WK.14a The Return

Spain refused to lose any American colonies, so, after Colombia`s independence the crown wanted to rule over Colombia again, which meant, conquer it one more time. But in the time that took the Spanish army to get to America the Colombian armies had gotten stronger, in part because more people had “joined the cause”.

Before the independence Spain had the support of some governors that forced the people to be in favor of the crown, but when they got back they saw that that support was no longer in their favor, so they started torturing and humiliating the men women and children to “earn” their support.

Despite this, the crown`s armies got very strategic: Instead of fighting the Colombian army they cut the sources that supplied the army “se organizo una intendencia que fiscalizaba y centralizaba la producción de alimentos, el reclutamiento de soldados y artesanos, el abasto de cueros y ganados como de todo aquello que fuera esencial para sus ejércitos en campaña”(Colombia: imágenes de su diversidad pg. 131). With this strategy, the Spanish army recovered the south of Colombia between 1815 and 1816.

WK. 11a The Independence

The Colombian Independence from Spain was a slow process in which factors such as the economy, agriculture and politics, altered the facts of what happened.

In 1808 Spain`s colonies in America realized that Spain wasn`t as politically and economically stable as it had been for the past years. As this also affected Colombia, the politicians of the country started making demands to Spain`s crown. As the crown knew that Spain was loosing credibility in America, they accepted the demands made to keep the people loyal.

Later, when Spain was being invaded by France, the European government started taking soldiers and resources from Colombia to feed the war. This fact affected deeper the poverty in the American country, now that it was already on critical conditions, and lead to secret independence meetings.

As time passed by, the revolutionary ideas got stronger, causing several civil wars between those towns who supported the crown and those that were craving independence.

The 20`Th of July of 1810, Colombia got its independence from Spain. At the time Spain was leading with the occupation of France, so there wasn`t much resistance, but when Spain defeated France, the economy and strength of the country raised a little and its priorities changes. Spain’s number one priority now was to conquer Colombia again.

(Wk 10a) The Ranches In Colombia

The purpose of the farms in America during the colonialism was to take the great lands (some even had about a million hectares) and put them to produce money in every way possible.

They started as the farms and houses of rich people who felt the need of expanding the dimension of their lands so that they could aboard a bigger diversity of businesses. The problem with this is that these land-owners took the lands from the poor people by bribing the authorities.

With the advantage of having lands with such size, these land owners got what they wanted: to have many businesses. Some haciendas had such a diverse market that they made and sold soaps, tobacco, leather and cheese between much others now that the “ Dueños eran hacendados, mineros burócratas y comerciantes” (Colombia: imagenes de su diversidad pg 105).

Although, many haciendas focused on a single product and made wide companies to sell it, the products normally came from huge harvests and it was all in charge of the slaves whose work hours were inhumane.

The haciendas were also a sign of elegancy and money, which placed the land owner high in the society.

(Wk 9a) Black Slaves Living Conditions.

When the black slaves arrived to America they were forced to live in very hard conditions.

They had to live in small houses of only a single communal room were all the slaves of the hacienda lived “sobre sus estrechos espacios se arracimaban hombres, mujeres y niños formando una comunidad de gentes sanas y enfermas” ( Colombia:imagenes de su diversidad pg 93)

After a while of this way of living the slaves were forced into, the church decided to appeal for them and prohibit the illegal unions of slaves, which meant that if two slaves were married they got a very small house of their own. But the single slaves weren’t allowed to have relationships.

Regardless, all these slaves were forced to do hard work for long periods of time without the appropriate alimentation, which made most of them ill and as they all lived together in the ranches the infections and illnesses spread rapidly among the whole colonies of slaves. Although, the sick slaves didn’t only suffer from viruses, they also suffered from hernias, mutilations, fractures and craziness due to hard work. Which wasn’t only given among men but also in the women and children, and when any of this was the case of a slave, the master’s steel forced him or her to work without receiving any special treatment or medication.

(wk´s 7 & 8) Aguirre The wrath of God

This is a movie of a German director which shows, through the story found in the diaries of a priest that goes in an expedition to America, how hard it really was for the colons to conquer it.

This movie shows how difficult it was the war or colonization for the Europeans against the natives in the dangerous jungles of South America.

The story takes place in Peru, where the famous Spanish conqueror Lope de Aguirre and his troops that sail through the Amazon River are unsuccessfully searching for the gold city of “El Dorado”.

What I liked the most of this movie is how it shows a different perspective of how the process of colonization really happened. They don’t show the colonization as an easy process like the vast majority of the movies and books that treat this subject, but they actually show that it was hard, and that the natives did gave a fight and, though they lost the war, they did won many battles.

The story is pretty good, but sometimes it goes very slow, and the spectators may lose the thread of it.

Besides this, I really recommend the movie to the people that wants to see a different interpretation of the colonization, because, every story has two sides.

(Wk 6A) The colons organization plans

When the Europeans saw how the natives were starting to get out of their control, they decided to make an organization plan called “la encomienda”.

This program was formed with the intention of “administrating” the natives, who were no longer allowed to live in their own communities. They were forced to live in towns which, by law had to have “una iglesia, plaza y calles bajo la administracion de un cacique y su poblacion no debia superar los 300 vecinos” (Colombia: imágenes de su diversidad pg 76). What this program made was represing the natives and stopping them from having any kind of control over their lives and way of living.

The number of population of the natives decreased dramatically with the Colons arrival to America, because they thought of them as “disposable” by two reasons, one, because to the Europeans, the natives were a kind of sub-race, they were not human, they were more like pets rather than people. And second, because they died “like ants”. That happened because, as the Colombian territory is so productive, there was never reason for the natives to translade very far away from where thy lived, and when they were forced by the Europeans to go from warm lands to cold ones, they caught flues and died. Though, if they survived the hard work, change of food and psicologic traumas killed them.

As the colons didn’t care about the massive deaths of the natives, soon the mines and constructions were running low on people to work on them, so the colons brought black people and started using the “mestizos” to replace them, which showed (again) what little intention the Europeans had on protecting the former identity of America.

(wk 5A) The colonization part II

The colonization was no easy job, now that many tribes were not willing to give up their lands to the colons, who offered them peace in exchange of “obedience”. Although, the ones that did accepted this “deal” became slaves, who had, by law, to be educated. That education meant that they had to learn “good manners”, Spanish and catholic religion. Once they had this knowledge, they weren`t allowed to make use of their language, religions or anything that belonged to their past.
The tribes that didn`t accept the colons conditions were murdered, or, in the best of the cases, only the most important people, the leaders, of the tribe were assassinated, so that the rest had no other choice than to join the colons regime. The Natives and even the entire tribes that escaped successfully, started killing, not only the colons, but also the natives that had betrayed them by joining the new comers.
At this rhythm, many tribes disappeared, and with them so did many languages, rituals and habits, because, besides the natives no one was interested on keeping memory of the history of the civilizations that habited America. Apart from ending with the tribes and memories the Europeans also “reformed” their constructions, which reduces further the knowledge we have from the native`s form of life.
The Colons organized themselves living in huge mansions filled of slaves, who could be black people, natives, which lead to all the different “combination” of races, called “mestisaje”, during this period. Each race had to deal with a different level of discrimination coming from the white people, and the biggest doses of discrimination were for the natives.
And this is how the Europeans that had nothing in Europe, came to America to get fortune and live like kings at the coast of the suffering, pain and blood of thousands of natives who, sadly, only until now in “los nuevos procesos de globalizacion de los tiempos recientes les han puesto en el camino difuso de su reconstriccion”.