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Origins of Colombian Liberalism 7 In actuality, the Liberal reforms of 1849-53 had been foreshadowed by the Mosquera administration, which "was the first consistently to attempt to bring New Granada into the economic and cultural currents prevailing in the Western world of its day." Through the influence of Florentino Gonzalez, Mosquera's secretary of finance from 1846 to 1848, a tariff law was passed in June 1847 that lowered duties on most foreign goods by over 25 percent and "was the closest approximation to free trade taken by New Granada in a quarter century of independence."22 The Mosquera administration also encouraged the establishment of steam navigation on the Magdalena River, the nation's chief artery of transportation.23 Finally, gradual steps were taken toward the abolition of the state tobacco monopoly , which came to an end on 1 January 1850.24 It should also be noted that many of the reforms effected by the L6pez administration represented the realization of aspirations and goals articulated earlier. "It may be said that a precedent petition for every measure tagged with the 7th of March label can be found between 1809 and 1840. Even such an unlikely thing as the popular election of parish priests had been previously petitioned in 1832 by the cabildo [municipal council] of Chiriguana. "25 The election of parish priests by municipal councils was but one of several anticlerical measures enacted by Liberals who deplored the temporal and spiritual influence of the clergy, especially on the unlettered masses. On 21 May 1850 a decree was promulgated ordering the immediate expulsion of all Jesuits, a step which had been urged by the Democratic Society and by a majority of the members of Congress, though President L6pez himself hesitated before taking final action. 26 Anticlerical legislation passed by Congress the following May provided for abolition of the ecclesiastical fuero (body of corporate privileges) and forbade public authorities to compel the fulfillment of religious vows. One of the most important items on the Liberal agenda was the abolition of slavery, which was effected by a law of 21 May 1851. This action was the culmination of a process begun in 1821 at the Congress of Cucuta, convoked to draw up a constitution for Gran Colombia, which had decreed that the children of slaves were henceforth to be born free. Another process initiated at Cucuta was completed in 1850 when a law was enacted that authorized provincial legislatures to divide the communal lands, or resguardos, of the Indians and allowed the latter to dispose of their property like other citizens.27 Although it was hoped that the measure would increase agricultural production and simultaneously benefit the Indian, the law proved a boon mainly to landowners and local politicians who bought the Indian plots for a pittance and often converted them to pasture.28 Two of the Spanish legacies most vehemently denounced by the Liberal reformers were the prevailing tax system and centralization of power. To deal with these problems, Congress passed legislation providing for the 8 Red Against Blue decentralization of taxes: by a law of 20 April 1850 certain sources of revenue such as customs duties were to be reserved for the national government while all others were ceded to the provinces. In his 1851 report to Congress Secretary of Finance Manuel Murillo, who was a leader of the reform-minded Liberals, expressed the hope that the provinces would come to rely on a single direct tax on income as their sale source of revenue.29 Another vestige of Spanish rule, privilege, was combatted by a law (15 May 1850) which permitted the practice of law and medicine without a university degree and downgraded the status of the nation's three universities, Bogota, Popayan, and Cartagena.30 It is generally conceded that Colombia experienced significant social and economic change in the mid-nineteenth century, though the precise nature and causes of that change have never been systematically analyzed.31 The regularization of steam navigation on the Magdalena River and the freeing of tobacco cultivation, both of which can be dated from the Mosquera years, were followed by an expansion of foreign trade based on the export of tobacco, which became Colombia's largest exchange earner.32 Commerce received additional stimulus from the lowering of the tariff, another measure of the Mosquera administration. The consequences of the L6pez reforms are even less clear, though the division of the resguardos may have created a more mobile rural proletariat in some regions and...

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