Gran Colombia Research Articles

Financing a Revolution: The Impact of Bolívar's British Networks in the Independence of Colombia

Abstract This article explores the financial and geopolitical networks behind the independence of Gran Colombia. It shows that the failure to obtain official British government support for independence was compensated for by the development of a network of private individuals and partnerships that supplied large quantities of arms, equipment and men. A Colombian government document granting ‘Powers’ to London intermediaries was crucial to the construction of this network. We analyse who the key players were and how the network operated. By exploring the decisions and actions of merchants through the lens of risk, trust, credit and networks, we provide a fresh insight into the wider process of independence in Gran Colombia.

The Accounting Actions of the Liberator in the Face of the Economic Crisis of the Republican Project of the Great Colombia (1827–1830)

This text outlines the executive decisions of “El Libertador” Simón Bolívar, based on accounting as he managed the redirection of the Republican Treasury, seeking a point of equilibrium between costs and income that would allow delaying the imminent transfer of financial control of Gran Colombia to the hands of international creditors. This a theoretical reflection on an ignored side of “El Libertador” as an accountant, scheduler, and manager of public finances, these emerged booths among the products of historical-educational research on the accounting system adopted by the authorities in charge of the republican destinies of Gran Colombia. The points of attention, on which Bolivar’s accounting actions are revealed, are condensed in the inability of the republican project to develop an accounting policy that envisioned the way to meet the needs of information and control required by the treasury and, in the ideological polarization between the departments of New Granada, Venezuela and Ecuador that prevented the implementation of any feasibility plan to avoid the trauma of the dissolution of the republic.

Spanish American Independence Movements: A History in Documents by Wim Klooster

Reviewed by: Spanish American Independence Movements: A History in Documents by Wim Klooster Jane Rausch, Emerita Klooster, Wim, ed. Spanish American Independence Movements: A History in Documents. Petersborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2021. The independence movements of Spanish America in the early nineteenth century signal the virtual end of Spanish colonialism in the Americas (except for Cuba and Puerto Rico). These independence movements gave rise to the creation of the contemporary Latin American nations that stretch from Mexico in [End Page 229] the north to Chile and Argentina in the south. Wim Klooster's Spanish American Independence Movements: A History in Documents is the ninth instalment of Broadview Press' impressive Sources Series, which was launched with the 2016 publication of The Trial of Charles I. Klooster by K. J. Kesselring, who holds the Robert H. and Virginia N. Scotland Chair in History and International Relations at Clark University and is also the author of Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History and coeditor of The Atlantic World: Essays on Slavery, Migration, and Imagination. Klooster's detailed and thought-provoking introduction provides the information needed to place the primary source documents in historical perspective. Topic discussed in the introduction include Ethnicity, Culture, and Power in the Spanish Territories; Early Revolts and Rebellions; The French Revolution and Spanish America; Napoleon's Invasion of Spain and the Imperial Crisis; The Road to a Constitution; The Constitution of Cádiz; Revolts in New Spain; Creole Ascension in the Río de la Plata; South America's Southern Theater; New Granada: South America's Northern Theater; The Perils of Self-Governance; Fernando's Return; Bolívar's Success; Peru and San Martín's Achievement; South America's Final Battles; and Mexican Independence. The book offers a carefully selected collection of fifty-four documents that cover the major developments from 1780 to 1826. The documents, many of which are appearing in English for the first time, are arranged chronologically in five sections: Prelude (documents 1–3), Imperial Crisis (documents 4–10), Independence Movements Take Off: Fernando's Restoration (documents 11–28), Continued Warfare and Independence (documents 29–41), and Imperial Defeat and Construction of New Regimes (documents 42–54). In addition to the chronological presentation of the documents, Klooster provides an alternative arrangement of the documents by region in a section called "Alternate Table of Contents: Documents Separated by Region." The "Questions to Consider" section offers a pathway to aid students in their assessment of the documents. Spanish American Independence Movements: A History in Documents, which also contains several maps, pictures, a glossary, and an index, can function both as a textbook and as a reference work. Used as a text in an undergraduate course, the instructor might assign the "Introduction" (which includes definitions of potentially unfamiliar Spanish words or phrases) to provide a succinct overview of the whole independence movement and then select one or two of the documents for a more intensive analysis. For example, "Bolivar's letter from Jamaica, [End Page 230] 6 September 1815" (document #30) has often been used to explain Bolivar's interpretation of the form of government that newly independent Spanish American nations might take. Other documents, such as the letters of Pablo Morillo to Spain's Ministry of War in July and September 1818 (documents #39 and #40), offer new insight as to why Morillo decided not to raise a battalion of enslaved Blacks to defend the empire against the insurgents. Used as a reference work, graduate students and scholars will find documents, previously inaccessible or difficult to locate, that are bound to enlarge their understanding of these extremely complicated events. To site just one example: in my capacity as a researcher of Gran Colombia, document #49, an extract from "Francisco María Roca's Friends of the Country or Essays about the Happiness of this Province, 1822," a work previously unknown to me, helps to explain why it was logical that many people in Guayaquil wanted to remain part of Peru rather than to become a department of Colombia (167–70). Klooster has assembled an invaluable collection of documents that will endure as an indispensable resource for students, instructors, and researchers of Latin America by...

The Panama Canal: Mediation by the USA in the Panamanian Independence from Gran Colombia

The Panama Canal: Mediation by the USA in the Panamanian Independence from Gran Colombia

Atlantic Transformations: Empire, Politics, and Slavery during the Nineteenth Century

Atlantic Transformations: Empire, Politics, and Slavery during the Nineteenth Century

Phylogenetic relationship of coffee leaf rust in the central jungle of Peru

Coffee leaf rust is the main disease that causes significant losses in Coffea arabica. In Peru, this disease caused epidemics between 2008 and 2013 with production losses of 35 %. The objective was to identify H. vastatrix using a morphological and molecular approach based on a phylogenetic species concept. Coffee leaf samples with symptoms of chlorotic lesions with the presence of yellow uredospores at different severity stages of different cultivars were collected from 11 locations in the departments of Pasco and Junin during 2017-2018. DNA was purified as proposed by Cristancho and coworkers. The major subunit of ribosomal DNA was amplified with universal primers LR0R and LR5, and sequenced by Macrogen and deposited in GenBank. Sequences from the genera Achrotelium, Blastospora, Cystopsora, Hemileia, and Mikronegeria were included for phylogenetic analysis. The results showed that the rust was distributed in coffee growing regions of Pasco: Villa Rica (Catimor, Caturra, and Gran Colombia); Oxapampa (Yellow Caturra), and Junín: San Luis de Shuaro (Catimor), Chanchamayo (Catimor), San Ramón (Catimor), Vitoc (Caturra), Pichanaki (Caturra), Río Negro (Caturra), Pangoa (Yellow Caturra, Gran Colombia, Limani). It was also grouped into a single clade with isolated H. vastatrix from Mexico and Australia, suggesting that they come from a common ancestor. This is the first confirmed report using molecular barcoding of H. vastatrix in the central jungle of Peru.

Commerce in Children: Slavery, Gradual Emancipation, and the Free Womb Trade in Colombia

AbstractIn 1821, as the Wars of Independence drew to a close, officials of the newly created republic of Gran Colombia passed a national gradual emancipation law. At the center of it was a Free Womb law that declared legally free the children of enslaved women born after the law's promulgation, while bonding these children to their mothers’ masters until the age of 18. Yet, in addition to establishing a term limit on their legalized captivity, the law stipulated conditions for the commerce in Free Womb children, laying the groundwork for what I refer to as the Free Womb trade. This article presents the first detailed exploration of the origins, operations, and limitations of the Free Womb trade in Colombia, particularly at the level of one province: the northwestern Pacific coastal province of Chocó. I argue that the trade created distinctly bounded market geographies of Free Womb children, who were actively, if at times ambiguously, incorporated into Colombia's slave economy. As a general rule, the Free Womb trade placed captive families at the mercy of their masters; yet, as one extraordinary case reveals, the full extent of the local trade's legal power was not entirely secure.

Gran Colombia Gold Corp. v. Republic of Colombia, ICSID Case No. ARB/18/23, Decision on the Bifurcated Jurisdictional Issue 23 November 2020

Gran Colombia Gold Corp. v. Republic of Colombia, ICSID Case No. ARB/18/23, Decision on the Bifurcated Jurisdictional Issue 23 November 2020

The history of mining and mineral exploration in Panama: From Pre-Columbian gold mining to modern copper mining

The history of mining and exploration in Panama is a case study of the evolution of mining in a tropical, island arc environment in the New World from prehistoric to modern times over a period of ~1900 years. Panama has a strong mineral endowment of gold (~984 t), and copper (~32 Mt) resulting in a rich mining heritage. The mining history can be divided into five periods. The first was the pre-Columbian period of gold mining from near the start of the Current Era at ~100 CE to 1501, following the introduced of gold metalwork fully fledged from Colombia. Mining of gold took place from placer and vein deposits in the Veraguas, Coclé, Northern Darien and Darien goldfields, together with copper for alloying. Panama was the first country on the mainland of the Americas to be mined by Europeans during the Spanish colonial period from 1501-1821. The pattern of gold rushes, conquest and settlement can be mapped from Spanish records, starting in Northern Darien then moving west to Panama in 1519 and Nata in 1522. From here, expeditions set out throughout Veraguas over the next century to the Veraguas (Concepción), Southern Veraguas, Coclé and Central Veraguas goldfields. Attention returned to Darien in ~1665 and led to the discovery of the Espíritu Santo de Cana gold mine, the most important gold mine to that date in the Americas. The third period was the Republican period following independence from Spain in 1821 to become part of the Gran Colombia alliance, and the formation of the Republic of Panama in 1903. This period up to ~1942 was characterized by mining of gold veins and placers, and manganese mining from 1871. Gold mining ceased during World War Two. The fourth period was the era of porphyry copper discoveries and systematic, regional geochemical exploration programs from 1956 to 1982, carried out mainly by the United Nations and the Panamanian government, as well as private enterprise. This resulted in the discovery of the giant porphyry copper deposits at Cerro Colorado (1957) and Petaquilla (Cobre Panama, 1968), as well as several other porphyry deposits, epithermal gold deposits and bauxite deposits. The exploration techniques for the discovery of copper were stream sediment and soil sampling, followed rapidly by drilling. The only mine developed in this period was marine black sands for iron ore (1971-1972). The fifth and current period is the exploration and development of modern gold and copper mines since 1985 by national and foreign companies, which started in response to the gold price rise. The main discovery methods for gold, which was not analyzed in the stream sediment surveys, were lithogeochemistry of alteration zones and reexamination of old mines. Gold mines were developed at Remance (1990-1998), Santa Rosa (1995-1999 with restart planned in 2020) and Molejon (2009-2014), and the Cobre Panama copper deposit started production in 2019. The level of exploration in the country is still immature and there is high potential for the discovery of new deposits.

Convivencia escolar y potencialidades en niños con capacidades educativas diversas o necesidades educativas especiales

espanolEste articulo presenta el resultado de la investigacion “La ludica como mediacion de una estrategia en el fortalecimiento de potencialidades en ninos y ninas con capacidades educativas diversas”, la cual busco comprender y promover la convivencia escolar y el desarrollo de potencialidades mediante actividades ludicas en estudiantes con capacidades educativas diversas de grado segundo de la Institucion Educativa La Gran Colombia Sede A. Para ello, se indago acerca de las visiones de convivencia de estudiantes y docentes en el marco de un entorno educativo inclusivo en la comuna La Fuente de la ciudad de Manizales, a traves de la implementacion de la ludica como estrategia pedagogica. La presente investigacion accion participativa tiene un componente cualitativo y otro cuantitativo. Se toman los aportes de la ludica como mediacion pedagogica para la convivencia escolar y para el desarrollo de potencialidades en los ninos con capacidades educativas diversas. Se proponen distintas estrategias con base en las fuentes teoricas consultadas y en los resultados encontrados a traves de la aplicacion de cuatro instrumentos investigativos en la poblacion seleccionada: el cuestionario reflexivo, la cartografia social, la encuesta y el instrumento de actividades ludicas. Se puede concluir que el grupo de estudiantes tiene la habilidad en las artes como apoyo y recurso valioso para los procesos de ensenanza-aprendizaje, la cual se ha constituido en la mayor herramienta de trabajo, que es capaz de acomodarse a las necesidades de los ninos. http://dx.doi.org/10.11600/21450366.11.2aletheia.63.86 portuguesEste artigo e o resultado da pesquisa “A ludica como mediacao de uma estrategia no fortalecimento do potencial em criancas com diversas habilidades educacionais”, que buscou compreender e promover a vida escolar e o desenvolvimento de potencial por meio de atividades ludicas em alunos com diversas capacidades educacionais da segunda serie da Institucion Educativa La Gran Colombia Sede A. Para isso, pergun-tamos sobre as visoes de convivencia de estudantes e professores no âmbito de um ambiente educacional inclusivo no municipio de La Fuente, na cidade de Manizales, atraves da implementacao da ludica como estrategia pedagogica. Esta pesquisa-acao participativa possui um componente qualitativo e um quantitativo. As contribuicoes da ludica sao tomadas como mediacao pedagogica para a convivencia escolar e para o desenvolvimento de potencialidades em criancas com diversas habilidades educa-cionais. Diferentes estrategias sao propostas com base nas fontes teoricas consul-tadas e nos resultados encontrados atraves da aplicacao de quatro instrumentos de investigacao na populacao selecionada: o questionario reflexivo, a cartografia social, o inquerito e o instrumento de atividades ludicas. Pode-se concluir que o grupo de estudantes tem a capacidade nas artes como um valioso suporte e recurso para os processos de ensino-aprendizagem, que se tornou a maior ferramenta de trabalho capaz de acomodar as necessidades das criancas. EnglishThis article present the results from the research: “Ludic as mediation in a strategy of strengthening potentialities in children with diverse educative capacities” which aimed to comprehend and promote school relation management and the development of potentialities through ludic activities, within students with diverse educative capacities. The students were from second grade in La Gran Colombia School. In order to achieve that objective, the study inquired about the visions of coexistence from students and teachers in an inclusive environment in La Fuente, Manizales, through ludic as pedagogic strategy. This participatory action research has a qualitative and a quantitative component. It takes ludic as pedagogic mediation for coexistence and for strengthening potentialities in children with diverse educative capacities. Different strategies are proposed based on theory, as well as on the results that came from the application of four research tools, such as reflexive questionnaire, social cartography, poll, and ludic activities instrument. In conclusion, emerges the ability of the students in arts as an important resource for teaching-learning process, which is a relevant strategy that can adapt to each child necessities.

Surveying the Lands of RepublicanIndígenas: Contentious Nineteenth-Century Efforts to Abolish IndigenousResguardosnear Bogotá, Colombia

AbstractNineteenth-century republicans across the political spectrum agreed: the Spanish monarchy produced ‘miserable Indians’. Abolishing tribute and privatising communal lands, known asresguardosin New Granada (roughly today's Panama and Colombia), would transform that wretched class into equal citizens. Drawing on late eighteenth-century privatisation efforts by the Spanish Crown, early republican leaders in Gran Colombia inaugurated an era seeking equal access to wealth from communal land for all indigenous community members. After Gran Colombia (the first Colombian Republic, 1819–30) dissolved into New Granada, Ecuador and Venezuela in 1830, New Granada's experiments with indigenousresguardopolicies went further. By then, legislative efforts considered the needs of allresguardomembers, including unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Complex laws, diverse ecological terrain and nuanced social realities required well-trained surveyors to ensure each eligible indigenous family received a fair share of land. Whereas indigenous communities in Pasto, Santa Marta and the Cauca river valley resorted to armed insurrection against liberal policies through the War of the Supremes (1839–42), those in the highlands near Bogotá did not. Instead, these republicanindígenas– with their greater access to the levers of power housed in the national capital – chose to engage in the reforms of a decentralising state. This article reveals how contentious experiments seeking republican equality within indigenousresguardosas a path towards abolishing the institution were consistently stymied by efforts to ensure that indigenous community governance and communal landholding remained intact.

Derecho a la seguridad social en las constituciones políticas de Colombia y Venezuela. Su desarrollo legislativo fundamental: Ley 100 de 1993 y Ley Orgánica del Sistema de Seguridad Social del 2002

Colombia y Venezuela son dos países hermanos y vecinos, con una historia relativamente común. En el periodo colonial, la Provincia de Venezuela estuvo bajo la jurisdicción del Nuevo Reino de Granada, hoy, Colombia. Posteriormente, en 1830, se disuelve la Gran Colombia; en consecuencia, Colombia y Venezuela pasan a formar repúblicas independientes. El periodo republicano ha sido convulso y accidentado en ambos países y la evolución constitucional tanto en uno como en el otro país da cuenta del acontecer sociopolítico de las dos naciones. El presente artículo constituye una aproximación al estudio comparado de la legislación en materia de seguridad social sobre la base de la constitucionalización del derecho a la seguridad social y su desarrollo legislativo principal: Ley 100 de 1993, en el caso de Colombia, y Ley Orgánica del Sistema de Seguridad Social del 2002, en el caso de Venezuela.

La pedagogía para la paz y el Programa de Aceleración del Aprendizaje. Estudio de caso: Colegio San Francisco I. E. D., Ciudad Bolívar

El Programa de Aceleración del Aprendizaje hace parte de los modelos de educación flexible impulsados por el Ministerio de Educación Nacional a partir de 2000 para atender el problema de la extraedad escolar en Colombia. Dicho programa fue asumido por el Colegio San Francisco I. E. D. en donde fue analizado, en el marco del proyecto “Pedagogía y Paz”, por el grupo de investigación Nullum Crime Sine Lege de la Universidad Nacional y el Semillero In Ius Vocatio de la Universidad La Gran Colombia.El presente artículo tiene como objetivo presentar el Programa de Aceleración del Aprendizaje como un modelo que no solo tiene el objetivo de promover la inclusión, sino el de contribuir de forma significativa a la construcción de una cultura de paz, la pedagogía para la paz y la educación en derechos humanos en instituciones educativas.

La Cultura ambiental desde la participación ciudadana para el desarrollo de la conciencia crítica en la ciudadanía Lojana

El presente artículo propone una alternativa sobre cómo mejorar la cultura ambiental en las personas para así poder obtener y convivir en un ambiente sano. Un elemento esencial es lograr en los actores sociales el desarrollo de su conciencia crítica para que los impactos del hombre sobre el medioambiente disminuyan, para garantizar el perfeccionamiento de una cultura ambiental que le proporcione los conocimientos, habilidades y valores necesarios para su transformación personal y social. El objetivo general de la investigación fue lograr la formación de una cultura ambiental en los comerciantes del mercado mayorista “Gran Colombia” Loja-Ecuador, a través del manejo integral de los residuos sólidos generados en la zona. La propuesta fue concebida desde la metodología de investigación-acción-participación, que se constituye en una vía efectiva que garantiza la potenciación de procesos de desarrollo de conciencia crítica, participación activa de los implicados en la determinación y solución del problema y la elaboración de proyectos sociales que conducen desde la formación de una cultura ambiental a mitigar los impactos ambientales desde el protagonismo de la ciudadanía. La evaluación de los resultados del proyecto de intervención para contribuir a la formación de la cultura ambiental de los comerciantes, permitió el desarrollo de la toma de conciencia crítica de los comerciantes sobre los problemas de su entorno, específicamente la problemática del mal manejo de residuos sólidos. Desde esta perspectiva de investigación-acción-participación se evidenciaron cambios favorables en cuanto a la conciencia crítica, y se aprecia la disposición a la participación en las tareas para solucionar los problemas actuales e impedir la contaminación de los sectores aledaños al mercado y la cultura ambiental de los comerciantes para solucionar este deterioro. A través de este programa se establecen proyectos dirigidos a: reciclaje, aplicación de bonos, educación ambiental basada en el manejo y aprovechamiento de los residuos sólidos, almacenamiento selectivo, instalación de un centro de acopio y por último el de fomentar la formación de una organización comunitaria que ejerzan el aprovechamiento de residuos sólidos.

La innovación abierta y colaborativa: una experiencia de articulación entre el estado y la universidad

En Colombia las políticas públicas para el desarrollo productivo y el crecimiento empresarial están evolucionado hacia nuevos paradigmas a través de la implementación de programas de innovación abierta, que les permitan a las empresas dinamizar procesos colaborativos en su interior y luego con otras empresas, para lo cual el gobierno nacional creó en 2012 una entidad denominada INNpulsa Colombia, para promover el crecimiento empresarial, fomentar la innovación y el emprendimiento de alto impacto. En el año 2014 esta entidad implementó el Programa de innovación abierta “Colombia CO4” y uno de los acuerdos colaborativos relevantes fue el suscrito entre Finagro y la Universidad La Gran Colombia de Armenia, para resolver el desafío denominado “FINAGRO, más que financiamiento”. Con base en los resultados del proceso de innovación abierta y colaborativa realizado por los equipos de trabajo de las dos entidades, se puedo concluir que las universidades, las empresas y el Estado pueden encontrar en este tipo de programas una estrategia de integración y articulación para formular y ejecutar proyectos estratégicos para el desarrollo económico, social, cultural y ambiental de las regiones colombianas.

“Abajo Don Simón y nada con los reinosos”. Sobre el liberalismo separatista venezolano, 1821-1830

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo revisar la separación de Venezuela de la Gran Colombia desde una perspectiva distinta a la tradicional, que suele centrarla en la rivalidad entre grandes caudillos o en la “traición” de la oligarquía caraqueña a Simón Bolívar. Basándonos en la tesis de que hubo un liberalismo separatista venezolano, la idea es demostrar la presencia de fenómenos más amplios, como los del nacimiento de una idea de nación en ciertos sectores que se esforzaron por reinstituir la llamada Antigua Venezuela, disuelta en la Gran Colombia en varios departamentos. Esta especie de nacionalismo, o protonacionalismo liberal, diseñó en los años grancolombianos el Estado venezolano que emerge en 1830.

Una república colosal: la unión de Colombia, el acceso al Pacífico y la utopía del comercio global, 1819-1830

Los líderes de la Gran Colombia enfrentaron el problema que suponía imaginar y crear una nación que integrara su gente y un paisaje extenso y montañoso en una entidad política coherente. Para ello, y para justificar la unión de Venezuela, Nueva Granada y Quito, crearon discursos, representaciones y simbolismos que aludían a la geografía. Construyeron además una utopía sobre Colombia como baluarte del comercio global. Tanto en términos simbólicos como prácticos, el acceso al océano Pacífico y la apertura de una conexión interoceánica eran centrales para este proyecto. Esto implicó tensiones entre las economías políticas locales y la legislación diseñada en Bogotá. El eje regional conformado por Guayaquil y Panamá puso a prueba los límites del poder central demostrando la importancia de la región del Pacífico en la experiencia republicana temprana.

L'avventura nel Nuovo Mondo : cospiratori, rivoluzionari e veterani napoleonici nell'indipendenza della Nuova Granada, 1810-1830

Between the late 18th and the early 19th century, some adventurers coming from the Italian Peninsula left the Old Continent and took part in the struggle for the emancipation of New Granada. Driven by a variety of reasons, they were involved in the pre-independence uprisings, were enlisted in the ranks of the Ejercito libertador, and participated in the consolidation process of the new republics. Their biographic experience, in a large transatlantic and revolutionary movement, affected the curse of independence of new-grenadine territory and the birth of Gran Colombia.

Educando y aprendiendo para la paz. Pedagogía para la paz en el colegio San Francisco, Ciudad Bolívar (Bogotá, D.C., Colombia)

The research group Nullum Crime Sine Lege of the Universidad Nacional and the Semillero In Ius Vocatio of the Universidad Gran Colombia designed a project with the objective of contributing to the improvement of the curricular plan of the San Francisco I.E.D. School in Ciudad Bolivar based on the notions of pedagogy for peace and education for human rights. In order to meet this objective, the research group carried out three phases. The first phase was the definition of the theoretical framework of departure, the second phase was contextualization, in which four methodological tools were applied, which were accompanied by a non-participant direct observation exercise. These tools were: preliminary questionnaires, interviews, social cartographies and workshops, which allowed an approach to the context of the school and its location. Finally, the third phase was the analysis of the curriculum, its strengths and its opportunities for improvement. With all this, multiple challenges and challenges arose in the perspective of building a curricular plan that integrates the different problems present in the context of application and in turn is adapted to the needs and possibilities of the same.

El fomento a la educación básica en el Distrito del Sur en tiempos de la República de la Gran Colombia

This article examines the progress and setbacks experienced when public schooling spread in Ecuador at the time of the Republic of Gran Colombia. This educational initiative was developed during a transition phase characterized by the clash between the mindset of the old Spanish regime and that of the new Republican system, the latter tending toward lay and inclusive education. After the Wars of Independence and in view of widespread economic recession and fiscal deficits, public schools benefited from private funding. Ultimately, this educational initiative was a favorable opportunity to disseminate the idea of progress and liberal principles, consolidate the political system’s legitimacy, and extol the benefits of the Nation.