Road to Revolution

During the first six decades of Colombia's existence as an independent nation, it experienced five major revolutions (1839-42, 1854, 1859-62, 1876-77, 1885-86) as well as innumerable uprisings confined to specific regions or localities. Although only one of these major revolutions was successful in its objective of overthrowing the government, all of them were destructive of lives and property and seriously disrupted plans for economic develpoment. None of them, however, had such devastating effects as the War of the Thousand Days (1899-1902). This vain struggle by Liberal revolutionaries to overthrow a Conservative-dominated government began only after years of debate among Liberals on the wisdom of attempting to attain political power by force and in defiance of the wishes of the party's top leaders. The events that culminated in the outbreak of the revolution will be traced in the following pages

Economic history · Government (linguistics · Liberal Party · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Conflict, Peace, and Violence in Colombia · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · History and Politics in Latin America · Law · Philosophy