Nancy P. Appelbaum. Mapping the Country of Regions: The Chorographic Commission of Nineteenth-Century Colombia.

Abstract

When Colombia embarked upon its independent existence in 1830, one of the most difficult tasks confronting the leaders was to mold a conglomeration of disparate regions into an integrated nation. Rugged topography divided the country into two distinct parts: the western third, dominated by the Andean cordillera, with its three high ranges running north and south and separated by the deep longitudinal valleys of the Cauca and Magdalena rivers, while being fringed on the north and west by coastal lowlands; and the remaining two-thirds, a largely unexplored expanse lying east of the Andes, consisting of the Amazon rainforest south of the Guaviare River and the Llanos Orientales, or tropical plains, to the north of it. In an ambitious attempt to achieve an informed vision of this new nation with much of its domain still unknown, the government launched the Chorographic Commission in 1850 with a mandate to explore and chart Colombia’s national territory and survey its natural resources. Directed first by Colonel Agustín Codazzi and later by Manuel Ponce de León and Manuel María Paz Delgado, the commission included native and foreign-born geographers, writers, illustrators, and even a botanist. In nine years its members surveyed more than thirty provinces and produced an enormous number of maps, written descriptions, and 151 watercolor illustrations. Taken together, these sources provided a trove of social and economic data delineating the country’s territory and racial composition during the mid-nineteenth century.