After the definitive independence from Spain, in the second decade of the XIXth century, Cartagena de Indias was sunk in a time of decay that would last more than one hundred years.
Part of the origin of this decline is during the Independence, after Morillo surrounded the city which was catastrophic due to the high loss of lives it caused. Then the wars within the country would affect the tranquility of the city and the cholera would reduce the population of the city considerably.
The commerce during the Colony
was the most active in the region underwent a misfortune when the city lost the the importance that had at that time,
watching impotent the growth of the population of Barranquilla, located on the banks of the Magdalena river, near its mouth, and that would turn into the most important economic center up until today.
The abandoned forts, bulwarks and walls of the
decayed
city, were mute witnesses of the long stupor in which it submerged as the years went by and of which would
only leave well into the 20th century.
It is in the decade of the 50's when the Heroic City stretches after such a long pause.
The intermittent navigation through the Canal del Dique is restored after being properly dredged and reconstructed for the permanent service of the city in 1951. The pipeline of Mamonal, originating in Barrancabermeja would initiate a stage of economic reactivation with the coming of the petrochemical industry that would arrive to stay.
Later on Cartagena de Indias would efficiently communicate with the rest of the country through the road Troncal de Occidente.
The renascent city would constitute in time an important maritime port for the national trade, competing at par with Barranquilla.
The flourishing of a new economical activity, the tourism, would enlarge the progress horizons of Cartagena de Indias,
and the city would return to see in its history and its walled center the lost wealth in other times, that at a dark time was considered a "hindrance" for the development, but now is watched with other eyes, for the incalculable value that represents.
Declared National Monument in 1959, and Historical and Cultural Heritage of Humankind in 1984 by UNESCO, Cartagena de Indias, today a happy and warm city is projected as one of the leading
metropolis
in Colombia with sights
in a promissory future full of hopes and well-being. | 
