FIVE

MUTUAL AID, PUBLIC VIOLENCE, AND THE REGENERATION

THE SO-CALLED RADICAL OLYMPUS ESTABLISHED IN 1863 BEGAN to collapse from the start. Obandista, mosquerista, and Radical cooperation did not survive the civil war. The federalist system of the Constitutions of 1858 and 1863 ensured that the increasingly divided partisan camps would engender near-constant military struggles. Shifting partisan alliances fostered endemic conflict, including major civil wars in 1876-77 and 1884–85. These alliances culminated in an Independent Liberal/Conservative coalition that spawned the Regeneration government of Rafael Núñez in 1886. The Constitution of 1886 strengthened the Colombian state and restored a centralist system of government to the country, with a strong executive, and numerous other “conservative” changes, notably a formal recognition of the Catholic church’s role in Colombian society. Yet, the new government could not halt partisan violence, which included the War of the 1000 Days (1899–1902), the worst civil war of the century.

Economic conditions were equally unstable. The national economy recovered only slowly from the 1859–62 civil war. The collapse of tobacco prices in the 1870s left the government with serious fiscal problems. Export diversification sparked some hope that the policy trajectories of the liberal period might prove appropriate, but neither quina (from which quinine was extracted) nor indigo nor coffee seemed able to support a stable export economy. Various presidents who had earlier supported the “dejad hacer” (laissez-faire) school now experimented with interventionist policies, though with little success. The Regeneration government, by contrast, assumed a decidedly interventionist stance in the realm of political economy. Again, the success of the Regeneration in sponsoring economic development was notable only in the long term.

A variety of craftsmen’s organizations gave evidence of the increased differentiation of the artisan class in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. Mutual aid societies, representing the efforts of artisan elites to look after their own material and social welfare, appeared in the early 1870s. Other artisans were left largely to their own fortunes, which, during periods of economic stress, contributed to outbursts of direct action in anger at socioeconomic injustices. In the political arena, the pre-election mobilizations that had been widespread in the reform era continued, but even these became less frequent as the years passed. Absent completely were large organizations such as the Union Society, which required a cohesive artisan class. This transitionary period saw old patterns of mobilization characteristic of a more homogeneous artisan experience give way to public expressions of a fractured and divided artisan class.

The Industrial Society of Artisans

The Sociedad Industrial de Artesanos (Industrial Society of Artisans) promptly filled the institutional vacuum created by the collapse of the Union Society.¹ The Industrial Society sought the non-political objectives of the Sociedad Unión, including industrial education, efforts to bring new technology to the country, and government support for industries.² Many of the Union’s activists, including Ambrosio López, Felipe Roa Ramírez, Fruto Ramírez, Rafael Tapias, and Ramón Ordóñez Torres—now the directors of the Industrial Society—had previously been alienated from one another by political issues, but had few qualms about cooperating in pursuit of goals that would enhance their economic positions.

The Industrial Society operated during the presidential administration of Eustorgio Salgar (1870–72), who undertook the first steps toward an interventionist policy on the behalf of industrial development, measures normally associated with the regimes of Núñez. Indeed, as Helen Delpar points out, few Radicals, least of all Salgar and his successor, Manuel Murillo Toro, continued to support the economic liberalism of the 1850s and 1860s. In many regards, the pro-industrial policies of the Regeneration germinated in these administrations.³

These patterns became apparent as Luis B. Valenzuela criticized public officials in 1870 for their seeming lack of concern for the nation’s poor industrial condition. The Sociedad Industrial seconded this allegation and pledged to pressure public officials to support industrial development. Representatives of the Society met with newly elected President Salgar in April of that year.⁴ Society spokesman Rafael Tapias reminded the president of the craftsmen’s repeated petitions for tariff protection, urging that he take steps to redress the plight of the country’s industrial classes. Salgar reportedly told the craftsmen that he would do what he could to bring about better industrial conditions, a promise kept in part when the government announced plans for an industrial exposition, which Tapias claimed to be a result of the Society’s pressures.⁵ The Society urged craftsmen to prepare pieces for display.⁶

Reactions by local craftsmen to the invitation were not uniformly positive. An open letter by “many artisans” suggested that systematic government protection would have been better than periodic prizes for good craftsmanship. It pointed out that the exhibition was intended primarily for producers of agricultural exports and not tradesmen, who could not afford the time required to prepare an exhibit. Moreover, the craftsmen alleged that many of the sponsors of the exhibition were personally guilty of seeking low costs rather than high quality when they made purchases locally, a practice that rewarded “semi-artisans” and not skilled craftsmen.⁷

The Salgar administration helped establish an institute for artisan industrial education, a project that later matured under the Regeneration. The National University’s Instituto de Artes i Oficios opened in March 1872, with Salgar present. The Institute offered classes in geometry and chemistry, which some artisans thought should be supplemented with desperately needed industrial training. Seven hundred persons received various types of education in the next three years, even while protests were raised in favor of more practical training: “it is necessary to found model shops, a machine gallery, and an industrial museum.”⁸ An 1872 petition suggested that Colombian workers wanted to improve their skills but simply lacked the opportunity, and that foreign engineers and masters should be brought to Colombia from Europe to train native craftsmen, a move they claimed would improve not only industry but also public order.⁹

President Murillo followed Salgar’s interventionist footsteps by ordering the establishment of a school of arts and trades in 1874. Such a school was not, however, established until the Núñez administration, when two executive decrees enabled several Colombian craftsmen to train with European masters. These craftsmen were, according to the original plan, then to train Colombians in three model shops,¹⁰ although only one was ever established. Several craftsmen, including José Leocadio Camacho, selected five youths to be trained abroad in industrial arts.¹¹ The School of Arts and Trades, an outgrowth of these programs, began operation in 1891. Six years later the school had exposed 621 students to various sorts of industrial training.¹² President Rafael Reyes extended this program throughout the nation between 1905 and 1908, but his focus was geared more toward general education than industrial training.

Murillo’s meeting with a commission from the Sociedad Industrial produced markedly different results than had Salgar’s. The Society’s spokesman, Felipe S. Orjuela, an ex-Alianza member, presented the craftsmen’s wishes for active governmental support, commenting favorably upon Murillo’s intention to provide credit for industrial ventures. (Murillo had proposed the reduction of the nation’s debt burden by recognizing the real value of government bonds as opposed to their nominal value, with the balance to support industrial projects—such as railroad development.) Murillo saluted the Society’s acceptance of his plan, noting that the high cost of capital was indeed hurting the country’s laborers. The president then sparked a heated public debate by relating that many Colombian capitalists had proven unwilling to invest in industrial development, thus forcing the government to take up the slack.¹³

This policy departed markedly from Murillo’s earlier attitudes. Murillo, like his gólgota counterparts of the 1850s, had believed that the power of the market, especially the agro-export sector, could sustain the nation’s economy. Murillo now supported the construction of the Railroad of the North to enhance regional development, especially that of Santander.¹⁴ El Tradicionista, founded by Conservative Miguel Antonio Caro, expressed outrage at Murillo’s comments. The paper charged that the changed credit rules were economically unprincipled and smacked of “socialist” economic policies. Moreover, according to Caro, Murillo’s pro-labor stance allegedly sponsored “class antagonisms” comparable to those of the 1850s.¹⁵ The Industrial Society denied that it had espoused “socialism” in its meeting with the president, while it maintained its public support for the president, especially his plans to push completion of the Railroad of the North, because it would expand the nation’s commercial network.¹⁶

Even while the Industrial Society seems to have become an important agency in support of governmental industrial policies, it disappeared from public view in 1872. The reasons for this are unclear. Many of the group’s members soon became prominent in various mutual aid societies, the first of which was formed shortly after the April encounter with Murillo, which suggests a transfer of organizational energies to the new group. The Society’s role in the shift in Radical industrial policy, in any case, merits recognition, especially in light of the artisan relationship with the Regeneration administration.

Mutual Aid Societies

Latin American mutual aid societies are not well studied. Moreover, historians’ assessments of these widespread organizations vary widely. Gerald Greenfield and Sheldon Maram, in their authoritative Latin American Labor Organizations, relate that nineteenth-century mutualist groups paralleled earlier craft bodies that “provided social and cultural benefits for their members.” They did not, however, have a “strong sense of class consciousness vis-à-vis either capitalists or the state, nor did they express a sense of solidarity with a more broadly viewed working class.”¹⁷ Charles Bergquist offers a somewhat more sympathetic view, especially insofar as members of mutual aid societies “learned” how to protect themselves “from natural and man-made forces beyond their control.” Bergquist, though, downplays the valuable role of artisans in Chilean mutual aid societies, suggesting that wage laborers brought class consciousness to them.¹⁸ While many historians cite mutual aid societies as some of the initial mobilizations of wage laborers,¹⁹ most tend to dismiss mutual aid groups as relatively unimportant, often linking them to church social welfare programs or elite political movements with little worker autonomy.²⁰

While these are meritorious positions, much of the literature on mutual aid bodies fails to appreciate the collective efforts of craftsmen and others to provide security in the midst of changing economic and social conditions through mutual aid organizations.²¹ Mutual aid societies helped artisans, immigrants, urban wage laborers, and lower- and middle-sector persons to look after interests of crucial importance to their collective welfare. Almost all such institutions collected funds to help members in times of sickness and to help with burial expenses. Many undertook educational endeavors or sponsored lecture series. A caja de ahorros (savings bank) was a common mechanism to assist members.²² While mutual aid societies only seldom entered the political arena, which most likely accounts for the lack of scholarly attention to such societies, their social functions merit serious examination.

In most instances, artisans formed the nuclei of the earliest mutual aid societies. In Mexico City, for which a healthy literature exists, artisans developed mutualist organizations as trades proved unable to fully satisfy accustomed social security, especially in the years after 1850. Although many historians focus upon the anarchist-influenced mutualist societies of this period, most organizations had no such relations.²³ Instead, “the proliferation of artisan societies was the manner by which [artisans] confronted the process of pauperization and demoralization.”²⁴ Throughout Latin America, mutual aid organizations first appeared in the 1850s, 60s, and 70s, suggesting that craftsmen relied upon their own initiatives to protect themselves from the decline of their industries as external economic forces more directly affected national economies, a not unexpected outcome given the self-reliance of that social sector.

Quite important, the founders of mutual aid societies were usually more successful craftsmen, the dueños del taller. The abolition of guilds in the early national period had ended the formal relationships among masters, journeymen, and apprentices, which, when coupled with the economic stress of the years that followed, increased the social and economic differences between these levels of artisanal workers. Non–shop-owning craftsmen slipped more quickly into a semi-proletarian status, whereas shop owners could survive as independent craftsmen for a much longer period.²⁵ Masters established mutual aid societies to preserve as much of their welfare as possible; non-masters, as will be shown, found other avenues of expression.

Bogotá’s first mutual aid society, La Sociedad de Socorros Mutuos (The Mutual Aid Society), was formally inaugurated on July 20, 1872, when eighty-three men, most of them artisan notables identified with the Conservative party, pledged to cooperate for their collective benefit. The organization aimed to help members in case of illness or death. From the two-peso entrance fee and ten-centavo weekly dues, as well as special donations, the Society built an initial savings account of two-thousand pesos. In addition to needing fiscal responsibility, each potential member had to be approved by the Society as being of sound moral character. The Mutual Aid Society was not exclusively intended for artisans: about one-half of its 148 members two years later earned their living from other than a skilled trade, and included merchants, lawyers, and musicians.²⁶ Although non-artisans held important positions within these bodies, they increasingly concerned themselves with labor issues. Speeches by members extolled the virtue of work, the need for protection of Colombian industry, and the contributions of artisans to Bogotá’s society.²⁷

The Mutual Aid Society served as a model for similar groups. Sixty-nine men founded a Sociedad Tipográfica de Mutua Protección (Typesetters’ Mutual Protection Society) in 1873 with the objectives of mutual aid, self-improvement, and the enhancement of the typographic art. The moral improvement of its members was emphasized in its initial report: “We ought to be aware that our mission is not limited simply to being mechanical workers who produce in order to satisfy the dietary needs of ourselves and our families; we recognize the necessity of nurturing our spirit, mainly by cultivating and developing our intellectual faculties, because this will yield the most positive benefits for our association and will affect our social position.”²⁸ The positive moral behavior required of members speaks of the artisan self-image, and was a characteristic present in most descriptions craftsmen made of themselves.

Mutual aid societies were the most stable organizations in which artisans participated throughout the latter years of the century. Two of the more important mutual aid groups, the Mutual Aid Society and the Sociedad Filantrópica (Philanthropic Society, founded in 1879) merged in January 1889 so as to provide better services to their more than three-hundred members, who had capital estimated at over eleven-thousand pesos.²⁹ The Sociedad de Seguros de Familia (Family Insurance Society), an offshoot of the Mutual Aid Society, was established one year later to extend financial aid to the families of mutual aid members.³⁰ A Tailors’ Society was founded in September 1899 with the assistance of the Typesetters’ Society and a Shoemaker’s Society the following month.³¹ Such organizational strength, which emanated from an alliance of more elite craftsmen and their social peers, while generally apolitical, could occasionally serve as the basis for surprisingly radical action.

Urban Violence

Artisans participated in two major outbursts of urban violence, one in 1875 and the other in 1893, that link socioeconomic stress with partisan politics. Insofar as the riots depart from more common forms of expression in nineteenth-century Bogotá, their explanation is required. The answer is related to the absence of broadly based artisan mobilizations comparable to the Democratic or Union Societies, through which numerous craftsmen could find political expression. In the score of years after the War of the Supremes, political parties came into their own as institutional entities. Electoral mobilizations were quite important during these years for the parties’ ability to turn out voters, including artisans, on election day. By the 1870s, however, parties had developed permanent directories that made these groups less essential. Individuals by this time identified themselves with a particular party not only on the basis of contemporary appeals, but also on the basis of familial traditions. Also, as suggested earlier, the artisan class had remained fairly homogeneous through the 1860s, which made the mobilization of large numbers of craftsmen possible. After the crisis of the 1860s, social distances between craftsmen increased and some leaders lost touch with the mass of artisans. Prominent craftsmen organized in more exclusive mutual aid societies, leaving the artisan rank-and-file with few political outlets. Direct action, or urban violence, a new form of political expression, reflected the divisions of the class more than its unity.

The first of these tumults, the pan de a cuarto riot (quarter-peso bread riot) of January 1875, developed after a coalition of bakers combined with Joaquín Sarmiento, the city’s most powerful miller, to drive up the price of wheat flour and bread by over 20 percent. While wheat bread served only to supplement the corn-based are-pas consumed by most individuals, it was nevertheless an important part of the popular diet, especially in the smaller loaves used with meals or snacks.³² Equally as important, the combinations symbolized monopolistic behavior, which contradicted many people’s notions of proper economic practices. Early in 1875, the same bakers ceased production of lesser quality loaves that sold four for two-and-one-half centavos, a move that caused hardship and unrest among the popular sectors of the city.³³

Partisan groups sought to take advantage of tense social conditions for their own political purposes. It appears that university-level Radical Liberal students dissatisfied with the moderate Liberal state government distributed a poster on January 22 demanding “War and death to those who make us hungry!”³⁴ The poster called the pueblo to demonstrate against the injustice the following day, a cry that drew thousands to the Plaza de Bolívar. The crowd soon moved from the plaza to the nearby residence of President Santiago Pérez, who listened to their demands of government action against the panaderos (bakers), only to dispassionately reply that such actions would be illegal in a country with free industry. Angered at his refusal to take action, the crowd stoned more than thirty shops and houses of the offending monopolists. Injuries in the riot were limited, but several properties suffered heavy damages. Shortly thereafter, the price of wheat and bread began to drift downward.³⁵ In the wake of the riot, bakers insisted that high flour prices had forced the prices up—not their purposeful collusion.³⁶

The fundamental causes of the riot lie in societal reactions to the reformulation of the city and nation’s economy. The price of flour and bread had been regulated by the government in colonial times, a policy abandoned with the establishment of an independent government shaped by liberal theories of political economy. However the laws might have changed, the demand that the president intervene to lower prices suggests that support for the old system, which was akin to a “moral economy,” persisted in the popular mind.³⁷ The pan de a cuarto riot questioned the legitimacy of the ideology of liberalism. Indeed, the unorthodox editor and political commentator Manuel María Madiedo noted at the time: “Economic and social harmony are nothing more than the old question of rich and poor. . . . It is an error of belief that this can be put in equilibrium by ‘free trade’; because between the poor that live by the day and the rich that can live years without working, free trade always hurts the one in need.”³⁸

The partisan manipulation of popular passions expressed in the bread crisis reveals much of the character of nineteenth-century Colombian politics. Both factions of the Liberal party, the Radicals and the Independents, sought to use the riot for their own purposes in anticipation of the year’s presidential election. Liberal supporters of Aquileo Parra and local university students attempted to draw the city’s influential artisan sector into the debate over the riot’s causes by invoking the memory of the Democratic Society and its stand against economic exploitation of craftsmen. This tactic was intended to draw craftsmen away from Núñez and perhaps to forestall collusion between the leading Independents and Conservatives. This move failed when craftsmen of all political orientations, including José María Vega, Práxedes Bermúdez, José Antonio Saavedra, and José Leocadio Camacho, issued two public declarations. Both letters expressed their sympathy for those suffering in the current crisis and criticized individuals who would exploit it to their own ends in the name of artisans, while at the same time they condemned the monopolistic practices of the bakers.³⁹

Although no comparable unrest took place in the 1880s, standards of living for many bogotanos began to decline toward the end of the decade, in part due to the fiscal policies of the Regeneration.⁴⁰ Pressures on wages resulted in widespread complaints about high prices and rents.⁴¹ In this context, José Ignacio Gutiérrez Isaza penned a series of articles in late 1892 that attacked the moral habits of the capital’s working classes. Gutiérrez singled out artisans as particularly notorious in their misuse of alcohol and for that vice’s deteriorative effect upon familial well-being.⁴² Artisans of the Philanthropic Society, the “elite” of their class, protested the account as slanderous and thereby contrary to the 1888 press law, which prohibited inciting one class against another. The Society, on a resolution offered by José Leocadio Camacho, insisted that Gutiérrez retract his allegations and that the government castigate the author. Neither demand was met. These protests led to verbal attacks by workers upon Gutiérrez in the streets, insults that escalated into a violent confrontation in front of Gutiérrez’s house on January 15, 1893, between police and a crowd made up of artisans and workers. The police arrested numerous protesters before high-ranking government officials successfully calmed the crowd.

The riot erupted the next day. A delegation of artisan leaders appealed to acting head of state General Antonio B. Cuervo to release those protesters arrested the previous night and to impose the press law against Gutiérrez. Cuervo refused. Incensed at the government’s unwillingness to enforce its own laws, many in the crowd reassembled at Gutiérrez’s house, which was now defended by a large contingent of police. The guard fired upon the people, killing at least one craftsman. Similar confrontations then broke out throughout the city. In the hours that followed, the mob attacked all but one police station in Bogotá. Many stations were ransacked, with police archives the primary targets. The homes of several government officials also came under attack, as did the women’s prison, where some two-hundred women accused of prostitution were liberated. Cuervo imposed a state of siege and called out the regular army, which restored order by mass arrests of persons caught on the streets. The police and Army detained an estimated five-hundred people. Some forty to forty-five people were killed and an unknown number injured in the tumult.⁴³

The causes of the riot are complex. The dramatic increase in food prices and rents undoubtedly aggravated social tensions, but the crowd did not attack facilities associated with foodstuffs as it had in 1875. Instead, the mob first focused its fury upon the offending author. Gutiérrez’s slander of the city’s artisan class had touched a fragile nerve among craftsmen who were under increasing pressures from foreign imports and other forms of economic change that together helped to undermine their productive and social status. The protest by artisans and the mutual aid societies represented their attempt to defend the heretofore positive public image of the craftsmen. Quite important, the apparent approval given by elite artisans in the Mutual Aid Society to other workers and “popular” sectors to apply pressure on Gutiérrez opened the way for other tensions to be vented.

The crowd’s anger against the city police originated in the effort of the Regeneration government to reorganize the police force. Several years earlier steps had been taken to “professionalize” Bogotá’s police force by the importation of a French agent to supervise and oversee the reorganization of the corps of police. Juan María Marcelino Gilibert not only had personally alienated many in the capital for his seeming inability (or lack of desire) to understand bogotano ways, but also his measures more significantly had redefined the relationship between the capital’s populace and the police. Traditional patrolling patterns were disrupted (with the introduction of uniformed, armed officers), a crackdown on downtown street crime and prostitution was begun (activities that had previously gone relatively undisturbed), and policemen were recruited from outside the city (which tended to separate the police’s and the people’s social experiences), all in the effort to instill Gilibert’s own vision of proper urban order.⁴⁴ The 1893 bogotazo was most fundamentally a reaction to this reform of the police department, set in motion by the apparent sanction of direct action by influential artisans and based in the city’s unsettled economic and political conditions.

The government not only made numerous arrests during and shortly after the riot, it also suppressed the Philanthropic Society as having instigated the tumult. Camacho protested the government’s decree, saying that it was ill-founded. He petitioned Vice-President Caro to allow the Society to resume its meetings. The petition was approved, but only when permission to meet was obtained in advance and, even then, a representative of the police had to be present to monitor any “subversive” discussions.⁴⁵

In April 1893, after martial law had been lifted and calm had returned to the city, the carpenter Félix Valois Madero founded El Artesano in an attempt to improve the tarnished image of the artisan class. Valois Madero filled the pages of his paper with articles pertaining to craftsmen, on such topics as the Model Shop and the artisan’s right to determine his own hours of work. El Artesano was combative, engaging in polemics with Miguel Samper and Carlos Holguín, and with other papers. Its central thrust was political unification of the artisans to create “compact workers’ guilds . . . [as] the life of industry, of progress, of national wealth, and of politics.”⁴⁶

During the eleven months after Valois Madero began publication of the paper, he emerged as one of the most visible figures of the artisan class. It is questionable, however, that the artisan public image improved as he had hoped. In March 1894, police informants told authorities of a workers’ conspiracy to overthrow the government; on March 11, Madero and numerous others were arrested on that charge.⁴⁷ In the shop of Bernadino Ranjel, agents reportedly found some six-thousand leaflets with the slogans “Viva el trabajo,” “Viva el pueblo,” and “Abajo los monopolios” (“Up with work,” “Long live the people,” Down with monopolies”). At the same time, in Facatativá, authorities confiscated some five-hundred rifles and ammunition to match. Many of those arrested, including Madero, were tried under the Law of the Horses, found guilty of planning a movement of an unspecified nature against the government, and sentenced to several months’ imprisonment. For the rest of the decade, the government’s fear of conspiracy resulted in close supervision of all organizations that offered the potential base for collective action.

Local, State, and National Politics

National politics tended to take a back seat to state and local politics under the Constitution of 1863. Artisan electoral organizations operated within a distinct environment that favored their participation in local and state politics, but less frequently in national campaigns. Most city councils after the 1859–62 civil war included at least one elected artisan member, a pattern that continued well into the twentieth century. As we have seen, José Antonio Saavedra, a cobbler whose political career dated from the days of the Sociedad Democrática, was often part of the Liberal party’s council slate; José Leocadio Camacho served as his Conservative counterpart. Craftsmen also took part in other municipal services. Antonio Cárdenas, one of the founders of La Alianza, served as supervisor of the city’s marketplace in 1870, and Calisto Ballesteros, also active in La Alianza, collected taxes for three years.⁴⁸ Artisans frequently served as night watchmen (serenos), and, in a reorganization of Bogotá’s police force early in 1870, both Emeterio Heredia and Ambrosio López, longtime artisan notables, were among the craftsmen called upon to watch the blocks where they lived. The reorganization in question was followed by citizen complaints of arbitrary police conduct, which forced the council to name a commission to investigate the charges and (while it was at it) to look into allegations of fraudulent tax collections. Artisan Tiburcio Ruiz, who would become president of the resurrected Democratic Society in 1875, was one of the men named to the commission.⁴⁹

The presence of tradesmen on the city council in no way assured an adequate response to the city’s needs. Repeated complaints centered on garbage-filled streets, poor water service, high taxes, and high food prices. Citizens expressed the opinion that monopolists periodically cornered a particular item in the city market and drove up its price, calling on the council not only to stop such monopolies but also to put a ceiling on prices. As the decade of the 1870s wore on, complaints by citizens increased, leading to a reform of the council by Cundinamarca’s state legislature, which paved the way for more effective city government in the 1880s.⁵⁰

Artisan political support was not solicited during the presidential election of 1869, a somewhat surprising turn of events given the heated competition for their votes in earlier years. The low profile of craftsmen was even more unusual given that many of the same actors and political forces that had earlier been closely associated with artisan mobilizations were involved in the 1869 contest. Radical Liberal Eustorgio Salgar won the election despite an alliance (liga) between mosqueristas and Conservatives in favor of the exiled General Mosquera. Quite significantly, the liga, which was engineered by Conservative Carlos Holguín, signalled both an era of cooperation between dissident Liberals and Conservatives and the continued inability of the Liberal party to heal its divisions.

State elections, which during the early 1870s often decided whether the sapo forces of Ramón Gómez would control the state government of Cundinamarca, often resulted in violent confrontations. Sapista candidates won the 1870 state elections amid widespread allegations of fraud. Passions were so elevated that when the Cundinamarcan congress was seated, numerous disturbances marred its sessions, leading in the end to a coup that unseated Governor Justo Briceño in favor of anti-sapo Cornelio Manrique. Various artisans were presented as candidates for the resulting constitutional convention by newspaper editor Manuel María Madiedo, including Manuel de Jesús Barrera, José Leocadio Camacho, Felipe Roa Ramírez, and Rafael Tapias, indicating that the political relations forged in the Sociedad Unión persisted for some time.⁵¹ Artisans of all political persuasions praised the coup but warned against threats to the public order that could result in their call-up to militia service.⁵² Allegations of fraud also marred the May 1874 election for delegates to the state congress, a contest that resulted in widespread confrontations.⁵³

These electoral incidents may well have been influenced by increasing tensions between the two wings of the Liberal party (Independents and Radicals). The antagonisms between the two factions would, in 1885, bring the period of Liberal rule to an end. Despite the momentous consequence of the division in the Liberal ranks for Colombian history, Helen Delpar notes that “no author” has identified the “interests and principles” that set the two factions apart before 1882, an indictment that includes political economy, regionalism, or the socioeconomic standings of the two camps.⁵⁴ At the time, as Independent Liberals declared their support for Núñez as their standard bearer in the 1875 presidential election, they claimed that Radicals had practiced oligarchic domination of the party, which excluded other voices and ignored regional interests. (Delpar observes that Independents opposed Radical anti-clerical measures in 1877, which facilitated their eventual alignment with the Conservatives.⁵⁵) Mosqueristas, representing the interests of the Cauca, agreed with these allegations and consequently declared their support for Núñez’s candidacy. Radicals chose Aquileo Parra to follow Pérez in the presidency.⁵⁶

In Bogotá, preparations for the August 1875 elections began early and brought artisans directly into the fray. Artisan leader José Antonio Saavedra, a personal supporter of Parra, helped arrange an organizational meeting of the Democratic Society on April 17—by now a symbolic date for artisans. Some four-hundred persons, mainly described as artisans, showed up for the meeting, but, to Saavedra’s dismay, most were Núñez supporters. The crowd warmly greeted José María Samper’s message in favor of Núñez. Parra partisans “serenaded” nuñista Eustorgio Salgar that evening, while nuñistas jeered at President Pérez.⁵⁷ Partisan groups thereafter paraded through the streets almost nightly in support of their preferred candidates. The potential for violent confrontations led “many artisans of the capital” to call for an examination of the craftsmen’s role in the campaign and urged them not to be misled by political peddlers (traficantes en político) such as Samper. They were reminded of La Alianza’s principles and urged not to become tools for people who would not serve their interests.⁵⁸ Manuel María Madiedo’s newspaper seconded that call, as did others.⁵⁹ Most incidents had ended by late May, but election day produced confrontations among voters, agitators, and the Guard, in which at least five people lost their lives (including four guardsmen).⁶⁰ The violence led to nullification of Bogotá’s votes. Nationwide, neither Parra, Núñez, nor Conservative Bartolomé Calvo won the requisite number of states; congress thus chose Parra the victor in February 1876.

Conservatives in the Cauca valley and elsewhere saw the rupture in the Liberal party as an ideal opportunity to redress some of their grievances, especially those on religious issues.⁶¹ Conservatives revolted in the southern Cauca in March, hoping—in vain—to draw Independents to their side. Liberal artisans who had been bitter enemies the previous year now closed ranks in support of the government, a stance that mirrored the behavior of Liberals throughout the country.⁶² The reunited Democratic Society of Bogotá offered its services in defense of the country’s public order. The Mutual Aid Society, whose artisan members tended to be Conservatives, issued a circular that urged each member to calm passions whenever possible.⁶³ The plea came too late, as once again artisans were recruited for war; of the 1,035 men who filled the 4 militia battalions and 1 squadron from Bogotá, all but 95 were skilled laborers.⁶⁴

The defeat of the Conservative insurrection allowed divisions among Liberals to come to the fore. Independent Julián Trujillo had been selected as a unity candidate for the presidency during the war, a contest he won without opposition. Disputes between Independents and Radicals plagued Trujillo’s regime. Animosities between Trujillo and the Radical-dominated congress peaked in a May 1879 incident that pitted members of the Sociedad de Juventud Radical against those of La Sociedad Liberal Independiente.⁶⁵ The violence of May 6 and 7 between Independent and Radical supporters resulted in shots fired in the chamber of representatives, at least one death, and extreme violence in the streets.⁶⁶

Considering the May agitations, the August presidential elections were surprisingly calm. Núñez accepted the Conservative party’s support in his bid against Radical candidate General Tomás Rengifo. Many of the Independents who had been associated with the events of May and Conservative artisans active in the Mutual Aid Society undoubtedly worked for the Núñez candidacy, as they worked closely with the costeño during his later presidencies. Indeed, the Núñez organization was quite successful, for the election resulted in an impressive victory for Núñez, giving him not just the presidency, but also control of the congress, while in Bogotá Independents and Conservatives wrested control of the municipal council from the Radicals for the first time since the 1860s. Only two states remained under Radical control when Núñez took office in April 1880.

Núñez and the Independent Liberals espoused economic and political principles that attracted artisan supporters. The emerging alliance between Independents and Conservatives seemingly offered an alternative to the partisan system that had spawned the conflicts and waste of resources so frequently criticized by craftsmen. Consequently, Núñez enjoyed a personal following among artisans that often cut across traditional political boundaries. Perhaps more important, Núñez favored an innovative reformation of the country’s economic orientation that included implementation of a protective tariff system to foster industrial development, creation of a national bank to provide investors with credit, and support for public works projects to improve the nation’s infrastructure.⁶⁷

Artisans expressed their wholehearted support for these measures, especially tariff reform. Leaflets implored congressmen to support the plans and not to listen to “exploiters of the poor . . . who have no God other than gold and only their wallets as their country.” (Liberals all, one presumes.) One document suggested that the proposed tariff reform, along with the National Bank and the increased power of the national executive, formed a “trinity” that could save the country. The signers added that “if these are not passed, we do not know what type of a regeneration will be offered to the Colombian people, or that one will be given.”⁶⁸ Miguel Samper spoke in defense of laissez-faire principles in opposing both the proposed tariff and the National Bank, urging that the congress not abandon the liberal economic route taken some thirty years earlier.⁶⁹ The congress approved a tariff bill that raised basic rates on most finished products including footwear, clothing, and wooden furniture, and gave the president discretionary power to impose a surcharge on selected items.⁷⁰ It legislated the establishment of a National Bank with a monopoly to print and circulate notes, a policy that became the focus of considerable controversy in the years that followed.

Why did Núñez reverse the long-standing tariff policy? Ospina Vásquez suggests that the political support that the reform would win from craftsmen and others concerned the president more than any strict economic plan.⁷¹ Bushnell seems to agree with this assessment, but notes Núñez’s desire to improve the economic security of craftsmen and thereby foster “creation of a stable middle-class of citizens.”⁷² Liévano Aguirre holds that economic nationalism not defined by an unbending commitment to free-trade liberalism and an appreciation of Colombia’s industrial needs propelled the reforms.⁷³ While it is difficult to ascertain the president’s motivations with any certainty, it is clear that the 1880 tariff at least favored carpenters and joiners, trades practiced by several of his leading artisan supporters.⁷⁴ A realistic appraisal of the capital’s (and nation’s) industrial situation certainly would have recognized the potential returns from protection of trades such as cabinetmaking that had proven themselves competitive; other considerations would have underscored the political advantages of the move. In any case, Núñez’s tariff stance and his support for the National Bank signalled his abandonment of liberal economics that had begun some twenty years earlier.

The capital’s tradesmen praised the new tariff. Camacho noted that: “If our country . . . had protected its industry [earlier] by stimulating its crafts, the monster of empleomaína would not have been fed. The factories of crystal, paper, and cloth have decayed in Bogotá because the spirit of ‘foreignism’ has prevailed. If this same antipathy [toward national industry] had prevailed in France . . . it would now be a ‘political’ country like ours, but a slave to England or the United States.”⁷⁵ Two years later, when Radical Francisco Javier Zaldúa had succeeded Núñez in the presidency, his Secretary of Finance, Miguel Samper, attempted to lower rates to their previous levels. Artisans of all political allegiances urged the congress not to change the existing tariff. One petition noted that some trades, most notably carpentry, had improved greatly under protection. The petitioners continued that secondary industries such as wood supplying had also profited, demonstrating the positive multiplier effect, which disproved the notion that protection favored the few.⁷⁶ The two branches of congress failed to agree on the proposal to reduce rates, and thus the 1880 tariff remained in effect. A proposal of a similar nature the following year met the same fate.⁷⁷

The loss of power to Núñez forced Radicals to undertake steps to consolidate their power and to avoid future losses. Colonel Ricardo Vanegas founded the Sociedad de Salud Pública (Public Safety Society) in Bogotá on December 4, 1881, to help reestablish the Liberal regime and to combat reactionary threats. By early 1882, the Society claimed 382 members as it prepared for the city’s municipal elections. Conservatives charged that political violence was part of the Public Safety Society’s tactical repertoire, an allegation that seems true, especially in light of assassination attempts on Independents Daniel Aldana and Ramón Becerra. After the September attack on Aldana, public opposition to the group’s use of violence caused the Zaldúa administration to distance itself from the organization. By December it was no longer active. The Society did revive momentarily for the 1883 presidential election in which Núñez stood against Liberal Salón Wilches with the support of Conservatives.⁷⁸

Radical Liberal leaders feared that they would lose their domination of the political process if such a coalition were to be made permanent. Many prepared to rebel. The failure of quinine as an export product and falling coffee prices heightened political tensions.⁷⁹ Radicals judged that the economic crisis would produce popular discontent as they launched the insurrection in 1885. Federal authorities hesitated to suppress the spreading unrest until December, when Núñez appointed Conservative General Leonardo Canal to muster a reserve force to supplement the Colombian Guard. Liberals in other areas of the country then joined the rebellion; Independents and Conservatives were victorious on the battlefield by August 1886. Now, at last, the stage was set for a restructuring of the government under the rubric of the Regeneration.

The Regeneration

The construction of Colombian constitutional order has always been crisis responsive. Partisan strife and economic instability preceded the constitutions of 1843, 1863, 1886, and 1991. Armed conflict between the contended partisan camps directly preceded all but the 1853 and 1858 constitutions, although the 1851 Conservative revolt and the Melo coup of 1854 facilitated the passage of even those documents. The domestic political and economic crisis of the 1880s stimulated the initial construction of the Regeneration state, but the failures of the Liberal regime of 1863–85 dictated its shape. Federalism and two-year presidential terms had engendered almost constant partisan conflicts. The near-religious devotion to laissez-faire liberalism and faith in export agriculture had also been ill-founded, as market forces subjected much of the Colombian economy to a debilitating boom-bust cycle. The inability of the federal state to foster essential development projects, such as railroads for the transportation of coffee, further restricted conditions for economic growth. These weaknesses had been the source of criticism since 1863, so that the transformation of the Regeneration “represented the culmination of a developing trend rather than an abrupt practice.”⁸⁰

Núñez and Miguel Antonio Caro were the intellectual architects of the Constitution of 1886, which swept aside most of the economic, political, and social principles of mid-century liberalism that had shaped the earlier constitution. Caro, who became the protagonist of the Regeneration, came to the government as one of the most gifted intellectuals of his day. The Bogotá-born leader, the very antithesis of a liberal thinker, staunchly defended Hispanic traditions in America, believing that centralized authority and Catholic precepts formed the ideal basis for society.⁸¹ Caro supported the National Bank because it could counter individual-led, profit-motivated enterprises. In time, he expanded its paper-money emissions, believing an elastic monetary system to be critical for further economic expansion and more favorable to the country’s populace than gold currencies, which he thought favored only the wealthy.⁸² Núñez supported many of these policies, though perhaps from a more pragmatic than philosophical perspective.⁸³ Núñez believed, for example, that Catholicism was necessary to maintain social order in the country, even though his own adherence to that ideology has been questioned.⁸⁴

The Regeneration transformed Colombia’s political and economic structures, creating a constitutional order that has proven to be one of Latin America’s most stable.⁸⁵ The Constitution of 1886 returned a strong centralized state to Colombia by establishing a government that replaced once sovereign states with subject departments. Under the new regime, the president had strong control over departmental authorities and extensive powers to be used in the case of internal emergencies. The Council of Delegates, which drafted the document, allowed a six-year presidential term, an honor first afforded to Núñez. A national army was created while regional armies were outlawed. Civil liberties such as the right to possess arms and absolute freedom of the press were restricted. Suffrage requirements were raised somewhat and prerequisites for holding public office were raised substantially. In keeping with policies begun earlier by Núñez, the central government’s economic function was enhanced, including the exclusive right to print paper money. The state’s economic policy remained strongly oriented toward exports, although it also sponsored policies favorable to industrial development.⁸⁶ Roman Catholicism once again became the official state religion and, though tolerance was granted to all Christian sects, the church’s precepts governed public education. The church was thus restored as the agent of social cohesion that it had been prior to the liberal reform era. And, although it was not part of the constitution, a concordat with the Vatican, signed in December 1887, reflected the conservative orientation of the new constitution.⁸⁷

The National party replaced the alliance of Independents and Conservatives. It dominated the national government until the War of the 1000 Days, though not without opposition. José María Samper and future president Rafael Reyes viewed the National party as the hope by which the country could rid itself of the evil of partisan strife.⁸⁸ In fact, that utopian ambition was realized only when Núñez was in Bogotá and in direct control of the government, something that never happened after August 1888. Highland Conservatives, especially Caro, profited from the absence of Núñez; the power of Independent Liberals within the National party eroded continually from the first days of the new constitution.

José Leocadio Camacho praised the bipartisan character of the Núñez government. Given Camacho’s long-standing advocacy of the reduction of partisan conflict, this was certainly understandable, but substantive moves by the government could also be seen to favor artisans. These included support of the Taller Modelo (Model Shop); the tariff reform; and the creation of the Instituto de Artesanos, decreed by the president in February 1886. The Institute had the education of craftsmen and their children as its fundamental objective and was teaching some five-hundred students by the end of 1886. The government allowed the church to determine what curriculum would be used. While it was an obvious success in exposing students to the values deemed proper by the church, it did little to advance the industrial knowledge long sought by artisan leaders.⁸⁹

Núñez had, of course, won much support from craftsmen by his earlier sponsorship of protective tariffs. These loyalties carried into the post-1886 period. Carpenters had fared especially well under the 1880 tariff; in 1887 leading practitioners of that trade praised the administration for its support of national industries.⁹⁰ Some observers, to be sure, thought that protection fostered poor workmanship, particularly in the carpentry trade: one commentator noted in 1886 that wooden furniture had decreased in quality while increasing in price under the higher tariff.⁹¹ Rafael Tapias, a carpenter whose public defense of artisan interests dated from the 1860s, refuted the charge, stating that consumers were at least partly responsible for shabby workmanship because they frequented lower-skilled craftsmen in search of reduced prices and refused to pay for the quality demanded by the commentator. Tapias added that masters had to pass on rising material and living costs.⁹² Félix Valois Madero, a carpenter who would play a significant political role in the 1890s, voiced many of the same defenses.⁹³ This polemic also served as an organizational stimulus for the capital’s carpenters, who formed the Guild of Carpenters and Cabinetmakers on January 24, 1887. Valois Madero presided as president of the guild, which totaled about 150 members, many of whom had been active in Bogotá’s political scene since the 1860s.⁹⁴

Many earlier objectives, most notably the Model Shop, were finally met in the 1890s, although not necessarily because of artisan pressure. The measures undertaken by Núñez in 1881 to train a few craftsmen abroad matured in 1890 when Juan Nepomuceno Rodríguez, a mechanic who had acquired foundry skills in Europe, was named as director of the Taller Modelo. Located on the Plaza de Nariño, the shop was in operation by 1892, although it was not fully funded until 1896. Rodríguez trained craftsmen in several foundry skills and undoubtedly made a positive contribution to the capital’s industrial expansion in those years.⁹⁵

Two other ventures were undertaken during the same period to teach industrial arts in the capital. The Instituto Nacional de Artesanos (National Institute of Artisans) was reorganized in 1893 so as to place more emphasis on practical arts, though without fully abandoning theoretical training. By December of the next year, the Institute had graduated almost eighty students.⁹⁶ Artisans seemed to have been generally satisfied with the Instituto, but the same was not true of the education offered by the Salesian fathers after their arrival in Bogotá in 1890. In the latter part of that year, the Instituto Salesiano was founded to offer lower-class youths courses in carpentry, weaving, and shoemaking. The Salesian Institute came under attack immediately for “robbing” jobs from adult craftsmen and for undermining the “proper” method of apprenticeships. One of the slogans reportedly heard in the 1893 riot was “Down with the Salesians,” and similar attitudes were expressed throughout the decade. Valois Madero in particular criticized the Institute, which led Miguel Samper to respond in its defense, a debate reminiscent of Camacho and Samper in the 1860s.⁹⁷ (Samper’s defense of the conservative social program of the Institute is noteworthy in light of his devotion to economic liberalism.)

As the decade of the 1880s drew to a close, it became clear that socioeconomic pressures were of far more immediate concern for artisans and the lower classes generally than political issues. Prosperity had followed the end of the 1885 rebellion and the increase in coffee prices on the world market, but by early 1889 complaints of rising food prices were common. Most sources blamed revendedoras, women who would gain a monopoly of foods in the market and then charge exorbitant prices. Public outcry forced the mayor to take action to limit speculative practices, and by June most prices were reportedly back to normal. However, prices again skyrocketed in the second half of 1890, more likely because of the inflation caused by Regeneration monetary policies than revendedora monopolization. Whatever the cause, high food prices, as well as exorbitant rents, seriously threatened Bogotá’s lower classes in the 1889–92 period.⁹⁸

State-sponsored housing projects constituted one proposed remedy for the increasing pressure upon the poor and working classes. Camacho had suggested such measures in 1889, a stance seconded in early 1892 in the pro-government El Orden. The paper recommended that the government undertake construction of housing for workers in Bogotá and other major cities. The plan stipulated that recipients of the housing should be practitioners of a trade who could purchase the building at a low rate of repayment.⁹⁹ Congress discussed such legislation a few months later, only to draw criticism from adherents of the dejad hacer school who claimed sarcastically that state-supported housing should be made available to all needy social sectors not just to workers. Moreover, they argued, lower-priced housing in Bogotá would only serve to attract more migrants to the city, thus worsening crowding and sanitary problems.¹⁰⁰ In the end, the congress took no action; not until fifteen years later did the government actively sponsor such projects.

The presidential election of 1891 shattered any remaining unity of the National party and set events in motion that led to Colombia’s last nineteenth-century civil war. Núñez let it be known that he would serve as titular president for the 1892–98 period while he remained in Cartagena; the vice-president would continue to be the country’s de facto head. He hoped that the party would unite behind a single candidate, but both Marceliano Vélez and Caro contended for the open position. Vélez, an antioqueño who opposed the Regeneration’s fiscal policies and the reduction of his department’s political authority, would in time become the champion of the Historical Conservatives, who were juxtaposed to the Nationalists led by Caro. Núñez guarded his silence until September 1891, when he declared Caro his preferred running mate. Vélez then bolted the party and ran as a dissident presidential candidate with José Joaquín Ortiz. Liberals either cast their votes against Caro or continued their policy of electoral abstention. The only visible indication of artisan preference in Bogotá was El Taller’s predictable support for Núñez and Caro.¹⁰¹ Of the 5,000-odd legal ballots cast in the capital, 3,357 went to the Nationalists; the rest favored Vélez.¹⁰² Throughout the nation, the voting returned an easy victory for the Nationalists.

The division of the National party undoubtedly pleased Liberals on both pragmatic partisan and ideological grounds. Various forms of political repression by Regeneration authorities had prevented that party from recovering its losses after the 1885 rebellion. A press law prohibiting slanderous statements proved quite effective in silencing opponents to the regime and the so-called Law of the Horses curbed loosely defined “political crimes.” Liberals presented their own candidates for the May 1892 congressional elections.¹⁰³ In May 1893, Liberal chieftain Santiago Pérez released a platform that signalled his hopes for the party’s future operations. The return to laissez-faire economic and liberal social policies along with an end to political repression dominated the Liberal agenda. Historical Conservatives shortly thereafter issued a similar document. The Caro administration at first allowed Liberals the freedom to pursue their political reorganization, but in August 1893, amid fears of bipartisan conspiracy and lingering effects of the January riot, Liberals throughout the country were arrested, their newspapers closed, and the party’s treasury confiscated.

The renewed repression by Caro forced divisions within the Liberal party to the fore. As early as 1892, War Liberals, whose ranks would eventually include Eustacio de la Torre Narváez, Rafael Uribe Uribe, and Benjamín Herrera, had favored a more militant policy. Santiago Pérez, the leading Peace Liberal, supported by Salvador Camacho Roldán, Aquilo Parra, and Nicolás Esquerra, assumed control of the party, however, thereby briefly curbing the militants.¹⁰⁴ Liberal militants responded to the repression (and the exile of Pérez) by preparing to revolt against the government. The party divisions, however, meant that the January 1895 revolt that began in Cundinamarca and was supported in Santander was put down with relative ease by the government.¹⁰⁵ Numerous artisans were arrested in the opening days of the rebellion in Bogotá, although there is little evidence to indicate widespread support for the insurrection among that class.¹⁰⁶

Both parties were hopelessly divided as the presidential election of 1897 neared.¹⁰⁷ A sharp decline in the world market price for coffee exacerbated the situation and weakened the capacity of the Caro regime to perpetuate itself. Indeed, the National party, whose strength had been centered in the bureaucracy and military of the Regeneration state and in the country’s economic prosperity, had lost considerable power. Caro was the preferred Nationalist candidate, although the constitutionality of his candidacy was questionable. In the end, a bizarre nomination process akin to musical chairs resulted in eighty-three year old Manuel A. Sanclemente and José Manuel Marroquín at the head of the Nationalist ticket, Guillermo Quintero Calderón and Marceliano Vélez as the Historical Conservative slate; and Miguel Samper and Foción Soto as the Liberal candidates.

The election of 1897 represented a crucial turning point for Liberals. While militants had not won wide support in their 1895 revolt, the legitimate participation in politics counseled by moderates had also proven unsuccessful. Part of the moderate effort in preparation for the presidential election, which was engineered by Aquileo Parra, had been to incorporate leading craftsmen into the party’s departmental administrative body. Typesetter Alejandro Torres Amaya, chocolate manufacturer Enrique Chaves B., and Pompilio Beltrán, one of the youths sent to Europe for crafts training, were brought into party affairs in this manner and were Liberal electors in the 1897 election.¹⁰⁸ Presumably they helped to organize the December 1897 pro-Parra demonstration in front of his Chapinero home that drew an estimated six-thousand people.¹⁰⁹ They certainly were active in organizations of Liberal artisans in the months after the elections. Liberal electors tallied the most votes in the capital, easily outdistancing the Nationalist and Conservative slates.¹¹⁰ In the country as a whole, however, Nationalist control of the political machinery resulted in their return to office. The Liberal party’s showing in the election raised the hopes of the moderates for the future. But for the militants, it steeled their resolve to oust Nationalists from the government by force of arms.

As Liberal party functionaries prepared for war, Liberal craftsmen founded the Club Industrial Colombiano in December of 1898 to unite individuals of “democratic and republican” persuasions.¹¹¹ Some commentators identified this group as being in the camp of militant Liberal Rafael Uribe Uribe, an alignment that, if true, could indicate its function was to mobilize craftsmen’s support for the coming conflict. Further indications of widespread preparations could be seen in the installation of similar clubs in the towns of Sogamoso, Popayán, and Barranquilla.¹¹²

In the months after Sanclemente replaced Caro as executive, the Regeneration government suffered further reverses and the economic crisis worsened. The War of the 1000 Days, or the Three Years’ War as many called it at the time, began in October 1899 and lasted until November 1902. Although Liberals attempted a standard strategy that pitted regular forces of their side versus regular forces of the other, the fighting soon degenerated into guerrilla warfare. Liberals planned that their army in the department of Santander, supplied through Venezuela, would defend that region from Conservative attack while guerrilla bands in other regions would inspire the tide of popular opinion to shift against the government. Conservative naval forces blunted the Liberal effort to seize control of the Magdalena River in the first week of fighting and delivered a humiliating defeat to the Liberal army in the vicious battle of Palonegro near Bucaramanga in May 1900. Thereafter, the “gentlemen’s war” gave way to bitter, indecisive conflict between small bands of Liberal guerrillas and government forces, who were assisted by their own guerrillas. The most sustained struggle occurred in present-day Huila (then the department of Tolima) and in Cundinamarca, the Cauca, and Santander, although very little of the country escaped the conflict. The war did not end until Liberal chieftains in 1902 signed the treaties of Neerlandia, Wisconsin, and Chinácota.¹¹³

Substantial disagreements surround the origins of the war and its relationship to the political economy of the Regeneration. Was it a “typical” nineteenth-century civil war? Or did the conflict have more in common with La Violencia of the twentieth century? Did a relationship exist between the paper money policy of the Regeneration, the development of the coffee economy, and the war, or, put more bluntly, did contending political economic ideologies provide the catalyst for the war? Charles Bergquist and Marco Palacios (among others) claim that the Regenerators, especially Caro, articulated a political economy that merchants and planters deemed detrimental to both the health of the emerging coffee industry and the nation’s economy. Opposition to paper currency in general, and the large emissions of the early 1890s in particular, fueled enormous public controversy which sustained, according to Bergquist, a fragile alliance between Liberals and Historical Conservatives, largely because of their relationship to the coffee economy. The crux of the issue, then and now, was whether paper emissions stimulated or undermined the expansion of coffee. If the reliance upon paper currency had hurt coffee exporters, the primacy of competitive notions of political economy as a factor in the war must be considered. If, on the other hand, Regeneration fiscal policies did not destabilize the coffee economy, then perhaps the war was more akin to earlier conflicts.

These questions are not easily resolved. Adolfo Meisel and Alejandro López, in a summary of the paper money debate, conclude that the release of paper money, in conjunction with external inflationary tendencies, stimulated domestic inflation and exacerbated the nation’s financial deficit. Costs of living rose quite dramatically in Bogotá at this time, fueling the complaints of artisans and others. Coffee prices in both England and the United States rose steadily after 1887 and peaked in 1895. The real adjusted price of coffee in that year, discounting inflationary effects, was near its highest point in fifteen years. The decline in the nation’s economic performance after 1896 and the subsequent reduction of the government’s fiscal base, according to Meisel and López, owed more to the sudden collapse of coffee prices than to the deflation of the peso due to the emissions of paper money, as charged by anti-paper critics.¹¹⁴ Unfavorable economic conditions undermined the national government, leaving it vulnerable to partisan strife, just as had happened in the later 1850s, mid-1870s, and mid-1880s.

In spite of the convincing parallels between the platforms of the Historical Conservatives and Liberals in the 1897 presidential election, no alliance could be forged on the basis of economic ideology between the two camps. Conservatives of both Historical and National hue allied—albeit with real tensions—to combat Liberals. Gonzalo Sánchez, a leading scholar of contemporary Colombian political violence, identifies the conflict as a partisan civil war that balanced out “the internal rivalries of the ruling class.”¹¹⁵ So, too, does Carlos Eduardo Jaramillo, although he offers suggestive evidence of the inability of partisan leaders to keep social tensions in check during the long conflict.¹¹⁶ Finally, Malcolm Deas asserts that few similarities link the conflict to the twentieth-century La Violencia. Instead, it had much in common with the partisan, elite-led conflicts correlated to economic stress that typified the nineteenth century.¹¹⁷

Whatever the scholars might conclude, the war proved to be the most debilitating of the century’s conflicts. The various political and mutual aid societies in which bogotano craftsmen had participated seem not to have been drawn physically into the contest, though they suffered from its ravages along with the rest of the nation. While the war was fought primarily in rural areas, urban inhabitants suffered from reduced food supplies, severe price inflation, stagnant economic conditions, and susceptibility to recruitment as soldiers. The economic situation did not markedly improve with the end of the war in 1902. Throughout that year and the next, public and religious groups set up charity kitchens to deal with continuing shortages of food and the lack of money to purchase that which was available at high prices.¹¹⁸ In September 1903, a group of industrials, artisans, and workers argued in a petition to the chamber that the peso’s depreciation, combined with heavy taxes, had made their lives miserable. The petition reasoned that the congress could improve the situation by lifting taxes on consumption which, it argued, further reduced their already low living standards.¹¹⁹

The devastation of the war convinced many leaders that the time had come to resolve partisan differences in a manner other than fighting. The separation of Panama from the nation in 1903 with the assistance of the United States shocked Colombia and prepared it for fundamental political change. In any case, as the war ended, the capital’s labor movement entered a new stage, one that served as a transition between nineteenth-century artisan mobilizations and activity by twentieth-century wage laborers.