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Labor Acquisition and Social Conflict on the Colombian Frontier, 1850–1936*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Catherine LeGrand
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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, aster 1850 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.

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Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 27 - 49
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

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 1930. The archive consists of 24 volumes labelled Bienes Nacionales deposited in the Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria (INCORA) and 78 volumes designated Ministerio de Industrias: Correspondencia de Baldíos located in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Bogotá.

2 Important works on Colombian economic growth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries include Fernando Botero and Alvaro, Guzmán Barney, ‘El Enclave Agrícola en la Zona Bananera de Santa Marta’, Cuadernos Colombianos, no. 11 (1977), pp. 309–90;Google ScholarRoger, Brew, ‘The Economic Development of Antioquia, 1810–1920’ (D. Phil.Diss., Oxford University, 1975);Google ScholarOrlando Fals Borda, Capitalismo, Hacienda y Poblamiento en la Costa Atlántica (Bogotá, 1976);Google ScholarWilliam, Paul McGreevey, An Economic History of Colombia (Cambridge, England, 1971);Google ScholarJosé, Antonio Ocampo, ‘Las Exportaciones Colombianas en el Siglo XIX’, Desarrollo y Sociedad, no. 4 (07 1980), pp. 165–226;Google ScholarJosé, Antonio Ocampo, ‘El Mercado Mundial del Café y El Surgimiento de Colombia Como un País Cafetera’, Desarrollo y Sociedad, no. 5 (Enero, 1981), pp. 127–56;Google ScholarMarco, Palacios, Coffee in Colombia, 1810–1970 (Cambridge, England, 1980);Google ScholarJames, Parsons, Antioqueño Colonization in Western Colombia (Berkeley, 1949);Google Scholar and Alvaro, Tirado Mejía, Introducción a la Historia Económica de Colombia (3rd ed., Bogotá, 1974).Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Alain, Y. Dessaint, ‘Effects of the Hacienda and Plantation Systems on the Guatemalan Indians’, América Indigena, no. 22 (10 1962), pp. 323–51;Google ScholarPeter, Klaren, ‘The Social and Economic Consequences of Modernization in the Peruvian Sugar Industry, 1870–1930’, in Kenneth, Duncan and Ian, Rutledge (ed,), Land and Labour in Latin America. (Cambridge, England, 1977), pp. 229–52;Google ScholarPeter, Blanchard, ‘The Recruitment of Workers in the Peruvian Sierra at the Turn of the Century: The Engancbe System’, Inter-American Economic Affairs, vol. 33, no. 3 (Winter, 1979), pp. 63–84;Google Scholar and Michael, J. Gonzales, ‘Capitalist Agriculture and Labor Contracting in Northern Peru, 1880–1905’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 12, part 2 (1980), pp. 291–315.Google Scholar

4 See Felipe, Pérez, Geografía Física i Polílica de los Estados Unidos de Colombia, cited in Colombia, Ministerio de Hacienda, Memoria al Congreso Nacional (1873), p. 65Google Scholar and ‘Informe del Sr. Visitador Fiscal de Ferrocariles….8/12/1915,’ reprinted in Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso Nacional (1931), vol. 5, pp. 444–5.Google Scholar

5 This map was developed by the author from data contained in the Public Land Archives and in Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso (1931), vol. 5, pp. 249–410. Given the difficulty of determining municipal boundaries and possible errors in the data itself, the map should be regarded as but a rough approximation.Google Scholar

6 The evolution of rural economy and society in the Andean highlands of Colombia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is an important subject on which little research has been done. For some fragmentary information see McGreevey, op. cit.; Glenn, Curry, ‘The Disappearance of the Resguardos Indigenas of Cundinamarca, Colombia, 1800–1863’ (Ph. D. Diss., Vanderbilt Univ., 1981);Google ScholarOrlando Fals Borda, El Hombre y La Tierra en Boyacá (Bogotá, 1972);Google ScholarDavid, Church Johnson, ‘Social and Economic Change in Nineteenth Century Santander, Colombia’ (Ph.D. Diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1975);Google Scholar and Fernando, López G., Evolución de la Tenencia de la Tierra en una Zona Minifundista, Centro de Estudios Sobre el Desarrollo Económico (CEDE), Facultad de Economía, Universidad de Los Andes, Doc. No. 029 (Bogotá, 1975).Google Scholar

7 Much work has been done on these migrations for the Antioqueño colonization area of southern Antioquia, northern Tolima, Caldas, and northern Valle. See, for example, Brew op. cit.; Parsons op cit.; and Alvaro, López Toro, Migración y Cambio Social en Antioquia Durante el Siglo Diez y Nueve (Bogotá, 1970).Google Scholar The Public Land Archives provide evidence that the colonization process was, in fact, much wider in geographical scope. Scattered information in regional studies supports this finding. See, for example, Jorge, Villegas, ‘La Colonización de Vertiente del Siglo XIX en Colombia,’ Estudios Rurales Latinoamericanos, vol 1, no. 2 (05–08, 1978), pp. 101–47;Google ScholarOrlando Fals Borda, Mompox y Loba: Historia Doble de la Costa, vols. 1 and 2 (Bogotá, 1979, 1981);Google Scholar and Carlos, Enrique Pardo, ‘Cundinamarca: Hacienda Cafetera y Conflictos Agrarios’ (Tésis de Grado, Universidad de los Andes, 1981).Google Scholar

8 See Archivo Histórico Nacional, Ministerio de Industrias: Correspondencia de Baldíos (henceforth ANCB), volume 6 folio 99, 5. 49 f. 202, 5. 50 fs, 258, 424, and 507, 5. 54 fs. 203 and 553–4, 5. 8 f. 603, 5. 75 f. 356, and 5. 75 f. 371.Google Scholar

9 This information is drawn from a municipal survey of the extent and usage of the public domain conducted by the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture in 1916. The returns are to be found in ANCB, volumes 32, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48 and 67.

10 See Colombia, Archivo del Congreso Nacional (henceforth AC), ‘Proyectos Pendientes de 1819 (Cámara)’, volume, folio 16; AC, ‘Leyes Autógrafas de 1917’, V. 6 f. 153 and ANCB, v. 43 f. 172. What is not as yet clear is how much produce the colonos: contributed to Colombian exports above and beyond their supply of domestic markets.Google Scholar

11 ANCB, v. 26 f. 384, V. 33 fs. 48 and 246, v. 34 f. 366, V. f. 273, V. 46 f. 166, v. 47 f. 302, v. 58 f. 364, v 368 f. 36, v. 70f. v.75 fs. 229 and 295, v. 76 f. 113; and Colombia, Ministerio de Agricultura, Memoria al Congreso Nacional (1922, p. 7)Google Scholar

12 See ANCB, v. 23 f. 24, V. 24 f. v. f. 359, v. 39 f. 232, v. 41 f. 254, and v. 44 f. 283. Also, Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso Nacional (1934), pp. 379–81.Google Scholar

13 For information on frontier caseríos and their formation, see Demetrio, Daniel Henríquez, Monografía Completa de la Zona Bananera (Santa Marta, 1939);Google ScholarUrbano, Campo, Urbanización y Violencia en el Valle (Bogotá, 1980), pp. 17–55;Google Scholar Colombia, Dept. de Antioquia, Informe del Secretario de Gobierno (1930), p. 264;Google Scholar Colombia, Dept. de Tolima, Informe del Secretario de Gobierno (1933), p. 31; and ANCB, V. 13 f. 48, V. 20 f. 21, V. 22 f. V. 349 f. 138, v. 43 f. 497, v. f.64 f. 508, and v. 77 f. 385.Google Scholar

14 See Boletin Industrial, 8 May 1875; El Agricultor, 11. no. 5(6 10 1879), p. 77;Google Scholaribid. 11, no. 7 (8 December 1879), p. 109; ibid. IV, no. 6 (Novmber 1882), p. 516; and ibid. XIV, no. 4 (05 1898), p. 213;Google Scholar and Fabio, Zambrano et al. , ‘Colombia: Desarrollo Agrícola. 1900–1930’ (Tésis de Grado, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, 1974), chapter z.Google Scholar

15 No study as yet exists of the Colombian engancbe system. Scattered references indicate that owners of coffee estates in the eastern and central cordilleras sent labour contractors to the eastern highlands to hire seasonal workers for the twice-yearly coffee harvests. Much of this work force seems to have been composed of women and children in the late nineteenth century. See Palacios, op. cit., pp. 71, 89;Google Scholar and Malcolm Deas, ‘A Colombian Coffee Estatc: Santa Barbara, Cundinamarca, 1870–1912’, in Kenneth, Duncan and Ian, Rutledge, op. cit., pp. 269–98.Google Scholar For information on women in Colombian agriculture, see Magdalena, León de Leal and Carmen, Diana Deere (eds.), Mujer y Capitalismo Agrario (Bogotá, 1980).Google Scholar

16 By Colombian law, every applicant for a land grant had to hire a surveyor to measure and map the territory. For a parcel less than 50 hectares in size, the surveyor's fee generally exceeded the value of the cultivated land. See ANCB, V. 4 f. 71 and v. 26 f. 713; and AC, ‘Leyes Autógrafas de 1917, V. 6 fs. 148–9.Google Scholar

17 A compilation of the most important laws, legislative enactments and resolutions concerning the titling of public lands for the years 1821 through 1931 was published in Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso (1931), vol. 3.Google Scholar

18 In the area of Antioqueno migrations in the central cordillera, 21 planned frontier settlements called poblaciones received corporate land grants from the Colombian government in the years 1830 through 1910. 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 attracted a great deal of attention from historians. Indeed, the Antioqueño settlements gave birth to the myth of the ‘democratic frontier’ that runs through much of the English language literature on Colombia (see Parsons op. cit.,; and Everett, Hagen, ‘How Economic Growth Begins: A Theory of Social Change’, The Journal of Social Issues, vol. 19, no 1 (01 1963), pp. 20–34).Google Scholar More recent studies of the Antioqueño area suggest that the formation of these settlements responded to the real estate development interests of Antioqueño merchants and landowners, who both stimulated the colonization movement and profited from it. Even within the Antioqueño area, many large estates took form through the dispossession of settlers, as described in this paper. The best of recent revisionist writings on the Antioqueño settlement movement include Brew op. cit.; Palacios, , op. cit., pp. 161–97;Google ScholarJosé, Fernando Ocampo, Dominio de Clase en la Ciudad Colombiana (Medellín, 1972);Google ScholarKeith, H. Christie, ‘Antioqueño Colonization in Western Colombia: A Reappraisal’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 8, no. 2 (05 1978), pp. 260–83;Google Scholar and Joel, Darío Sánchez Reyes, ‘Colonización Quindiana: Proceso Político-Ideológico de la Conformación del Campesinado Cafetero, 1840–1920’ (M.A. thesis, Universidad de Los Andes, 1982).Google Scholar

19 This information is drawn from the list of all government land grants awarded to individuals, settlements, and companies for the years 1821–1931 found in Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso (1931), vol. 5, pp. 249–410. More than 70 per cent of the total amount of land granted in this period went into properties greater than 1,000 hectares in size.Google Scholar

20 For theoretical discussions of this point see Evsey, D. Domar, ‘The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis’, Journal of Economic History, vol. 30, nos. 1–2 (1970), pp. 18–32;Google ScholarMartin, Katzman, ‘The Brazilian Frontier in Comparative Perspective’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 17, no. 3 (07 1975), pp. 2745;Google Scholar 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, 1976).Google Scholar 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 1882: ‘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 Autógrafasde 1882 (Senado),’ v. 2 fs. 250, 266.) A letter sent from the Municipal Council of Espejuelo (Cauca) in 1907 was even more explicit: ‘In Cauca, the majority of the bacendados have 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. 177).Google Scholar

21 The various forms of usurpation, their geographical distribution and extent are described in Catherine, LeGrand, ‘From Public Lands into Private Properties: Landholding and Rural Conflict in Colombia, 1850–1936’ (Ph.D. Diss., Stanford University, 1980), pp. 116–61. 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. f. 246, V. 72 f. 189, and v. 76 f. 113. 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 partición).Google Scholar

22 Scores of colono petitions collected in ANCB describe such meetings. See, for example, ANCB v. 11f. 190, V. 14 f. 307, and V. 15 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 Antioqueño colonization region (see Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria, Bienes Nacionales), but unfortunately the documentation is sparse.

24 Perhaps because historians of Colombia have yet to find the hacienda records 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. 55–120;Google ScholarDeas, , op cit., pp. 269–98;Google ScholarMariano, Arango, Café e Industria, 1870–1930 (Bogotá, 1977), pp. 123–72;Google ScholarAbsalón, Machado, El Café: De La Aparcería al Capitalismo (Bogotá, 1977);Google ScholarLuís, Fernando Sierra, El Tobaco en la Economía Colombiana del Siglo XIX (Bogotá, 1961), pp. 123–63;Google Scholar 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, 1972), pp. 221–31. There were three major types of tenants in Colombia: (i) arrendatarios (sometimes also known as agregados, terrazgueros or concertados); (2) aparceros; and (3) colonos a partido. Arrendatarios were 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 Cundinamarca and southern Tolima. In the coffee areas, arrendatarios were often paid for their labor, but at a salary considerably lower than that of day workers. Some of the more prosperous arrendatarios hired day laborers to perform their labor obligations, so as to devote themselves entirely to their own fields. In other coffee regions, for example Santander, Antioquia, and Caldas, arrendatarios were few, and aparcería or sharecropping was the dominant form of tenancy. On the cattle ranches, yet a third form prevailed. Tenants known as colonos a partido were allowed to clear a parcel of land for their own use on the undeveloped outskirts of the property on the condition that they turn it over to the landlord planted in pasture grasses after two or three years. On ranches and, to a lesser extent on coffee estates, colonos a partido were used to expand the productive area of the haciendas. Almost all large rural enterprises also employed some wage laborers for specific tasks: they were used on coffee estates at harvest time, on cattle ranches as cowboys, and on the United Fruit Company banana plantations where some settlers of public lands also contracted for a wage to work part-time in the banana groves. (See Catherine LeGrand, ‘Colombian Transformations: Peasants and Wage Laborers in the Santa Marts Banana Zone’, Journal of Peasant Studies (forthcoming).)Google Scholar

25 The text of these laws is to be found in Colombia, Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso, (1931), vol. 3, pp. 121–4 and 149–51. In the early nineteenth century the Colombian government used the public domain primarily as a fiscal resource to support 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 Antioqueño colonization area. The reform of public land policy in the 1870s and 1880s 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 título de cultivador’ were large farmers and cattlemen.Google Scholar

26 This interpretation of settler ideology is drawn from the numerous colono petitions in ANCB which constantly refer to the laws of 1874 and i882 in their protests against land entrepreneurs.

27 See ANCB, volumes 1–78. These petitions date from 1874 through 1931. It is said that colono petitions from later years are deposited in the archive of the Colombian Agrarian Reform Institute (INCORA) in Bogotá.

28 See, for example, William, B. Taylor, Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford, 1972);Google Scholar and Eric, J. Hobsbawm, ‘Peasant Land Occupations’, Past and Present, no. 62 (02 1974), pp. 120–152.Google Scholar

29 For examples of confrontations between settlers and land entrepreneurs see ANCB, v. 11 f. 190, v. 12 fs. 245 and 286, v. 14f. 307, V. 15 fs. 246, 342, and 378, V. 18 fs. 11 and 468, v. 20f. 130, v. 23 f. 31, v. 27fs. 125 and 132, v. 28fs. 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. 55f. 477bis.

30 Boletín de la Oficina General de Trabajo, v, nos. 39–44 (Enero—Junio 1934), pp. 152–4. For other examples of lawyers helping settlers, see ANCB, v. 10 f. 100, v. 14 fs. 342 and 347, v. 28 f. 341, V. 34 f. 335, V. 50 f. 363, V. 62 f. 282, v. 63 fs. and 174, V. 64 f. 63, and v. 65 fs. 233 and 471.Google Scholar

31 ANCB, v. 55f. 477bis. For other cases see ANCB, V. 10 f. 99, V. f. 483, and v. 44 f. 435bis.

32 See ANCB, v. 9 fs. 76 and 86, v. 11sf. 111, v. 15 f. 267, v. 16 f. 69, V. 25 f. 41, V. 28 f. 122, v. 29 fs. 633 and 774, V. 32 f. 451, V. f. 503, V. f. 591, V. 39 f. 199, v. f. 283, v. 44 f. 390, V. f. 629, V. 46 f. 235, V. f. 132 and v. 57f. 50.

33 This map was drawn by the author from the colono petitions 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 mote than a thousand peasant families took part. Major regions of ongoing disputes included Belalcazar (Caldas), San Antonio and Prado (Tolima), and Caparrapí and Pandi (Cundinamarca). I have in my possession detailed summaries of each confrontation which I would be happy to share with interested researchers.

34 Sec Parsons op. cit.; Palacios, , op. cit., pp. 161–97; and Sánchez Reyes, op. cit.Google Scholar

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 1870–1915 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 (1931), vol. 3, p. 190;Google Scholar 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 714, v. 36 f. 382, v. f. 66, 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.Google Scholar

36 The most informative works on the 1920s and 1930 in Colombia include Fred Rippy, J., The Capitalists and Colombia (N.Y., 1931);Google ScholarMiguel, Urrutia, The Development of the Colombian Labor Movement (New Haven, 1969);Google ScholarHugo, López C., ‘La Inflación en Colombia en la Década de Los Veintes’, Cuadernos Colombianos, no. 5 (1975 ), pp. 41–140;Google ScholarJesús, Antonio Bejarano, El Régimen Arario de la Economía Exportadora a la Economia Industrial (Bogotá, 1979);Google Scholar and José Antonio Ocampo and Santiago Montenegro, ‘La Crisis Mundial de los Años Treinta en Colombia’ (mimeographed). The connection between these changes and the emergence of the agrarian movements of the 1930s is explored in LeGrand, , ‘From Public Lands’, pp. 284–320.Google Scholar

37 See ‘Sentencia de la Salade Negocios Generales de la Corte Suprema’ (15 April 1926), in Colombia, Corte Suprema, Jurisprudencia, vol. 3, p. 357. The shift in public land policy in the 1910s 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.Google Scholar

38 Material on these squatter movements can be found in the Informes of the departmental governors and gubernatorial secretaries for the early 1930s; in the Memorias of the Ministry of Industries (1928–36); in the Boletin de la Oficina General de Trabajo; and in the newspapers Claridad, El Bolshevique and Tierra. See also Bejarano op. cit., Gloria, Gaitán de Valencia, Colombia: La Lucha Par la Tierra en la Década del Treinta (Bogotá, 1976);Google ScholarGonzalo, Sánchez, Las Ligas Campesinas en Colombia (Bogotá, 1977);Google ScholarVictor, Negrete B., Qrigen de las Luchas Agrarias en Córdoba (Montería, 1981); Colombia,Google ScholarInformes Que Rindió a la Honorable Cámara de Representantes la Comisión Designada Para Visitar la Zona Bananera del Magdalena (Bogotá, 1935);Google Scholar and Pedro, Padilla B. and Alberto, Llanos O., ‘Proyecto Magdalena 4: Zona Bananera,’ Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria (09 1964) (mimeo).Google Scholar

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 P1CC 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 see Pardo op. cit.; Sanchez op. cit.; Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Colombia, Treinia Años de Lucba del Partido Comunista de Colombia (Bogotá, n.d.);Google ScholarMedófilo, Medina, Historia del Partido Comunista de Colombia, v. 1 (Bogotá, 1980);Google ScholarMichael, J imenez, ‘Red Viota: Economic Change and Class Conflict in a Colombian Coffee Municipality, 1920–1940’ (Ph.D. Diss. in progress, Harvard University);Google Scholar and LeGrand, , ‘From Public Lands’, pp. 354–79.Google Scholar

40 Information on the Colonia Agrícola de Sumapaz can be found in Colombia, Informe del Procurador General de la Nación (1932), pp. 39–43; Departamento de Cundinamarca,Google ScholarInforme del Secretario de Gobierno (1931), pp. 31–4;Google Scholar Departamento de Tolima, Informe del Secretario de Gobierno (1932), pp. 34–7; Academia Colombiana de Historia,Google ScholarArchivo del Presidente Enrique Olaya Herrera, box 2, folder 37, f. 8: and box, folder 21,Google Scholar‘Informe del Jefe de la Sección de Justicia,’ pp. 4–10;Google Scholar and Claridad (1932–1937), all issues.Google Scholar

41 See Boletin de la Oficina General de Trabajo, iv, nos. 33–5 (07–09 1933), p. 1333;Google Scholar Colombia, Dept. de Tolima, Informe del Secretario de Gobierno (1932), pp. 31–4;Google Scholar Colombia, Dept. de Cundinamarca, Mensaje del Gobernador (1933), p. 10;Google Scholar Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso (1931), vol. 1, p. 3;Google Scholar and Ministerio de Industrias, Memoria al Congreso (1934), p. 337.Google Scholar

42 For the text of Law 200 and its antecedents see AC, Leyes Autógrafas de 19356, v. 18, fs. 1–345.Google ScholarMarco, A. Martínez (ed), Régimen de Tierras en Colombia (Antecedentes de la Ley 200 de 1936 ‘Sabre Régimen de Tierras’ y Decretos Reglamentarios), (2 vols, Bogotá, 1939)Google Scholar is a useful compilation of all offcial documents relating to Law 200 including drafts of the bill, Congressional debates, and committee reports. For interpretations of the law and its effects, see Darío, Mesa, El Problema Agrario en Colombia, 1920–1960 (Bogotá, 1972);Google ScholarVictor, Moncayo C., ‘La Ley y el Problema Agrario en Colombia,’ Ideología y Sociedad, nos. 14–15 (07–12 1975), pp. 7–46;Google Scholar and Sánchez, , 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 1936–48 has yet to be seriously investigated. This period is of obvious importance for understanding the origins of La Violencia and, more specifically, connections between the agrarian conflicts of the 1930s and those of the 1940S and 1950s.Google Scholar

43 See Campo, op. cit.; ‘Contra la Represión Oficial en Cimitarra’, Cuadernos Politicos, no. 10 (1976), pp. 1–16;Google ScholarLuís, F. Bottia G. and Rudolfo, Escobedo D., ‘La Violencia en el Sur del Departmento de Córdoba’ (Tésis de Grado, Universidad de Los Andes, 1979);Google Scholar and Ramírez Tobón, W., ‘La Guerrilla Rural en Colombia: Una Vía Hacia la Colonización Armada?’, Estudios Rurales Latinoamericanos, vol. 4, no. 2 (05–08 1981), pp. 199–210.Google Scholar

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 and Land Use (Baltimore, 1952), pp. 32–3.Google Scholar References to similar forms of non-Indian community landholdings appear in the literature on Cuba, Venezuela, and Brazil. See Ramiro, Guerra y Sánchez, Sugar and Society in the Caribbean: An Economic History of Cuban Agriculture (New Haven, 1964), pp. 38–40, 48;Google ScholarWilliam, Roseberry, ‘Peasants as Proletarians’, Critique of Anthropology, no. 11 (1978), p. 11;Google ScholarLynn Smith, T., Brazil: People and Institutions (3rd ed., Baton Rouge, 1963), pp. 261–3;Google Scholar and Lynn Smith, T., ‘Notes on Population and SoFial Organization in the Central Portion of the Sāo Francisco Valley’, Inter-American Economic Affairs, no.1 (1947), pp. 50–2.Google Scholar