout the Spanish viceroyalty, the parish was consolidated as one of the most important settlements of the Colombian East and Spanish America, receiving in 1792 the title of «Very Noble, Valiant and Loyal Village» by King Charles IV of Spain.The city is the political, economic, industrial, artistic, cultural, sports and tourist epicenter of Norte de Santander and constitutes, in turn, as the most important urban settlement of the Colombian-Venezuelan border along with the Venezuelan city of San Cristóbal, due to its trade dynamics and its historical importance in the consolidation of the modern states of Colombia and Venezuela as well as its diplomatic relations, hosting events such as the Battle of Cúcuta of 1813, the Congress of Cúcuta of 1821 in Villa del Rosario, in more recent times the signing of the 1941 Treaty of Limits between Colombia and Venezuela, the 1959 Treaty of Tonchalá, the charity concerts Peace Without Borders of 2008 and Venezuela Aid Live of 2019, among others. It also played a significant role during Colombian immigration to Venezuela and has recently become one of the most important transit points of the Venezuelan migration crisis.As the capital of Norte de Santander, Cúcuta houses the main governmental bodies of departmental order such as the Government of Norte de Santander, the Assembly of Norte de Santander, the Superior Court of Cúcuta, the Judicial District of Cúcuta, the Administrative Court of Norte de Santander and the regional branches of the Superior Council of the Judiciary and the Office of the Inspector General of Colombia. Cúcuta is connected by road with Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Valledupar, Cartagena de Indias and, by its border condition, with Venezuela. It has an air terminal, the Camilo Daza International Airport, and a ground terminal, the Central de Transportes de Cúcuta.

Its flagship university is the Francisco de Paula Santander University, one of the most important universities in eastern Colombia. It also has the presence of other universities of local and national renown such as the University of Pamplona, the FESC, the Free University of Colombia, the Simón Bolivar University, the University of Santander, the Saint Thomas University, among others.