Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 3-26-2018 Religion, Politics and War In the Creation of an Ethos of Conflict in Colombia; The ac se of the War of the Thousand Days (1899-1902) Margarita J. Diaz Caceres [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FIDC006545 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the Latin American History Commons Recommended Citation Diaz Caceres, Margarita J., "Religion, Politics and War In the Creation of an Ethos of Conflict in Colombia; The case of the War of the Thousand Days (1899-1902)" (2018). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3657. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3657 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida RELIGION, POLITICS AND WAR IN THE CREATION OF AN ETHOS OF CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA: THE CASE OF THE WAR OF THE THOUSAND DAYS (1899-1902) A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER IN ARTS in RELIGIOUS STUDIES by Margarita Díaz Cáceres 2018 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs T his thesis, written by Margarita Díaz Cáceres, and entitled Religion, Politics and War in t he Creat ion of an Eth os of Con flict in Colomb ia: The C ase of the Wa r o f the Thous and Days (1899- 1902), h aving been app roved in respect to style and intell ectual co ntent, is r eferred to you for judgement. We have read this thesis and recommend that it be approved. ______________________________________ Oren Stier ______________________________________ Víctor Uribe ______________________________________ Ana María Bidegain, Mayor Professor Date of Defense: March 26, 2018 The Thesis of Margarita Díaz is approved _____________________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs ____________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2018 ii ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS RELIGION, POLITICS AND WAR IN THE CREATION OF AN ETHOS OF CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA: THE CASE OF THE WAR OF THE THOUSAND DAYS (1899-1902) by Margarita Díaz Cáceres Florida International University, 2018 Miami, Florida Professor Ana Maria Bidegain, Major Professor The purpose of this thesis is to understand the way in which religion and politics played a role in the formulation of a cyclical ethos of conflict, focusing in the last and most important civil war of nineteenth-century Colombia: The War of the Thousand Days (1899-1902). A historiographical review was used to understand the interactions between these two structures, and it pointed at a main problem centered in the political use of religion, as well as the transformation of political debate into a matter of political faith. In conclusion, the War of the Thousand days strengthened narratives of vengeance, worsened the situation of the country, and solidified an ethos of conflict in which the State used the Church to legitimize itself against the threats to the status quo of systemic inequality. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………..1 II. RELIGION, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN COLOMBIA 1810-1880…………………..…3 Church and State under the ‘Patronato’ (1810-1860)………………………………….6 Liberalism and Catholic discourse (1860-1880)………………………………………15 III. COLOMBIA DURING THE ‘REGENERATION’ 1880-1899…………………………….25 The ‘Regeneration’ and the Constitution of 1886……………………………………..26 The Concordat…………………………………………………………………………….31 Economic Crisis, Religious Conflict and Political Upheaval………………………….34 IV. THE WAR OF THE THOUSAND DAYS………………………………………………….40 Military actions of The War of the Thousand Days…………………………………...41 Social Elements of the War……………………………………………………………...51 Religion in the War of the Thousand Days…………………………………………….57 V. RELIGION, POLITICS AND WAR…………………………………………………………60 Catholic Identity and National Identity………………………………………………….60 Politics as Religion………………………………………………………………………..64 The Cycle of Conflict in Colombia……………………………………………………….69 CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………………...74 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………….……76 iv I. INTRODUCTION The Thousand Days’ War is considered the most bloody and destructive conflict that afflicted nineteenth-century Colombia. Spanning between 1899 and 1902, this war fought between Liberal and Conservative forces marked the end of an era of political strife and federalist initiatives. By the end of it, eighty thousand people had died of diseases or in combat, a staggering number given that the Colombian population was around four million people. This decrease in population produced a sharp decrease in agricultural production, which in turn brought an economic and political crisis that caused the separation of Panama and the fall of the regime that had won the war (Martínez Carreño 1999, 211). The purpose of this thesis is to examine the relation among politics, war and religion in the context of this war, and how the connection among these elements created a cyclical model of conflict. The main thesis of this research claims that the War of the Thousand Days’ reinforced a model of extreme political dualism that worked through belief instead of scrutiny, creating a cycle of armed conflict that could be manipulated by the elites of the two opposing factions. This led to the creation of a model of exclusivist identity based on partisan relations, that uses the methods of religion to understand politics. As historian Germán Colmenares stated, there are a series of “historiographical cages” regarding the treatment of Colombian history (Cortés Guerrero 2016, 514). These cages are assumptions created by taking historical sources at face value: these ideas lay uncontested for years, working as the basic analytical structure for research. Two of these conventions will be confronted in this work: being Catholic could be equated to be 1 a member of the Conservative Party, the Catholic Church was an unified institution that used the State to accomplish its goals. These ideas will be challenged in four chapters: the first is an overview of the relation between the Colombian State and religion in the nineteenth century, the second is an analysis of the Regeneration and its policies as the main causes of the Thousand Days’ War, the third is an overview of the war itself, focusing on its fragmentation, and the last will be about how the issues of religion, identity and politics fueled the conflict and built a framework for future problems. The sources of information for these chapters are mostly secondary sources, except for the third chapter, that will be based in both historiography and testimonies of those who participated in the war. Both sources will lead to a deeper understanding of the multiple actors in the War, as well as the motivations behind their actions. These texts will be analyzed and compared with one another to find divergences, blind spots and common themes among them in order to find the common themes that constitute the basis of the ethos of conflict. After all, the Thousand Days’ War must be seen not as an isolated incident, but part of a greater historical and social pattern of cyclical conflict in Colombia. 2 II. RELIGION, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY IN COLOMBIA 1810-1880 Map of Colombia, 1886. Taken from the "Atlas geográfico e histórico de la República de Colombia, 1890” by the Geographical Institute Agustín Codazzi. Colombia is a country located in the northwestern part of South America, and as the map shows, it is divided by three mountain ranges that belong to the greater Andean mountain range (Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social 2016, 16-17). Most of the population lives in these mountain ranges, with the larger cities such as Bogotá or Medellin located in the highland valleys and plateaus, while other important cities, such as Cartagena or Santa Marta, are in the Caribbean coast. Other regions, such as the pacific coast, the Amazonian rainforest or the eastern plains were sparsely populated 3 during the nineteenth century, and therefore held little importance to the political power of Bogotá. Geographical division has a great influence in Colombian culture and politics; the unity of the nation, though possible through common political and economic practices, must be understood in terms of a union of regions. Of all the former colonies of Spain in America, Colombia is one of the most isolated from communication from the outside world, given how far the seat of power is from the closest seaport: the modern road between Bogotá and Cartagena spans for 643 miles of difficult and diverse geography that was even harder to traverse before the advent of modern transportation technologies. These conditions did not foster economic development, and during the nineteenth century, the economy of Colombia was based on a model of scarcity, lack of industry and the exportation of unrefined products such as coffee, tobacco, cotton, gold, and cocoa. This economic model, based mostly in commodities, consisted in a series of cycles between booms and crisis of exportation, making Colombia a country