From Frontier Town to Metropolis

The author describes two main objectives of this book: to trace the history of Villavicencio from its founding in 1842 as a frontier outpost east of the Andes to its current status as a growing metropolis, and to show how its development has modified ideas about the nature of Colombia’s eastern frontier. Ten of the 11 chapters are devoted to the first objective.One might assume from the title that this is an urban history to be compared with the many that are now emerging. The fact is that this study would have been better titled “Villavicencio in the Development Context of the Upper Llanos.” It is evident from the first 50 pages that the town itself has almost no documentation to offer the historian; there are no series of population censuses, no town council records, no commercial statistics, and so on. Indeed, the volume contains no graphs or tables of any kind that would allow the reader to assess changes in the multiple functions of the urban center. Each of ten chapters covers a well-known historic period of development (the Federation era, the Regeneration, up to the Liberal Republic), and rather than focusing on Villavicencio, each chapter deals with the general development of what might be called the micro-regions of the eastern llanos. The perspective in almost all cases is from the national political context of Bogotá — who is in power, what the party conflicts are, what is said relevant to the Meta, Cauca, and Casanare lands.When details are offered of Villavicencio they are in relation to the hinterland of the town — colonization schemes, population migrations, administrative boundary changes, transportation linkages with the capital. But of the town proper little is said. One has to scan chapter by chapter to glean meager details of its changing physical structure and internal functions. The first plan of the town that is included (with no scale) is dated 1910, but that contains the bare street network. Nor are we shown cartographically where the dozens of places cited in the text are located. While the author and Colombians may know the intricacies of the llanos, readers would have been better served by a series of maps of settlements. Indeed, if any one major issue in Villavicencio’s development has to be highlighted it is the interminable problems with the improvement of the 120-mile trail/road to Bogotá. Yet no detailed map of the route is included, and on the map of the region in 1930, names of several of the key settlements are misspelled. None of the maps use contour intervals to highlight with some precision the precipitous rise in topography northwest of Villavicencio. Moreover, none of the maps included are referred to in the text; it is as though they are mere illustrations rather than complex spatial texts that need interpretation.As is the case with the multiplicity of the colonization schemes developed throughout the region in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it is more than a little difficult to follow the complexities of administrative boundary changes — from corregimientos to provinces, to special districts, to intendancies, to departments. It would have been much easier to follow the history had the chapters been arranged by theme rather than time period. While one can discern gradual developments in education, physical infrastructure, the church’s role, the persistent ecological and epidemiological problems, the in-migration of waves of dispossessed campesinos, and the brutalities of regional bandits, the structure of the text reduces ones’ ability to grasp these as meaningful processes. The chapter devoted to “La Violencia” is perhaps the exception; here one can readily see the transregional chaos of a dark period in Colombian history. But again, one cannot tell whether disease or violence was more significant for the town’s mortality rate.Of the second theme, the assessment of Villavicencio and the llanos frontier, though brief mention is made of studies of the North American West and Latin American frontier, little is offered to support any structural or functional frontier for the llanos or Villavicencio’s role within it. Again, the problem is the lack of comparative substantive data to examine the advance of the population frontier, or the cultural frontier of music and dance, or the occupied land frontier. Those clearly remain studies for the future, to be accomplished with much better data analysis.It is also a pity that the proofreading afforded the author was not more thorough. There are many misspellings, differences between text and endnotes, and awkward phrases (e.g., “female cows,” p. 186). No explanation is given for the use of COL$ in some places and pesos in others. The index is lacking in major entries (Venezuela, Ciudad Bolívar, etc.). Altogether, this is a disappointing volume from a well-known Colombian specialist

Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Documentation · Frontier · Genealogy · Geography · Population · Regional science · Sociology · Demography · Economic and Social Development · History · History and Politics in Latin America · Regional Development and Innovation

• Newspapers, Politics, and Elections in Colombia, 1830–1930

  Open Access•Eduardo Posada-Carbó•The Historical Journal•2010

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