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Expropriation of Church Property in Nineteenth-Century Mexico and Colombia: A Comparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Robert J. Knowlton
Robert J. Knowlton*
Affiliation:
Wisconsin State University, Stevens Point, Wisconsin
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Extract

Among the major sources of conflict between liberals and conservatives in nineteenth-century Latin America was the controversy over the relationship between Church and State and the position of the Church in the newly independent states. Not infrequently the issues occasioned violence and bloodshed and long periods of instability while the conservative defenders of a privileged Church disputed with reforming liberals attempting to enforce their ideas. Such was the case in Colombia and Mexico when liberalism reached its apogee in the middle of the nineteenth century. In both countries there had been many years of conflict between conservatives who were generally pro-clerical and espoused centralist ideas about government and liberals who were anti-clerical and favored federalism. The liberals also believed in legal equality, the sanctity of private property, individualism, laissez faire, and the necessity of limiting the Church to a purely spiritual role in society. Although liberals in both countries had achieved national power prior to the 1850’s, the Mexican Constitution of 1857 and the Colombian Rionegro Constitution of 1863 symbolized the liberals’ victory and enshrined their principles; for years those constitutions provided the rallying point for liberals against the opposition.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , April 1969 , pp. 387 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1969

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References

1 The research for this article was made possible, in part, by a Teacher Improvement Leave granted by Wisconsin State University—Stevens Point for the academic year 1966–67. A revised version of the article was read at the Spring meeting of the Wisconsin Council of Latin Americanists, May 10, 1968, at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee.

2 Although after Independence the country changed names several times, for simplicity’s sake, Colombia will be used throughout.

3 For the Mexican Constitution, see Constitución federal de los Estados-Unidos Mexicanos sancionada y jurada por el congreso general constituyente el día 5 de febrero de 1857 (Mexico, 1861)Google Scholar; and for the May 8, 1863, Constitution of the United States of Colombia, see Gibson, William M., The Constitutions of Colombia (Durham, N. C, 1948), pp. 273–94 Google Scholar.

4 In Mexico there was disentailment in 1856 and nationalization in 1859; in Colombia, expropriation occurred in 1861.

5 Leyes de Reforma: Gobiernos de Ignacio Comonfort y Benito Juárez, 1856–1863 (México, 1947), pp. 25–36 Google Scholar.

6 Codificación nacional de todas las leyes de Colombia desde el año de 1821, hecha conforme a la ley 13 de 1912 (Bogotá, 1930), XIX, 398–401 Google Scholar.

7 Actos oficiales del gobierno provisorio de los Estados Unidos de Colombia, recopilados conforme a lo dispuesto por el Decreto de 7 de abril de 1862, Apéndice (Bogotá, 1863)Google Scholar, Circular of September 9, 1861, to governors explaining decrees on disamortization and public debt, p. 186.

8 Payno, Manuel (ed.), Colección de las leyes, decretos, circulares y providencias relativas a la desamortización eclesiástica, a la nacionalización de los bienes de corporaciones, y a la reforma de la legislación civil que tenía relación con el culto y con la iglesia (México, 1861), Circular # 1, June 28, 1856, I, 57–58.Google Scholar

9 de la Portilla, Anselmo, Méjico en 1856 y 1857, gobierno del General Comonfort (New York, 1858), pp. 69–70 Google Scholar.

10 Actos oficiales del gobierno provisorio de los Estados Unidos de Colombia, recopilados conforme a lo dispuesto por el Decreto de 7 de abril de 1862 (Bogotá, 1862), Circular of July 14, 1862, pp. 539–40.Google Scholar

11 This point was an article of faith of Mexican and Colombian liberals alike; that is, a belief in individual rights and especially the sanctity of private property. In this respect they differentiated between the right to property of individuals—which was inviolable, except in the general interest and with compensation—and corporate rights to property which were a privilege extended by civil authorities and revocable by governments.

12 In Mexico the states retained 20 per cent of the sums collected from nationalization; and Colombia, in 1866, returned to municipalities property formerly belonging to them which was not yet alienated.

13 Codificación nacional, XIX, 400. According to Article 6 of the disamortization decree: “La venta se hará por documentos o bonos de deuda nacional interior flotante, o de renta sobre el tesoro del 6 por 100. Cuando para ésta se presenten capitales iguales en dichos bonos, billetes o rentas sobre el tesoro, se dará preferencia a aquellos que ganan mayor interés; pero cuando se ofrezca al mismo tiempo dinero sonante o billetes de tesorería, se preferirá esta oferta a los documentos y[a] citados, en cuyo caso se dará entrada al dinero o a dichos billetes de tesorería en la caja de amortización, destinando los al pago de intereses de censos sobre el tesoro y a la amortización de deuda flotante. . . .”

And Article 7 of the decree on the public debt stated (ibid., p. 405): “Igualmente se reconocerá en rentas sobre el tesoro al 6 por 100, o en inscripciones asimiladas a la deuda nacional de dichas rentas del 6 por 100, el valor de todas las propriedades inmuebles de manos muertas de que, por decreto de esta misma fecha, se hace cargo la Nación para restablecer la armonía en el giro y cambio de los valores, y hacer que la propriedad inmueble se subdivida.”

14 Payno, II, 75–94.

15 Actos oficiales, Apéndice, p. 186.

16 Restrepo, José Manuel, Diario político y militar (Bogotá, 1954), pp. 631, 727–28, and 732Google Scholar; Samper, José M., Ensayo sobre las revoluciones políticas y la condición social de las repúblicas colombianas (Bogotá, n. d.), p. 195 Google Scholar; Aguirre, Antonio Pérez, 25 años de historia colombiana. 1853 a 1878. Del centralismo a la federación (Bogotá, 1959), pp. 156–57 Google Scholar; Roldan, Salvador Camacho, Escritos varios (Bogotá, 1892-95)Google Scholar, on French Intervention in Mexico, see articles from La Opinión of June 24, 1863, July 1, 1863, July 21, 1863, September 25, 1863, and May 18, 1864, Vol. I, pp. 300–31.

17 Puentes, Milton, Historia del partido liberal colombiano (2nd ed.; Bogotá, 1861), p. 211.Google Scholar

18 The Archbishop, brother of General Mosquera, issued this pastoral letter on August 23, 1852, prior to his departure for exile as a result of his opposition to a government law of 1852 giving municipal cabildos the right to elect pastors. Sermones por Manuel José Mosquera (Bogotá, 1936), p. 61.Google Scholar

19 Benítez, Luis García, Reseña histórica de los Obispos que han regentado la Diócesis de Santa Marta (Bogotá, 1953), Pt. I, p. 417.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., p. 468, February 18, 1864.

21 Ibid., pp. 474–75.

22 Contestaciones habidas entre el lllmo. Sr. Arzobispo de México, Dr. D. Lázaro de la Garza y Ballesteros, y el Exmo. Sr. ministro de justicia, negocios eclesiásticos e instrucción pública, Lie. D. Ezequiel Montes (México, 1856), p. 41 Google Scholar.

23 de Jesús Munguía, Clemente, Defensa eclesiástica en el Obispado de Michoacán desde fines de 1855 hasta principios de 1858 (México, 1858), July 16, 1856, I, 21–45.Google Scholar

24 Carta pastoral del Illmo. Sr. Obispo de Guadalajara en que se inserta la alocución de Su Santidad (Guadalajara, 1858)Google Scholar.

25 G., J. Ivan Cadavid, Los fueros de la Iglesia ante el liberalismo y el conservatismo en Colombia (Evolución político-religiosa de nuestros dos Partidos, 1837–1955) (Medellín, 1955)Google Scholar, September 17, 1863, “Incredibili Afflictamur Dolore,” pp. 53–54.

26 Benítez, p. 490.

27 Puentes, quoting El Tiempo, October 8, 1861, p. 212.

28 Actos oficiales, p. 539.

29 Cited in El Siglo Diez y Nuevt, July 1, 1856, p. 1.

30 Cited in ibid., July 3, 1856, p. 2.

31 Memoria presentada al Exmo. Sr. Presideme Sustituto de la República por el C. Miguel Lerdo de Tejada dando cuenta de la marcha que han seguido los negocios de la Hacienda Pública en el tiempo que tuvo a su cargo la Secretaría de este ramo (México, 1857)Google Scholar.

32 Codificación nacional, Decree of March 10, 1862, XX, 37–38 Google Scholar. In Colombia foreigners were prominent in simulated sales on the theory that their nationality would protect them from action by the liberal government. In Mexico foreign names appear frequently in lists of purchasers.

33 It appears from the literature that the problems of Colombia are more usually blamed on the extreme federalism of the Rionegro Constitution, while in Mexico the problems seem more often attributed to anti-clericalism.