The Billygoat (Spanish: El Carnero) in its native language, is perhaps the most important novel of the Colombian colonial times. It is a historical and costumes chronicle written in 1638 by the American-born Juan Rodríguez Freyle. It tells the story of the American conquest, the discovery of the New Kingdom of Granada and the foundation and first century of the city of Bogotá: It explains it was the first city of the kingdom to have an established royal audience and a chancellery. It also describes the Indian peoples that inhabited the region during the conquest, the civil wars between them, their costumes and culture.
The chronicle is intended to be historical, but includes also several fictional elements through short stories. It is generally stated that the importance of these short stories in the book is of great importance in the Hispano America literature movement [1].