Salt and the Colombian State: Local Society and Regional Monopoly in Boyacá, 1821-1900

117 Pages·2012·10.417 MB·English

by  Joshua M. Rosenthal

Pitt Latin American Series SALT and the
John Charles Chasteen and Catherine M. Conaghan, Editors
COLOMBIAN STATE
Local Society and Regional Monopoly
in Boyaca,
1821-1900
JOSHUA M. ROSENTHAL
University of Pittsburgh Press
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., rsz6o
Copyright© 2012, University of Pittsburgh Press Note on Sources xi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America Chapter 1. The Salt Monopoly, the State, and Boyad. 3
Printed on acid-free paper
Chapter 2. Change and Community in La Salina 17
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
Chapter J. Making Salt in a Ministry Works 41
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chapter 4· The Ministry Monopoly and the Market Monopoly 62
Chapter 5. La Salina and Colombian History to 1857 94
Rosenthal, Joshua M.
Salt and the Colombian state : local society and regional monopoly in Boyaca, 1821-19°0 I Joshua Chapter 6. La Salina, Boyad., and Colombia after 1857 113
M. Rosenthal.
p. em. - (Pitt Latin American series) Notes 145
Includes bibliographical references and index. Bibliography 201
ISBN 978-o-8229-6180-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
!. Salt industry and trade-CoI o mb i a-Ht. story-r9t h cen t ury. 2 · Salt mines and mining- Index 219
Government policy-Colombia-History-r9th century. J. Government monopolies
Colombia-History-I9th century. 4· Boyac:l (Colombia : Dept.)-History-I9th century. 5·
Colombia-Politics and government-19th century. 6. Colombia-Economic conditions-19th
century. I. Title.
HD9213.C72R67 2012
201IOJ96JO
v
Acknowledgments
So many years have passed since this book's beginning that attempting to thank
those who helped me along the way is daunting.
My parents are first. Though Naomi and Joel T. Rosenthal are guilty of
making an academic life look almost easy, they provide recompense with anum
ber of other fine qualities. In this context, the most charming has been their
willingness to dispense with decades of experience and declare this study wor
thy of publication from the very beginning. To my siblings, Jessica Benson (au
thor of the most readable books produced by the family to date) and Matthew
Rosenthal, I'll say that one of the best parts of graduate school was getting to
spend all that time together. Things are a little more global now, but I appreciate
your support and company throughout the venture.
I am proud to claim both David Garrett and Nora Jaffary as friends from
that era of my life, David from the first week of classes and Nora from a few
years later. They continue to be dear friends and, for me, role models. Through
Nora I met Ed Osowski, whom I am proud to call a friend as well. Linda Green
also provided much-needed words of encouragement for this project when I
was a graduate student, at a time when such offerings were rare. New York did
have other diversions, which may have slowed my research but were beneficial
in other ways. I would like to thank Grupo Capoeira Brazil, led by Mestre Cax
ias, and through this group the capoeiristas I met and spent time with across the
United States and Brazil.
From the moment I arrived in Bogota in 1994 I have been treated better
than I have deserved by more people than I can name here. The place where
the most important of these interactions took place was the Archivo General
de la Naci6n, which remains an amazing place to work. In particular I would
like to thank Adelida Sourdis, Yaneth Sandoval, Nazly Gonzalez, Carlos Puen
tes, Enrique Ballesteros, and Leonardo Q!!intero. I am also grateful to the staff
of the Biblioteca Nacional and the Academia Colombiana de Historia. Finally,
vii
viii J» ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS J» ix
the friendship and support of Alberto Flores was crucial in helping me navigate In writing this book I have benefited from access to the library at SUNY
this year in Bogota. In Tunja Celina Trimifio opened her home, for which I am Albany and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I also owe a general
still thankful. I would also like to thank the staffs of the Archivo Regional de debt to the Five College Libraries of Western Massachusetts and the many cafes
Boyac:i, the Archivo Departamental de Boyac:i, the library at the Universidad and wifi spots of the area, particularly Amherst Coffee, where a great deal of this
Pedag6gica Tecnol6gica de Colombia, and everyone associated with the masters manuscript has been rewritten more than once.
program in history there. The shortcomings or errors in this book are not a reflection on any of these
I have benefited from the opportunity to present parts of this work at people, who did their best to correct them. In this line, Bruce Bethell did a won
various conferences. Here I am grateful to the Conference on Latin American derful job of copyediting. Bruce and all of the people mentioned above are in
History, especially the Gran Colombia committee; LASA, particularly the Co nocent of the any imperfections that follow. Those I claim as my own. I would
lombia section; the Asociaci6n de Colombianistas; the New England Coun also like to thank Joshua Shanholtzer and the rest of the staff at the University
cil on Latin American Studies; and the Society of Latin American Studies in ofPittsburgh Press.
the United Kingdom. Less institutionally, I have benefited from the company, The greatest debt of course is to my family, Amber, Zeke, and Samara. If
ideas, and friendship of the community of historians and scholars who study they have given little directly to this project, they have done everything that
Colombia. First I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary generosity of made working on it possible. Zeke and Samara, with their love of books and hi
Jane Rausch, who has supported this project since we met at the AHA in Atlanta larity, did their share, and then there is Amber. It is easy to switch jobs and play
in 1996. She has read many drafts and is generally too kind to mention it when the supporting, trailing spouse when your wife's career lands you where we are
my work falls short of the standards she maintains. I would like to thank David now; any sacrifices on my part have been a mirage. Thanks for building the life
Sowell, who has read at least two drafts of this work over the years, for reasons we live and sharing it with me. I dedicate this book to you.
I have never been able to fathom, though self-interest prevented me from ask
ing why he was willing to do so. Nancy Appelbaum was my first Colombianist
friend, and I owe her for many things, including my introduction to Riosu
cio (whose people I would like to acknowledge for their generosity, hospitality,
and the good times I have had there). I would also like to thank Michael Fran
cis, Richard Goulet, David Sanders, Richard Stoller, Victor Uribe-Uran, Hay
ley Froysland, Brett Troyan, Robert Karl, Mary Roldan (a walking postdoc in
Colombian history, and a generous one who has yet to collect on the many fa
vors she has rendered), Claudia Leal, Shawn Van Ausdal,Javier Guerrero Baron,
Hermes Tovar, Marcela Echeverri, Lina del Castillo, Meri Clark, Jamie Sanders,
Kris Lane, Hillel Soifer, Robert Karl, Rebecca Tally, and Aims McGuiness. In
one way or another I have been aided by their work and company. I am sorry
for any names I may have left off this list. I would also like to Marc Chernick
and Tulia Camacho, who is missed, for sharing so much with me over the years.
Finally, I have been lucky enough to hold jobs that have allowed me to con
tinue writing. Thanks first to the history department of Montclair State Uni
versity and Amy Srebnick for some career-saving employment; Trinity College,
for my first full-time job; and SUNY Oneonta, where I began my tenure-track
career. There I owe special thanks to Thomas Beal and K. 0. O'Mara, whom
I wish I could see more often than I do. Finally, Western Connecticut State
University is a great place to work. Perhaps it is the institution as a whole, but I
cannot but help think that the example of my colleagues Burt, Michael, Kevin,
Wynn, Kate, Leslie, Abubaker, Marcy (who has gone above and beyond collegi
ality with her copyediting), and Jennifer has been a crucial part of finishing this
book. Thanks also to Tai Lucas.
Note on Sources
In writing this work I sought to use citations and bibliographic references that
meet the standards of historical scholarship and the customary practices for the
relevant Colombian materials, but careful readers may find passages where I
seem to fall short of this goal. These and other matters bear some explanation.
First, citations of texts in the Archivo General de la Nadon de Colombia (AGN)
do not include a letter v to indicate the reverse (verso) side of a numbered sheet.
This approach in part reflects the binding of the legajos themselves. These enor
mous bound volumes often contain more sheets than the sheet numbers imply. It
is fairly common to find a numbered sheet followed by several additional sheets,
sometimes written on and sometimes blank, of varying size. Anyone seeking
to trace individual documents or correspondence would have to leaf through a
few pages no matter what notation is used. Second, after I conducted my ini
tial research, the AGN staff began transferring Republican holdings onto mi
crofilm; researchers must now consult spools of microfilm rather than original
documents. The two systems do not always match with respect to systems of
organization. For example, legajos of Gobernaciones specific to an individual
province, such as Tunja, or Tundama, or Boyaca, were organized in collections
running in the single or low double digits. Currently all these provincial series
are microfilmed and organized as a single collection, Gobernaciones (location
SRo46), comprising 516 volumes. The staff of the AGN will aid any researcher
seeking to navigate between the older organization (documented in older in
dexes that were still available for consultation in 2007) and the current system. I
suspect that similar consolidations will occur as other collections are transferred
to microfilm. The citations in this study will serve as a guide, but readers should
be alert to these changes.
Finally, it was often difficult or impossible to ascertain authorship when
dealing with the voluminous correspondence from La Salina on which my re-
xi
Xii ....l>' NOTE ON SOURCES
search relied, for much of it had been copied and forwarded. As a result, my
reconstruction of events sometimes refers to official posts rather than to an in
dividual person. I am confident that this failing has not produced any historical
inaccuracies, but it is one that must be acknowledged and, I hope, tolerated by
Salt and the Colombian State
readers.
CHAPTER ONE
The Salt Monopoly, the State, and Boyaccf
.....1)1In 1806, when Ignacio Caicedo drew a sketch of La Salina de Chita, in east
ern Colombia, it wasn't much of a town, though that hardly mattered to him.
An administrator who oversaw the sale of salt, all of which was controlled in
theory by a Spanish royal monopoly, Caicedo was more concerned with docu
menting how salt was made than with explaining any other aspect of local life.
FIGURE 1.1. "La Salina de Chita, 18o6" by Ignacio Caicedo.
AGN, Mapas y Pianos, Mapoteca no. 4, ref. 94 A. Now in the Mapoteca of Colombia's Archivo General de la Naci6n (AGN), his
sketch conveys something of the topography of the surrounding valley, which
had long before been cut by the rushing waters of the Casanare River as it carved
a passage from the highlands of Boyaci to the plains of Casanare. Caicedo set
the town's "ruined Church" and other buildings in the background, emphasiz
ing the elements of salt making. Here and there in the sketch he depicted mules,
either fully loaded and led by muleteers or grazing freely. There were stacks
of timber taller than a person, as well as men cutting or carrying wood. In the
shelter of an open shed a figure tended to an oven where brine was being slowly
cooked into the salt cakes characteristic of the region. In another spot, people
stooped over a low-lying well fed by a thermal spring with a high saline content,
a vertiente-the reason people had settled in this particular spot. Similar springs
dot the Colombian highlands north and east of Bogota, as well as the terrain
where the mountains descend to the Llanos, Colombia's plains (running from
the Southwest to the Northeast). Many springs had been used for making salt
even before the Spanish came to the Americas, but few were as naturally rich as
this one or those in La Salina's outlying barrio of Cordoba.
3
4 .._,., THE SALT MONOPOLY, THE STATE, AND BOYACA THE SALT MONOPOLY, THE STATE, AND BOYACA .._,., 5
For Caicedo and his administrative successors in republican Colombia, this 1904: "The only things that remain standing are things that were too difficult
to destroy or those things that would yield absolutely nothing of worth."3 This
natural bounty was provocative and even frustrating. When he looked at salt
making in La Salina, Caicedo saw what he thought should be rather than what civil war, the last to occur anywhere during the nineteenth century, appears to
was.' In r801 the noted naturalist Alexander von Humboldt had visited the great have undone the work imagined by Caicedo almost one hundred years earlier.
saltworks in Zipaquira, a city just north of Bogota, and subsequently published
A Salt Monopoly
a description of the works complete with recommendations for improvements.
Considering La Salina's history renders questions about the state concrete rather
This prompted a concerted effort to increase the efficiency of salt production in
New Granada and to earn more revenue for the Spanish royal treasury. In the than theoretical. The value of theoretical accounts of state processes notwith
standing, pursuing the concrete allows us to ground various points in mate
report Caicedo sent to the viceroy of New Granada, in Bogota, he called for
rial life rather than abstract concepts. A saltworks of the preindustrial world is
more guards in La Salina. His sketch included an ambitious proposal: a dotted
particularly well suited to a practical inquiry into the nature and operational
line indicated a wall, taller than a person and wide enough to walk on, to be
methods of a state. Salt-production centers, such as La Salina, have been loci of
built on the banks of the Casanare River. The proposed addition would protect
the pool of salt water from the river during the four-month rainy season, when state power throughout human history. In contrast to its contemporary status
the swollen Casanare rose to engulf the spring, rendering salt making difficult, as a cheap and abundant product, salt was a valuable article in the preindustrial
if not impossible. Obviously, making salt all year would be one of the most ef world, making it an inviting object for taxation. Salt, or more precisely, the
monopolies exercised over the production and sale of salt, was an important el
fective ways to produce more money for the royal treasury. With this in mind,
Caicedo proposed an ambitious construction project through which the state ement in the global history of states and state building. Salt trades and salt mo
nopolies played important roles in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, in imperial
would elaborate its material presence in this out-of-the-way spot.
Through the tumult of independence and the fitful birth of a republic in China, and in early modern France, to cite only a few examples. In considering
the r8ros and early r82os, Caicedo's successors, particularly those who worked salt's global history, S. A. M. Adshead observes that "salt administrations belong
for the Ministerio de Hacienda, Colombia's finance ministry in the r8JOS, held to the adolescence or senescence of central power."4 In this taxonomy, the sur
similar ideas and made similar proposals. After some flirtation with privatizing vival of the Colombian salt monopoly for decades after independence implies
government-owned saltworks and a decade of arrangements where individuals that the state blended the senescence of imperial Spain and the immaturity of its
ran saltworks as autonomous renters, the Finance Ministry fulfilled Caicedo's replacement for decades. In other words, Adshead's argument predicts continu
ities in Colombia, which is just what occurred.
vision. In r836 the ministry placed the works at La Salina under what it termed
Where other Spanish American countries moved away from salt taxes, in
"direct administration." Ministry employees oversaw the construction of a wall
like one the Caicedo had proposed. They also supervised improvements to lo Colombia the government maintained monopoly control over the production of
cal roads, the construction of an almacen (a combination office, store, and ware salt after the Wars oflndependence, in parts of the country continuing through
the economic reforms of the mid-nineteenth century and the doctrinaire liber
house), and the building of new ovens for cooking salt. The goal was to create a
profitable industry that would function all year. In 1837 an enthusiastic official alism of the r86os and r87os. While many factors were involved in its survival in
wrote, "In the parish of La Salina ... the state has a salt mine [sic] that without a each case, the monopoly endured because it generated desperately needed rev
doubt is worth one million pesos."2In the strictest sense his estimate was correct. enue for the national government. Decade after decade, the pointed criticism
In time La Salina did deliver more than a million pesos to the ministry, but it of national elites and the widespread resentment of the tax were not enough to
took far longer than anyone at that time anticipated. Moreover, many ministry overcome fiscal reality. From the r82os until 1900 profits from ministry salt
officials felt that far too much of the million pesos had been used to finance salt works managed under the monopoly accounted for about ro percent of Colom
bia's total federal revenue. The impact of this ro percent was enhanced because
production or support related administrative duties.
Despite these frustrations, administrators built up the ministerial bureau the monopoly was a consistent revenue producer. Receipts from taxes on im
cracy in La Salina and extended its institutional presence deeper into the salt ports and exports provided much more than the salt monopoly but tended to
industry in a number of ways-among other things, by arranging for land pur fluctuate. The steadiness inherent in salt sales was part of the monopoly's worth.
chases and supervising further construction projects. The ministry's control For example, the government might issue promissory notes redeemable for salt
over the salt industry bound La Salina to the variegated rhythms of Colombia's at government sites as a guarantee for loans made during moments of civil war. 5
economic and political history through the end of the century. A report issued This steady stream of revenue was produced by a handful of saltworks scat
tered throughout Colombia's eastern highlands, the most important being the
after the devastating Thousand Days War (r899-1902) described the town in
6 ._, THE SALT MONOPOLY, THE STATE, AND BOYACA THE SALT MONOPOLY, THE STATE, AND BOYACA ._, 7
operation at Zipaquid., a city just under fifty kilometers of easy travel north of reaucracy's raison d'etre was to provide the state with necessary revenue, yet
Bogota. There the Finance Ministry's administration oversaw sales of, on av its inefficiencies and proclivity for corruption hindered the execution of these
erage, more than eight million kilograms of salt a year. Zipaquiri was the site tasks. At the same time, the growth of this bureaucracy was a crucial element
where the great rebel army of the Comuneros, who rose in part to protest the of state growth, particularly in the realm of information gathering. Reports on
introduction of new monopolies and taxes, camped as its leaders debated seizing salt making and related policies filled the pages of official newspapers and other
a defenseless Bogota in 1781. Not only did it attract Alexander von Humboldt government publications, forming part of a public discussion about the proper
when he toured New Granada, but today Zipaquiri boasts an internationally role for the state.6
known cathedral (the Catedral de Sal) dug out of its vast underground salt banks. The history of salt making, ofm inisterial efforts to control salt making, and
In fact, the works at Zipaquiri casts a shadow that at times makes it hard to see of local responses in La Salina runs through three intertwined stories. The first
the historical importance of La Salina. Salt from Zipaquiri was traded across concerns fiscal policy and the way its implementation shaped life in La Salina,
central Colombia and consumed by a huge portion of the national population. the second centers on regional responses to the state's monopoly control, and the
Tellingly, however, while there are studies on Zipaquira in the colonial era third is a chronological account of the course of national politics in La Salina and
and on republican saltworks, little scholarship exists on the great works after Boyaci. Each story draws on the same cast of characters, including the Finance
independence. Ministry as an institution, finance ministers, ministry employees across Boyaci,
There is, however, a meticulous study by Anuar Herna Peiia Diaz on smaller entrepreneurs, local contractors, residents of La Salina, migrant workers, and
saltworks, Sal, sudor yf isco: el proceso de institucionalizaci6n del monopolio de Ia sal en las communities in Boyaci's eastern cantons. Taken together, these stories provide
salinas de Chameza, Recetor y Pajarito, 1588-1950, which serves as an introduction to a portrait of Colombia as a place where state action and state weakness dramati
this issue after independence. Peiia Diaz argues that the ministry-run saltworks cally shaped history, though, as was the case throughout Latin America, not in
of Chameza, Recetor, and Pajarito provide a vantage point for examining the the manner envisioned by these would-be architects of the state.
institutional links between Bogota and Casanare. He also stresses the degree to
The State
which the history of the salt monopoly over several centuries documents the
process of institutional centralization based in Bogota. Placing the history of Q!!estions concerning the state and state formation loom large in examinations
the salt monopoly in a broader context, as I do here, extends these arguments of nineteenth-century Latin America published during the two decades span
into a larger discussion. Peiia Diaz focuses on institutional growth as a narrative ning the turn of the twentieth century. Although scholars disagree about the
structure, but the institutional nature of the salt monopoly can serve as evidence exact nature of the state in the republican era, a number of them argue that
that the project of state building was an important factor in nineteenth-century measuring individual states as successes or failures by some Weberian rubric is
Colombia. In fact, the fitful process of state building, both as a part of daily life a fruitless pastime. Attempts to conceptualize states by this dichotomy lead al
in La Salina and as an element of politics in Bogota, embodied much of Colom most inevitably to the apparent contradiction where, in the words of Fernando
bia's national history. L6pez-Alvez, Latin America appears as a region of both "weak states with ill
In Colombia the nineteenth century was marked by disjuncture and con trained bureaucracies" and "centralist, corporatist institution[s]."7 But the prob
tradiction. The radical promises of change and equality implicit in indepen lem lies in the attempt to cast these conditions as contradictory forces rather than
dence and the subsequent waves of change clashed with the efforts of those who as two facets of the republican state. As Stacey Hunt has argued, "few states,
felt themselves responsible for governing this unruly and economically under if any, meet Weber's ideal in absolute terms. When held up to this ahistorical
developed society. The salt monopoly provided a template for this conflict. A myth, the 'failure' of states is the rule rather than the exception."8 The history
powerful or wealthy state would not have maintained the salt monopoly. Even ofLa Salina demonstrates that Hunt's urge to reconcile seeming contradictions
other Spanish American governments, which were generally neither wealthy applies equally to the quandary described by L6pez-Alvez. The centralist insti
nor powerful, ended their salt monopolies relatively quickly. The Colombian tution of the salt monopoly was an ill-trained bureaucracy, and the institutional
Finance Ministry's failure to free itself from this fiscal anachronism was an on state manifest in La Salina was neither a success nor a failure. It was, however, a
going reminder of its own limitations, its inability to implement the fundamen significant historical actor.
tal reforms so many elites deemed necessary for progress. Moreover, the salt The means for examining the state in this fashion were laid out by Os
monopoly did not simply survive; it grew. This growth demanded the creation car Oszlak in "The Historical Formation of the State in Latin America: Some
of an institutional bureaucracy to manage the monopoly, a bureaucracy that Theoretical and Methodological Guidelines for Its Study." In this essay Oszlak
embodied the contradictory role of the state in the nineteenth century. The bu- argues for a methodology that distinguishes between the abstract state, which
8 .._,. THE SALT MONOPOLY, THE STATE, AND BOYACA THE SALT MONOPOLY, THE STATE, AND BOYACA .._,. 9
is the entity that seeks a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and the cor tage of new political spaces and discourses to promote their own interests, the
responding authority, and the material, institutional state, which is an inter Finance Ministry found that the institutional spaces of the salt monopoly-the
locking collection of buildings, bureaucracies, mail routes, and other pedestrian sites of production, sale, and transport-were transformed into arenas for popu
items. "The state apparatus manifests itself as a multifaceted and complex social lar defiance. As in the political arena, it was easier to define a space than to con
actor, in the sense that its various units and arenas of decision and actions express trol what occurred in it. But these moments of contestation most clearly show
a diffuse and, at times, ambiguous presence in the network of social relations."9 the utility of eschewing success or failure when considering state building, for
I am particularly concerned with the third of Oszlak's four steps for research, during them the state's roles as an entity with power and a concrete institutional
documenting the degree to which a state developed public institutions with presence ran together. Thus, while Oszlak's bifurcation of an abstract and mate
"(a) a recognized capacity to extract, on a regular basis[,] resources from society; rial state provides a useful analytical tool, this distinction did not play out in real
(b) a certain degree of professionalization of their functionaries; and (c) a certain life. In the experience of people who lived in La Salina, the institutional state
measure of centralized control over their multifarious activities."10 was not an abstraction but rather a daily practice. The question of state legiti
Remarkably, given the rich social science literature available, historians sel macy, so prone to theoretical parsing in scholarship, was a matter of profits and
dom focus on the state, particularly the material or institutional state. Histori the prices buyers paid for salt.
ans often consider the state as one element that serves as an analytical pivot in
Boyaca and Colombia
a broader topic, something to touch on before turning to other issues, usually
ones relating to political culture.11 This tendency resulted from the paradigm Within Colombian historiography we need to address a number of questions be
shift in Latin American historiography during the 1990s, when approaches that yond the role of the state. The dominant themes of scholarship on the nineteenth
privileged labor, the particularities of class, and various versions of dependency century include the development of political parties; the pattern of civil wars;
theory ceded intellectual terrain to a focus on discourse and identities as a means regionalism; and more recently, the role of ethnicity in all these issuesY Colom
of charting popular contributions to politics, national formation, and political bian history contains no single significant event (such as the Mexican Revolu
culture. While the general turn toward examining political culture has pro tion) or figure (such as Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina) that throws stark
duced a rich understanding of Latin America as a place with a dynamic political light on the meaning of the state.18 Equally important, the broken topography
history, it has not brought a commensurate appreciation for the state as a histori of Colombia and the intensity of its regionalism and regional histories make it a
cal actor or for state building as a historical force.12 A focus on the state, even an challenge to even conceptualize a national state.19 An emphasis on the monopo
inchoate state, therefore permits a fresh look at Colombia's early republic. More lies of the Finance Ministry, however, offers one method for charting the reach
specifically, fiscal policy, often examined in terms of economic history, offers a of the institutional state. The ministry's bureaucracy was in a sense an archipel
rich source for examining contact between the institutional state and society.13 ago. Scattered across Colombia's daunting terrain were regional boards, offices,
Thus the material reality of salt and the institution that developed around contractors, subcontractors, and collection centers, linked precariously by mail
the salt monopoly provide a concrete base for a discussion fhat can otherwise routes and mule paths.20 Though the network was designed to pass instructions
be overly theoretical.14 For example, there were marked continuities in the Co from core to periphery and carry information and receipts in the other direc
lombian state despite political fluctuations and various new constitutions. This tion, these islands of the bureaucratic state were also supposed to be points of
continuity was manifest most clearly in the material presence of the institutional authority and control. In practice, however, these islands often developed into
state dedicated to managing the salt monopoly. Conceptualizing state build focal points of defiance to the state and its authority.
ing as an institutional process while charting its material presence provides a La Salina was one such place. Moreover, the steady correspondence writ
methodology for recasting the state as an important historical force in the nine ten by Finance Ministry employees and forwarded to Bogota makes it possible
teenth century.15 This approach has value beyond Colombia, for state presence to document two important dynamics. First, profits from salt revenue were in
was weaker there than in other parts of Spanish America.16 If the state can be tended to stimulate market activity, but the monopoly demanded that the state
recast as a relatively important historical actor in Colombia, then the same ap control as many local resources as possible in an aggressively antiliberal fashion,
proach will likely shed new light on the rest of the region. thereby limiting the markets.21 Second, elites, whether critics or ministry offi
The competition between state agents and other actors was a quotidian real cials, sought to promote both moral and economic progress, which they often
ity focused on economic results. More specifically, these competitions took place conflated. In La Salina, these dynamics often intertwined, heightening expecta
in carefully demarcated spaces defined by the institutional state as vital elements tions and frustrations.
of state infrastructure. Just as elites found that subordinate actors took advan- This history would have been notable in any region, but the setting in Boy-