Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835

Abstract

It is an interesting paradox that although Colombia has the third largest population of African origin in the Western Hemisphere (after Brazil and the United States), its leaders have consistently portrayed their country as a mestizo nation. On the surface, their historical dismissal of the black population can be explained by the fact that the majority of Afro-Colombians are inhabitants of the Caribbean coast and the Pacific lowlands, which are far away and isolated from the highland capital, and that despite the density of their numbers, they have failed to develop a “collective black- or African-derived identity” (p. 3). However, Aline Helg is not content with these simplistic rationalizations. In an effort to uncover more plausible reasons for Colombia’s neglect of its Afro-Caribbean population, she has written an encyclopedic history of the Caribbean region, which traces its social, cultural, economic, and political development from the late Bourbon era through the early national period.In tackling this intriguing topic, Helg examined an impressive array of archival documents and secondary sources located in Cartagena, Santa Marta, Bogotá, France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States. More specifically, she wanted to find the answers to three questions: First, why did the lower classes of color on the Caribbean coast not collectively challenge the small white elite during the crucial period of national formation? Second, why did race not become an organizational category in the region? And third, why did the Caribbean coast integrate into Andean Colombia without asserting its Afro-Caribbeanness? In answering these questions, Helg produces a cogently argued monograph that throws light on a multitude of topics, including Bourbon policies, frontiers, Indians, race relations, gender roles, the war of independence, and the sociopolitical views of independence-era leaders such as Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander.In her conclusion, Helg summarizes her analysis and returns to her initial questions. She suggests that the Caribbean region’s postcolonial fragmentation and dependency on Bogotá largely “resulted from people’s continuing identification, throughout the war for independence and after 1821, with individual cities, towns, and villages rather than with their province, their region, or New Granada” (p. 238). By opting for legal racial inclusion from the time of the first independence, the new national leaders embraced a vision of a racially mixed majority. The decision to grant legal equality and suffrage to all adult men, regardless of race, helped to erase the “stain of slavery,” even though slavery was not completely abolished until 1852. The acceptance of mulattoes and blacks into the Caribbean militias also promoted “a fuzzy yet enduring racial hierarchy,” and the development of popular support for the Liberal and Conservative Parties further integrated local and regional Caribbean constituencies into the Colombian nation. As a result, nonwhites posed no problems to the elite, as long as they did not challenge the socioracial hierarchy and existing power relations. In the few instances when they did threaten white supremacy, such as mulatto general José Padilla’s challenge to Bolívar in 1828, nonwhites were quickly repressed or, as in the case of Padilla, executed. Finally, Helg argues that “the most abiding reason why the Caribbean region avoided social conflict and remained within New Granada despite its racial distinctiveness was the continuing existence of vast uncontrolled hinterlands and frontiers as well as an unguarded littoral offering viable alternatives to rebellious and free-spirited individuals” (p. 262).In one sense, Helg’s book is only the most recent contribution to the boom in regional studies dealing with Colombia’s Caribbean, which began more than two decades ago with Orlando Fals Borda’s four-volume Historia doble de la costa (Valencia Editores, 1979–86). Her placement of her subject within a comparative perspective of the Americas expands its relevance to researchers beyond those of us who concentrate on Colombian history. Scholars interested in the interaction of elite and popular classes, in mestizaje, in slave systems, in the role of women in the wars of independence, and in frontier societies and Indian resistance will surely find insights that will enhance their understanding of these complex topics regardless of their country specialization. In short, Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia seems certain to become a classic monograph in the literature concerning the development of Latin American nations in the early nineteenth century.