Colombia

By: Peter Wade

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Colombia

Country on the northern coast of South America, with ports on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Black people in Colombia do not form an easily defined category. Mixture among Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans has occurred for centuries and with greater frequency than in North America. Also, social categorization does not divide people into “black” and “white”; instead, “black,” “white,” and “Indian” are basic points of reference within which many categories of racial mixture are recognized. In addition, the native inhabitants of the islands of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina, off Nicaragua's Caribbean coast in the West Indies, contributed elements of their culture to Colombia when their lands became subject to formal incorporation within the Colombian nation (Nicaragua, however, continues to dispute this claim). This essay will make only passing reference to these black people.

The terms used to refer to black people in Colombia are varied and politically charged. The term negro (meaning “black”), although quite common, can be used disparagingly; some people, Afro-Colombians or not, avoid it. Some people use the euphemistic moreno (brown), or the general gente de color (colored people), to identify themselves and others. In the rural Pacific region, black people often refer to themselves as libres (free people), a usage dating back to colonial times, although there is little collective memory of slavery or African origins. The term costeño (coastal dweller), is often used to imply blackness, since many Afro-Colombians live in coastal regions. Since the late 1980s, with increasing black politicization, the term negro has been vindicated, especially in black activist and academic circles. The term afrocolombiano (Afro-Colombian), has also become popular in these circles. Reference to las comunidades negras (black communities), has been institutionalized to some extent by a 1993 law that mentions them. The same law refers to the native blacks of San Andrés and Providencia as raizales (literally, rooted ones). Census figures from 2000 indicate that there were 1,543,000 blacks in Colombia, which represents 4 percent of the country's total population.

Colonial Period and Early Independence

Africans were imported from the 1520s into settlements along the northern coast of colonial New Granada, which included what later became Colombia. Cartagena de Indias, on the Caribbean coast, became the main slave port for the region and Africans were used in agriculture and personal service in this region and elsewhere from early on. The main occupation for Africans, however, was in gold mining. From about 1560, colonial settlements in the gold-rich Cauca Valley and northern Antioquia increased the demand for slaves to compensate for the fast-declining supply of Indian labor. The Pacific coastal region was colonized effectively from the late seventeenth century and the gold mining economy there became a major employer of slave labor.

As in much of Latin America, most slaves had limited opportunities to mine, farm, or sell on their own behalf and some were able to save money and buy their freedom. Freedom might also be granted by a master. Whites had children by black slave women and freed blacks also mixed with whites, mestizos (people of indigenous and European origin), and Indians. By the 1770s, “free people of color” represented about 60 percent of the New Granadian population. They included everyone who was not classified as a white, an Indian, or a slave: mestizos, mulattoes, free blacks, zambos (the term used for a person of Indian-black descent), and so forth. Free people of color lived in both rural and urban areas and were central to the colonial economy as laborers, service providers, and producers of food and gold dust. Meanwhile, slaves took flight and escaped into uncontrolled areas, where they sometimes formed fortified villages known as palenques, where they defended themselves against the Spanish. It is partly this history of race mixture, manumission, and rebellion that makes the category “black” such a complex one in modern Colombia.

Workers unload bananas for sale at the Quibdó River market in Chocó, Colombia.

Horner/Hutchinson

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Colombia became independent in 1819 and slavery was abolished in 1851. By then, slavery was still important only in the Pacific and the Cauca regions. Ex-slaves became workers on the mines and farms of their former masters, or they became independent gold panners and farmers. In the Pacific region, colonial mining patterns collapsed and freed slaves became independent miners and farmers.

The development of Afro-Colombian culture was not as overtly influenced by Africa as was the case in Cuba and Brazil. New Granada was not a full-blown plantation society, the importation of slaves ended earlier, and slavery was already a rather weak institution in most areas by the mid-nineteenth century. Nevertheless, as in other regions of Latin America, there were associations of slaves and free blacks, cabildos or councils, located mostly in cities such as Cartagena. These were organizations, sometimes similar to lay church brotherhoods with links to the church, that were allowed to hold their own dances and celebrations, often centered on drumming. In these, and in the palenques and communities of free blacks (for example, in the Pacific coastal region), Afro-Colombian culture developed.

Contemporary Issues

By the twentieth century, Colombia's black population was concentrated in three main areas. The Pacific coastal region is a very humid, heavily forested zone, crisscrossed with myriad rivers. It is very poor with low levels of infrastructure development. Its population is estimated to be 80 to 90 percent black, with smaller populations of indigenous peoples, and whites and mestizos (mostly immigrants from outside the region). The Caribbean coastal region, especially along the coastal belt itself and along the banks of some of the major rivers, the Magdalena, the Cauca, and the lower Sinú, is a relatively flat, dry area that is more urbanized and has better developed infrastructure. Economic activities include large cattle-raising and agricultural enterprises. The upper central Cauca Valley (especially in the northeast Cauca province and the southwest Valle del Cauca province) is dominated by sugarcane territory, with huge capitalist plantations. Black people work on these, or as small peasants on land sandwiched between them, or in the towns and cities of the region, especially Cali. Black people have also migrated in increasing numbers to other major cities, such as Medellín and Bogotá.

In the Pacific region, the economic activities of local blacks are varied, including agriculture (principally cultivation of plantains and corn), pig raising, fishing, hunting, and, in suitable areas, mining. Logging has been of growing importance since the 1960s. Independent black cutters can cut wood and sell their produce to intermediaries on whom they depend for credit, but the majority of lumber is cut by large national and transnational companies, with a devastating impact on the local ecology. Since the 1970s, artisan mining has become increasingly mechanized, with small gas-driven pumps and mini-dredgers available on credit. Again, multinationals have used large-scale and very destructive dredging techniques in particular zones throughout the 1900s. In the southern Pacific region, intensive capitalist shrimp farming and the cultivation of African palms have also made inroads during the 1980s, causing yet more environmental degradation of one of the world's most biodiverse areas.

In the Cauca region, the expansion of Sugar fields since the 1930s has meant intense pressure on peasant landholding, which is by legal title. Black peasants also work in the sugarcane industry for cash wages, and increasing pressure for their land has intensified their entry into wage labor and their migration to urban areas. In Cali, Medellín, and Bogotá, they join many black migrants from the Pacific region working chiefly as domestic servants (women migrants outnumber men), in the construction industry, and in informal occupations, although there are small numbers of black students and professionals.

In the Caribbean region, land-extensive cattle ranches have dominated since colonial times (although in the twentieth century some banana plantations also appeared) and have employed blacks and mestizos as sharecroppers and laborers. For maritime black settlements, fishing is an important source of subsistence and cash income. In certain areas, tourism also generates income, although most lucrative opportunities are controlled by nonblacks. In San Andrés and Providencia, tourism is also a major money earner, but again much of the business is controlled by nonblack immigrants from the Colombian mainland.

In all areas, blacks often suffer from racism, which is generally dissimulated and hard to pinpoint. Blacks in the Pacific region, for example, have lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and lower literacy rates than national averages. Rather than the simple result of direct racial discrimination, this phenomenon is due to the historically underdeveloped position of the region, itself linked to complex patterns of racism. Direct discrimination also exists—for example, in urban labor and housing markets.

Culturally, blacks are often similar to local nonblacks who are at an equivalent class level. Family organization shows a higher incidence of matrifocality and serial unions (often common-law) than the national average and, in general, family organization shows a great flexibility and adaptability. Such patterns are not confined to blacks. Blacks practice variants of popular Catholicism similar to those practiced by many nonblacks. In the Pacific region, for example, these have a specific form, focusing on the worship of saints and on funerary rites in which the clergy often plays little part and singing is an important component. In Palenque de San Basilio, a former runaway slave community near Cartagena, language and ritual observance have a particular form which is traceably African. Popular music in Colombia has been strongly influenced by blacks, and the dance music that became popular in the twentieth century (porro, Cumbia, Vallenato) originated in the Caribbean coastal region where black cultural influence has been strong and musicians such as Alejo Durán and Totó La Momposina have become nationally popular.

Columbia

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In the 1960s, a small educated minority of urban blacks, spurred mainly by the U.S. Black Power Movement, tried to create organizations that encouraged “black identity”: with the exception of Cimarrón, these had a marginal existence. In the late 1980s, several self-help black peasant organizations, often sponsored by the church, began to emerge in rural areas of the Pacific region. In the early 1990s, both types of organizations strengthened when national constitutional reform allowed issues of ethnic identity and multiculturalism to be voiced, mainly by more established indigenous organizations. The constitution of 1991 included a clause promising collective land rights for rural black communities in the Pacific region.

After two years of negotiation between representatives of black organizations and the state, Law 70 of 1993 was passed, which enshrined these rights. It also contained measures designed to improve education, training, access to credit, and material conditions for black communities nationwide. Black community participation in these spheres was ensured through the proposed inclusion of black representatives on the National Planning Council, regional planning corporations, and a consultative commission created to follow the progress of the law; the Ministry of Government created a division for black community affairs. Discrimination against black communities was outlawed and education had to reflect their cultural specificity. Finally, the law established a special constituency to elect two representatives to Congress from the black communities. Black organization thus reached a new stage of intensity, identifiable as a social movement. Conditions of life in the Pacific region and the general question of blacks' status in national society and culture became more public than ever before. As of 1998, however, land titling had been very limited and ineffective in the Pacific region, as the penetration of the area by capitalists has increased dramatically. The whole Pacific region had become subject to violence from guerrillas, paramilitaries, and the armed forces. Ethnoeducation had also not advanced far in terms of school curricula and, in 1997–1998, the special black electoral constituency was subjected to legal challenge as unconstitutional.

Black Colombians have made an important contribution to the nation's cultural life. Notable writers include Manuel Zapata Olivella (also a black history and folklore scholar and current ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago), Carlos Arturo Truque, and Arnoldo Palacios; influential poets include Candelario Obeso and Jorge Artel. The lawyer and scholar Diego Luis Córdoba was also an important politician and champion of black rights. Black culture has also had a strong influence on urban popular music—styles from the Caribbean coastal region, including cumbia and vallenato, have played a major role in defining Colombian popular music.

See also Afro-Colombians: From Maroons to Constitutional Reformers.

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