Trabajo, Ahorro, Familia, y Caridad: Poverty and the Catholic Moral Imperative in the Era of ‘Order and Progress’ in Regeneration Colombia, 1878-1900

TRABAJO, AHORRO, FAMILIA, Y CARIDAD: POVERTY AND THE CATHOLIC MORAL IMPERATIVE IN THE ERA OF ‘ORDER AND PROGRESS’ IN REGENERATION COLOMBIA, 1878-1900 Hayley Froysland Indiana University South Bend Beginning with the December 14, 1892 edition of Colombia Cristiana, a pro-government newspaper published by the Sociedad del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, Ignacio Gutiérrez published a damning series of articles entitled, “La Mendicidad,” that lambasted the working classes of the capital city of Bogotá, Colombia. In graphic language he described the deplorable living conditions of the working classes and attacked the character and moral rectitude of artisans and the poor. He held them responsible for their own miseria. “Examining the situation of the clase pobre,” he asserted, “one might believe that the cause of such misery is either the shortage of work or the excessive cost of room and board.”1 Such was not the case, he opined. Rather, the state of indigence in which the working classes lived was due to their immoral conduct. He especially criticized them for their lack of regard for hard work and their failure to save for the future and plan for the unexpected, choosing instead to spend their money on alcohol and gambling.2 Though concerned with their physical illnesses, Gutiérrez linked these to moral depravity, which concerned him most. In his eyes, the immorality that reigned was central to the poverty, vagrancy, and destruction of society.3 More injurious and pitiful than the many who suffered physical illnesses, including ulcers that “corroded even to the bone,” were men and women who had “gone astray” and existed in a state of enfermedad moral, moral sickness.4 Gutiérrez’s verbal attack on the poor actually served as the immediate impetus for artisans and thousands of the city’s poor residents to take to the streets on January 15 and 16, 1893 in Colombia’s most violent riot of the nineteenth century. It is not my purpose here to describe or analyze in depth the causes of the riot, which were multiple and complex and have been the subject of some study. One prominent interpretation recognizes multiple causes, but posits that class conflict was at the heart of the riot and that the rioters were inspired by socialist and anarchist doctrines.5 The rioters, however, included thousands of the city’s poor, not just artisans . I believe that we can better understand the riot by gaining a deeper understanding of the moral climate of the era preceding the riot and the concern for “moral regeneration,” as well as the connection many of the leading elites of the late nineteenth century made between poverty and immorality. Morality was central to definitions of class. Equally as important , perhaps, the riot itself helps to demonstrate the centrality of morality and religion in Colombia’s project of “Regeneration” and modernization. C  2009 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 137 The Latin Americanist, March 2009 The enfermedad moral defined by Gutiérrez required a cure and he was not alone in his thinking. By the 1880s morality became a most central matter. Morality and religion were critical to the project of “Order and Progress” in “Regeneration” Colombia. In 1884 the conservative Nationalist Party of Colombia consolidated power under the leadership of President Rafael Núñez and the ideologue Miguel Antonio Caro, who served as vice-president under Núñez and then president from 1894-1898. Núñez, Caro, and the Nationalists dominated the political life of the country from 1884 until 1900, a period known as la Regeneración, the Regeneration, so named for the Núñez slogan, “Regeneration or Catastrophe.”6 Historians have studied the important political, administrative, and economic reforms of the Regeneration, yet have only rarely examined the Regeneration ’s social and moral mission.7 Careful assessment of the writings of some of the most prominent political, ecclesiastical, and intellectual elites during the Regeneration suggest that religion and morality were principal, and perhaps foremost, elements in the struggle against potential socialism and would also lead Colombia on the path to progress. Colombian political, intellectual, medical, and ecclesiastical elites had become increasingly concerned about what...