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He traveled to Chile to study at the American History Research Center of the University of Chile. -
When he returned to Colombia, he became a professor at the University of the Andes where he began his studies and research based on indigenous censuses and the papers of the National Historical Archive of Bogotá. -
Wrote works on the encomiendas in Boyacá and Pamplona, entitled The Province of Tunja in the New Kingdom of Granada: social history essay (1539-1800) and Encomienda and population in the Province of Pamplona. -
Traveled to Paris thanks to a grant from the French government that allowed him to get closer to the French culture of which he was a great admirer. There he obtained a doctorate in the short time of a year and a half. -
His best known work was his doctoral thesis entitled "Economie minière et société dans la Nouvelle Grenade, (1550-1717)". This work gave Colmenares worldwide recognition within Latin American colonial historiography. -
It is there that he spent most of his career as a researcher and teacher. He was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and later devoted himself to teaching and historical research. -
In the early 1970s, he was one of the few human sciences professors with postgraduate degrees abroad, who introduced new methods, approaches and perspectives to historical work in Colombian historiography. -
Was visiting professor at Columbia University (1977) and Cambridge (1985). -
He was a Colombian lawyer and historian, one of the initiators of the disciplinary phenomenon known as "New History." A new method in the management of data and historical documents.