The extraordinary durability of the Conservative and Liberal parties is one of the unique features of the Colombian political system. Another is the masses’ identification with these parties ever since their formation in the mid-nineteenth century. While historians have ascribed this latter phenomenon alternately to patron-client relationships or clerical influence, the actual dynamics of nonelite political participation have remained largely unexplored. David Sowell’s fine study goes a long way toward filling this gap. By describing the development of artisan labor organizations in Bogotá and tracing their political activity between 1832 and 1919, he offers a clear analysis of how one middle-sector group was affected by interparty rivalry for political domination, and shows how its members took advantage of the situation “to pursue numerous objectives originating in their particular social and economic positions” (p. 167).
Sowell’s history of artisan organizing falls into four periods: 1832–46, when elite party leaders eagerly recruited artisan support; 1846–68, when craftsmen exercised their greatest influence on politics through general mobilizations; 1868–1904, which saw the disintegration of artisan power; and 1904–19, when cooperation between artisans, industrial workers, and wage laborers fostered the emergence of the modern labor movement. Adroitly mining a rich lode of nineteenth-century newspapers, political handouts, broadsides, and public petitions, Sowell reveals how Bogotá craft workers articulated their interests through temporary electoral groups, broad-based demonstrations, mutual aid societies, and direct action. Although the book is not a social history in the sense of conveying the way of life of the shoemakers, tailors, or carpenters, it does thoroughly examine their goals and organizational strategies. The stories of their leaders, such as José Leocadio Camacho, José Antonio Saavedra, and Emeterio Heredia, whose success depended on their ability to negotiate as middlemen for the interests of both elites and artisans, add human dimension to what might otherwise be a pallid tale.
Two additional strengths of the book deserve mention. First, in sketching the background for his subject, Sowell provides a stimulating synthesis of recent literature on nineteenth-century Colombian political history, and in the process offers judicious opinions on such hoary debates as why Rafael Núñez reversed Liberal policy on tariffs after taking office in 1880. Sowell allows the reader to pursue these issues at will via copious footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography. Second, wherever appropriate, Sowell strives to place the Colombian case in the context of European, U.S., and Latin American labor history. Not everyone may agree that reduced transportation costs were as significant as lowered tariffs in jeopardizing the well-being of urban craftsmen, but generalizations such as this—based on a comparison of artisans in Bogotá, Quito, Córdoba, and La Paz with those in Buenos Aires and Río de Janeiro—provide food for thought and will surely spark further research.
