Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Development for the Center and Civilization for the Periphery: The First Globalization, Racial Exclusion and Regional School Development in Colombia

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Globalization and the Rise of Mass Education

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History ((PEHS))

Abstract

This chapter shows how the persistence of racism prevented some Colombian regions from transferring the benefits of the first globalization to better performance in education. Colombian education realized a slow but consistent rise after the second half of the nineteenth century and through the mid-twentieth century. However, subnational differences in education performance tended to increase during this period. Using quantitative and qualitative evidence, the chapter shows that the export boom had a differential impact on subnational education because of the reproduction of racism. Specifically, in those regions with a larger proportion of non-white population, national and subnational elites implemented racist educational projects that did not favor the transfer of the benefits of the first globalization to better levels of education for the non-white majority.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    New zones of export production also emerged (Ocampo and Colmenares 2017; Ocampo 2010).

  2. 2.

    That is, white people or predominantly white in descent.

  3. 3.

    The National Territories were mainly tropical-isolated areas (see Illustration 5.1).

  4. 4.

    The republican elite deliberately put conditions on full access to freedom. For example, the first laws granted freedom only to the offspring of enslaved people born after 1821 or established training requirements (Tovar 2010).

  5. 5.

    For example, Herbert Spencer, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck or Samuel Morton.

  6. 6.

    Education report (1912, pp. 19, 22, 24, 266 and 267).

  7. 7.

    This part of the analysis uses information from the Quarterly Bulletin of National Statistics (QBNS) 1893 and 1894, the censuses of population and reports of different official dependencies. The QBNS presents data at the municipal level on agrarian export products (see Table 5.1). Unfortunately, it did not offer data on exportable forest goods, activity mainly located in non-white isolated regions. Nonetheless, it provides information on numbers of metal mines and taxation paid for these mines. Metal extraction is a typical activity in tropical territories for external markets. Hence, it might shed light on subnational extraction of exportable natural resources.

  8. 8.

    Until the early twentieth century when coffee production had national impact.

  9. 9.

    Educational development was evident only after 1950, when Colombia experienced significant socioeconomic changes (Ramírez and Tellez 2007). However, this characteristic did not prevent the rise of education during the first globalization, particularly in some Colombian departments that showed greater educational outcomes.

  10. 10.

    See education reports (1874, p. 120; 1882, p. 83; 1912, p. 17).

  11. 11.

    Education report (1910, p. XXXIX).

  12. 12.

    Report President of Colombia (1914, pp. 58–61).

  13. 13.

    For example, Education reports (1881, 1876, 1914 and 1921).

  14. 14.

    Bonilla (1968, p. 95) describes that in order to “send to Europe much rubber,” physical punishment was imperative to the extent that sometimes it was most “humanitarian” to kill the punished indigenous because of the injuries.

Archival Sources

  • Anuarios Estadísticos 1875, 1918–1928.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, P. (1921). Colombia: A Commercial and Industrial Handbook. Government Printing Office. Washington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boletín de Estadísticas Trimestral 1893 and 1894.

    Google Scholar 

  • Informe del Presidente de la República al Congreso de 1914. Imprenta Nacional. Bogotá.

    Google Scholar 

  • Informe que el Prefecto Apostólico del Chocó rinde al ilustrísimo y reverendísimo Arzobispo de Colombia, como Presidente de la Junta Arquidiocesana de Misiones 1919–1923. Imprenta Nacional 1924. Bogotá.

    Google Scholar 

  • Libro Azul de Colombia: Historia Condensada De La Republica. New York: The J. J. Little & Ives, 1918.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martínez, A. (1926). Anuario Colombia 1925–1926. New York City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martínez, A. (1927). Anuario Colombia 1927. New York City.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Putumayo Red Book. (1914). N. Thompson & Co. London.

    Google Scholar 

Education Reports

  • Memoria del Ministro de Instrucción Pública al Congreso (1874, 1876, 1881, 1882, 1890, 1910, 1912, 1914, 1916). Imprenta Nacional. Bogotá.

    Google Scholar 

  • Memoria del Ministro de Instrucción Pública al Congreso de 1921. Bogotá. Imprenta La Luz.

    Google Scholar 

References

  • Appelbaum, Nancy. “Whitening the Region: Caucano Mediation and ‘Antioqueño Colonization’ in Nineteenth-Century Colombia.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 79, no. 4 (1999): 631–667.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appelbaum, Nancy. Muddied Waters. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appelbaum, Nancy. “Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-Century Colombia” by James E. Sanders (Review). Journal of Latin American Studies 38, no. 1 (2006), 206–208.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appelbaum, Nancy. Dibujar la nación La Comisión Corográfica en la Colombia del siglo XIX. Bogotá: Ediciones Uniandes Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bejarano, Jesús Antonio. “El Despegue Cafetero 1900–1928.” In Historia Económica de Colombia, edited by José Antonio Ocampo, 165–183. Bogotá: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bértola, Luis, and Jeffrey Williamson. “Globalization in Latin America Before 1940.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, edited by Victor Bulmer-Thomas, John Coatsworth, and Roberto Cortes-Conde, 9–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bértola, Luis, and José Antonio Ocampo. El Desarrollo Económico de América Latina desde la Independencia. Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonet-Morón, Jaime Alfredo. “¿Por qué es pobre el Chocó?” In Economías del Pacífico Colombiano, edited by Joaquín Viloria-de-la-Hoz, 9–53. Bogotá: Banco de la República, 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonilla, Victor Daniel. Siervos de Dios y amos de indios: el Estado y la misión capuchina en el Putumayo. Bogotá: Ediciones Tercer Mundo, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brew, Roger. El desarrollo económico de Antioquia desde la Independencia hasta 1920. Bogotá: Banco de la República, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brungardt, Maurice P. “La United Fruit Company en Colombia”. Innovar 5, (1995): 107–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cepeda Emiliani, Laura, and Adolfo Meisel. “¿Habrá una segunda oportunidad sobre la tierra? Instituciones coloniales y disparidades económicas regionales en Colombia”. Revista de Economía Institucional 16, no. 31, (2014): 287–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • Colmenares Guerra, Santiago. La inserción de economías regionales periféricas al mercado mundial el caso del tabaco en el Caribe colombiano, 1850–1914. PhD Thesis. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Departament d’Història Econòmica, Institucions, Política i Economia Mundial, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Correa, Ismael A. Anotaciones para una Historia de Cienega. Medellín: Editorial Lealon, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Allemand, Patricia. “Quimeras, contradicciones y ambigüedades en la ideología criolla del mestizaje: el caso de José María Samper.” Historia y Sociedad 13, (2007): 45–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Engerman, Stanley L., Elisa V. Mariscal, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff. “The Evolution of Schooling in the Americas, 1800–1925.” In Human Capital and Institutions: A Long-Run View, edited by David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 93–142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • España Eljaiek, Irina. Actors, Institutional Change and Reproduction: The Colombian Case of Racial Exclusion and Local Socio-economic Performance 1886–1950. PhD Thesis. Cologne: IMPRS-SPCE Dissertation Series, Studies on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy, 2017. 

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuentes-Vásquez, María José. “Educational Disparities in Colombia 1904–1958: New Evidence from a Regional Level Approach.” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History (2019), early view.

    Google Scholar 

  • García-Jimeno, Camilo, and James A. Robinson. “Elites, Prosperidad y Desigualdad: Los Determinantes de la Detentación de Cargos Públicos en Antioquia durante el siglo XIX.” In Economía Colombiana del siglo XIX, edited by Adolfo Meisel and Maria Teresa Ramírez, 617–668. Bogotá, Banco de la República: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gutiérrez de Pineda, Virginia. Familia y Cultura en Colombia. Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harguindeguy, Juan. Un largo camino hacia el reconocimiento de derechos Indigenas. Master Thesis, Master Avanzado en Ciencias Jurídicas, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helg, Aline [1987]. La Educacion en Colombia 1918–1957. Bogotá: Plaza y Janes Editores, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helg, Aline. “Simón Bolívar’s Republic: A Bulwark Against the ‘Tyranny’ of the Majority.” Revista de Sociologia e Política 20, no. 42 (2012): 21–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hering Torres, Max S. “Raza: Variables Históricas.” Revista de Estudios Sociales, 27 (2007, abril): 16–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalmanovitz, Salomón, and Edwin López. “El ingreso colombiano en el siglo XIX.” In Economía colombiana del siglo XIX, edited by Adolfo Meisel and Maria Teresa Ramírez, 331–374. Bogotá, Banco de la República: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuan-Bahamón, Misael. Civilización, frontera y barbarie. Misiones capuchinas en Caquetá y Putumayo, 1893–1929. Bogotá: Editorial Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lasso, Marixa. “A Republican Myth of Racial Harmony: Race and Patriotism in Colombia, 1810–12.” Historical Reflections 29, no. 1 (2003): 43–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lasso, Marixa. Mitos de armonía racial. Raza y republicanismo durante la era de la revolución, Colombia 1795–1831. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes/Banco de la República, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leal, Claudia. “La Compañía Minera Chocó Pacífico y el auge del platino en Colombia, 1897–1930.” Historia Crítica, 39E (2009): 150–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leal, Claudia. Landscapes of Freedom Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leal, Claudia, and Carl Langebaek Historia de raza y nación en América Latina. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • LeGrand, Catherine C. “Historias transnacionales: nuevas interpretaciones de los enclaves en América Latina.” Nómadas 144, no. 25 (2006): 144–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martínez, Abraham. Anuario Colombia 1925–1926. New York City, NY, 1927.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martínez Pinzón, Felipe. “Tránsitos por el río Magdalena: el boga, el blanco y las contradicciones del liberalismo colombiano de mediados del siglo XIX.” Estudios de Literatura Colombiana, 29 (2011): 17–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • McFarlane, Anthony. Colombia Before Independence: Economy, Society, and Politics Under Bourbon Rule. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McGraw, Jason. “Purificar la nación: eugenesia, higiene y renovación moral-racial de la periferia del Caribe colombiano, 1900–1930.” Revista de Estudios Sociales, 27 (2007): 62–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meisel, Adolfo. “La economía de Ciénaga después del banano.” Documentos de Trabajo sobre Economía Regional y Urbana. Bogotá: Banco de la República, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meza, Kelly. Economia Tabacalera y Efectos Sociales en Colombia: El Caso del Carmen de Bolivar (1859–1875). BA Thesis. Cartagena: Universidad de Cartagena, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Programa de Historia, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Múnera, Alfonso. Fronteras Imaginadas: La construcción de las razas y de la geografía en el siglo XIX colombiano. Bogotá: Planeta, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ocampo, José Antonio. Colombia y la economía mundial, 1830–1910. Bogotá, Siglo XXI Editores y Fedesarrollo, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ocampo, José Antonio. “El Sector Externo de la Economía Colombiana en el Siglo XIX.” In Economía Colombiana del Siglo XIX, edited by Adolfo Meisel and María Teresa Ramírez, 199–243. Bogotá: Banco de la República-Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ocampo, José Antonio, and Santiago Colmenares. “Exports and Economic Development in Colombia: A Regional Perspective, 1830–1929.” In The First Export Era Revisited: Reassessing Its Contribution to Latin American Economies, edited by Sandra Kuntz-Ficker, 189–231. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orlove, Benjamin. “Putting Race in Its Place: Order in Colonial and Postcolonial Peruvian Geography.” Social Research 60, no. 2 (1993): 301–336.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pohl-Valero, Stefan. “Food Science, Race, and the Nation in Colombia.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 1–29. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramírez, Maria Teresa, and Téllez, Juana Patricia. “La educación primaria y secundaria en Colombia en el siglo XX.” In Economía Colombiana del Siglo XX: Un Análisis Cuantitativo, edited by James Robinson and Miguel Urrutia, 459–513. Bogotá: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramírez, Maria Teresa, and Irene Salazar. “Surgimiento de la educación en la República de Colombia, ¿En qué fallamos?” In Economía Colombiana del siglo XIX, edited by Adolfo Meisel and Maria Teresa Ramírez, 419–469. Bogotá: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roldán, Mary. A Sangre y Fuego. La Violencia en Antioquia, 1946–1953. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia e Historia, Fundación para la Promoción de la Ciencia y la Tecnología, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tirado, A. Introducción a la historia económica de Colombia. Bogotá: El Ancora, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrado Rangel, Laura Camila. Colonialismo, escritura y educación en la periferia: de los informes de las misiones católicas a la etnoeducación y educación rural en Colombia. BA Thesis. Bogotá: Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Estudios Literarios, 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tovar, Jorge. “La manumisión en Colombia, 1821–1851. Un análisis cuantitativo.” In Economía Colombiana del Siglo XIX, edited by Adolfo Meisel and Maria Teresa Ramírez, 483–521. Bogotá: Banco de la República-Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ullán, Francisco Javier. “La era del caucho en el Amazonas (1870–1920): modelos de explotación y relaciones sociales de producción.” Anales del Museo de America, 12 (2004): 183–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Urrego, Rafael. La Independencia Nacional del Chocó Ayer y Ahora Una Perspectiva Afrocentrada del Movimiento Popular Revolucionario por la Independencia del Chocó. BA Thesis. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Antropologia, 2010. 

    Google Scholar 

  • Villegas, Álvaro. Heterologías: pasado, territorio y población en Colombia, 1847–1941. PhD Thesis. Medellín: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Económicas, Departamento de Historia, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wade, Peter. “The Language of Race, Place and Nation in Colombia.” América Negra, 2 (1991): 41–66.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express her gratitude to Martín Vanegas Arias and Mareike Nelle for their support in data collection.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad EAFIT, Medellín, Colombia

    Irina España-Eljaiek

Authors
  1. Irina España-Eljaiek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Irina España-Eljaiek .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA

    David Mitch

  2. Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Gabriele Cappelli

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

España-Eljaiek, I. (2019). Development for the Center and Civilization for the Periphery: The First Globalization, Racial Exclusion and Regional School Development in Colombia. In: Mitch, D., Cappelli, G. (eds) Globalization and the Rise of Mass Education. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25417-9_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25417-9_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-25416-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-25417-9

  • eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation