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Transportation Modernization and Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth Century Colombia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Hernán Horna
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Prior to the introduction of the steamboat on the Magdalena River during the 1820s, reaching Bogotá from the Caribbean coast required a two to five month journey. This trip included travelling in bongos (rafts) and traversing mountains on the backs of both men and beasts. Bogotá was the most isolated of all the Spanish viceregal capitals. No other viceroyalty was so dependent on river transportation as New Granada (now Colombia). Even by the late nineteenth century, travel within the country remained dreadfully difficult. In the best of weather most Colombian roads were barely suitable for mule traffic, and, whenever tropical rains poured, human carriers undertook the burden of transportation despite the fact that Colombia, following the newest American and European trends in transport innovations, built railroads to the point where they were the nation's leading technological import during the nineteenth century. The apparent futility of this modernization effort has led many scholars, both Colombians and non-Colombians, to conclude that Colombia moved directly from the age of the mule to that of the airplane.

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Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , May 1982 , pp. 33 - 54
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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31 The most consequential deviation from Cisneros' blueprints was the construction of the four-kilometre tunnel of La Quiebra, sixty kilometres east of Medellín. The original blueprints provided for building the railroad across the Central cordillera at a maximum gradient of six degrees. See Alejandro, López, ‘El paso de La Quiebra,’ El Montañés (Medellín), II, Nos. 19–20 (06–07 1899), pp. 294–306;Google Scholar and ‘La Perforación del tunel de La Quiebra,’ El Correo (Medellín), 08 19, 1961, 11.Google Scholar

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71 For an example of this perspective, see McGreevey, An Economic History of Colombia, 1845–1930. For a critique of this general problem, see James, Petras, Politics and Social Structure in Latin America (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1970), p. 363.Google Scholar

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78 It has been noted that the Bolivian tin industry which originated in the late nineteenth century was heavily owned by Bolivian entrepreneurial elites; however, their companies operating the tin production were chartered in the US, Switzerland, Chile and Argentina until 1952. See Walter, Gómez, ‘Bolivia: Problems of a Preand Postrevolutionary Export Economy,’ The Journal of Developing Areas, 10, No. 4 (07, 1976), p. 474.Google Scholar

79 Cisneros, , Reglamentos para la organ ización de los trabajos de construcción y del servicio de explotación de ferrocarriles (Bogotá, Imprenta de ‘La Luz,’ 1884), pp. 1–118.Google Scholar See also the following publications by Cisneros, , ‘Réplicas,’ La Industria (Bogotá), 07 11, 1884, 546–9;Google Scholar ‘Ferrocarril del Cauca,’ La Industria (Bogotá), 07 11, 1884, 549–50;Google Scholar ‘El ferrocarril de Antioquia,’ Diario Oficial (Bogotá), 06 22, 1894, 595.Google Scholar In addition to Cisneros' Colombian publications on railroad construction and administration, he published other works abroad which were frequently quoted or partly translated into Spanish. See Cisneros, , Ferrocarriles de via estrecha (New York, Imprenta de Hallet y Breen, 1872);Google Scholar and Cisneros, , ‘Railroads in Peru,’ Van Nostrand's Magazine, 6 (02, 1872), pp. 589–92.Google Scholar

80 Compañía del ferrocarril de Amagá: Reglamentos por distados por el consejo administrativo de la compañía y aprobado por el gobierno nacional (Medellín, Tipografía del Externado, 1912), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

81 Horna, , ‘Francisco Javier Cisneros: A Pioneer in Transportation and Economic Development in Colombia,’ pp. 125, 303–4;Google Scholar and Neal, , ‘The Pacific Age Comes to Colombia: The Construction of the Cali–Buenaventura Route, 1874–1882,’ p. 235.Google Scholar

82 United States Consul Victor Vifquain to Assistant Secretary of State James Porter, December 15, 1886; Report No. 27, Consular Despatches-Barranquilla (6 Vols.), III.

83 Cisneros, , Ferrocarriles (Bogotá: [no publisher], 1883), p. 28.Google Scholar

84 Safford, , The Ideal of the Practical: Colombia's Struggle to Form a Technical Elite, p. 211.Google Scholar

85 Julio, H. Palacio, Historia de mi vida (Bogotá, Editorial Antena, S.A., 1942), p. 154.Google Scholar

86 For a survey and analysis of the historiography on the role of the entrepreneur in the process of economic development, see James, H. Soltow, ‘The Entrepreneur in Economic History,’ The American Economic Review, 58, No. 2 (05, 1968), pp. 84–92.Google Scholar The role played by Latin American entrepreneurs in the region's economic development still awaits an historical assessment. For an effort in this direction, see Anyda, Marchant, Viscount Mariá and the Empire of Brazil (Berkeley, The University of California Press, 1965).Google Scholar

87 Horna, , ‘La variedad de las actividades de Francisco Javier Cisneros,’ Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades, pp. 195–212;Google Scholar and Compilación de los principales documentos sobre la Sociedad Agrícola y de Inmigración (Medellín, Imprenta Oficial, 1921), pp. 1–146.Google Scholar

88 ‘Una visita a la ferrería de La Pradera,’ La Industria (Bogotá), 09 5, 1884, 603–5;Google Scholar ‘Ferrocarril de Girardot,’ Diario Oficial (Bogotá), 07 31, 1886, 174–6;Google Scholar and ‘Ferrocarril de La Sabana,’ El Sol (Bogotá), 06 29, 1887, 38.Google Scholar

89 United States Vice Consul Victor Vifquain to Assistant Secretary of State James Porter, December 15, 1886, Report No. 27, Consular Despatches-Barranquilla (6 Vols.), III; and ‘Ferrocarril de Girardot-Tocaima,’ Papel Periódico Ilustrado (Bogotá), 03 1, 1884, 190–4.Google Scholar

90 Parliamentary Papers: Report on the Railways of Colombia, p. 1.Google Scholar

91 For a study which touches on the role of the transportation system designed by Cisneros until the 1930s, see Bernhart, D. S., ‘Colombian Transport and the Reforms of 1931: An Evaluation,’ HAHR, 38 (02, 1958), pp. 1–24.Google Scholar

92 Cisneros, , ‘Canal de Panamá,’ La Industria (Bogotá), 06 28, 1884, 127;Google Scholar and Arciniegas, , Latinoamérica: El continente de siete colores, pp. 183–5.Google Scholar