Continuity and Change in Social Relations
Neither the rise and fall of federalism nor the frequent civil warfare had much impact on social structures. A federal system did provide more employment for politicians and officeholders than a strictly centralized one, thus continuing an expansion of opportunities of public service that began with independence. Yet it was hard to penetrate the upper strata without some formal education, which the vast majority still did not receive. In some Latin American countries (and to some extent during the independence struggle in Colombia), military prowess might be enough to propel an able individual of humble origin to positions of power, although not necessarily social esteem; but the weakness of the military institution made this a less promising path of advancement in Colombia. Once the veterans of independence died or retired, the generals of the civil wars tended to be lawyers or landowners who dabbled in fighting part-time.
The institutional reforms carried out since independence had done little to increase social mobility. The reform of most sweeping social significance might seem the abolition of slavery, but it was a gradual process, and there were no programs to help former slaves improve their material condition. The conversion of Amerindian communal land into private smallholdings, supposedly to imbue the recipients with a proper entrepreneurial spirit, apparently did not make much difference in most of the country. In the southwest, where the Amerindian presence was greatest, their objections caused state authorities to hold off implementing the policy.
Neither did the series of commodity export booms, in products such as tobacco and quinine, have much impact on basic social structures, other than enriching some speculators and middlemen. However, one phenomenon of long-term significance during the mid-nineteenth century was the movement of settlers from Antioquia in the northwest into adjoining sections of the Cordillera Central. The traditional view of this process as one of homesteading by sturdy independent farmers was idealized, for speculators and intermediaries likewise found opportunities in colonization projects. Even so, campesino smallholders were the predominant settlers, who would eventually serve as the backbone of a new and more lasting industry, coffee.
Social as well as economic stagnation was still the rule, and most Colombians were illiterate, poorly housed, and all too subject to disease and early mortality, but they seldom went hungry. Vacant land was available for farming, and food of some sort was generally abundant. And in material—if not social—terms, class differences were less pronounced than they would become later. Members of the country’s small upper and middle sectors could read and write and were proud of their lighter skins and (when possible) distinguished pedigrees, but by European standards their homes were meanly furnished, and the total assets even of the wealthiest were unimpressive.
Moreover, because few luxury goods were produced locally, such commodities had to be brought from overseas and in most cases carried up the Magdalena, then over primitive mountain paths (sometimes on the backs of human carriers) before reaching their destination—at a vast increase over the products’ original prices. This situation was beginning to change with such improvements as the introduction of steamboats on the Magdalena and the gradual accumulation of wealth from commerce or otherwise; meanwhile, to be rich in Bogotá was not the same as to be rich in Boston or Bordeaux.
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