San Andres and Providencia have had a schizophrenic history from the time of the first colonizers up through present day. The first settlers in the islands were Dutch colonists who colonized Providencia near the end of the 16th century. Their stay didn’t last long, as the English booted them in 1632 and took over the islands, bringing in black slaves from Jamaica to work on their tobacco and cotton cultivations.
Then began the ping-pong of rulers from English, to Spanish, the English winning the islands back, led by English Buccaneer John Morgan, then back to the Spanish, a moment of being declared property of Argentina by a French Corsair, back to the Spanish, and finally laid claim to by Colombia shortly after Colombia’s independence from the Spanish.
Located just off the coast of Nicaragua, Nicaragua fought Colombia’s claim to ruling over the San Andres archipelago. In 1928, the Esguerra-Barcenas Treaty was signed by both countries, giving Colombia control of the islands.
During the Sandanista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s, Nicaragua renounced the treaty, saying it was signed because of pressure from the United States. Colombia argued that the 1930 ratification of the treaty was signed when US troops were already withdrawing from Nicaragua and there was no military or political pressure to sign it. On top of that, in 1999, Colombia and Honduras signed a maritime boundary treaty which recognized San Andres as being part of Colombia.
In 2007, Nicaragua filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice, over the maritime boundary signed by Colombia and Honduras, including the San Andres archipelago in their claim. Finally, in 2012, the ICJ ruled that the archipelago would remain Colombian territory, though Nicaragua would have control over the surrounding sea and sea beds, which include some privileged fishing areas and, perhaps, oil deposits. Got that? Like we said, schizophrenic.