This essay shows that the growth of the economy of New Granada during the Eighteenth Century made an important impact on its political center, Santafé de Bogota, at least until 1808. Such prosperity was the result of a process of specialization and division of labor between different regions of the new kingdom, derived from the dynamics of gold mining that gave a strong impulse to Santafé's economy as a trade center for the handicraft production of Eastern Colombia and the fertile savanna surrounding it, which was a net food exporter. The Mint established in Santafé, which was a de facto monopoly, attracted merchants and miners who established there a center for the exchange of gold dust for coin.
