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J. Lat. Amer. Stud. i6, 27-49 Printed in Great Britain 27
by CATHERINE LEGRAND
Exporters of raw materials under Iberian rule, the nations of Latin America
continued to perform a similar role in the world economy after
Independence. In the nineteenth century, however, a significant shift
occurred in the kind of materials exported. Whereas in colonial times the
great wealth of Latin America lay in her mineral resources, particularly
silver and gold, after 8 5o agricultural production for foreign markets took
on larger importance. The export of foodstuffs was not a new phenomenon,
but in the nineteenth century the growth in consumer demand in the
industrializing nations and the developing revolution in, transport much
enhanced the incentives for Latin Americans who would produce coffee,
wheat, cattle, or bananas for overseas markets.
The growth of rural production for export after 8 5o generated
additional demands for labor. Indeed, one of the most pressing problems
export entrepreneurs throughout Latin America had to confront was the
problem of labor supply. Hacendadoswho aimed to profit from improved
world market conditions by producing export crops had first to increase
their labor force. In most countries the problem was resolved, and a
thriving export agriculture developed. The question, in each specific case,
is how, and with what impact on peasant society?
This paper explores one form of labor acquisition typical of Colombia
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - the transformation
of independent frontier squatters into tenant farmers and wage laborers.
Agricultural entrepreneurs effected this transformation by asserting rights
of private property over large areas of public lands occupied in part by
peasant settlers; that is, they enclosed the peasants' fields. This form of
labor acquisition gave rise to important resistance movements which
* An earlier version of this article was
presented at the I982 Annual Meetings of the
American Historical Association in Washington, D.C. I would like to thank Malcolm
Deas for helpful comments and Sharon Meen for editorial advice.
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z8 Catherine LeGrand
1 The
major source for this paper is the Colombian Public Land Archive, which contains
all communications on public lands sent from the municipalities to the national
government between 1830 and I93o. The archive consists of z4 volumes labelled Bienes
Nacionales deposited in the Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria (INCORA)
and 78 volumes designated Ministerio de Industrias: Correspondenciade Baldios located in
the Archivo Hist6rico Nacional in Bogoti.
2 Important works on Colombian economic growth in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries include Fernando Botero and Alvaro Guzman Barney, 'El Enclave
Agricola en la Zona Bananera de Santa Marta', CuadernosColombianos,no. I I (1977), pp.
309-90; Roger Brew, 'The Economic Development of Antioquia, I 820-I920o' (D. Phil.
Diss., Oxford University, 1975); Orlando Fals Borda, Capitalismo,HaciendayPoblamiento
en la Costa Atldntica (Bogota, 1976); William Paul McGreevey, An EconomicHistory of
Colombia (Cambridge, England, 1971); Jose Antonio Ocampo, 'Las Exportaciones
Colombianas en el Siglo XIX', Desarrolloy Sociedad,no. 4 (Julio i980), pp. I65-226;
Jose Antonio Ocampo, 'El Mercado Mundial del Cafe y El Surgimiento de Colombia
Como un Pafs Cafetera', Desarrolloy Sociedad,no. 5 (Enero, I98 i), pp. 127-56; Marco
Palacios, Coffee in Colombia, I8yo-Iy7o (Cambridge, England, i980); James Parsons,
Antioquego Colonizationin WesternColombia(Berkeley, 1949); and Alvaro Tirado Mejfa,
Introducci6na la Historia Econ6micade Colombia(3rd ed., Bogoti, 1974).
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Colombianlabor acquisition 29
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30 CatherineLeGrand
Map i. Locationofpublic landsin Colombia,c. I86F. [, Public lands. I, Areas in which public
land and private properties were interspersed. U, Areas of private property and/or Indian
property. 0, Major urban centers. -* --, Major rivers. A A Mountains. (Reconstructed
from local data drawn from ANCB, volumes 1-78.)
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Colombian labor acquisition 3I
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32 CatherineLeGrand
farms of ten to thirty hectares in size, worked with family labor. Although
limited to subsistence in the first few years, settlers tended to diversify
production as soon as possible. In addition to the corn, beans, plantains,
and yuca which they consumed themselves or sold locally, Colombian
frontier settlers also produced large quantities of sugar cane, rice, cotton,
tobacco, cacao, wheat, and coffee for wider commercial markets.9 Con-
temporary observers indicated that peasant cultivators of public lands
produced a major portion of the foodstuffs grown in Colombia in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.10
Many cultivators of public lands also showed a speculative bent. Often
the first settlers to enter a given region claimed large areas of unimproved
land around their fields. They tried to keep other settlers out or else
charged them for the right to settle there.11 There was much buying and
selling of improvements (mejoras)among colonosand in many places colonos
tried to use such negotiations to assert illegal claims to the land.
Competition over land generated numerous controversies among
settlers.12
Despite these problems, most colonossought to live in close proximity
to other families. Wherever an expanse of public lands provided adequate
marketing opportunities, the population grew rapidly and settlers grouped
together to form nucleated villages, known as caserios.The first step in
founding a caseriowas to construct a chapel, a collective task. Then came
the market place, the cemetery, and the jail. Later, perhaps, a school would
be built and an office for the justice of the peace (inspectordepolicia). At
the same time shopkeepers and artisans appeared on the scene, eager to
supply commodities the settlers could not themselves produce. Not
infrequently, frontier caseriosincluded hundreds and even thousands of
settlers, some living in town and others scattered throughout the
9 This informationis drawnfrom a
municipalsurveyof the extent and usage of the public
domain conductedby the ColombianMinistryof Agriculturein 1916. The returnsare
to be found in ANCB, volumes 32, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48 and 67.
10 See Colombia,Archivo del CongresoNacional (henceforthAC), 'Proyectos de
Pendientes
r8g9 (Cimara)', volume 3, folio I6; AC, 'Leyes Autografas de 19r7', v. 6 f. 53; and
ANCB, v. 43 f. 172.Whatis not as yet clearis how muchproducethe colonos contributed
to Colombianexports above and beyond their supply of domestic markets.
11 ANCB, v. 26 f. 384, v. 33 fs. 48 and 246, v. 34 f. 366, v. 43 f. 273, v. 46 f. I66, v. 47 f.
302,v. 58 f. 364, v. 68 f. 36, v. 70 f. 75,v. 75 fs. 229and 295, v. 76 f. 13 ; andColombia,
Ministeriode Agricultura,Memoriaal Congreso Nacional(1922, p. 7.)
12 See ANCB, v. 23 f. 24, v. 24 f.
359, v. 39 f. 232, v. 41 f. 191, v. 43 f. 254, and v. 44 f.
283. Also, Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoriaal CongresoNacional (X934), pp.
379-81.
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Colombian labor acquisition 33
LAS i6
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34 CatherineLeGrand
In contrast, for people of middle and upper class origin the titling of public
lands was quite a simple matter.17
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a massive privatiz-
ation of public lands occurred. The Colombian government officially
alienated 3.2 million hectares of public lands in this period, while an even
greater quantity of land passed into private hands through illegal
appropriations. Less than Io per cent of this territory went to the
Antioqueiio poblaciones of which so much has been written;18 the rest was
allotted in large tracts to merchants, politicians, and landowners who had
the requisite political connections and who could pay the price.19 Most
of these individuals sought to form private properties in frontier regions
in order to speculate on the land market or to produce export crops or
livestock.
It is important to note, however, that the land entrepreneurs chose to
privatize not any public land, but specifically that land already occupied
by peasant settlers. Furthermore, they sought to monopolize immense
extensions of territory, much more than they could possibly put to use.
17 A compilation of the most important laws, legislative enactments and resolutions
concerning the titling of public lands for the years I82I through 193 was published
in Colombia, Ministeriode Industrias,Memoriaal Congreso (i93I), vol. 3.
18 In the area of Antioqueno migrations in the central cordillera, 21 planned frontier
settlements called poblacionesreceived corporate land grants from the Colombian
government in the years 1830 through 91o0. The people belonging to these settlements
were among the few frontier settlers in Colombia to receive title to their holdings.
Because many later became prosperous coffee producers, they have attracteda great
deal of attentionfrom historians.Indeed, the Antioquefiosettlementsgave birth to the
myth of the 'democratic frontier' that runs through much of the English language
literatureon Colombia (see Parsons op. cit.,; and Everett Hagen, 'How Economic
Growth Begins: A Theory of Social Change', TheJournalof SocialIssues,vol. 19, no.
I (January I963), pp. 20-34). More recent studies of the Antioqueno area suggest that
the formationof these settlementsrespondedto the real estate development interests
of Antioqueiio merchants and landowners, who both stimulated the colonization
movement and profitedfrom it. Even within the Antioqueiio area, many large estates
took form through the dispossession of settlers, as describedin this paper. The best
of recent revisionist writings on the Antioqueiio settlement movement include Brew
op. cit.; Palacios, op. cit., pp. I 61-97; Jose Fernando Ocampo, Dominiode Claseenla Ciudad
Colombiana (Medellin, 1972); Keith H. Christie,'Antioqueiio Colonizationin Western
Colombia:A Reappraisal',HispanicAmericanHistoricalReview,vol. 58,no. 2 (May 1978),
pp. 260-83; and Joel Darfo Sanchez Reyes, 'Colonizaci6n Quindiana: Proceso
Politico-Ideol6gico de la Conformaci6n del Campesinado Cafetero, 1840-1920' (M.A.
thesis, Universidad de Los Andes, 1982).
19 This information is drawn from the list of all government land grants awarded to
individuals, settlements, and companies for the years 8z2-193 I found in Colombia,
Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso(I931), vol. 5, pp. 249-410. More than
70 percent of the total amountof landgrantedin this periodwent into propertiesgreater
than ,000o hectares in size.
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Colombian labor acquisition 35
The cumulative effect was to block the peasants from access to the most
desirable land, thus encouraging them to sell their labor power.20
The means by which large proprietors dispossessed frontier settlers of
their claims and transformed them into estate workers were as follows.
First, well-to-do entrepreneurs sought to establish property rights to large
tracts of public lands already occupied in part by peasant settlers. Some
petitioned the government for public land grants, while others simply
appropriated the territory. Various stratagems were used to acquire public
lands illicitly. Some individuals fenced off large extensions with barbed
wire and sold them, while others staked imaginary mining claims in order
to monopolize the surrounding land, or inflated the boundaries marked
in grant applications. Still others extended the borders of old haciendasto
encompass adjacent public lands. These usurpations were often confirmed
in special court cases brought by landowners to 'clarify' property limits.
The subservience of local mayors, judges, and surveyors to the landlords'
interests and the use of metes and bounds surveys considerably facilitated
such usurpations. Ironically, although they were illegal, many appropria-
tions received in time the sanction of the Colombian judicial system. Local
judges customarily accepted wills, bills of sale, and court decisions as proof
of property, so long as such documents showed possession for at least
thirty years. Thus, much land that never officially left the public domain
was incorporated into private properties through defacto claims and later
sales or inheritances.21
20
For theoretical discussions of this point see Evsey D. Domar, 'The Causes of Slavery
or Serfdom: A Hypothesis', Journal of EconomicHistory, vol. 3o, nos. I-2 (I970), pp.
I8-32; Martin Katzman, 'The Brazilian Frontier in Comparative Perspective',
ComparativeStudies in Society and History, vol. 17, no. 3 (July 1975), pp. 274-5; and
Gervasio Castro de Rezende, 'Plantation Systems, Land Tenure, and Labor Supply:
An Historical Analysis of the Brazilian Case with a Contemporary Study of the Cacao
Regions of Bahia, Brazil' (Ph.D. Diss., University of Wisconsin, I976). Several
Colombian reports from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries allude to the
labor motive for the creation of latifundia in frontier regions. A Congressional
committee, for example, reported in i882: 'It is generally through the dispossession
of the poor settlers that rich people acquire large landholdings...Many...obtain
immense extensions of territory which they hoard with the sole purpose of excluding
settlers from those areas or else reducing them to serf-like conditions.' (AC, 'Leyes
Autografas de I882 (Senado),' v. 2 fs. 25 , 266.) A letter sent from the Municipal Council
of Espejuelo (Cauca) in 1907 was even more explicit: 'In Cauca, the majority of the
hacendadoshave taken over vast zones of public lands... which they neither work
themselves nor allow others to work. By monopolizing the land they aim only to
undermine the position of the independent cultivators so as to form from their ranks
groups of dependent laborers.' (ANCB, v. 42 f. I77).
21 The various forms of usurpation, their geographical distribution and extent are
described in Catherine LeGrand, 'From Public Lands into Private Properties: Land-
holding and Rural Conflict in Colombia, I850-I936' (Ph.D. Diss., Stanford University,
2-2
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36 Catherine LeGrand
1980), pp. I 6-6i. The Public Land Archives contain hundreds of examples of these
usurpations. See, for instance, ANCB v. 9 fs. 16-17, v. 12 f. 87, v. 13 fs. 48 and 123,
v. 14 f. 360, v. 25 f. 657, V. 26 f. 325, v. 3 f. 246, v. 72 f. 189, and v. 76 f. 3. The
two court cases most frequently used by landlords to establish new property boundaries
were boundary actions (juicios de deslinde)and partition suits (juicios de particion).
22 Scores of colonopetitions collected in ANCB describe such meetings. See, for example,
ANCB v. I f. 190, V. 14 f. 307, and v. 5 f. 246.
23 Malcolm Deas of Oxford University has suggested to me that for some settlers
colonizing, improving, and then selling out became a way of life. There are hints that
this was so in some papers from the Antioqueno colonization region (see Instituto
Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria, Bienes Nacionales), but unfortunately the docu-
mentation is sparse.
24
Perhaps because historians of Colombia have yet to find the haciendarecords that have
proved so useful for the study of labor relations in Mexico and Peru, our knowledge
of work roles and working conditions on Colombian estates remains rudimentary. Some
forms of tenancy are described in Palacios, op. cit., pp. 55-I 20; Deas, op cit., pp. 269-98;
Mariano Arango, Cafe e Industria, Ir8o-I9}o (Bogoti, 1977), pp. I23-72; Absal6n
Machado, El Cafe: De La Aparceria al Capitalismo(Bogoti, 977); Luis Fernando Sierra,
El Tobacoen la EconomiaColombianadel Siglo XIX (Bogota, 96I), pp. 2 3-63; and Roger
Soles,' Rural Land Invasions in Colombia: A Study of the Macro- and Micro-Conditions
and Forces Leading to Peasant Unrest' (Ph.D. Diss., University of Wisconsin, I972),
pp. I2I-3I. There were three major types of tenants in Colombia: (i) arrendatarios
(sometimes also known as agregados,terra.Zgueros or concertados);(2) aparceros; and (3)
colonosa partido. Arrendatarioswere service tenants who, as rent for a small plot of land
on which to raise food crops, were expected to work or to provide labour in the
landlords' fields. Such arrangements were common both in areas of traditional
agriculture in the highlands and in some coffee regions, for example western Cundin-
amarca and southern Tolima. In the coffee areas, arrendatarioswere often paid for their
labor, but at a salary considerably lower than that of day workers. Some of the more
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Colombian labor acquisition 37
Others moved as settlers towards new frontiers where, with time, they
were often displaced once again. Thus, with the growth of the Colombian
export economy came a concentration of landholding that occurred
through the cumulative dispossession of thousands of frontier squatters.
The formation of large properties and of a labour force to work those
properties proceeded concurrently.
The process of labor acquisition through territorial dispossession gave
rise to numerous social conflicts. It is important to describe these conflicts
and their evolution, for they shed light on the emergence of one major form
of rural protest in Colombia. In the first part of the nineteenth century
the tension between large land entrepreneurs, intent on acquiring a
dependent labor force, and settlers, concerned to maintain their indepen-
dence, was rarely overtly expressed. Generally, it seems, the settlers
accepted one or the other of the alternatives presented to them without
strong objection. In the years after 1875, however, a significant change
occurred: settlers began to organize purposefully to defend themselves
against encroachment. In many parts of the country, small groups of
settlers, threatened by a single land entrepreneur, refusted either to sign
tenancy agreements or to move off the land. Their resistance precipitated
open conflicts.
The decisive factor that persuaded the settlers to resist expropriation
was the passage of national legislation supportive of settlers' rights. Before
870, the Colombian legal system made almost no mention of independent
colonoswho did not form part of the Antioqueio poblaciones.Then, in I 874
and 1882, Congress passed two important laws reforming public land
policy, Law 6i of 1874 and Law 48 of I882.25 Intended to encourage the
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38 CatherineLeGrand
productive use of the public domain, these laws advanced the principle
that whoever cultivates public land is its rightful owner. The new statutes
not only permitted peasants to form homesteads wherever they wished on
the national domain but also stipulated that the land they farmed was
legally theirs and should not be taken from them, even if they had not
as yet obtained written titles.
The land entrepreneurs paid this legislation no heed. But the law
profoundly influenced the settlers' perception of their own situation. It
gave them the sense that the national government was on their side, it
imbued their interests with legitimacy, and it provided a focal point around
which they began to organize in their own defense.26 From 1874 on,
settlers threatened with dispossession did their best to alert the government
to the violation of their legal rights. In the years 1874-1930, settler groups
sent hundreds of petitions to authorities in Bogota describing their
problems with land-grabbers and asking the government to protect
them.27
The drafting of such petitions required a concerted group effort.
Because most colonoswere illiterate and ignorant of legal formalities, they
had to engage a country lawyer to write their appeals. A number of
families from the same area, all of whom were menaced by one land
claimant, generally pooled their resources to hire an attorney to argue their
position collectively. More than 400 such petitions, each signed by
between five and one hundred colono families, are deposited in the
a bankrupt government. The Congress issued territorial certificates redeemable in public
bonds to finance the public debt and to pay military veterans and road and railroad
contractors. Freely bought and sold on the open market, these certificates were relatively
inexpensive for men of means, though clearly beyond the reach of the peasant
population. During this period, the government also allotted a few grants to new
settlements, mainly in the Antioquefio colonization area.
The reform of public land policy in the I87os and i88os responded to the Liberal
concern to create a nation of small proprietors. It also reflected the desire of both
Liberals and Conservatives to encourage the expansion of the agricultural economy
through incorporation of the public domain into the national economy. From this time
on, anyone who put public lands into production was allowed to petition for a free
grant of that land and an additional area equal in size. Although the laws explicitly
supported the rights of peasant settlers, most people who actually obtained land grants
'a titulo de cultivador'were large farmers and cattlemen.
26
This interpretation of settler ideology is drawn from the numerous colonopetitions in
ANCB which constantly refer to the laws of 1874 and 1882 in their protests against
land entrepreneurs.
27 See ANCB, volumes 1-78. These petitions date from I874 through 193I. It is said that
colonopetitions from later years are deposited in the archive of the Colombian Agrarian
Reform Institute (INCORA) in Bogota.
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Colombianlabor acquisition 39
Colombian Public Land Archives. In these pleas, the settlers expressed but
one aim-to be left in peace to farm their land independently.
The legalistic orientation of colonoprotest made sense in Colombia.
Given the existence of protective legislation, the settlers could logically
suppose that the central government would support them, if only it were
informed of their situation. Throughout Latin American history, Indians
faced with threats to their communal lands have adopted similar protest
strategies for similar reasons.28
But conflicts between settlers and land entrepreneurs were not only
played out on paper. They generally involved direct and sometimes violent
confrontations as well. In order to assert colonostatus before the law, the
peasants had to remain on the land without signing tenancy contracts.
Faced with the settlers' refusal either to sign labour agreements or to vacate
their parcels, the proprietors called on local mayors to evict them. Even
if evicted, however, settlers often defied the authorities, returning doggedly
to farm their fields once the officials had withdrawn. When this happened,
the landlords responded with more direct harassment. They threw pasture
seed in the settlers' crops and turned cattle into their fields, pulled down
bridges to cut market access, and jailed colonoleaders on trumped-up
charges. In some instances hacendados also formed vigilante bands to attack
the most recalcitrant colonosin order to intimidate the others. Usually such
tactics succeeded in forcing settlers to sign tenancy contracts or abandon
the area. In some places, however, colonosrefused for years to surrender
their claims.29
Resistance tended to be most effective in regions where settlers were
numerous and wher- they found middle-class allies willing to support
them. Individuals who aided the settlers usually came from one of three
groups. Some were local lawyers, tinterillosdepueblo, who hoped to profit
by informing the peasants of their rights and writing their petitions for
them. The dispute over the territory called 'Dinde' in Cajibio and El
Tambo (Cauca) shows that such hopes were not unreasonable. During the
fifteen years of their struggle with the Vejarano family, the Indian colonos
28
See, for example,WilliamB. Taylor, LandlordandPeasantin ColonialOaxaca(Stanford,
I972); and Eric J. Hobsbawm, 'Peasant Land Occupations', Past and Present, no. 62
(February 1974), pp. 20-I 52.
29 For examples of confrontations between settlers and land entrepreneurs see ANCB, v.
11 f. I90, v. I2 fs. 245 and 286, v. 14 f. 307, v. 15 fs. 246, 342, 375 and 378, v. i8 fs.
115 and 468, v. 20 f. 130, v. 25 f. 31, v. 27 fs. I25 and 132, v. 28 fs. 336, 340 and 341,
v. 29 f. 637, v. 35 fs. 522 and ,28, v. 36 f. 452, v. 43 f. 473, v. 45 fs. 626 and 674, and
v. 55 f. 477bis.
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40 CatherineLeGrand
of 'Dinde', numbering 130 households in all, paid their lawyer more than
14,000 pesos in legal fees.30
Cultivators of public lands who possessed knowledge and resources
superior to the average peasant sometimes also sided with the settlers.
Usually these cultivators were local storekeepers, artisans, or administrators
who had hired a few workers to plant crops or run livestock on public lands
nearby. If outside entrepreneurs tried to appropriate their claims, these
cultivators made common cause with peasants who were similarly
threatened. One such individual was Tobias Enciso, a printer and former
public market manager from Honda (Tolima). When Enciso's claim to
public lands in the neighboring municipality of Victoria (Caldas) was
challenged by the Isaacs Hermanos in 19 I 7, he resisted in the name of the
many small colonosliving in the region. Enciso not only took his case and
that of the settlers to court, but also published a pamphlet presenting a
vivid picture of the struggle from the colonos'point of view.31
Local authorities were the third group who occasionally provided
settlers with aid, thus strengthening their resistance to land entrepreneurs.
Generally local authorities favoured the interests of wealthy and powerful
entrepreneurs, but in some instances they supported the colonosinstead.
Generally speaking, the municipal advocates (personeros)and councilmen,
who were most attuned to local affairs, tended to be more sympathetic to
the settlers, while the judges and majors, through whom the crucial judicial
and administrative decisions were made, backed the large land claimants.32
Whether lawyers, cultivators, or local officials, middle-class allies
provided colonos with important leverage in their efforts to defend
themselves against entrepreneurs. By informing the illiterate of their
rights, drafting petitions on their behalf, and occasionally providing
financial support, such individuals helped the settlers articulate their
interests in opposition to the land entrepreneurs.
Map 2 shows the areas where confrontations between land entrepreneurs
and peasant settlers occurred in the years 87 5-1930. Each mark represents
one conflict in which at least 25 settlers were involved. More than 450
separate confrontations took place in developing frontier regions, some
30 Boletin de la Oficina General de Trabajo, v, nos. 39-44 (Enero-Junio I934), pp. 152-4.
For other examples of lawyers helping settlers, see ANCB, v. io f. Ioo, v. 14 fs. 342
and 347, v. 28 f. 34I, v. 34 f. 355, v. 50 f.2.363, v. 6z f. 8, V. 63 fs. 4 and 174, V. 64 f.
63, and v. 65 fs. 233 and 471.
31 ANCB, v. 55 f. 477bis. For other cases see ANCB, v. o1 f. 99, v. 43 f. 483, and v. 44 f.
43 5bis.
32 See ANCB, v. 9 fs. 76 and 86, v. I f. I I , v. 5 f. 267, v. i6 f. 69, v. 25 f. 41, v. 28 f.
122, V. 29 fs. 633 and 774, v. 32 f. 451, v. 33 f. 503, v. 35 f. 59I, v. 39 f. I99,
v. 43 f. 283, V. 44 f 390, . 45 f. 629, V. 46 f. 235, v. 47 f. 132 and v. 57 f. 50.
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Colombianlabor acquisition 41
lasting for decades. Such disputes occurred most frequently in coffee areas
in the middle altitudes of all three cordilleras, in cattle zones both in the
interior and along the coast, and in the banana enclave created by the
United Fruit Company.33
During the period of growth, then, independent settlers actively resisted
the appropriation of their land and labour by large landowners. Unfortun-
ately, the archives do not permit a tracing of the resolution of every
conflict. In some places colonosmay have been successful in their struggles
for the land. Many smallholdings emerged particularly in the coffee zones
of the central cordillera.34 Elsewhere the on-going expansion of large
estates and formation of a dependent labor force indicates that the
entrepreneurs in many cases overcame the colonos'resistance and trans-
formed them into dependent laborers.35
The landlords' apparent success could not, however, obliterate the
settlers' memory of the experience through which they had passed. The
fact of dispossession, which touched so many peasant families, imbued
them with a personal conviction of the illegitimacy of the properties on
which they worked and an underlying resentment against the landlords.
This rural consciousness lay inactive until structural changes in the 920zos
provided the peasants with leverage to renew their struggles against the
predominance of the great estate.
After 1920 the Colombian economy expanded at heretofore unheard-of
rates, only to contract sharply with the onset of the World Depression in
1929. Meanwhile, the national government extended its radius of influence,
and new political parties that sought a popular base both in the cities and
33 This map was drawn by the author from the colonopetitions in ANCB, volumes 1-78.
Because the petitions do not always state the number of peasant families involved in
any given confrontation, it is difficult to be more specific concerning the magnitude
of each conflict. Some, however, involved hundreds of settlers, and in a few more than
a thousand peasant families took part. Major regions of ongoing disputes included
Belalcazar (Caldas), San Antonio and Prado (Tolima), and Caparrapi and Pandi
(Cundinamarca). I have in my possession detailed summaries of each confrontation
which I would be happy to share with interested researchers.
34 See Parsons
op. cit.; Palacios, op. cit., pp. I61-97; and Sanchez Reyes, op. cit.
35 It is important, of course, to take into account the role the national
government played
in determining the outcome of the conflicts. In the 1870-1925 period, the Colombian
government seems to have had little direct power over what happened in the rural
localities. Occasionally the government did reject applications for large land grants that
took in settlers' fields. (See Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso
(193I), vol. 3, p. I90; ANCB, v. 26 f. 680 and v. 46 f. 374). But generally the settlers'
petitions arrived too late or the directives of national authorities were undermined by
local officials in collaboration with the landlords. (For examples of this see ANCB, v.
25 fs. 709 and 7I4, v. 36 f. 382, v. 44 f. 636, v. 45 f. 672, and v. 46 f. 419.) For a more
detailed analysis of the government's ineffectiveness in protecting settlers' rights see
LeGrand, 'From Public Lands', pp. 266-74.
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42 CatherineLeGrand
36 The most informative works on the I9zos and 1930 in Colombia include J. Fred Rippy,
The Capitalists and Colombia (N.Y., 1931); Miguel Urrutia, The Development of the
Colombian Labor Movement (New Haven, I969); Hugo L6pez C., 'La Inflaci6n en
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Colombian labor acquisition 43
The precipitating factor was yet another reform in the legal system.
Reflecting the State's tendency to take an interventionist role in the
economy, the Colombian Supreme Court resolved for the first time to
specify the legal criteria by which to distinguish private property from
public land. When the Court ruled in 1926 that the only proof of property
henceforth would be the original title by which the State had alienated the
land from the public domain, the peasants listened.37 Many knew that the
haciendas where they worked did not have such titles because they had been
formed through the usurpation of public lands.
And so some peasants in some places passed from the defensive to the
offensive, and the squatter movements of the late I92os and early I930S
began.38 Tenant farmers in regions of recent frontier development
suddenly argued that they were settlers, not tenants, and that the land was
public not private property. They refused to pay their obligations any
longer and began to till their family plots independently of the haciendas
in which they were embedded. Meanwhile, groups of settlers, rural wage
laborers, and construction workers laid off in the first years of the
Depression invaded outlying portions of the same properties. The
Colombia en la Decada de Los Veintes', CuadernosColombianos,no. 5 (1975), pp. 41-140;
Jestus Antonio Bejarano, El RegimenAgrario de la Economia Exportadora a la Economia
Industrial (Bogota, I979); and Jos6 Antonio Ocampo and Santiago Montenegro, 'La
Crisis Mundial de los Afios Treinta en Colombia' (mimeographed). The connection
between these changes and the emergence of the agrarian movements of the I930S is
explored in LeGrand, 'From Public Lands', pp. 284-320.
37 See 'Sentencia de la Sala de Negocios Generales de la Corte
Suprema' (I5 April 1926),
in Colombia, Corte Suprema, Jurisprudencia,vol. 3, p. 357. The shift in public land policy
in the I920z stemmed from the government's concern to increase the production of
foodstuffs for domestic consumption in order to support industrialization. Recognizing
that most foodstuffs for internal markets were supplied not by the large estates but by
peasant producers, the government endeavored to facilitate colonization of the public
domain by peasant settlers in order to expand food production. The uncertain status
of landownership, however, frustrated the endeavor, leading the Supreme Court to
define what was private property and what was public land in a way that would put
the State and the colonization movement in a strong position. The government
apparently had no idea of the magnitude of usurpations landowners had effected over
the previous half-century.
38 Material on these squatter movements can be found in the
Informesof the departmental
governors and gubernatorial secretaries for the early I930S; in the Memorias of the
Ministry of Industries (1928-36); in the Boletin de la Oficina Generalde Trabajo; and in
the newspapers Claridad, El Bolsheviqueand Tierra. See also Bejarano op. cit., Gloria
Gaitin de Valencia, Colombia: La Lucha Por la Tierra en la Decada del Treinta (Bogota,
1976); Gonzalo Sanchez, Las Ligas Campesinas en Colombia (Bogota, I977); Victor
Negrete B., Origende las LuchasAgrarias en Cdrdoba(Monteria, I 98 1); Colombia, Informes
Que Rindid a la HonorableCdmara de Representantesla ComisionDesignadaPara Visitar la
Zona Bananeradel Magdalena(Bogota, 93 5); and Pedro Padilla B. and Alberto Llanos
O., 'Proyecto Magdalena 4: Zona Bananera,' Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma
Agraria (September 1964) (mimeo).
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44 Catherine
LeGrand
newcomers also called themselves colonos.And as colonoshad always done,
they built huts, cleared small fields, and petitioned the government to
protect them against the attacks of the landlords who, they said, had
robbed the nation of its patrimony.
In the wake of massive land invasions, many landlords in these regions
retained effective control over only the relatively small areas which they
had planted with export crops. Meanwhile, as dependent laborers who had
been settlers declared themselves settlers once again, the haciendasdissolved
into their constituent parts. The tendency towards the concentration of
rural property, so marked in the period of export growth, reversed itself
in the early years of the Depression. A popular agrarian reform was in the
making.
The kind of land occupations described here occurred in seven different
areas of Colombia in the early I930S. Organizationally unconnected, the
various squatter movements were shaped by similar conditioning factors.
Significantly, all emerged in regions of large latifundiawith a recent history
of land concentration and colono-landentrepreneur tensions. Moreover, the
focal regions tended to be commercially important areas in which the
impact of the Great Depression was felt with particular severity. As shown
in Map 3, the major regions included the coffee zones of Sumapaz,
Quindfo, Huila and northern Valle, the Sinti cattle ranching area, and the
United Fruit Company banana zone.
The landlords did not, of course, acquiesce in the loss of their properties,
and a period of intense agrarian conflict ensued. In the course of the
conflicts, peasants in frontier regions developed the protest strategies that
they would use repeatedly in later years. In this period, non-Indian
peasants first made use of the land invasion tactic, the first Colombian
peasant leagues took form, and peasants in frontier areas first began to
identify with left-wing political parties. These parties included the Union
Nacional ITquierdistaRevolucionaria(UNIR), founded by Jorge Eliecer
Gaitan; the Partido Comunistade Colombia(PCC), which emerged out of
the Partido Socialista Revolucionariaof the 920zos; and the Partido Agrarista
Nacional (PAN) of Sumapaz, led by dissident lawyer Erasmo Valencia.39
The largest and most innovative of the settler organizations, however, was
39
Although the leftist political parties were important in organizing peasants to resist the
landlords, they did not create the conflicts: indeed, they began to organize the
countryside only after the conflicts erupted. Both UNIR and the PCC formed peasant
leagues, though UNIR was most successful in appealing to settlers, while the PCC was
more active in areas where tenants were involved in contract disputes and Indians sought
return of their communal lands. On the activities of these parties in the early 1930S
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Colombian labor acquisition 45
see Pardo op. cit.; Sanchez op. cit.; Comite Central del Partido Comunista de Colombia,
Treinta Aios de Lucha del Partido Comunista de Colombia (Bogota, n.d.); Med6filo
Medina, Historia del Partido Comunista de Colombia, v. I (Bogoti, I98o); Michael
Jimenez, 'Red Viota: Economic Change and Class Conflict in a Colombian Coffee
Municipality, 1920-1940' (Ph.D. Diss. in progress, Harvard University); and LeGrand,
'From Public Lands', pp. 354-79.
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46 CatherineLeGrand
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Colombian labor acquisition 47
The government's response was Law 200 of 1936, often called the first
modern agrarian reform law in Colombian history. Ironically, the law
appears, in fact, to have given the landlords the upper hand. It reversed
the Supreme Court Decision of 1926, thereby sanctioning many landlords'
property claims. At the same time, however, Law 200 strongly supported
the concept of the social function of property: it stipulated that, if the great
estates were not made productive within ten years, they should automatically
revert to the public domain.42
Interestingly enough, both landlords and peasants interpreted the new
legislation as supportive of their own interests, and the conflicts continued
under new guises. Both in the older frontier regions and in new areas of
frontier expansion, tensions between landlords and colonoshave continued
to manifest themselves in recent years. These tensions have, however,
assumed new forms in response to changes in the larger socio-economic
and institutional environment. Recent research suggests that an awareness
of the landlord-settler conflict is basic to understanding La Violencia in
certain of its regional manifestations, the land invasions of the I96os and
I970s, and the success of guerrilla groups in building a support base in
frontier regions today.43
Let me reiterate that the roots of this social tension must be sought in
the process of frontier expansion and particularly in the form of labor
acquisition associated with it in the period 1870-1930. The formation of
a dependent labor force through territorial dispossession logically gave
42
For the text of Law 200 and its antecedents see AC, Leyes Autografas de I9356, v. I8,
fs. 1-345. Marco A. Martinez (ed.), Regimende Tierrasen Colombia(Antecedentesde la Ley
200 de 1936 'Sobre Regimende Tierras'y Decretos Reglamentarios),(2 vols, Bogota, I939)
is a useful compilation of all official documents relating to Law 200 including drafts
of the bill, Congressional debates, and committee reports. For interpretations of the
law and its effects, see Dario Mesa, El ProblemaAgrario en Colombia,I920-I960 (Bogoti,
1972); Victor Moncayo C., 'La Ley y el Problema Agrario en Colombia,' Ideologiay
Sociedad,nos. I4-15 (Julio-Diciembre i975), pp. 7-46; and Sanchez, op. cit., pp. 125-9.
To deal with the conflicts of the 1930s, the Colombian government also initiated a
' parcelization' program, which provided for the purchase of under-utilized estates and
their subdivision, and set up a system of Land Courts to handle disputes over rural
property. The effects of these policies remain unstudied: indeed, Colombian agrarian
history for the period I936-48 has yet to be seriously investigated. This period is of
obvious importance for understanding the origins of La Violenciaand, more specifically,
connections between the agrarian conflicts of the I930s and those of the 940s and 195 Os.
43 See Campo, op. cit.; 'Contra la Represi6n Oficial en Cimitarra', CuadernosPoliticos, no.
o0(1976), pp. I-I6; Luis F. Bottia G. and Rudolfo Escobedo D., 'La Violencia en el
Sur del Departmento de C6rdoba' (Tesis de Grado, Universidad de Los Andes, 1979);
and W. Ramirez Tob6n, 'La Guerrilla Rural en Colombia: Una Via Hacia la
Colonizaci6n Armada?', Estudios Rurales Latinoamericanos,vol. 4, no. 2 (Mayo-Agosto
1981), pp. I99-210.
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48 CatherineLeGrand
44 One
example is the Colombian indiviso,which was a property collectively owned by many
joint tenants, known as communeros.Indivisos,which existed in many different parts of
the country in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, seem to have been formed
through nonpartible inheritance or collective land grants. Some information on this
form of landholding can be found in Raymond Crist, The Cauca Valley: Land Tenure
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Colombian labor acquisition 49
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