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Know-How and Nationalism: Colombia's First Geological and Petroleum Experts, c. 1940 - 1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Pamela Murray
Pamela Murray*
Affiliation:
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama
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Extract

Despite its vital role in Latin America's ongoing struggle for economic development, Latin-American scientific and technical education remains a neglected topic among historians. Authors also tend to view it in simplistic terms. While some have seen scientific and technical institutes as agents of Latin America's “dependency” on the North Atlantic world, others have seen them as vehicles of Progress, or have stressed the way in which graduates (scientists and technical professionals) have acted as “anti-dependency guerillas.” Evidence from Colombia, however, confounds any simple view. The founding of the country's first program for geological and petroleum engineers at the National School of Mines in Medellín reflected nationalistic desires to increase Colombian control over the oil industry and subsoil resources in general. Yet, Colombia's national energy policies have not led to state control of the industry as in the case of other major oil-producing countries, i.e., Mexico. What explains this apparent gap between desires and deeds? The following essay seeks an answer by tracing the origins of the geological and petroleum engineering program as well as the ideas and activities of graduates who have been directly involved in developing their country's oil and other resources. Above all, it highlights Colombians' pragmatic approach to development concerns.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , October 1995 , pp. 211 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1995

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References

1 Sunkel, Oswaldo, “Underdevelopment, The Transfer of Science and Technology and the Latin American University,” Human Relations 24 (1971), 1–12;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Stepan, Nancy, Beginnings of Brazilian Science: Oswaldo Cruz, Medical Research, and Policy 1890–1921 (New York: Science History Public, 1981), 167–9;Google Scholar Adler, Emmanuel, “State Institutions, Ideology, and Energy in Argentina and Brazil,” Latin American Research Review 23:2 (1988), 73–85.Google Scholar

2 For an overview of the origins of the Escuela Nacional de Minas and other engineering schools in the nineteenth century, see Safford, Frank, The Ideal of the Practical: Colombia’s Struggle to Form a Technical Elite (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976);Google Scholar on the history of the Escuela, see my forthcoming book, Dreams of Development: Colombia’s National School of Mines and its Engineers, 1887–1970 (University of Alabama Press, 1996).

3 Under the Constitution of 1886, Colombian law regarded all subsoil resources as national property. Nevertheless, governments could allow private access to these resources via concessions reminiscent of those granted during the colonial period. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the concession system allowed foreign companies to take full advantage of the country’s subsoil resources, particularly oil. See Rippy, Fred, The Capitalists and Colombia (New York, 1931), p. 128.Google Scholar

4 Villegas, Jorge, Petróleo Colombiano, Ganancia Gringa, 7th ed., (Medellín, 1981), pp. 19–24;Google Scholar Santiago Reyes, Miguel Angel, “Crónica de la Concesión de Mares”, Ecopetrol (1986), 6–8.Google Scholar Villegas’ popular work is an attack upon the American oil companies who benefitted from the Mares and Barco concessions. Reyes’ article, part of a series, provides a more detailed, factual, yet somewhat apologetic account of Tropical Oil Company operations.

5 Reyes, Santiago, Crónica, p. 13.Google Scholar

6 For a discussion of worker protest, see Urrutia, Miguel, “El desarollo del movimiento sindical y la situación de la clase obrera”, Manual de historia de Colombia 3 (Bogotá, 1982), 230.Google Scholar

7 Pedraja, René de la, Energy Politics in Colombia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 6–11.Google Scholar

8 Molina, Gerardo, Las ideas liberales en Colombia, 3: De 1935 á la iniciación del Frente Nacional 8th ed. (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo, 1987), 25.Google Scholar

9 Molina, , Las ideas liberales, 25.Google Scholar Pedraja, De la, Energy Politics, 26–30.Google Scholar

10 Safford, , The Ideal of the Practical, pp. 234–35.Google Scholar In 1904, the Society became an official consulting body to the government. It also developed into a pressure group advocating the nationalization of Colombians roads and railroads and preferential treatment for Colombian engineers vis-a-vis foreign technicians.

11 Reyes, Noé, “Preocupaciones nacionales”, Dyna (April 1936), 121–124.Google Scholar

12 Ibid.

13 “Por las encrucijadas petroleras,” anonymous editorial in Anales de la Facultad Nacional de Minas, (April 1939), 889–90.

14 Uribe, Elías Robledo, “Evoluciones de la industria petrolera y perspectivas para Colombia”, Anales de la Escuela Nacional de Minas, (November 1929).Google Scholar Robledo’s statement reflected nationalist sentiment well: “hoy, si no profesamos fé nacionalista y ocupamos puestos de vigilancia, quedará una vía sin obstáculos para que marcha velozmente la codicia desmedida de los capitales extranjero … es notable la ausencia de colombianos técnicos en petróleos que sirvan de primera piedra á la obra de explotación por nuestros propios medios”.

15 Murray, Pamela, “Engineering Development: Colombia’s National School of Mines, 1887–1930,” Hispanic American Historical Review 74:1 (February 1994), 69–70;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also, “Cincuenta años cumple hoy la Escuela Nacional de Minas de Medellín”, El Tiempo (Bogotá), October 12, 1937.

16 Rectors’ correspondence for 1924–1925 shows how Wokittel was recruited and initially hired on the basis of a two-year contract. In “Geografía física de Antioquia”, El Colombiano July 15, 1987, Michel Hermelin identified several other Germans who, in the first third of the century, contributed to knowledge of Colombia’s geological formations, especially in Antioquia.

17 “Nuevo pensum para optar título de Ingeniero Civil y de Minas, único que expide la Escuela, 4 junio 1929”, Anales de la Escuela de Minas de Medellín 4:28 (October 1929), 49–50. The hydrocarbons course formed part of the single program for both civil and mining engineers which the Escuela introduced that year and which required courses in general geology, mineralogy, general petrography, geological economics, and mining and hydrocarbon law.

18 Rodríguez to Minister of Education, February 16, 1935, Dean’s Archive, Facultad Nacional de Minas, Medellín (henceforth, Decanatura). Interview with Alejandro Delgado in Medellín, May 1987. Although officials agreed that the Escuela would be the appropriate place to found a specialty in petroleum engineering, they did not believe it was feasible for the near future. Believing Colombians could not hope to challenge the technical and financial superiority of the foreigners, Rodríguez thought that the Escuela should confine itself to providing a basic training to individuals who would then specialize abroad.

19 Pedraja, De la, Energy Politics, pp. 37–46.Google Scholar Ecopetrol, which stands for Empresa Colombiana de Petróleos, came into being on August 25, 1951, the date of the De Mares concession’s official reversion to the government and three years after passage of the bill (Law 165 of 1948) providing for its creation.

20 The government also adopted a more nationalist stance toward foreign (including oil) companies generally. In 1936, Colombian legislators passed a law (Ley 149) that required companies to limit the number of their foreign-born employees to 20 percent of the employees at any enterprise–a gesture that offered hope to Colombian engineers seeking to be hired into supervisory as well as technical positions. See Próspero Ruiz to Jorge Rodríguez, July 14, 1939, Decanatura. Ruiz was an alumnus hired by the Ministerio de Trabajo to investigate working conditions at foreign companies along with compliance with Law 149.

21 Interview with Delgado in Medellín, May 2, 1987. As the annual dean’s report indicated for 1949, most of those who enrolled in the program during its first decade were, like Delgado, natives of Santander–not too surprising given the Tropical Oil Company’s importance within the region.

22 Ibid.

23 Feininger, Tomas and Castro, Nestor, “Memorial to Gerardo Botero, 1911–1986”, mimeograph copy, n.d., 1–5.Google Scholar Article donated to author by Nestor Castro, 1987. According to these authors, Botero was a generalist who made contributions in numerous areas but especially with regard to the geomor-phology of the peñoles and organales in Antioquia as well as study of the erosion front along the Magdalena river.

24 Interviews with Botero’s former classmates and colleagues, Hernán Garcés and Gabriel Trujillo and with former student Michel Hermelin, 1987. A descriptive account of one of these field trips may be found in Delio Jaramillo’s “Instantáneas de viaje: diario sobre la excursión al Chocó” in the April 1936 issue of the Escuela’s student journal.

25 Botero, , “Exposición de Motivos al acuerdo # 134” in Directivo, Acta del Consejo (June 15, 1937),Google Scholar Secretary’s Archive, Facultad Nacional de Minas, Medellín (henceforth, Secretaría). Acuerdo #134 stipulated that the Escuela would pay $1,500 per instructor to cover the latter’s travel expenses abroad.

26 Durán to Rodríguez, January 17, 1938, Decanatura.

27 Correspondence with Jorge Rodríguez, November 1938-February 1939, Decanatura.

28 Ibid.

29 Reyes, Eduardo Gómez, “Cuarenta años de los primeros ingenieros geólogos” in Dyna 1987 Google Scholar (typescript draft provided by author in Medellín).

30 Feininger and Castro, Memorial, p. 3.

31 Interview with Hernán Garcés González in Medellín, 1987; also, Suescún, Dario, “Tres profesores más que eminentes,” El Mundo (Medellín), May 28, 1987.Google Scholar

32 A list of publications by Garcés and other alumni may be found in Lara, Sílvia Maria, La Facultad de Minas a través de la documentación (Medellín: Universidad Nacional–Seccional Medellín, 1987), 63–70.Google Scholar

33 Botero, , editorial in Dyna, (February-March 1940).Google Scholar

34 Delgado to Dean Felipe Hoyos, December 18, 1951, Decanatura.

35 Ibid.

36 Delgado, , “Petróleos Colombianos”, Dyna (October-November 1944).Google Scholar Delgado believed the government should help develop the domestic oil market in order to minimize dependency on sometimes fickle foreign markets; he suggested this be done by expanding the country’s transportation and communication infrastructures and reducing imports of petroleum derivatives.

37 Botero, editorial in February-March 1940 issue of Dyna.

38 “Nuevos pensumes en la Facultad de Minas de Medellín,” Ingeniería y Arquitectura 3:32 (1942), 29&31. The founders of the geological and petroleum engineering department, Alejandro Delgado especially, actively solicited the cooperation of individual oil companies in providing apprenticeship opportunities for their students. They saw these companies as necessary allies in the training process as well as future employers of their graduates.

39 A copy of this curriculum may be found in the 1944 Anales de la Facultad Nacional de Minas in the library of the Facultad Nacional de Minas, Medellín.

40 Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum to Dean, May 27, 1946, Decanatura. Scholarship winners were to sign contracts promising to acquire their degrees within two years and upon return to Colombia, to lend their services to the government for at least four years. The scholarships themselves covered round-trip travel and included a stipend of 280 U.S. dollars a month.

41 Richmond Petroleum Company, “Programa para entrenamiento especializado de ingenieros colombianos en la industria del petróleo,” 1942, Secretaría. The company occasionally hired Escuela students for summer or vacation-time employment. See L.R. Morris to Peter Santamaría, November 18, 1942, Decanatura. In 1943, Shell Oil also was offering two scholarships to students with a command of English and willingness to work for the company upon return to the country.

42 Morris to Santamaría, November 7, 1942. During his visit to the Escuela, White apparently had been impressed by the students he met but found that very few were actually interested in pursuing petroleum engineering as a profession; most wanted to study mechanical or electrical engineering neither of which were yet taught in Colombia.

43 See Mora, Alberto Mayor, Etica, trabajo y productividad en Antioquia (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo, 1984) pp. 198–199.Google Scholar Among the program’s first generation of graduates, Numael Nieto served as Eco-petrol’s production supervisor and Bernardo Taborda as head of exploration geology in the 1950s.

44 Calderón, Bernardo, “Bodas de plata de la sección de geología y petróleos, 1946–1966”, Boletín Ademinas (1967), 37–53.Google Scholar The other five members of the Class of 1946 were Gustavo Aristizabal, Alfonso Madrigal, Darío Suescún, Diego Henao, and Angel Goéz (although the article contained no information on the latter).

45 Occupational information taken from Calderón, Bernardo, “Bodas de plata de la sección de geología y petróleos, 1946–1966”, Boletín ademinas (1967), 37–53.Google Scholar This tendency appears to have persisted up to recent times, as well.

46 Kline, Harvey, Energy Policy and the Colombian Elite: A Synthesis and Interpretation (Washington, D.C.: AHI Center for Hemisphere Studies, 1982), pp. 6–7, passim.Google Scholar

47 Interview with Bernardo Taborda in Bogotá, August 8, 1991.

48 Ibid., Also, letter from Taborda to author, August 3, 1993.

49 Ibid., Also, letter from Taborda to author, August 3, 1993.

50 Kline, Harvey, Energy Policy and the Colombian Elite: A Synthesis and Interpretation (Washington, D.C.: AHI Center for Hemisphere Studies, 1982), pp. 6–7, passim.Google Scholar

51 Botero, , “La conveniencia de una fusión,” Dyna (October-November 1944).Google Scholar

52 Interviews with Eduardo Gómez Reyes, former head of the geological and petroleum engineering department (1867–1970) in Medellín, August 20, 1987 and July 1991. Also, Suescún, Darío, “Breve historia de la mineria colombiana,” in Ciencia y tecnología en Colombia (Bogotá, 1976), pp. 1. 188–90;Google Scholar and, Ramos, Gabriel Poveda, minas y mineros de Antioquia (Medellín, 1981), pp. 163–64.Google Scholar According to Poveda, under director Darío Suescún in the 1960s, the Inventario Minero launched an ambitious program of exploration of territory and subsoil resources, greatly expanding knowledge of Colombian geology and mineral wealth and contributing to discovery of the great coal reserves of the Cerrejón region.

53 Information on the Coal Research Center gained from author’s 1991 visit to site as well as interview with Alejandro Chica, former head of the Escuela’s geological engineering department, in Medellín.

54 Information provided by Eduardo Gomez Reyes of the Facultad Nacional de Minas in Medellín; and, in his previously-cited “Cuarenta años…”, Dyna 1987.

55 Occupational information taken from Calderón, Bernardo, “Bodas de plata de la sección de geología y petróleos, 1946–1966”, Boletín Ademinas (1967), 37–53.Google Scholar