Colombia: Territorial Rule and the Llanos Frontier (review)

This new book by Jane M. Rausch confirms her claim to be one of the leaders of Latin American frontier historiography. Building upon her earlier studies of the Colombian Llanos Orientales between 1531 and 1930 and comparative work on Latin America in general, Rausch has undertaken a thorough investigation into the Llanos frontier between 1930 and the onset of the Violencia. She begins from assumptions that frontiers are zones of multiethnic transculturation, rather than the barriers that, in Frederick Jackson Turner's view, separate savagery and civilization. The outcome is an imaginative, carefully crafted work, based on diverse primary and secondary sources, that makes a substantial contribution to both frontier studies and the new regional historiography that is advancing so rapidly in Colombia. The book contains several exemplary maps.

The period broached is critical to the evolution of the Llanos Orientales. Colombian policymakers, who increasingly came to appreciate the economic potential of the Llanos, were embarrassed by the strides made in developing ranching and other businesses on the Venezuelan side of the frontier; they were catalyzed into action by the strategic weaknesses that were exposed by Colombia's 1932-33 "small war" against Peru. Optimism surrounded the use of aviation as an instrument that would assure more effective integration of the professional and business classes into broader national trends, not least by accelerating mail services and making regular, scheduled deliveries feasible, at least in the dry season. Yet, as Rausch demonstrates convincingly, the achievements of the period were limited, and failures of initiative by both the government and the private sector fed the frustrations that exploded in the Violencia of the late 1940s to early 1960s.

Three examples suffice to illustrate regional problems during this period. Ganaderos assumed that the completion of a long-awaited road from Bogotá to the llanero entrepôt of Villacencio would improve their competitive position in the meat markets of the capital city. But they were soon disillusioned when narrow curves on the highway could not be negotiated by the refrigerated trucks that carried beef, and when bogotano consumers accustomed to "warm meat" refused to purchase the chilled product. Second, territorial development was permanently obstructed by appalling health conditions: an endemic paucity of professional physicians, nurses, and veterinarians (needed for horses as well as cattle); the absence of clean water; problems of malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis, tropical anemia, and intestinal parasites; and insanitary housing conditions for police, peripatetic teachers, and other government agents, whose diet was constrained by the need to hunt and fish for basic foods. Third, the state—then as today—was usually conspicuous by its absence. Some places conceding complete powers to religious orders, whom anticlericals intermittently alleged put a higher priority upon enterprise than mission activity. Behind all these issues was the problem of underdevelopment: Colombia was probably the poorest of the larger countries of Latin America throughout this period, successive Liberal and Conservative governments were committed to policies of low taxation so as to foster entrepreneurial initiative, and competition for scarce resources from the more densely populated regions meant that the intendancies and comisarías had to complete vigorously with each other for a slice of the limited budget assigned to all of them.

During the 1940s the position of the Llanos probably deteriorated, in large part as a consequence of central-government problems, which enjoyed only an extemporized, day-to-day existence. Policy was often ill conceived, either for lack of crucial data, or because policy evolved for one frontier was applied to another where it was inappropriate. Furthermore, policy was often poorly implemented, if it was executed at all. Thus, the gap between aspirations and achievements in the Llanos Orientales grew considerably, as increasing numbers of desplazados from the highlands sought refuge in the region, only to be trapped in conflicts between Liberals and Conservatives, military, cattlemen and...