En busca de nuevas tierras y vecinos: Proceso de colonización en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Serranía de Perijá y Zona Bananera del Magdalena (siglos XVII - XIX)

Abstract

The document analyzes the most relevant facts of the early colonization in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Serrania de Perijá, as well as in the agricultural area south of the Ciénaga, later known as the Magdalena Banana Zone. The period of study extends between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. During the 18th century, the colonial authorities decided to take back colonization of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, and their first step was the evangelization of the indigenous communities established there. In addition, in the second half of the 18th century, the colonial system ordered the establishment of an agricultural colony with the Irish community, halfway between Santa Marta and Valle de Upar, in territory dominated by the indigenous people known as Chimilas. These foundational projects fulfilled military, religious and economic purposes. Later, the process of Independence generated economic expectations in the new Colombian political leadership, which would only begin to materialize three decades later. Together with these new dynamics, the racial project of creating immigration and colonization companies in different areas of the country to attract European immigrants was gaining strength. Nevertheless, these companies encountered multiple problems such as fiscal poverty at different levels of government and recurrent wars. Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta was not unfamiliar with the national coffee expansion, which generated a moderate colonization from the last decades of the nineteenth century. It is true that colonization and the planned immigration of the Mountain range was a failure but, on the other hand, the one undertaken by private companies or families with business vocation was prosperous. As examples, it is worth mentioning coffee plantations organized nearby Santa Marta, Valledupar and Villanueva.