Abstract

SANDERS, James E. "CITIZENS OF A FREE PEOPLE": POPULAR LIBERALISM AND RACE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY SOUTHWESTERN COLOMBIA. hist.crit. [online]. 2009, n.38, pp.172-203. ISSN 0121-1617.

This article explores how popular classes, especially Afro-Colombians, created an alliance with the Liberal Party in the Cauca region of Colombia during the mid-nineteenth century. Afro-Caucanos negotiated with elite leaders of the party, trading their votes and service as soldiers in the civil wars of the era for a variety of social, economic and political gains, including the abolition of slavery, access to commons, the reduction of aguardiente monopolies, and obtaining the status of citizens. Afro-Caucanos also redefined citizenship, imagining a popular liberalism in distinct ways from the conceptions of Liberal elites, investing it with more powerful notions of liberty and equality. In the 1870s, the alliance began to fracture as elite Liberals refused to break the hacienda system and grant land rights to their popular supporters.

Keywords : Citizenship; Popular Liberalism; Race; Slavery; Afro-Colombians; Nation; Civil Wars; Colombia.

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