¹ An earlier version of this article was published in Urrutia, M. (ed.), Ensayos sobre Historia Econóinica Colombiana (Bogotá, 1980).Google Scholar I would like to thank Miguel Urrutia for encouraging me to write it, and Patrick O'Brien, Marco Palacios, Gianni Toniolo, David Bushnell and Germán Colmenares for their comments. For comparisons, Carillo Batalla, T. E., Grases, P. et al. , Historia tie las finanzas públicas en Venezuela (8 vols to date, Caracas, 1972–);Google Scholar see also Izard, M. et al. , Política y economía en Venezuela, 1810–1976 (Caracas, 1976).Google ScholarBurgin, M., The Economic Aspects of Argentine Federalism (Cambridge, Mass, 1946), is still the best source for a comparison with one dissimilar country.Google Scholar

² Shumpeter, J. quoted in Braun, R., ‘Taxation, Socio-political Structure and State-Building: Great Britain and Brandenberg-Prussia’, in Tilly, C. (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, 1975), p. 327.Google Scholar Pages 164–242 of this book contain Ardant's, G. essay ‘Financial Policy and Economic Infrastructure of Modern States and Nations’. I am indebted to that piece, and to the same author's Theorie sociologique de l'impôt (a vols, Paris, 1965),Google Scholar and his Histoire de l'impôt (2 vols, Paris, 1971–1972).Google ScholarNavarro Reverter quoted, J. in Macedo, P., La evolución mercantil. Comunicaciones y obras públicas. La hacienda pública. Tres monografias que dan idea de una parte de la euolucón económica de México (Mexico, 1905), p. 370.Google Scholar

³ The ‘mania’ enabled Gran Colombia to raise substantial loans on ‘preposterously advantageous terms’; these phrases are from Colonel Patrick Campbell, Bogotá, to Dudley, 30 Jan. 1828, London: Public Record Office, Foreign Office Archives, Colombia (hereafter FO) 18 vol. 52. See also his useful ‘Memoir on the Revenues and Expenditures of the Republic of Colombia…’, contained in FO 18–26. Early euphoria had its effect on the subsequent fiscal history of the country.

⁴ British ministers usually came to share the Colombian administration's pessimism. See, for example, Pitt, Adams to Palmerston, , 25 04 1839, FO 55–19.Google Scholar

⁵ Arguments about ‘dependency’ prefer to ignore this matter, which is strange, when it preoccupied governments so much at the time. See SirHicks, J., A Theory of Economic History (Oxford, 1969), chapter VI, csp. p. 82.Google Scholar

⁶ Besides the Memorias, Cruz Santos, A., Economía y hacienda pública (Vol. XV of the Historia Extensa de Colombia, Bogotá, 1965.)Google Scholar Among older general works, see Galindo, A., Historia económica i estadística de la hacienda nacional desde la colonia hasta nuestros días (Bogotá, 1874),Google Scholar and his Estudios económicos i fiscales (Bogotá, 1880);Google ScholarRivas Groot, J. M., Póginas de la historia de Colombia, 1810–1910. Asuntos económicos y fiscales (Bogotá, s.d., c. 1910).Google Scholar C(límaco) Calderón, , Elementos de hacienda pública (Bogotó, 1911),Google Scholar contains a useful survey of colonial taxes. Jaramillo, E., Tratado de hacienda póThlica (4th ed., Bogotó, 1946), and La reforma tributaria en Colombia (Bogotó, 1918, 2nd edn. 1956).Google Scholar

⁷ Núñez, R., ‘La crisis mercantíl’ in La Reorma Polística (Bogotá, 1945), Vol. I part 2, p. 303 C(arlos)Google ScholarCalderón, , La Cuestión Monetaria en Colombia (Madrid, 1905), pp. 143, 147 et seq.Google Scholar See also Aguilar, F. C., Colombia en presencia de las repúblicas hispano-americana (Bogotá, 1884).Google Scholar

⁸ See La reforma tributaria, pp. 88–110 (edition of 1956), and p. 177: he compares the aduana to an old horse that one cannot and should not try to make gallop.Google Scholar

⁹ Calderón, C., La cuestión monetaria, p. 190et seq.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Ocampo, J. A., ‘Las importaciones Colombianas en el siglo XIX’, in Urrutia, M. (ed.), loc. cit.Google Scholar

¹¹ Concerns of finance usually overwhelmed concerns of political economy; as Jaramillo, E. asserted, ‘la renta de Aduanas es antes que todo un recurso fiscal’Google Scholar (La reforma tributariap. 92), and a regressive one (p. 97).Google Scholar For the economic debate on the tariff, see Samper, M. ‘La Protección’, in Escritos Político-Económicos, 4 vols, Bogontá, 1925, Vol. I, pp. 195–291Google Scholar which gives a succinct account up to 1880; Bushnell, D., ‘Two Stages in Colombian Tariff Policy: The Radical Era and the Return to Protection (1861–1885)’ in Inter-American Economic Affairs, 1955 No. 6.Google Scholar

¹² Giraldo Jaramillo, G. (ed.), Relaciones de mando de los virreyes de la Nueva Granada. Memorias económicas. (Bogotá, 1954 ‘Relación del Sr D. Manuel de Guirior’, 1776 p. 87.Google ScholarGiraldo, G. Torres, Historia de la moneda en Colombia (Bogotá, 1945), p. 31: ‘Conviene recordar… que las tropas del virreinato de Santa Fé, se pagaban con fondos del Peru, y Méjico.Google Scholar

¹³ See Uribe Uribe, R., Discursos parlamentarios. Congreso nacional de 1896 (2nd edn., Bogotá, 1897)Google Scholar‘Gravamen del Café’, pp. 189–223.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The most important natural monopoly possessed by Colombia was the transit of the Isthmus of Panama. This did yield a revenue; an attempt to squeeze more out of it was part of the events that led to the loss of the department. The railway yielded the government $225,000 a year.

¹⁵ See Hinrichs, H. H., A General Theory of Tax Structure Change During Economic Development (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), pp. 7 et seq. 19–24. His notion of ‘openness’ as an indicator of ‘taxable capacity’ fits this case admirably.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Wills, G., Obseruaciones sobre el comercio de la Nueva Granada, con un apendice relativo al de Bogotá. (Bogotá 1831; 2nd edn., Bogotá, 1952).Google ScholarCodazzi, A., Jeografía física i política de las provincias de la Nueva Granada. 1st edn., Bogotá, 1856. 2nd edn., vols, (Bogotá, 1957).Google ScholarPerez, F. wrote a Jeografía física i política of each of the nine Estados Soberanos and of the Distrito Federal (Bogotá, 1862–3.)Google Scholar (Galindo, A.), Anuario estadístico de Colombia, 1875 (Bogotá, 1875). Parte tercera, sección 7^a, ‘Comercio Interior’, pp. 148–63.Google Scholar

¹⁷ This Colombian paradox of populousness and poverty was noticed by the precursor Antonio Nariño: ‘La riqueza sigue en todas partes a la población y aqui es en sentido contrario. A proporción que se multiplican los hombres, aumenta la pobreza…’ (Quoted in Cruz Santos, A., op. cit., p. 231).Google Scholar Per capita income: Camacho Roldán, S., in ‘Catastro del Estado de Cundinamarca’ Escritos Varios (3 vols, Bogotá, 1892–5) I, 585Google Scholaret seq. reckoned the income per head in Bogotá in 1868 at $76 p.a. He estimated consumption per capita in Cundinamarca at $50 p.a. in ‘Presupuesto de rentas y gastos de Cundinamarca, 1873–4’, ibid., III, 16, and calculated ‘producimos y consumimos $125,000,000 anuales’, c. 1870, which for a population of 2.9 million would give somewhere around $40 per capita p.a. (ibid., ‘Estudios sobre la hacienda pública…Fragmentos de la Memoria de 1872’ p. 243). He continues: ‘sólo un 2 per 100 consagramos a la satisfacción de necesidades comunes por medio del funcionamiento del gobierno nacional. Si incluimos en esta comparación las rentas de los gobiernos municipales de los Estados y distritos…la proporción subirá a poco menos de 5 per 100.’ (p. 243). This is a useful calculation of the ‘tax-effort’ of that time. The per-capita income/consumption figures have the value of very well-informed contemporary estimates - they appeared plausible to the author at the time. Taking his figure of 15 centavos a day as the price of subsistence would produce an annual expenditure of $54.75 centavos.

¹⁸ Op. cit., III, 259.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Rarely can discontent with taxation have found clearer expression than in the Capitulaciones of Zipaquirá. See Briceño, M., Los Comuneros (2nd edn., Bogotá, 1977), pp. 73–83;Google ScholarPhelan, J. L., The People and the King (Madison, 1978, cap. II) pp. 18–35.Google Scholar For Palacios, de la Vega, Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. (ed.), Diario de Viaje del P. Joseph Palacios de la Vega en Ire los indios y negros de la provincia de Cartagena en el Nuevo Reino de Granada, 1787–1788. (Bogotá, 1955).Google Scholar

²⁰ Camacho Roldán considered that the very idea of taxation was associated with colonial oppression, which he himself exaggerates: ‘época en que, siendo la riqueza apenas la décima parte de lo que es en el día se cobraban impuestos cuyo producto era igual al de los tiempos actuales…Se tiene la idea, cuando se trata del pago de una contribución, de que el país es en extremo pobre, y de que, por pequeña que sea la tasa de aquella, es lo bastante para cegar las fuentes de la riqueza púbiica y producir el hambre y la muerte entre las pobiaciones…‘ He continues: ‘A esta noción debe haber contribuido, ademas de la tradición historica, ci empleo poco cuidadoso que entre nosotros se ha dado hasta el día al producto de las rentas públicas, invertidas, en gran parte, casi siempre, en saidar las cuentas de las guerras civiles y pagar empleados y pensionades cuyo servicio no estima o no comprende el pú’ibiico en general.’ (op. cit. vol. III p. 248).Google Scholar Camacho Roldán certainly exaggerates colonial efficiency, but colonial government did not have to contend with the partisan aversion to their efforts that republican governments faced. Carlos Calderén provides this description of the vicious circle of fiscal weakness: ‘El desprestigio dcl régimen político trae naturalmente la debilidad del Gobierno y la desconfianza y Ia intranquilidad; porque un Gobierno pobre es un gobierno débil, sin autoridad moral incapaz de inspirar temores ni afectos. Esto mismo reprecute sobre el producto de las rentas, porque toda intranquilidad significa paralización de los negocios, y esta, disminución de las rentas’. (La cuestión monetaria, p. 195.) It is worth mentioning besides, as it so rarely is, that Colombia was a constitutional republic well provided with lawyers and politicians, with the added fiscal and political difficulties that that implies.Google Scholar

²¹ See his Théorie sociologique de l'impôt, I. pp. 389et seq., 440 et. seq.Google Scholar

²² For a glowing account of the attraction of this revenue see Camacho, Roldán, ‘Negociación con los acreedores extranjeros…‘, op. cit. 3, 90–106;Google Scholar for the calculation of its weight on the poor, ibid., pp. 202–3. For Zipaquirá, , see Orjuela, L., Minuta histórica Zipaquireña (Bogotá, 1909), ‘Ojeada sobre salinas’, pp. LXXII–CCVI.Google Scholar Carlos Calderón's opinion in La cucstión monetaria, p. 152.Google Scholar Clímaco Calderón argued that the monopoly was yet more regressive in that the poor consumed more salt than the rich, living as they did off a predominantly vegetable diet. (Elementos de hacienda púlica, pp. 42, 103.)Google Scholar For the colonial administration of the salinas and the geography of Colombian salt, see pp. 372–409.Google Scholar

²³ A. Galindo, Historia económica i estadística de la hacienda nacional I, cuadro 3. For the tobacco monopoly, see M. González, ‘El estanco colonial de tabaco’, Cuadernos Colombianos, No. 8, pp. 637–708; Harrison, J. P., ‘The Colombian Tobacco Industry from Government Monopoly to Free Trade’, (unpub. Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of California, 1951),Google Scholar especially cap. VII, on the abolition; Sierra, L. F., El tabaco en la economia colombiana del siglo XIX, especially pp. 916;Google ScholarHelguera, J. L., ‘The First Mosquera Administration in New Granada, 1843–1849’, (Unpub. Ph.D. dissertation, Chapel Hill, 1958), cap. XI, pp. 327, 332, 353–8.Google Scholar Unfortunately none of these last three authors focuses on the fiscal side of tobacco history. They all over-estimate the fiscal importance of the monopoly in the 1840's by confusing gross and net product, and by not placing the renta in the general fiscal context. Sierra does stress how extensively mortgaged it was. Climaco, Calderó, op. cit., p. 106,Google Scholar argues for fairly rapid recovery of the loss through the aduana: ‘En efecto, el producto de Ia renta de aduanas, que en el año fiscal de 1848 a 1849 no habia sido sino de $540,238, ascendió en el año de 1855 a 1856 a $1,096,210, lo que arroja un aumento de $555,972; y como el producto líquido de la renta de tabacos en el año fiscal de 1848 a 1849, último de su existencia, fue de $321,071, con el aumento ya expresado en Ia renta de aduanas, se obtuvo para el Fisco un excedente efectivo de $243,901’. For the ‘decentralización de rentas i gastos’, lei de 20 de abril de 1850, and the liberal Murillo Toro's preamble to it, see Galindo, A., op. cit., pp. 85–94.Google Scholar

²⁴ For synopses of the viceregal revenues, see the table in Ospina Vásquez, L., Indústria y protección en Colombia, 1810–1930 (Medellín, 1955), p. 37 (taken from Memoria de Hacienda de 1839);Google ScholarGalindo, A., Historia económica i estadística de la hacienda nacional (Bogotá, 1874), cuadro No. 1 (beware the misprint under ‘Tributo de indios’). Galindo also uses the 1837 Memoria.Google Scholar

²⁵ A. Galindo, op. cit., cuadro No. 10

²⁶ For Reyes's attempt at nationalization, see Ospina Vásquez, L., lndústria y protección, p. 322.Google Scholar

²⁷ See Clímaco, Calderón, Elementos de hacienda pública, pp. 477et seq. The playingcard monopoly was avoided by taking up instead ‘juegos prohibidos, como el de dados’.Google Scholar

²⁸ Luis, Ospina Vásquez's table, op. cit. p. 37,Google Scholar gives $47,000 for the año común de los inmediatemente anteriores al de 1810'. Compare the total for Ecuador – $284,000 in 1836. Goselman, C. A., Informes sobre los estados sudamericanos en los años de 1837 y 1838 (Stockholm, 1962), p. 100.Google Scholar See also Cruz Santos, A., Economía y hacienda pública, pp. 285et seq.Google Scholar

²⁹ See Brungardt, M., ‘Tithe Production and Patterns of Economic change in Central Colombia, 1764–1833’ (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, University of Texas, 1974), pp.6et seq. for the methods of administration. Quotations from Informe del Director Jeneral de impuestos al H. Señor Secretario de Estado en el Despacho de Hacienda. (Bogotá, 1848), and from Florentino González's own Informe de Hacienda of 1848. 1835 figure from A. Galindo, op. cit. Cuadro No.9 Galindo calculated that church and state must have received around $250,000 a year, and the tithe payers must therefore have paid at least as much as they did for salt.Google Scholar

³⁰ For the Church's argument see Documentos para la biografía del ilustríssimo señor D. Manuel José Mosqucra (3 vols, Paris, 1858), II, 306–18; III, p. 512.Google Scholar

³¹ Escritos Varios, III, 421et seq. articles ‘Nuestro sistema tributario’‘Impuesto único’ and ‘Impuesto directo progresivo’.Google Scholar

³² Cf., G. Ardant, ‘Financial Policy and Economic Infrastructure of Modern States and Nations’, in Tilly, C. (ed.), op. cit., particularly pp. 208–20.Google Scholar

³³ informe que el secretario de hacienda presenta al ciudadano Presidente del Estado Soberano del Tolima 1865. (Natagaima, 1865).Google Scholar

³⁴ Informe del Secretario Jeneral del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado Soberano de Boyacá, 1869. (Tunja, 1869), pp. 30et seq.Google Scholar

³⁵ Same informe for 1873, pp. 29et seq.Google Scholar For further speculations on these aspects of local politics see my article ‘Algunas notas sobre la historia del caciquismo en Colombia’ in Revista de Historia No. 2 (Bogotá, 1976),Google Scholar particularly the extract from Gutiérrez, R., Monografías, (2 vols, Bogotá 1920–1, I, pp. 90–2) and the controversy cited in f.n. 10, p. 42 of my article. The gamonal is unwilling to tax himself and his friends, and usually unable to tax his betters.Google Scholar

³⁶ Informe for 1873, already cited.Google Scholar

³⁷ Informe del secretario de Hacienda de Cundinamarca al Gobiernador del Estado. Bogotá, 1868).Google Scholar

³⁸ See Camacho, Roldán's articles ‘Catastro del Estado del Cundinamarca’ in Escritos Varios, Vol. 1, pp. 585et seq.Google Scholar

³⁹ For hopes, see, for example, Péz, F.Jeografía fisica i política del Estado de Cundinamarca (Bogotá, 1863), pp. 80–1.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Camacho Roldán's 1873–4 estimates from his ‘Presupuestos de rentas y gastos del Estado de Cundinamarca en el año de 1873 y 1874’, Escritos Varios, Vol. III, pp. 3Google Scholaret seq. His opinion on the national total of the land tax and taxes generally from ‘Estudios sobre la Hacienda Páblica de Colombia – fragmentos de la memoria de Hacienda…de 1871’, ibid., pp. 212–13. Santander figure from Galindo's, A.Anuario estadístico de Colombia, 1875, p. 220;Google ScholarSecretario Jeneral of Boyacá's, opinion on the degüello from the Informe of 1869. The three other states recorded as employing a contribución directa were Panamá, Bolivar and Tolima.Google Scholar

⁴¹ The Informe for 1865 cited above, pp. 9et seq., 17.Google Scholar

⁴² Informe de Secretario Jenera1 del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado Soberano de Boyacá, 1869 (Tunja, 1869), p. 38: ‘creen que toda contribución que se pide es un robo que se les hace, i que los empleados publicos son ladrones que viven a espensas del pueblo i sinembargo, el día en que a esos mismos señores se les llama a servir un destino oneroso, reniegan….‘It might be illuminating to enquire why things were not worse.Google Scholar

⁴³ Samper, M.. Nuestras enfermedades políticas. Voracidad fiscal de los Estados. (Bogotá, 1884), p. 3.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Anuario estadístico de Colombia, 1875 (Bogotá, 1875), pp. 220–1, adapted. It is not clear how much municipal taxation is included in these figures; it would not significantly alter the general picture. This comparative exercise was also carried out by the Secretario de Hacienda of Antioquia in 1871 and 1875 to convince his readers that Antioqueños were not over-taxed compared to other Colombians. See the State Informe of 1873 and the Memoria for 1875, p. 35 and p. VI respectively.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See his Recuerdos históricos, (Bogotá, 1900.) He also made the first complete Spanish translation of Paradise Lost.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Many of the observations made about Colombia in this essay can of course be made in little about the sovereign states of the Federal era. The poor fiscal prospects of Boyacá were foreseen by Samper, J. M. in his Ensayo aproximado sabre la jeografía i estadística de los ocho estados que compondrán el 15 de Setiembre de 1857 la Federación Neo-Granadina, Bogotá, 1857: ‘…pueblo tan laborioso como pobre. Sus frutos tienen bajo precio, por falta de consumo; los salarios son extremadamente bajos…‘: little moved.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Figures from Galindo, Anuario, p. 211.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Informe del Secretario de Hacienda del Departmento del Tolima al Señor Gobernador. (Neiva, 1886).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Informe del Secretario Jeneral del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado Soberano de Boyacá, 1869, pp. 11et seq.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Informe del Director jeneral de impuestos… (Bogoá, 1848), p. 11: Como pudieran estos moralizarse: no lo alcanzo. El interes individual oculta casi siempre los provechos que saca i no deja entrever las bases que pudieran servir a nuevos especuladores i el temor que se tiene a ciertas notabilidades agiotistas, que se han apoderado de estos negocios i que en cierta manera han hecho de ellos su propio patrimonio, obstruye Ia entrada a Ia libre competencia, en lugar de promoverla. Si alguna vez se observan pujas sorprendentes que contribuyen a aumentar trabajosa i forzadamente los productos, es porque alguna rara casualidad frustra Ia con-fabulación de los licitadores o aleja el respeto de personas temibles interesados, o porque el transcurso de los años ha logrado arrancar el secreto de los grandes ganancias alcanzadas por los asentistas, que estimulan a otros lograrlos, arrastrando la enemistad i persecuciones de los anteriores, que se empeñian en arruinarlos i a lo cual se ha debido varias quiebras.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Informe del Secretario-Jeneral…1869 (Tunja, 1869), p. 41.Google Scholar

⁵² See Informe del Gobernador del Tolima a la Asamblea Departmental en sus sesiones ordinarias de 1896 (Ibagué, 1896), pp. 20et seq. ‘Renta de Licores.’ These problems are similar to those French officials found in the areas inhabited by ‘bouilleurs de cru’, or sheriff's deputies found in East Tennessee.Google Scholar

⁵³ There are many interesting names in the local Informes – besides that of Don Pepe Sierra: for that famous case see Jaramillo Sierra, B., Pepe Sierra, el método de un campesino millonario (Medellín, 1947), pp. 73–82.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Samper, M., op. cit. p. 5 for the state tariffs: ‘ya hemos dicho a los hombres políticos intenacionados que conviene que moderen su entusiasmo por el progreso porque el exceso de dicha mata a las veces…'!Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Informe of the Secretario Jeneral of Boyacá, (1869), p. 29.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See, for Santander and the crisis of 1884, Palacio, J. H., La Guerra de 85 (Bogotá, 1936), pp. 20–3.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The phrase quoted is from Ignacio, Gutiérrez'sEsposición de Hacienda of 1858, p. 7. The size of these bureaucracies, local and central, can be computed from the various Informes, and Galindo provides the following figures in the Anuario of 1875: National employees: 1,451. (This includes 27 senators, 60 representantes and 67 persons in the Universidad Nacional). Employees of the States: 3,318. (This figure includes schoolmasters for some states but not for others, and there are often discrepancies. Army not included). These numbers are not large. There is often more evidence for empleophobia than for empleomania.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ See Pérez, E., Vida di Felipe Pérez (Bogotá, 1911), p. 156: ‘El Sr. D. Juan Solano, que exerció las funciones de Presidente del Estado ds Boyacá antes que el Dr Felipe Párez, se vió en tan apuradas circunstancias para gobernar, que aconsejó a la Asamblea que dividiera et territorio del Estado en dos grandes porciones y que una se juntará a Santander y la orra a Cundimamarca’.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Escritos varios, III, 192–3.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Ibid., p. 189.

⁶¹ ibid., p. 206.

⁶² See the articles by M. Samper and D. Bushnell cited above, note 11.

⁶³ Escritos varios, 111, 308–9, 283.Google Scholar Camacho Roldán reckoned that the tariff on cloth, together with that on shoes and hats, produced over 3/4 of the customs revenue. Drink produced another 8 per cent. (Extracts from the Menoria de Hacienda of 1872). A year previously he calculated the national government's revenue as Aduanas 54% Salinas 27 Panama railway 9 Rest 10 100% Ibid., p. 187. The duty on imported cloth thus represents around 40 per cent of the total national government revenue. In 1852 Camacho Roldán had given the following example of the regressive nature of the tariff: ‘El humilde agricultor, que de los 300 pesos anuales que le dan sus cosechas, consume por 50 pesos de género de algodón, paga 20 pesos al fisco, que son el siete por ciento de su renta; y el acomodado negociante, que con sus 6,000 pesos de ganancia consume por 50 pesos de sederías paga solamente 5 pesos de derechos, que no alcanzan a ser el uno por mil de su renta.’ (‘Impuesto directo progresivo’, ibid., p. 453).

⁶⁴ Ibid., p. 246: ‘proporción de la sociabilidad expresada por la correspondencia epistolar entre los habitantes de Inglaterra y las de Colombia: 500 a 1’.

⁶⁵ See the measures announced to meet the fiscal emergency in the contemporary press.

⁶⁶ Carlos, Calderón: La cuestión monetaria en Colombia (Madrid, 1905), passim.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ On the desamortización, see Uribe Arboleda, S., ‘La desamortisación en Bogotá, 1861–1870’ (Unpub. thesis, Facultad de Economía, Universidad de los Andes, 1976);Google ScholarDíaz Díaz, F., La desamortización de bienes eclesiasticos en Boyacá (Tunja, 1977);Google Scholar the essay ‘Las manos muertas’ in Lévano Aguirre, I., El proceso de Mosquera ante el Senado (Bogotá, 1966);Google ScholarKnowlton, R. J., ‘Expropriation of Church property in Nineteenth-Century Mexico and Colombia: a comparison’, The Americas, Vol. 25, No. 4 (04 1969), offers a short comparative study.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ For this theme in 1884–5, see my essay ‘War in a context of poverty: Gaitán Obeso and his Magdalena campaign of 1885’, in Nova Americana, Vol. II (Turin, 1979);Google Scholar for expropriations in 1877 in the south, see Guerrero, G. S., Remembranzas politicas (Pasto, 1921), pp. 88Google Scholaret seq. See also Núñez's, essay, ‘Derecho de propiedad’, La Reforma Politica (Bogotá, 1945), Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 249–53.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Escritos varios, Vol. III, ‘Impuesto directo progresivo’, p. 447. Elsewhere (same vol., ‘Ferrocarril del Norte’, p. 68) he states:…los empresarios de indústria, los que en nuestro país tienen esa posición independiente arreglada, valerosa y prospera, son muy pocos. No pasan del uno por ciento de la población total: en la suposición más favorable, como la de la capital de la Unián, no pasan del dos por ciento. En toda la Repáblica sobre tres miliones de habitantes, no llegan a cuarenta mu personas. Los demas son jornaleros, mujeres, niños, ancianos, enfermos, empleados, gente que no trabaja o que consume día por dia sus salarios integramente por que carece de alicientes, de medios, de posibilidad, de voluntad para ponerse el duro sacrificio de Ia economía. De ochocientos mu adultos trabajadores, hombres o mujeres, que pueden calcularse en Ia Republica, no menos de setecientos mu son puros proletarios sin capital’.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Escritos varios, III, II, for the medicinal benefuts of wine. The Memorias of successive Ministers of Hacienda were written in part to persuade recalcitrant congresses to find more revenue – usually with indifferent success (see, for example ibid. p. 219 note.) The Colombian executive was always far weaker than its Venezuelan counterpart. Though political leaders can of course loosely be placed in the ‘upper stratum’ they cannot be equated with Camacho Roldán's ‘empresarios de indústria’, or the established rich. These often regarded the political classes not as guardians of their interests, but with distaste and alarm. See the report of J. A. Soffia, Chilean Minister in Bogotá, to his government, dated Bogotá, 30 April 1882, published in Thesaurus XXXI, No. 1 (1976), pp. 128–9. The ‘clase especial de hombres políticos’ it mentions would not have been inhibited by class solidarity from attempting heavier taxation.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ibid., ‘Ferrocarril del Norte’, p. 54.

⁷² The most succinct and readable history of the debt is that contained in Holguín, J., Desde Cerca (Asuntos colombianos) (Paris, 1908), pp. 1–103.Google Scholar

⁷³ Informe del Secretario de Hacienda de la Nueva Granada…, (1844).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ La Reforma Politica, III, ’Mammon’, p. 242.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ ‘Lo que hay, debemos agradecerlo a los que nos lo han querido dar prestado; si nO hubieramos encontrado especuladores, ya no tendriamos que disparar, ni con que.’ Santander to Bolivar, quoted in Rivas Groot, J. M., Páginas de la Historia de Colombia, 1810–1910. Asuntos económicos y fiscales, p. 81. (The letter is dated 2 08 1823).Google Scholar Quotation from Esposición de Hacienda, 1858. Types of internal debt enumerated in Esposición…de Hacienda (1854), p. 27.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Esposición of 1858, pp. 62, 30.Google ScholarGalindo, A., Estudios econámicos i fiscales (Bogotá, 1880), p. 21. (His emphasis.)Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ibid., p. 48.

⁷⁸ Memoria dirijida al Presidente de la República por el Secretario del ramo (del Tesoro i Crédito Nacional) (1873), p. 40.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Samper, M., Cuestión crédito páblico (Bogotá, 1863), p. 8;Google ScholarRojas, E., Teoria del crédito páblico i privado con su aplicación al de los Estados Unidos de Colombia. (Funza, 1863), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Samper, M., op. cit., p. 9.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Ibid., p. 9.

⁸² Holguín, J., Desde Cerca, pp. 35–7.Google Scholar

⁸³ Rojas, E., op. cit., p. 42, says that Bolívar had certain keys taken by force from the ‘Director del crédito público’.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ See the Informe of 1844 and the Esposicián of 1858. Goury de Roslan was widely believed to be lending money to the government of Mariano Ospina Rodráguez in 1859–60, though the British Legation thought he was merely getting his New Granadan wife's fortune liquid before removing to France. Griffith, to Russell, , 19 05 1861, F.O. 55/155.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Quoted in Rivas Groot, J. M., op. cit., pp. 243et seq.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Camacho Roldán, S., Escritos varios, 2, 308;Google ScholarPerez, F., Memoria…(del Tesoro i crédito Nacional) 1873, pp. 11et. seq.,Google ScholarGonzález, F., Informe…del Secretario de Hacienda, 1848, p. 19: El pago de deudas en abono de contribuciones impide el que se cuente con ingresos ciertos en metalico para hacer los gastos, complica las operaciones de contabilidad, i da lugar a un ajiotaje inmoral, en que muchas veces toman parte los empleados publicos.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ For these attempts see G. Torres García, op. cit.

⁸⁸ Caro, M. A., Escritos sobre cuestiones económicos (Bogotá, 1943), p. 53,Google Scholar on Mosquera's issue; Torres García, G., op. cit., pp. 32–3,Google Scholar for Nariño, and Santander, , pp. 68, 85Google Scholar for Nariño and silver coinage. Sec also Barriga Villalba, A. M., Historia de la Casa de Moneda (3 Vols., Bogoeá, 1969), Vols. II and III.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ For quotation and opinion, see Caro, M. A., op. cit., pp. 97–8.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Galindo, A., Estudios económicos i fiscales (Bogota, 1880), pp. 55et seq.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Carlos, Calderón, La cuestión monetaria, pp. 41–7.Google Scholar

⁹² Caro, M. A., op. cit., pp. 44, 46.Google Scholar

⁹³ Torres García, G., op. cit., pp. 275–6. For the policies of the years 1886–98, and an account of irregular emissions, see the same work, cap. VIII.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Carlos Calderón, op. cit. opening pages.

⁹⁵ Torres García, C., op. cit. p. 275.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Nieto Caballero, L. E., El curso forzoso y su historia en Colombia (Bogotá, 1912), p. 29 reckons the departmental emissions at $600 million.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Barriga Villalba, A. M., Hisioria de le Cam de Moneda, 3, 187–8.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Report by MrSpencer, S. Dixon, ‘Financial Crisis in Colombia, with the exception of the Isthmus of Panama’ Bogotá, so 12 1902, in FO 55/409.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Nieto Caballero, L. E., op. cit., pp. 45et seq. on Reyes's bank and the rentas reorganizadas.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ The opinion on the archaic nature of the aduana from Gómez's, J. N.Memria de Hacienda of 1853,Google Scholar quoted in Rivas Groot, J. M., op. cit., p. 223.Google Scholar For the persistence of the aduana-based structure of revenue, see Monsalve's, J. calculation for the late 1920s in his Colombia Cafetera (Barcelona, 1927), p. 90: Aduana (and related) 62.33% Ferrocarriles nacionales 11.54 Salinas 5.48 Correo y telégrafos 5.15 Papel sellado y timbre nacional 2.36 Impuesto sobre la renta 1.57 Otros renglones 11.57Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ 2 per cent calculation from Camacho Roldán, , op. cit., vol. 3, p. 243.Google ScholarMill, Cf. J. S., Principles of Political Economy, Book V, Chapter VIII, § I: ‘Insecurity paralyses, only when it is such in nature and in degree, that no energy, of which mankind in general are apable, affords any tolerable means of self-protection. And this is a main reason why oppression by the government, whose power is generally irresistable by any efforts that can be made by individuals, has so much more baneful an effect on the springs of national prosperity than almost any degree of lawlessness and turbulence under free institutions…’Google Scholar

¹⁰² Op. cit., III, 219.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Ibid., p. 195.

¹⁰⁴ He died on 19 June 1900. Iregui, A. J., Salvador Camacho Roldán (Bogotá, 1919), p. 80.Google Scholar Exchange rate from Torres, García, op. cit., p. 276.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Samper, M., Nuestras enfermedades politicas voracidad fiscal de los Estados, p. 24.Google Scholar