“What is my mission, you say? It’s not so much a mission as a dream. The father of our nation dreamed with an Independent Colombia. And his dream has been accomplished. I dream of a new Colombia. Our state is poor, inefficient and devoid of infrastructure. Our men are illiterate and suffer. Our women and our Indians are left aside. Our children do not know about basic literacy, basic morals or basic science. Our people do not see themselves as Colombians. But I intend to change that. I intend to create a new, brighter Colombia for every Colombian. Race, nationality, gender or age does not matter, because what makes us Colombians is that we love this tricolor and this nation. That is my dream. A Colombia where all the people in our nation will be able to look up to that tricolor as the symbol of a strong, modern country. And I intend to fulfill that dream.”
-Colombian President, Esteban Cruz, in his address to the Colombian Congress regarding the 1843 Public Education Decree and the Infrastructure, Roads and Railways Decree.
Esteban José Cruz García Espinoza, most commonly known as simply Esteban Cruz, has recently become one of Colombia’s most controversial presidents. A prominent figure before, during and after the Grand Crisis, Cruz was originally a senator for Quito who would then become the leader of the “Marchitos” faction within the Centralist Party, that would eventually evolve into the National Conservative Party (Partido Conservador Nacional, PCN). During the crisis, Cruz emerged as the de facto leader of Colombia, as the leader of the National Emergency Government and the man that run the civil administration of the country once General Rodriguez was elected Provisional President. Once Flores surrendered, he took the lead in the redaction of the Third National Constitution. And afterwards, he led his party to a smashing victory in the Colombian 1842 elections, leading to the PCN not only controlling a majority in both houses of the Congress but also in state’s governors and legislatures, the biggest victory being of course the election of Cruz himself as the new President of the Republic. But Cruz’s role in the history of Colombia was just about to start.
Cruz, just like Sucre before him, decided to continue Santander’s Great Reforms. Cruz respected Santander and considered the reforms to be just what a young nation such as Colombia needed. Cruz however decided to put an even stronger emphasis in education than Santander did, due to having been profoundly impressed with the advances in public education in both France and the United States. Cruz believed that the only form to secure Colombia and transform it into a modern, powerful nation was through educating its people. He is still considered the great educator of Colombia – under him the number of children enrolled in schools increased fourfold. The number of schools increased similarly and the level of education in the Central University increased dramatically. Cruz’s new Colombia needed an educated population. Not just educated men. Women and the Natives also had to be educated.
Schools were build through the entire Colombia. Drawing of a school in the coast.
Santander had already “imported” educated men from Europe, and also some Christian scholars from the Levant. This allotted Colombia the reputation of a new land for the educated: if you had knowledge or skills, you could become rich in Colombia easily, unlike the United States, where there was already an educated base that would be preferred over immigrants. This held especially true for intellectuals of Southern Europe and Asia, who were looked down by the Americans. Generous government subsides, often giving them cheap land, made Colombia attractive for these educated people. Colombia also received great waves of immigration from India, China and the Caribbean, which supplied its demand for cheap labor.
One of the most important scientific breakthroughs that took place under Cruz was that of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor who observed that child mortality was vastly reduced in clinics ran by midwives compared to those ran by doctors. After observing that doctors would assist in childbirth after examining corpses, he mandated everyone washed his hands with a special solution, leading to an extreme drop in child mortality. Ridiculed by the scientific community of Europe, he was invited over to Colombia by Father Antonio García, a Colombian priest who observed that infant mortality was actually lower in indigenous communities than in the Hospitals. Semmelweis traveled to Colombia as one of the thousands of experts brought over to improve Colombian medicine, and together with García conducted investigations in Quito and Santafe, concluding that washing hands did reduce mortality. The Colombian scientific community was smaller and more receptive of Semmelweis’ work, leading to hand washing becoming compulsory in the biggest hospitals of the country, allowing Colombia to have a very low death rate which combined with high immigration and high birth rates, created a demographic boom.
Another thing that is sometimes theorized to have helped raise Colombia’s growth was the fact that country to city immigration to Colombia would not really start until later. In Europe and the United States the immigrants from the country side were often forced to live in small spaces where diseases thrived, leading to enormous death rates among them. This case was especially found in immigrant who worked as cheap labor in American cities. By contrast, the lack of massive industrialization in Colombia meant that most of the cheap labor that came to it, chiefly from India, China, and the Caribbean, went to work in the booming plantations of sugar, tobacco and coffee. Only people skilled enough immigrated to the cities, and they generally could afford better conditions of life.
Semmelweis would be reinvidicated in European science circles after Pasteur's germ theory was accepted.
However, the bad state of the cities alarmed Cruz. It’s said that he spent several days troubled after reading the report of a German journalist, who visited Santafe, described it as wretched hive “without museums, parks, zoos, or any of the zones for recreation or study civilization demands”. The Caracas Reconstruction Decree was extended to both Santafe and Quito in an effort to raise the three main cities of the Republic to the levels of Europe. Like Caracas, these efforts wouldn’t be complete until the 1860’s, where massive country-city immigration started but didn’t lead to massive death rates now due to better construction and sanitary conditions.
Infrastructure also increased exponentially under Cruz. Colombia was a mountainous country, except for some plains in the north. As such, construction of railways was difficult and had to be limited to connecting important towns as cities, such as the Caracas-Santafe and Santafe-Cartagena railways. The south of the country remained largely without railways, roads being built instead, like the Quito-Guayaquil road that shortened the travel time between the two towns. This is where one of the aspects that make Cruz controversial come, as he extensively employed Indian and Chinese immigrants for these dangerous constructions, many dying in the process. Standard naval routes were created as well, improving connections between Colombian Central America and the Colombian Caribbean with the mainland. Under Cruz Colombia was better connected than ever before.
Cruz could implement all these important reforms because, similarly to Santander, he was considered a national hero – the man who saved the Republic. The only man of comparable popularity in all of Colombia who wasn’t either sick or exiled was General Rodriguez, who, acting accordingly to his beliefs, stayed out of politics. However, he was a conservative and a Cruz supporter personally, and when this became known to the Colombian people the PCN’s popularity soared even more. Another important factor was that the main opposition force, the Federalist Party was shattered following the crisis. Nobody would blame Marshall Sucre for it, the Marshall being after all also considered a savior of Colombia, but blaming the party was fair game. They became especially unpopular in Hispaniola, a state that used to be a Federalist stronghold during the Santander governments. Ecuador, which used to oscillate between Centralist and Federalist, became the new Conservative stronghold due to Cruz’s popularity there.
The Federalists lacked a leader and organization. The most popular choice for the new leader was Daniel O’Leary, but Cruz’s latter plot foiled that plan. O’Leary was a respected Federalist officer and was key in Santander’s great reforms, occupying the post of Foreign Affairs Minister (Ministro de Asuntos Exteriores) through Santander’s last term. He would then serve as Sucre’s Education Minister (Ministro de Educación). He was, however, not so much as Federalist as a Santaderist. This meant that, after Cruz offered him a post as his Economy Minister (Ministro de Economía), he accepted, even though he didn’t (nor would ever) join the PCN. O’Leary, of Irish origins, considered himself Colombian by this point, and wanted to do whatever he could to make Colombia better. He was more capable of doing so as a Minister than as a Senator.
The assumption of the office of Economy Minister by O’Leary was in the context of several administration changes that took place as soon as Cruz assumed the office of president. These changes, referred as the “Purge” by the opposition, switched old Federalists officers for new PCN officers. This had the double objective of strengthening Cruz’s hold in power, but there was also a slightly nobler goal underneath. Many of those Federalists had been on their post ever since Santander’s first term, some dating as far as the Miranda presidency. Of course, these being 18th century Latin America, many of them were corrupt or inefficient. “The Purge” wanted to introduce fresh, smart people. It’s considered that it was generally successful, as Colombia’s administration efficiency increased, but there’s certain controversy on whether it was really a consequence of it or if Colombia’s administration would have improved either way.
With O’Leary by Cruz’s side, there was simply no one able to lead the Federalists. Cruz thus had almost total power over Colombia. His detractors called him a tyrant, no better than Flores. His supporters happily went along with him. This is when one of the ideologies that would shape Colombia’s future appeared: National Conservatism.
Unlike most cases, where a party is named after an ideology, in this case the ideology is named after the Party. The PCN’s name was chosen by Cruz to represent both his conservative tendencies (which were pretty liberal when compared to the politicians of other countries) and also his commitment towards his nation. However, and over time, National Conservatism became an ideology of its own. Many still disagree on whether it is really a variant of conservatism, but the fact is that it was born as a sort of middle ground between the liberal policies of the Federalist Party and the conservative and at times almost reactionary stances of the Centralist Party. Cruz, while still a senator, would often describe himself as “too liberal for the Centralists, too conservative for the Federalists”.
Cruz is, together with Christian Hurtado, considered one of the most important conservatives of Colombia.
National Conservatism main aim is to do “whatever is best for the nation”. This objective, deliberately vague, led to protectionist policies that wanted to strengthen Colombia’s economy, politically castrated armed forces, high education and administration, pro-immigration policies, international policies that looked to benefit Colombia only, and attempts to create a unique Colombian identity. This all had the aim of creating a strong, educated nation. Certain similarities were of course noted with the Federalists, like the emphasis on education and administration and pro-immigration stance.
However, there were differences o why those policies were favored. The Federalists favored immigration as a source of skilled administrators or teachers to improve Colombia’s administration. The PCN preferred to use Colombians as administrators, and saw immigration as a source of skilled and cheap labor for industry (they were still offered high salaries and even land, thus Colombia maintained its reputation as the land of opportunity for the skilled). The Federalists viewed education mostly as teaching people morals, while the PCN saw it as teaching them skills – as a result education became more technical and the number of people who decided to go to college and pursue a career rose.
The main differences were in economy and foreign affairs. In the former, the PCN favored protectionism, while the Federalists favored free trade. Another important difference is that while the Federalists wanted to develop Colombia as an agrarian nation (leading to the sugar, tobacco and coffee boom, especially in Hispaniola), while the PCN looked to industry as the way to the future. One of Cruz’s main arguments was that, for example, Hispaniola was by now the greatest sugar producer in the world, yet all that sugar was processed by British industries. As for trade, Cruz knew that actually trying to enforce protectionism with Britain would probably damage Anglo-Colombian relations, and since Britain remained the main supplier of industrial goods, main investor and buyer also, that was out of the question. He instead enforced what he called “Colombian protectionism”: high tariffs when trading with the Colombian block and free trade when trading with Europe. Colombian influence in the block, for example in Peru, allowed Colombian officers to “persuade” officers in other governments to allow Colombian products in. Thanks to this Colombia became the main supplier of cement, timber, and, most importantly, textiles to Peru. To understand the full extent of the 1840’s industrial boom, we also have to understand the political decisions Cruz took when it came to foreign policy.
The Industrial Revolution reached Colombia during the Cruz administration.
The 1840’s and 50’s are considered the darkest years of Latin America. Between the idealistic hopes of the Congress Era and the successes of the Silver Age, these “Competition years” marked several wars and disasters: from the Grand Crisis on Colombia, going through the Pacific and Triple Wars and to the Mexican-American War, this age was characterized by being a race to the top.
When the tensions that would start the Chilean Civil War, also known as the War of Colors, started to appear, Colombia was still in the middle of the Grand Crisis. Colombia was only able to support one faction.
The Cruz administration decided to support the Liberals during this conflict, supplying them with arms. Of course, Colombia had no arms production whatsoever, so to help them Colombia contracted a British arms firm and funded the Anglo-Colombian Arms Manufacturer, positioned in Cartagena. While Colombian intervention is mostly seen as something good today in Chile, and similarly to the later interventions that would take place under Cruz as something done only to benefit Colombia itself, whether Colombia should help at all caused a major debate in the Colombian Congress. Many members of the PCN didn’t approve of intervention, or wanted it to be in favor of the conservatives. There was also the issue that Britain couldn’t officially meddle in Latin American wars because that would spite the French.
Cruz however managed to convince Congress to approve the selling of weapons, and in exchange the Chilean liberals, once victorious, would open their resources to Colombia. As for Britain, the British government decided to de jure drop their share in the Arms Manufacturer, which thus became the Colombian Arms Company (Compañia de Armas Colombiana or CAC). Most of the profit still went to British businessmen, but the fact that the company was now Colombian set the pace for further development of Colombian industry.
Almost immediately after the war of the colors, the Pacific War started. The Colombian Congress held a session to determine what Colombia’s course of action should be. It was during this session that the concept that would guide Colombian international policy for the following decades was created – in the words of Cruz, “Colombia would have to act as a Great Power to become one, therefore, she must sit back and profit”. Colombia started thus to arm all the participants of the war with the cheap knock-offs created by the Arms Manufacturer.
Some rifles made by the Arms Manufacturer.
Peru was, however, still a contentious issue, because it was still considered by many in the Colombian leadership as a puppet, no different than Haiti. However, Colombia wasn’t really willing to intervene there and enforce that. When the Semi-Centennial revolution broke up in Peru, Colombia decided then to support the revolutionaries, headed by the liberal Juan Carlos Medina. The revolutionaries triumphed thanks to Colombian support and established the Republic of Peru. Elections were held and Medina was confirmed as president. He knew, however, that Colombian support was needed, so he decided to have an “unspoken agreement” with the Colombian government: Peru would offer beneficious trade deals and cooperate with Colombia, in exchange the Colombian government would help Medina maintain democracy in Peru and would give favorable terms to Peru in a possible peace treaty.
After the war reached its conclusion, ending in a Chilean victory, Colombia took the lead in the negotiating of the Treaty of San Andres, creating the Charkean corridor among other things.
This had the intended effect: Charkas, Chile and Peru all looked up to as a savior that helped them win the war. In Chile, the oligarchs that would later be known as the Santafe Boys took control of the government, leading to elections where, no matter who won, Colombia would have a friendly government to work with. Horacio Luna, a Chilean industrialist from the Union Conservadora (Conservative Union) became the next president. Charkas was the only country that remained a dictatorship, just now under the Colombia-friendly General Umberto Trevino. This kind of friendly democracy, which were democracies that, no matter the results would continue being friendly to Colombia and follow her interests, were seen as the next and better step in the system of “Benevolent dictatorships” Colombia had used beforehand. A Haitian transition to such a system was envisioned, but it was decided that the small nation was not ready yet.
All this meant that the “Colombian block” was stronger than ever. This allowed Colombia to start investment in there. The first of this was the creation of the Colombo-Peruvian Guano Company (Compañia Colombo-Peruana del Guano) by the Anglo-Colombian industrialist Joseph Hopley. Hopley was a former member of the British Guano Company which had moved into the Chincha islands to use the guano there after they came under Colombian occupation following the Colombo-Peruvian War. After the Revolution in Peru, Hopley, who had immigrated to Colombia permanently and invested in sugar in Hispaniola, asked the Colombian government to press Peru into accepting the exploitation of the guano it had. Peru accepted, unless the condition that the company was jointly operated by them. For this, the Peruvian cattle baron Javier Aguilera accepted to invest into the project. The first official name of the company was the Hopley-Aguilera Guano Company. It would only later, after operations were extended into Chile, adopt its most well-known name.
Hopley, however, recognized that communications between his guano deposits and the ports where it would be brought to Europe were deficient, and pleaded with President Cruz for a solution. Cruz decided to ask the British for a loan for the construction of railway line that would connect Lima with the guano deposits in Peru and also both Charkas and Chile. Again, a British man took the initiative. The man was Henry Barker, who had invested in American railways. Barker decided to fund the Andean Railway Company (Compañia Andina de Ferrocarriles), with heavy British investment, for the construction of railways. During the 1860’s the Company would extend and become the greatest railway builder in Latin America, but during its first years the objective was difficult. Barker, however, was willing to invest enormous quantities of money into the Company, all to build what he called “the world’s hardest railway”.
The company also received support from the Colombian government, and it allowed the birth of another company, the Colombian Steel Company (Compañia del Acero Colombiano, CAC). The company was the first great purely Colombian company, started by Alfonso Santiago, a plantation owner of Hispaniola that had become very rich after the sugar boom started. Santiago invested into the British owned companies that mined the iron in Venezuela, and, with British imported equipment and Colombian government subsides, funded the company in 1843. The steel of the company was cheap and bad at first (a common joke being that it had dropped an “a” at the end of its acronym), but the CAC started to boom after the Chilean trader Jose Bustamante, who would go on to become one of the “Santafe Boys”, convinced the Chilean government to open the iron mines of Chile to the company. By 1846, when Barker’s railway project started, the company became its main supplier of steel. Similarly, Colombian companies (often with heavy British investment behind) were the main providers of timber and coal.
The Andean Railway Company.
Though a real industrial boom would not take place until the 1860’s during the government of Christian Hurtado, the Cruz government set the bases for it, just like the Santander government set the bases for the advances in education, immigration and healthcare. The “Big Six” Colombian companies that, by the next century, would be the most powerful and rich companies of Latin America and would control most of its economy can trace their origins to the Cruz government:
-The Andean Railway Company, later the Latin American United Railway Company that would build railways from the north of Mexico to the Patagonia and create its own locomotives.
-The Colombian Steel Company, later the Andean Mineral and Metallurgical Company, which exploited copper, iron, gold, silver and refined them, becoming the leading metal extraction company and manufacturer of metallic instruments, tools and also glass.
-The Colombo-Peruvian Guano Company, later the Colombo-Peruvian Chemical Factory, which made chemicals, cement, medicine, pesticides, fuel, and fertilizer and would become the leader in world production of fertilizers due to its hold in the guano-rich Andean regions, before investing in oil production and refining.
-The Colombian Agrarian Association and Colombian Timber Company, which started as a group of investors in Hispaniola’s sugar and Ecuador’s timber and would later unite to become the Latin American Agrarian Company, which grew coffee, cacao, banana, sugar, tobacco, cotton, rubber and more, becoming the lead producer of several of them, not only in Colombia but through Latin America and the world. Also a main provider of food like grain, rice, wine, beer, and a pioneer in the adoption of the tractor.
-The Ecuadorean Textile Factory, which due to better relations and communications with Peru became its main provider of textiles. Later it would become the Andean Clothes Company, the main provider of textiles and leather to Latin America.
-The Colombian Arms Manufacturer, the only one that kept its name, at first only made cheap knock-offs of several British and French weapons, but would later expand to create its own weapons, artillery, mortars and other forms of military equipment. By the next century most of the armies of Latin America would use their arms.
Even in the middle of the industrial boom, agriculture remained the motor of the Colombian economy.
But for the moment, these industries were still small and feeble, unable to even supply Colombia itself. Still, the Pacific War saw a dramatic raise in the quality and quantity of the output of them, especially the Arms manufacturer, which became the main supplier of the combatants of the war. Soon after the Pacific War ended, another would start when the tensions in the South Cone around the Banda Oriental couldn’t be contained any longer, allowing the manufacturer to also sell arms to the participants of that war, the Triple War. One advance was made here when the Italian-Colombian engineer Giuseppe Vargas (who Hispanized his name to José) designed the first purely Colombian fire arm: The Infantry Rifle Class 1 Miranda Model. It was during this war that one of the decisions that made Cruz one of the most controversial presidents of Colombia comes: The Oriental Mission.
When Rio Grande do Sul decided to declare its independence from the Empire of Brazil, it was clear that unless someone supplied it the little republic would share the same fate as the small rebellions in the Brazilian north: be crushed and forgotten. La Plata was obviously interested in supplying the Riograndese, the same with Paraguay, but they were supplied by Colombia. The Arms Manufacturer wished to sell arms to Rio Grande, but that would jeopardize the relations with Brazil. Cruz decided then to declare that Brazil was nothing more than an extension of the Portuguese Empire, and Colombia had the duty of helping the Riograndese. The Oriental Mission was put in place to supply not only Rio Grande, but also Paraguay. This destroyed relations with Brazil, and later La Plata when it and Paraguay declared war on each other and Colombia refused to call off the mission. Rosas new regime was somewhat forgiving towards the Colombians, but the Estado Novo regime of Brazil was furious. Brazil had, however, accumulated a huge foreign debt (“Even the shoes of the poorest slave are owned to Colombia now”). The same with the other nations. Cruz had achieved his objective: all the nations of South America were now non-threats towards his republic and their resources were open now to Colombian and British companies, but at what cost? No cost for Colombia, which made him an idol for conservatives and people of the right. The cost was bore by the nations who participated in those wars, who saw those destructive conflicts becoming bigger and deathlier thanks to the Arms Manufacturer.
The Chilean Army in the Pacific War.
Yet some nations had also gained something from the Colombian involvement. Chile was especially becoming a very powerful nation in its own right, and the deals made with the Colombian companies and the British were beneficial. After the war ended Chile had obtained most of its claims in the coast, and with them the valuable guano mines. Colombia may have been richer, but Chile had a smaller population, meaning that per capita income and salaries increased exponentially as the Colombo-Peruvian Guano Company and the CAC started operations there. The London Boys were blamed for the War of the Colors, and as a result a new faction took their place: The Santafe Boys, five men all of which had ties to either a Colombian or a British company.
The Santafe Boys were industrialists. They banded together in a party, the Conservative Union and redacted the Chilean Constitution of 1848. The Constitution gave enormous powers to the industries that were now using Chile’s resources and cemented the Conservatives hold in power until the 1870’s.
Just like in Colombia, progress took place during this era, the Conservative Period or “Patria Ejemplar” (Exemplary Fatherland). Conservatives give nothing but praise to this period of economic expansion and also territorial expansion. The government for example started to settle the straits of Magallanes to the south of the continent.
Advances in education were done. Colombia’s Public Education Decree was copied in the 1849 National Education General Law. The University of Santiago was also funded, while British support allowed Valparaiso to grow to be the most important port of the Pacific, even ahead of the Colombian Guayaquil. The Literary Society of Chile was also funded.
The most important development not only for Chile but for Latin America was the writing of the Civil Code by Andres Bello in 1851. Bello was a Venezuelan that had served as Bolivar’s tutor during some time. His code, of which many articles are still in use, was hugely influential. It received English and French translations, and profoundly impressed the intellectuals of both countries. In Colombia, it helped to inspire the future 1870 Constitutional Reform, and would also be the source for the National Union Act of La Plata in 1858 and the Brazilian Constitution of 1859.
Another important fact we have to acknowledge from this period is the continuous Prussian influence. Just like before, the Prussian leadership was more interested in answering the German question than gaining influence, but military advisers were still being brought to Chile. With Colombia falling ever more into the British sphere, and also the military losing its power in the politics of the nation, Chile was the only part of the “Colombian block” still interested in having a strong army. Prussian traditions were adopted and the armies of Chile often marched to the rhythm of popular Prussian songs. Also, many Germans immigrated to Chile and were the main settlers of the southern part of the country.
Unlike Colombia, where the British influence made the expansion of trade, commerce and industry the main objective, in Chile a Military-Industrial complex was developed. However, developing a national industry is harder than simply contracting already existing industry, especially if that industry is already operating in your area and is owned by a friendly ally (the CAC could only get off the ground because to its British investors it was cheaper to make the steel in Colombia and sell it through Latin America than make the still in Britain, for example). Due to this, deals were made with several Colombian factories, most importantly the Guano Company, the CAC and the Arms Manufacturer. Hopley and the Andean Railway Company managed to get a contract to build railways through Chile, and the Ecuadorean Textile Factory started to sell clothes through Chile.
It’s said that Colombia and Chile are the closest nations in Latin America. This friendship was born during the 40’s.
The Guano of the Colombo-Peruvian Guano Company was recognized and comercialized internationally.
When the year 1850 started, Cruz was leaving his post as president. Opinions vary wildly about him. Is he an amoral man who used foreign wars for his benefit, or a true neutral who had no control over the evil British industries? Is he a tyrant that didn’t mind causing suffering in the name of progress or a good president who did more for his nation than many others? Beloved in Chile, Peru, Charkas, Paraguay, Rio Grande do Sul, and, obviously, Colombia itself, and hated in Brazil and La Plata, Cruz is still one of the most important figures not only in the history of Colombia but on the history of Latin America. As Alejandro Alfaro, president of Colombia almost seventy years later would say “With Miranda we walked on the path to liberty, with Santander on the path to progress, with Cruz on the path to greatness”.
Undoubtedly, Cruz and his administration were what allowed Colombia to become a Great Power various decades after him. Under him, industry, infrastructure, population, economy, education, health, and more grew, but was it worth? Was the blood of thousands of immigrants who died while working in malaria infested plantations and building roads and railways worth it? Was the blood of thousands of Chileans, Platineans, Peruvians, Charkeans, Brazileans, who died in wars Cruz helped extend? The opinions of the Colombian people during his administration, who believed in his dream of a new Colombia, was that yes, it was worth it. But modern opinion has shifted.
