Colombian Civil Wars

At issue: The structure of Colombian federalism

Date: 1863–1880

Location: Colombia

Combatants: Liberals (“federalists”) vs. Conservatives (“centralists”)

Principal commanders:Liberal, Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera (1798–1878), General Julián Trujillo (1828–1883); Conservative, General Marceliano Vélez

Principal battles: Los Chancos, Garrapata, Manizales, Santander

Result: Liberal victory, but Conservative “centralists” formed government from 1875 until 1930

Background

Much of the disorder from which Colombia had suffered since the secession of Venezuela and Ecuador from Gran Colombia in 1830 had been caused by local discontent and by the inability of central governments to maintain contact with the outlying regions. Until the 1840’s, few substantial differences existed between the ideologies and programs of the Conservatives and the Liberals. The failure of Conservative governments to strengthen central power and the growing discontent of regional military political bosses, who expected more regional autonomy, persuaded many leaders in both parties to look on “federalism,” an increase in local autonomy, as a solution for the country’s ills.

Action

By 1860, a full-scale civil war was in progress. Former president Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, one-time leader of the Conservatives and now governor of the state of Cauca, quarreled with the Conservatives and joined forces with the Liberals under General José Maria Obando. In July, 1861, Mosquera led his army into Bogotá and proclaimed himself provisional president. However, many of the other federalist leaders distrusted him, and their fear that he might attempt to remain in power indefinitely persuaded them to draft a new “federalist” constitution at Rio Negro in February, 1863.

This assembly approved the nation’s tenth constitution in May, 1863. The new constitution radically reduced the powers of the central government and changed the country’s name to the United States of Colombia. The nine states of Colombia were, in fact, viewed as sovereign nations. Each was authorized to have its own armed forces, and each gained many legislative powers. The constitution also limited the presidential term to two years and prohibited two terms in succession.

Mosquera, with his personal following and his prestige in the army, continued to be powerful and was elected president in 1866. Although he followed the anticlerical policies of previous Liberal administrations and reaffirmed the separation of state and church promulgated in the Constitution of 1863, he angered the theoretically sovereign states by his repeated incursions into local affairs and his agitation for a reconstituted Gran Colombia. In the following year, after a violent quarrel with the congress, he attempted to establish a dictatorship but was overthrown and sent into exile. Thereafter, the control of the government was in the hands of the Liberals, who remained in power until 1885. Throughout this time, the central government was virtually powerless to intervene against local revolutions that toppled state governments and set up new ones. Numerous presidents were either chosen legally for the two-year term or installed provisionally for still shorter periods after successful revolutions. There was continual disorder and at times virtual anarchy. More than forty local armed conflicts are said to have occurred during the two decades.

The ultrafederalist constitution of 1863 created more problems than it solved. The Liberals had hoped to eliminate civil war by reducing the opportunity for the abuse of power by the national government and by meeting the longings for greater local and regional control. Instead, they merely decentralized civil conflict. In 1876, during President Aquileo Parra’s administration, interparty divisions and increasing tensions within the ruling Liberal Party over the allowable degree of local autonomy consistent with nationhood resulted in a yearlong civil war. The heaviest fighting of the war of 1876–1878 occurred in Tolima, Cauca, and Antioquia, where Liberal and Conservative armies of thousands of men maneuvered against each other. The first major battle occurred at Los Chancos, in Cuaca, when in August, 1876, a Conservative force of Caucanos and Antioquenos under the command of Joaquín María Córdoba headed south into the Cauca Valley. The Liberals, led by General Julián Trujillo, defeated the Conservative army. Although this victory elevated Trujillo to the status of a national hero, the Liberals failed to achieve a decisive victory. A second major battle soon followed at Garrapata in Tolima where the Liberal army defeated the Conservatives under General Marceliano Vélez during several days of fighting in November, 1876, and forced them to retreat. In April, 1877, the Liberals attacked the bulk of the Conservative army at Manizales, winning a decisive battle. Conservative guerrillas continued fighting in other parts of Colombia and were quite successful in disrupting government communications. In two major battles of 1878, the Liberals under the commands of Generals Solón Wilches and Sergio Camargo defeated the remaining Conservative forces assembled in Santander. The war of 1876–1878 was over.

Aftermath

At the end of the war, General Trujillo, who had been the central government’s commanding officer, was elected president from 1878 to 1880. The Conservative Party reorganized itself under the guidance of the former Liberal Rafael Núñez, and in 1880, the Conservatives were back in power for what would be a half century of uninterrupted rule. Núñez’s Conservative administration, which lasted from 1880 to 1894, brought centralized authority to Colombia. The Regeneration, as the Núñez era is known, was an effort to achieve national unification by the creation of a permanent army, a national bank, a national police, and a national railroad; the removal of internal trade barriers; and the restoration of Catholicism as the official religion of the state. With Núñez’s death in 1899, Colombia found itself without a leader strong enough to withstand localist divisions, and civil war swept the country for the next three years.

Bibliography

Bushnell, David. The Making of Modern Colombia, A Nation in Spite of Itself. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.

Delpar, Helen. Red Against Blue: The Liberal Party in Colombian Politics, 1863–1899. New York: Preager, 1974.

Osterling, Jorge. Democracy in Colombia: Clientelist Politics and Guerrilla Warfare. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1989.

Park, James William. Rafael Nunez and the Politics of Colombian Regionalism, 1863–1886. Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1985.