Objective/Context:

This article analyzes the nature and operation of bail releases for political prisoners during the War of the Thousand Days (Colombia, 1899-1902), as well as the uses that both detainees and authorities made of them.

Methodology:

The study reviews material from the Central Archive of Cauca in Popayán and the Historical Archive of Medellín, in order to carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of records of political bails from both cities, accompanied by a review of petitions and administrative resolutions associated with such resources.

Originality:

The article explores a little-studied political-legal mechanism in the context of Colombian civil wars in the nineteenth century: bails or judicial bonds. Additionally, it contributes to the study of a topic that has only recently attracted the attention of historians: treatment of the political opponent through the administration of clemency.

Conclusions:

Although they represented a way to obtain state clemency, these bails also provided the government with a mechanism to reinforce the submission of dissenters and to produce politically and militarily harmless opponents. Its operation, in fact, was permanently permeated with simultaneous logics of grace, prevention, and punishment.

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