OWNING LAND, APPROPRIATING NATURE. THE CONFIGURATION OF AN AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE IN THE CAUCA RIVER VALLEY, SOUTHWESTERN COLOMBIA, 1864 - 1901 A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In the Department of History University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Martin Giraldo Copyright Martin Giraldo, October, 2018. All rights reserved. Permission to use In presenting this thesis/dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis/dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis/dissertation work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis/dissertation or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis/dissertation. Requests for permission to copy or to make other uses of materials in this thesis/dissertation in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of History 9 Campus Drive University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 Canada OR Dean College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies University of Saskatchewan 116 Thorvaldson Building, 110 Science Place Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5C9 Canada i Abstract In the early 20th century, the Cauca River Valley in southwestern Colombia became an epicenter of agricultural modernization focused on sugarcane monoculture. Such an environmental transformation relied upon changing market demands, technological improvements, political disposition and a narrative created decades earlier by agents of 19th century liberal thinking. Politicians, scientists and travelers explained the valley’s agricultural history through a social and ecological paradox. They perceived that the exceptional natural richness of the valley’s landscape was misused by an inefficient agrarian structure ruled by the colonial manorial hacienda and its static pattern of land use based on cattle ranching. Far from being static and futile, the manorial hacienda system experienced fundamental changes in its socio-ecological performance throughout the second half of 19th century in strategic areas of the Cauca River Valley. The configuration of an agricultural landscape in the Cauca River Valley between 1864 and 1901 was the result of an encounter between several social groups with unequal opportunity to access productive land, diverse needs, and competing interests in using these lands. Traditional hacendados were forced to rethink the manorial productive logic and become hands-on farm managers in order to preserve their estates. Meanwhile, new settlers moved into the valley, some, such as foreign entrepreneurs, had the means to access fertile land and invest in agriculture. Others, such as landless peasants and the descendants of freed slaves, had almost nothing, but nonetheless acquired resources to sustain their communities. Focused on the Amaime River, a tributary of the Cauca River, this thesis explores the environmental and social background of land tenure dynamics in Colombian history. ii Acknowledgements This research was possible thanks to the support of the project Sustainable Farm Systems (SFS), funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Partnership Grant SSHRC 895-2011-1020). I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor and leader of the SFS project Geoff Cunfer for his guidance, valuable comments and thorough revisions on content, form and language. To the leaders and members of the SFS Colombian team Stefania Gallini, Olga Lucia Delgadillo, Katherine Mora, Omar Ruiz Nieto, María José La Rotta and Diana Romero for their group work, feedback and support throughout the last four years of the SFS project. To the members of the Department of History and the HGIS lab at the University of Saskatchewan Jim Clifford, Andrew Watson, Patrick Chasee and Steven Langlois for their teachings and aid in GIS methodologies and environmental history research. iii Dedication To María Teresa, Juan David, Eva and Daniela iv Table of Contents Permission to use .................................................................................................................................... i Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. iii Dedication ............................................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................ vi List of Figures ...................................................................................................................................... vii List of abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ ix Glossary of foreign words .................................................................................................................... x Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Historiographical discussion ............................................................................................................... 7 Theoretical approach ......................................................................................................................... 16 Methodology and sources ................................................................................................................. 19 CHAPTER ONE: Wealthy nature, unworthy people ...................................................................... 23 1.1 Portrayals of the Cauca River Valley’s agricultural landscape ............................................. 25 1.2 Narratives in transition .......................................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER TWO: “If you sell land, you eat land” .......................................................................... 48 2.1. Genesis and logic of the manorial hacienda .......................................................................... 49 2.1.1 The Cauca River Valley, a niche for manorial haciendas, 16th to 18th centuries ............... 53 2.2. “If you sell land, you eat land” ............................................................................................. 60 2.2.1 La Concepción de Amaime: bulwarks of the land tradition.............................................. 61 2.2.2 La Torre: a place of land fragmentation ............................................................................ 74 CHAPTER THREE: “The master’s eye fattens the cow” .............................................................. 83 3.1 Owning land and adaptation to the social context ................................................................ 84 3.2 Using the land, from diversification to sketches of monoculture ......................................... 97 3.2.1 Coffee: a consistent trial and error .................................................................................... 97 3.2.2 Tobacco and indigo: local capacities and demands abroad............................................. 107 3.2.3 Sugarcane, cattle and the path to monoculture ................................................................ 112 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................ 125 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 131 v List of Tables Table 2.1: Disaggregated prices in pesos oro of the haciendas at the eastern side of the Cauca River, based on sale inventories from 1719 to 1749…………………………………….…...58 Table 2.2: Livestock quantities in the haciendas at the eastern side of the Cauca River, based on sale inventories from 1719 to 1749……………………………………………………….59 Table 2.3: Prices in pesos oro of the investments on the haciendas at the eastern side of the Cauca River, based on sale inventories from 1719 to 1749………………..………………...59 Table 2.4: Appraisal of the assets in the hacienda La Concepción from the testament of Barbara Cabal in 1845………………………………………….…………………………….63 Table 2.5: Appraisal of the assets in the hacienda La Concepción from the testament of José María Molina in 1863…………………………………………………………...……………65 Table 2.6: Livestock census made by the Chorographic Commission led by the Italian geographer Agustin