1. Juan Friede Alter was a Ukrainian-Colombian historian of Jewish descent who is recognised as one of the most important writers about Colombian history, the Spanish conquests and a proponent of indigenism; the defense of the rights and descriptions of the oppression of indigenous people.
Juan Friede went to Colombia in 1926 for business and his fascination for the country, its climate and culture made him emigrate.
Juan Friede was a professor at the newly founded Department of Social Sciences of the National University of Colombia and is considered one of the pioneers of the "New History" movement in Colombia, together with Jaime Jaramillo Uribe, Luis Eduardo Nieto Arteta and Luis Ospina Vasquez.
Juan Friede Alter was born in a village called Wlava, indicated as Ukrainian or Polish, close to the border with Germany, part of the Russian Empire on February 17,1901, in a Jewish family.
Juan Friede went to school in Moscow in the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The new regime drove the family to Germany and Juan Friede studied Economical and Social Sciences at the Hochschule fur Welthandel in Vienna, graduating in 1922.
The environment of Vienna of the 1920s influenced Juan Friede positively and he was a member of an anarcho-ecological society called Vanderfliegel.
Juan Friede was so much impressed by the country, its climate, poverty and people, that he decided to emigrate.
On February 20, or March 3,1930, Juan Friede became a Colombian national.
In 1939, Juan Friede moved from Manizales to Bogota and in 1940 he opened the first art gallery in the Colombian capital.
Juan Friede lived in San Agustin until the end of 1945.
In 1944, Juan Friede published his book El indio en la lucha por la tierra, where he described the continuous repression of the indigenous people of the department of Cauca.
Juan Friede is considered together with Jaime Jaramillo Uribe, Luis Eduardo Nieto Arteta and Luis Ospina Vasquez, one of the founders of "New History" in Colombia, after writing a voluminous work about the conquests and indigenous history in his 1955 publication Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Colombia.
In 1959 the Department of Social Sciences of the National University of Colombia was founded, where Juan Friede was one of the main professors.
Between 1962 and 1990, Juan Friede lived in Colombia and the United States.
Juan Friede has published 682 works in Spanish and English.
Juan Friede spoke fluent Russian, German, French, English and Spanish.
Juan Friede has published various books and articles about the indigenous peoples of Colombia, among others the Muisca, Andaqui, Arhuaco, Kofan and Quimbaya.
Juan Friede published about Rodrigo de Bastidas and others in La conquista del territorio y el poblamiento.
Juan Friede has published various works about the Spanish conquest of the Muisca and the foundation of Bogota.
Juan Friede described the routes of the main conquistadors Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada and Nikolaus Federmann towards the Bogota savanna and Eastern Hills in Descubrimiento del Nuevo Reino de Granada y Fundacion de Bogota.
In 1960, Juan Friede published a review of Epitome de la conquista del Nuevo Reino de Granada, an early publication about the conquest expeditions of the Spanish against the Muisca and Panche of uncertain authorship.
Juan Friede maintains the work has been written entirely by Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, the main conquistador of central-Colombia.
Juan Friede Alter wrote a critical review of friar Pedro Simon, and together with Benjamin Keen he published a major biography of friar Bartolome de las Casas in 1971.