TRABAJO, AHORRO, FAMILIA, Y CARIDAD: POVERTY AND THE

CATHOLIC MORAL IMPERATIVE IN THE ERA OF ‘ORDER AND

PROGRESS’ IN REGENERATION COLOMBIA, 1878-1900
Hayley Froysland
Indiana University South Bend

Beginning with the December 14, 1892 edition of Colombia Cristiana,

a pro-government newspaper published by the Sociedad del Sagrado
Corazón de Jesús, Ignacio Gutiérrez published a damning series of articles
entitled, “La Mendicidad,” that lambasted the working classes of the capital
city of Bogotá, Colombia. In graphic language he described the deplorable
living conditions of the working classes and attacked the character and
moral rectitude of artisans and the poor. He held them responsible for
their own miseria. “Examining the situation of the clase pobre,” he asserted,
“one might believe that the cause of such misery is either the shortage of
work or the excessive cost of room and board.”1 Such was not the case, he
opined. Rather, the state of indigence in which the working classes lived
was due to their immoral conduct. He especially criticized them for their
lack of regard for hard work and their failure to save for the future and
plan for the unexpected, choosing instead to spend their money on alcohol
and gambling.2 Though concerned with their physical illnesses, Gutiérrez
linked these to moral depravity, which concerned him most. In his eyes,
the immorality that reigned was central to the poverty, vagrancy, and
destruction of society.3 More injurious and pitiful than the many who suf-
fered physical illnesses, including ulcers that “corroded even to the bone,”
were men and women who had “gone astray” and existed in a state of
enfermedad moral, moral sickness.4
Gutiérrez’s verbal attack on the poor actually served as the immediate
impetus for artisans and thousands of the city’s poor residents to take to
the streets on January 15 and 16, 1893 in Colombia’s most violent riot of
the nineteenth century. It is not my purpose here to describe or analyze in
depth the causes of the riot, which were multiple and complex and have
been the subject of some study. One prominent interpretation recognizes
multiple causes, but posits that class conflict was at the heart of the riot
and that the rioters were inspired by socialist and anarchist doctrines.5
The rioters, however, included thousands of the city’s poor, not just arti-
sans. I believe that we can better understand the riot by gaining a deeper
understanding of the moral climate of the era preceding the riot and the
concern for “moral regeneration,” as well as the connection many of the
leading elites of the late nineteenth century made between poverty and
immorality. Morality was central to definitions of class. Equally as impor-
tant, perhaps, the riot itself helps to demonstrate the centrality of morality
and religion in Colombia’s project of “Regeneration” and modernization.


C 2009 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 137
The Latin Americanist, March 2009

The enfermedad moral defined by Gutiérrez required a cure and he was

not alone in his thinking. By the 1880s morality became a most central
matter. Morality and religion were critical to the project of “Order and
Progress” in “Regeneration” Colombia. In 1884 the conservative Nation-
alist Party of Colombia consolidated power under the leadership of Presi-
dent Rafael Núñez and the ideologue Miguel Antonio Caro, who served as
vice-president under Núñez and then president from 1894-1898. Núñez,
Caro, and the Nationalists dominated the political life of the country from
1884 until 1900, a period known as la Regeneración, the Regeneration, so
named for the Núñez slogan, “Regeneration or Catastrophe.”6 Histori-
ans have studied the important political, administrative, and economic
reforms of the Regeneration, yet have only rarely examined the Regener-
ation’s social and moral mission.7 Careful assessment of the writings of
some of the most prominent political, ecclesiastical, and intellectual elites
during the Regeneration suggest that religion and morality were principal,
and perhaps foremost, elements in the struggle against potential socialism
and would also lead Colombia on the path to progress.
Colombian political, intellectual, medical, and ecclesiastical elites had
become increasingly concerned about what they perceived as the degra-
dation of the society in which they lived, marked especially by the disinte-
gration of morality. The growth of Bogotá in the latter half of the century,
the accompanying urban social problems, and the potential influence of
doctrines espousing socialism, anarchism, equality, and even excessive in-
dividualism and materialism concerned the elite, especially Catholics and
Conservatives. Around them they viewed a degenerating social organism
that was epitomized by widespread vagrancy, idleness, alcoholism, prosti-
tution, gambling, and poor hygiene. Thus, by highlighting the concern and
discourse regarding idleness, vagrancy, and imprudent spending, as well
as the campaign against prostitution, this essay will demonstrate, first,
that many of the ruling elite of Bogotá during this period viewed poverty
as the result of the immoral behavior of the poor, not as a result of so-
cioeconomic circumstances.8 Given the perceived “degeneration,” a moral
regeneration was deemed essential to progress, perhaps even more than
economic reforms. The Regeneration required more than just a modifica-
tion of political and economic policies. In this Conservative-led modern-
izing era, progress was understood not fundamentally in economic terms,
but as the antithesis of moral and racial “degeneration.”9 Furthermore,
then, this essay challenges the conventional view of the Catholic religion
and the role of the Catholic Church as “backward” by contending that
religion was deemed an essential component of the modernizing project.
When compared with most other Latin American countries, Colombia’s
era of “Order and Progress” was unique in that it was led primarily by
conservative Nationalists who were allied with a strong Catholic Church
in a project which might be deemed, “Catholic modernity.”10 The Catholic
Church was to play a significant role in obtaining progress principally by
imparting moral and religious education as well as through the exercise

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of charity in order to form individuals who would contribute as healthy,

useful, and productive “citizens” of an organic society.

Poverty and the Perceived Enfermedad Moral

Though perhaps more inflammatory than most, the remarks by
Gutiérrez published in Colombia Cristiana are illustrative of the views held
by many of Bogotá’s elites and merit further elaboration.11 Gutiérrez com-
menced his diatribe in Colombia Cristiana with a description of the outskirts
of the city where “drunkenness” and “immorality” abounded. Here beg-
gars, unemployed women, child vendors, message boys, and vagabond
children sought shelter in small, overcrowded quarters for a small daily
fee. Gutiérrez lamented the “miserable appearance of the quarters of the
poor: small spaces, with no pavement, low roofs, only a single door, and
black, cracked walls . . . There is no furniture . . . and torn and dirty clothing
serves as beds for these inhabitants, whom one would assume compose a
family, but they are not related by any means.”12
The same was often true in the tiendas of the center of the city. Here
lived prostitutes and artisans. Women who earned their living by sewing
or ironing occupied some rooms. “The [respectable] families of Bogotá
know from painful experience how terrible is this neighborhood,” de-
clared Gutiérrez.13 He also condemned artisans who had risen to the status
of master craftsmen and, subsequently, neglected their duty to protect and
support those of their class. Instead, exemplifying a concern for status and
the desire to appear wealthy, these artisans discarded the clothing typi-
cally worn by those of the artisan class and dressed themselves as cachacos,
or Bogotá gentlemen. Their daughters, whom they outfitted in bonnets
and gloves, were the primary victims of the disolución and desenfreno, “dis-
solution” and “lasciviousness,” of these rising artisans.14
Gutiérrez was most disturbed by what he viewed as the disintegration
of the working-class family, whereby its members failed to realize their
“proper” roles. Patriarchal authority was waning. Immorality prevailed.

As a general rule, family ties have not only relaxed; rather one can
be certain that they no longer even exist. Marriage is not considered
as a sacrament, but as authorization for the union of the two sexes.
Tyrannical and brutal paternal authority is not exercised except in
a state of drunkenness and with a child who can not defend himself
for lack of strength. It is this child who, at the moment he is able
to earn a living by begging or with his labor, abandons his parents.
The wife, just as immoral as the husband, does not recognize the
authority of the latter, and the scandals between them occur on a
daily basis.
Honesty, to them, is unknown; they are liars, they fail to fulfill their
contracts, they are malicious in their petty larcenies: for them the
seventh commandment does not exist.15

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Gutiérrez was also particularly troubled as he contemplated the character

of future generations of the working classes. Children in these neighbor-
hoods failed to attend school on a regular basis. Even when they did, “the
moral and religious lessons of the teacher were insufficient to offset those
they received from their parents.” He referred to the working-class home
as an escuela de desorden, a school of disorder, where children received
“un germen de impureza é inmoralidad que aterra,” “a seed of impurity and
immorality that terrifies.”16
The working classes lived in a state of misery and indigence, a short
step away from vagrancy. According to Gutiérrez, it was their bad habits,
especially the consumption of chicha and the failure to save, that accorded
them this station. He outlined the wages of a variety of occupations and a
prospective budget of a family of four in an attempt to prove that working-
class families had a surplus that could be saved. Close analysis of his own
proposed budget, however, reveals that many families would have found it
extremely difficult to provide even the basic necessities, let alone save a sig-
nificant amount, given the high cost of living and low wages.17 Gutiérrez
did not believe so. Instead, women and children were forced to live in a
state of misery and mendicancy because their husbands and fathers failed
to save and prepare for the unexpected, such as illness, unemployment, or
a “prison term due to their frequent riñas,” fights. Instead, said Gutiérrez,
“what he should have saved has been consumed in the tavern, and it is
there where we must go in search of the labor of the poor and the delights
of the home.”18
Class, then, was defined in more moral than material terms. Gutiérrez
and others of the elite understood poverty to be more nearly the result of
the failure of the mixed-race poor to lead their lives in a responsible and
honorable fashion, than as a social condition caused by a lack of material
resources at the disposal of many.19 However, traditional Catholic views of
poverty also persisted and the elite acknowledged the existence of another
group of poor, the shame-faced poor who were honorable and too proud
to beg. Of critical importance was whether the poor had a work ethic. In
an issue appearing more than a year after the publication of Gutiérrez’s
articles, Colombia Cristiana, declared that, “poverty not originating from
idleness and vice dishonors noone.”20 Raimundo Ordoñez, a priest, as-
serted in 1897, “a certain class of people live in a state of poverty because
they loathe work and find it degrading.” This “vandalism engenders all
sorts of vices and disorder.” Like Gutiérrez, he was especially critical of
the many “immoral” parents who, instead of fulfilling their duty to main-
tain stable families, merely “bequeathed to society” a progenie degenerada,
a degenerate progeny.21
Conservative ex-president Mariano Ospina was also troubled that the
country’s youth was acquiring habits at home that would lead them on the
path to poverty. Impoverished families not only produced the “impover-
ishment of the nation,” and “degraded the national character,” members
of these familias desgraciadas, wretched families, also became “idle” and

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prone to vice and, perhaps, crime, thus further contributing to the nation’s
decline.22
In an ardent defense of private property and individual initiative and
the values of hard work and prudence, Ospina maintained in 1878 that
the widespread habit of lujo, excessive spending, was especially harmful.
He did not condemn the wealthy who spent extravagantly, for they had
acquired their fortunes through hard work and honorable means. The
acquisition of wealth and private property through hard work, as well
as the right to do with them what one pleased, were rights befitting of
society and necessary for the nation to prosper. He contended that the rich
had the right to dispose of their property as they saw fit (as long as they
continued to accumulate) lest those of lower social status would be devoid
of an incentive to ascend.23
What troubled Ospina and constituted “excessive spending,” to him
and many other elites like Gutiérrez, was the widespread habit among
families of all social classes to spend beyond their means. While staunchly
defending the values associated with capitalist development (he once even
considered annexation to the United States, where such values were so well
embodied),24 Ospina also warned against excessive materialism and dis-
played his belief in an ordered, hierarchical society infused with religion.
Though no enemy of Caliban, twenty-two years before the publication
of José Enrique Rodó’s famous treatise, Ariel, Ospina condemned Colom-
bians, especially urban Colombians, for their concern with status and the
desire to imitate those of higher social standing in order to appear rich.25
He condemned utilitarian and materialistic doctrines for the value they
placed on pleasure. Excessive spending by those eager to appear “satis-
fied and happy” could only result in a precipitous decline from a modest
and comfortable life to one of “sadness, anguish, and desperation” in the
abismo de la miseria, the abyss of misery. He denounced those whose spend-
ing did not correspond to their position on the social ladder and attributed
it to their vanidad (vanity), debilidad de carácter (weakness of character), in-
fatuación (infatuation), ociosidad (idleness), and egoismo (selfishness). “One
should clothe, feed, shelter, and entertain oneself in a manner appropriate
to one’s class.”26 The pueblo ignorante, ignorant populace, was the most “in-
ept of judges in this matter and others, as it regarded luxury as excessive
spending, without considering whether he who spends has the resources
or not.”27 The “habits, caprices, and weaknesses” of mothers were espe-
cially to blame for this llaga social corrosiva (corrosive social affliction) since
mothers were not fulfilling their duty to be prudent in the management
of domestic economies and to instill good habits in their children. “Young
children candidly judge, and perhaps their mothers too, that civilization
consists of dressing, beautifying, embellishing, dancing, and gesticulating
as they do in Paris; and that spending the family’s wealth to practice these
acts with perfection, gives a powerful impulse to progress.”28
Ospina believed that the wealth of the nation was measured by adding
the wealth of its individual families. Excessive spending resulted in the

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poverty of families and the nation. Society degenerated, as such habits

were acquired by children who would descend to a lower position on
the social scale. The result was a continual cycle of poverty.29 Attributing
the habit of excessive spending to a lack of moral and religious education
on the part of those who practiced it, Ospina believed the cure for this
enfermedad moral was the inculcation of “good,” “Catholic,” morals and
habits. Clearly elucidating the idea that the family and the nation were
intimately connected, he regarded the family as the primary cell of soci-
ety and believed that moral education was essential to achieve happiness
and prosperity within families, which would produce a corresponding
regeneration of society. An ordered society depended on ordered fami-
lies. Critical of the curriculum in schools, where Liberals had allowed the
instruction of the doctrines of Bentham and other “immoral” European
philosophies, Ospina called upon clerics to impart moral education from
the pulpit. Such instruction was to be directed especially to mothers whose
duty it was to pass along such habits as order, love, and prudent spending
to their children.30 Accordingly, families would be uplifted, society saved,
and progress assured. The home, thus, became a primary space in which
moral reform efforts were directed and mothers would exercise a principal
role.31
Poverty and progress were clearly conceived of fundamentally in
moral and religious rather than economic terms. The Conservative ide-
ologue, military officer, and politician, Sergio Arboleda also made a di-
rect connection between the economy, religion, and morality. He avowed
that economic development and the accumulation of wealth must stem
from moral development, the application of an ethic involving good
moral conduct, and the Christian virtues of self-restraint, honor, and
hard work.32 “Wealth,” declared Arboleda, “should be the fruit of econ-
omy and economy the immediate effect of the love for work and vir-
tuous habits.”33 Thus, according to Arboleda, that which threatened
the Church and Christian morality, threatened the economy.34 Colom-
bia Cristiana, too, declared that the achievement of civilización required,
above all, not desarrollo económico, economic development, but morali-
dad, morality.35 In 1874 Rafael Núñez himself declared that “moral de-
velopment is the final synthesis of progress in all its forms.”36 Very
tellingly, in 1883, Núñez underscored the Regeneration belief in the cen-
trality of morality to progress and the potential “social question” by
stating,

Blind are those who do not see in the social question anything but
an economic theorem . . . The social problem is, above all, a religious
problem, a moral problem. It is not solely . . . a question of beefsteak:
a question of the stomach; it is at the same time—and probably even
more, a spiritual question, a question of the soul . . . . Incessant moral
development . . . brings with it true civilization.37

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The Catholic Church as well as the Conservative press and leading

Regeneration elites steadfastly clamored for a “regeneración de la raza”
and religion was essential to this regeneration. In 1892 Núñez, for ex-
ample, declared that religion was “the basis of internal order, of moral
order.”38 According to Miguel Antonio Caro, religion constituted the “vi-
tal origin of society.”39 Caro also criticized a speech made by Liberal Felipe
Pérez in which the latter measured progress in material terms by railroads,
telegraphs, and schools. Indeed, Caro affirmed, the latter constituted the
“movement of cultured nations,” however,

[T]he great necessity of those nations is to better accommodate its

customs and institutions to the Christian spirit. What worth do tele-
graphs and railroads have without education? With telegraphs, rail-
roads and schools, but without religion, a nation heads unfailingly
to barbarity.40

As the words of these prominent elites demonstrate, morality and religion

were deemed essential to progress. Such proclamations appeared not only
in their essays, but in leading newspapers and also in sermons. Charitable
institutions, too, were to play a critical role in imparting the behavior
among the poor that was deemed necessary for progress.

The Charitable Impulse

The venture to reform habits, regenerate society, and achieve order
and progress centered also on the establishment of charitable and educa-
tional institutions designed to correct the vices of the poor and provide
them with moral and vocational instruction. In article eleven of the 1887
Concordat, it was stipulated that the Church should establish “religious
institutes that dedicate themselves with preference to the exercise of char-
ity, to missions, to the education of youth, to teaching in general and other
works of public utility and beneficencia.”41 Through greater control of ed-
ucation and close cooperation with religious communities, Regeneration
governments sought to centralize, moralize, and harmonize in large part
through charitable institutions. Indeed the central state would exercise a
role in ensuring order and in contributing to charitable activity and so-
cial services. However, in this society where the Catholic Church held
such power, and traditional notions of charity, hierarchy, and paternalism
persisted, the Church and charitable elites, too, would play a coopera-
tive role.42 President of the newly formed Juventud Católica and future
president of Colombia, Marco Fidel Suárez, declared in 1893 that,

[t]he difficulties originating from the collision of rights and interests

between the rich, entrepreneurs, and workers, those that form ur-
gent and difficult problems in the most civilized nations, cannot be
resolved without the help of Christian truths and practices . . . . only
faith and charity are powerful enough to extinguish greed in some

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and envy in others, to create in the former habits of abnegation and

in the latter habits of saving.43

Citing the example of the United States, the pro-Regeneration pub-

lication, El Taller, edited by the artisan leader José Leocadio Camacho,
considered beneficencia as one of three pillars on which the progress of
Bogotá should rest, along with savings and education.44 Pedro M. Ibañez
posited that, “the number and conditions of the beneficent institutions
maintained by a society is a thermometer that measures its place among
civilized nations.”45 Likewise, Colombia Cristiana professed that “the dis-
appearance of religious communities and charitable institutions” would
signify el imperio real de la barbarie civilizada, “the true reign of civilized
barbarity,” as they constitute the verdaderos obreros de la civilización, “true
laborers of civilization.”46
During the Regeneration several private charitable institutions and as-
sociations were created in Bogotá, which were supported by religious
orders and Liberal and Conservative elites alike. In addition, numerous
mutual aid societies were established and various institutions of benefi-
cencia that had been created in the preceding Liberal period remained in
operation. As can be seen in the table below, the establishment of charitable
associations intensified after 1886 when the new Constitution was written
and the partnership between the Nationalist Regeneration government
and the Catholic Church was put in motion. Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encycli-
cal, Rerum Novarum, gave added impulse to the trend. In his encyclical,
the pope called attention to the working classes of the world and sought
to counter socialism by urging the formation of Catholic associations to
protect the working classes. In Colombia the pope’s words resonated. El
Correo Nacional proclaimed in 1892 that,

The arduous industrial conflicts, and the frightening problems that

proletarianism is implanting throughout the world, will not be re-
solved by economists; the solution to those problems . . . will de-
scend from the Vatican, with the assistance and through the min-
istry of innumerable Catholic associations that are in possession of
the sovereign formula for all social equations: charity.47

Indeed, as can be seen in the table, numerous charitable institutions were

created in Bogotá during the Regeneration as part of the pursuit of progress
and the regeneración moral.

From the Street to the Home: Moral Regeneration and the Riot of 1893

Family was at the heart of the moral reformation. The family was in-
timately connected to national stability and progress. The latter were de-
pendent upon stable families and a home environment in which Catholic

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Charitable Institutions, Religious Societies, and Mutual Aid Societies

Created, 1884-190448

Founders/ Objectives/
Name Date Administrators Beneficiaries
Asilo de 1884 Municipal Clear streets of
Mendi- Government; beggars; provide
gos/Asilo Sociedad de Hijos shelter
Cualla de la Santı́sima
Trinidad
Asilo de Jesús, 1884 Private; Marı́a Education and
Marı́a y José Antonia Vergara shelter to
de Vargas abandoned girls
Sala de 1886 Municipal Health; Treat
Sifilı́ticas Government; syphilitic patients,
Hospital de San primarily
Juan de Dios prostitutes
Asilo de 1887 Private; Sociedad de Shelter to destitute
Ancianos San Vicente de elderly
Paúl [Hereafter
SSVP]
Sección de 1887 Private; SSVP Distribution of
Amparo of sewing machines
SSVP to provide
occupation to poor
Escuela de 1888 National Night classes for
Letras y de Government; artisans
Artes y Religious order
Oficios/
Instituto de
Artesanos
Asilo de San 1888 Private; SSVP Religious, moral, and
Francisco vocational
Javier instruction to poor,
orphan children
Casa Peneten- 1888 Private; State; Sisters Correction, moral
ciaria/Casa (opened of the Good regeneration, and
de 1890) Shepherd training for
Correción/ domestic service to
Asilo del female criminals,
Buen Pastor prostitutes,
domestic servants

Continued

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The Latin Americanist, March 2009

Continued.

Founders/ Objectives/
Name Date Administrators Beneficiaries
Sociedad de la 1888 Private; Workers; Mutual Aid Society
Cruz Artisans and saving for
artisans and
workers
Sociedad de 1888 Private; Elite women Religious instruction
Hijas de and charity to poor
Marı́a
Sociedad de 1889 Private; Elite women Prayer Group;
Madres Religious and
Católicas moral instruction
to poor
Cooperadores 1890 National Religious, moral and
Salesianos/ Government, vocational training
Instituto Salesiano religious for potential
Salesiano order artisans
Monte de 1890 Archbishop;
Piedad Departmental and
National
Governments
Seguras de 1891 Mutual Aid Society
Familia and saving for
artisans and
workers
Caja de 1890 National Promote saving
Ahorros in Government
Banco
Nacional
Escuela de 1891 Rafael Núñez; Training for artisans
Artes y National
Oficios Government;
La Juventud 1892 Private; Elite men Religious society;
Católica charity
Escuela de 1894 Private; SSVP; Educate poor girls
Santa Isabel
Escuela de 1894 Private; SSVP; Training of poor girls
Oficios Departmental and for domestic
Domésticos Municipal service; Placement
Government; agency
Sisters of Charity

Continued

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 Froysland

Continued.

Founders/ Objectives/
Name Date Administrators Beneficiaries
Sociedad de la 1895 Private; SSVP Pick up orphaned
Santa and abandoned
Infancia children from the
streets; Education
and shelter
Sopa de los 1895 Private; SSVP Daily distribution of
Pobres food to poor
families suffering
from war
La Maestranza 1895 Private; SSVP Provision of work to
poor and
unemployed
families during
wartime
difficulties
Parque de 1896 Private; Doctors; Lab; Procure and
Vacunación State; Junta Central administer vaccine
de Higiene
Hospital de 1897 Private; Doctors Treat ill children
Misericor- (opened
dia para in 1906)
Niños
Pobres
Taller de 1900 Private; SSVP; Sisters Sewing workshop for
Costura of Charity poor
Escuela 1900 Private; SSVP Religious, moral, and
Práctica vocational
instruction
Dormitorio de 1900 Private; SSVP Shelter and education
San Vicente to children

values were instilled. Accomplishment of such a goal would require the

maintenance of class- and gender-specific roles and women were to play
a critical moralizing role in the process of nation formation.49 The pro-
cess of modernization required a redefinition of the role of women, el bello
sexo. Women’s roles were more broadly conceived in relation to the so-
cial and civil life of the nation, though their lives were still to be largely
circumscribed by the walls of the home, as the family was the focal point.
El bello sexo was ideally innocent, pure, patient, and virtuous. As criat-
uras celestiales and ángeles guardianes, women were called upon to transmit

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Catholic values and good habits to their husbands and children in the
home. Thus, clergy, doctors, and leaders, such as ex-President Mariano
Ospina, called for the moral and religious education of women through
sermons and newspaper articles, many of which were directed exclusively
at women.50 Women were instructed on topics including hygiene, child
care, moral conduct, prudent spending, and the management of domestic
economies. Women who fulfilled their obligation to impart good values
and teach the importance of temperance, prudent spending, work, punc-
tuality, and cleanliness were realizing the patriotic duty of populating
the nation with healthy, moral, and hard-working citizens who would
contribute to national progress.
Other means, such as legislation, police campaigns, and charitable in-
stitutions, were also used by the state, the church, and private elites in
Colombia who ventured to direct the lives and activity of the poor from
the street to the home, the former a symbol of danger and immorality and
the latter a bastion of stability and virtue.51 Prostitutes were considered
especially perilous to progress and to the nation. Prostitutes transgressed
prescribed gender roles and were also carriers of contagion, especially
syphilis. Prostitutes failed to conform to the newly interpreted ideal of
women’s proper role in society since they did not carry out the domestic
and civilizing duties conferred upon women. They existed in the street,
the symbolic and literal antithesis of the home. Though a double stan-
dard existed and men were rarely chastised for engaging the services of
prostitutes, men who did so also threatened the family unit, the stabiliz-
ing force in society. In 1892 Juan Ceballos, a law student, noted that not
only did these men neglect the duties they were to perform within their
own families, they produced illegitimate descendants (many of whom
were abandoned).52 Thus, the family ideal and the stability of society
were endangered, especially since these children often became wards of
the state. In his thesis, Ceballos lamented the failure of the state to cas-
tigate fathers who neglected their duties to support and educate their
children. Instead the children were abandoned and “raised in vice.” Boys
ended up in prison and girls in prostitution.53 Ceballos placed consid-
erable blame on men for seducing, misleading, and abandoning prosti-
tutes and concubines and encouraging this perniciosa enfermedad moral, this
pernicious moral sickness. He even made a rare reference to the socio-
economic pressures that drove women to prostitution.54 Like most of
his contemporaries who viewed prostitution primarily as a female moral
problem, however, he condemned women for their deceitful and immoral
behavior.
Prostitution was a medical as well as a moral problem that plagued
Bogotá. Though prostitution was not new, the conception of prostitu-
tion began to be reconfigured as the discourse was medicalized, so as to
regard prostitution and the spread of venereal diseases as perilous to
society. Since venereal diseases, especially syphilis, spread through
prostitution, national health and prosperity were endangered. In 1890

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Dr. Gabriel Castañeda emphatically recommended government support

of efforts to treat syphilitic patients by arguing the following:

Syphilis is a disease that threatens all of society and its victims

represent a notable loss for the country and its future. It is the
youth that . . . contracts the disease most frequently. These young
people, reduced to weakness and impotence, will bear scarce and
valetudinarian descendants that represent losses for the nation, as
the latter requires individuals who are vigorous and suitable for
labor.55

In an effort to prevent the propagation of syphilis, a special ward was cre-

ated in the Hospital de San Juan de Dios in 1886 for the express purpose of
treating prostitutes and other women who were to be brought in by police
and registered. In the two-year period from April 13, 1886 to May 31,
1888, 1,374 women were registered. Of these, 136 were afflicted with
syphilis, while 172 were diagnosed with other venereal diseases.56 This
police round-up of public women was carried out quite successfully in the
immediate aftermath of the creation of the special ward. However, this
attempt to control public space and forcefully subject the bodies of pros-
titutes to medical examinations met resistance and was hampered by the
prostitutes themselves. In time, most prostitutes manipulated the system
by successfully evading police or procuring their release by craftily em-
ploying techniques of seduction and allure, to which police succumbed.
In 1889, far fewer prostitutes were registered and treated in the hospital,
and not a single one returned for subsequent medical examinations. Most
of the 254 women examined in the ward in 1889 were servants who en-
tered voluntarily or beggars who were brought to the hospital by police.
Of these women, 244 were diagnosed with syphilis. The director of the
special ward determined the threat to the nation to be so great that he af-
firmed the need to establish a new, larger building that would adequately
serve prostitutes. He also recommended the creation of a special section
of the police whose exclusive duty would consist of the surveillance of
prostitutes.57
Prostitution indeed became a focal point of efforts of the Regeneration
governments to reorder and moralize society. A new, professionalized
police force was created in 1891 under the direction of José Marı́a Marcelino
Gilibert, who was contracted from France. In an effort to combat elements
that were deemed threatening to the moral and social order of society,
as well as the health of the nation, it was this newly restructured police
force that inaugurated the study of prostitution. The police force was
enlarged from 50 to 400 agents, all of whom were to have a robust physical
constitution and be of sound moral character. The mission of the new force
was to maintain public security, order, and morality, as well as to assist
in the duty of maintaining public health. A Division of Security composed
of undercover police was established for the purpose of controlling and

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regulating vice, vagrants, and “suspicious and dangerous people.” As

part of this campaign to regulate public spaces, customs, and morality,
agents were to clandestinely enter hotels and secret houses of gambling
and prostitution from where they would record the names and activities
of people suspected of engaging in illegal vices. In addition, they closely
supervised the activities of beggars and street children. The information
recorded was archived in police stations throughout the city and used to
pursue vagrants, prostitutes, and other “offenders of public morality and
order.”58
These measures were used to attempt to control the behavior of these
“dangerous degenerates.” The reorganization of the police force involved
the creation of a Division that would serve at the disposition of the Central
Board of Hygiene created in 1886 under the new Constitution. Agents in
this division were entrusted with the surveillance and detention of pros-
titutes and those who were afflicted with contagious illnesses. The latter
were forcibly subjected to isolation or medical examinations and treat-
ment. Removing prostitutes found in the vicinity of schools and other
public spaces where public morality might be offended (and children cor-
rupted) was deemed a priority.
The riots of January 1893, in which 40-45 of the poor who rioted were
killed, indicate that there was some resentment against this police cam-
paign against vagrancy and prostitution, as well as the overall attack on
their moral character. This is made evident by the fact that the riot was pre-
cipitated by the Colombia Cristiana articles written by Ignacio Gutiérrez, and
the subsequent failure of government officials to demand that Gutiérrez
recant his statements in accordance with a press law against slander.59
It is especially exemplified by the selection of targets attacked by the
rioters.
A prime target was Gutiérrez. Many verbally expressed their anger at
the author and later attacked his residence, where police opened fire on
the crowd, killing one.60 Rioters proceeded to attack the homes of some
government officials, including those of a National Inspector and Hig-
inio Cualla.61 It is telling that these individuals were singled out, as they
seemed to be among those particularly identified with the Regeneration
attempts to “reorder” society, one a police Inspector, the other the mayor
of Bogotá and cousin of Rafael Núñez. Rioters also attacked the numer-
ous police stations throughout the city and made certain to destroy the
archives of damning documents filed by undercover police of the recently
created Division of Security, which recorded the names and activities of the
“suspicious” and “vice-ridden.” Furthermore, 200 to 250 rioters marched
to the outskirts of the city to the Asilo de San José, the women’s correc-
tional facility that detained women arrested for minor offenses, especially
crimes against la moral y buenas costumbres (morality and good customs),
such as prostitution and drunkenness. Attesting to the fervor of the police
campaign, one contemporary observer claimed that 13,000 women had
passed through the doors of the Asilo since it opened three years prior.62

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 Froysland

In an apparent manifestation of their belief that their compañeras had been

unjustly incarcerated, they stormed the prison (whose guards had fled).63
Breaking windows and destroying property, they successfully liberated
the roughly 200 prisoners.
The rioters also assailed the religious orders that served as partners
in the government’s project of Regeneration, including the nuns of the
order of Nuestra Señora de Caridad del Buen Pastor who administered the
prison. As reported in the annals of this order, one terrified prisoner hiding
in a corner was mistaken for a nun and killed.64 Five nuns managed to flee
with the assistance of a former prisoner then working in the institution,
having apparently been warned of the impending attack on the prison
by an attorney who heard the crowd cry, “attack the nuns” and “free the
prisoners.”65 Joined by many of the freed prisoners, the rioters pursued the
nuns on foot. Safely harbored in a private home until they could reach the
convent of Las Aguas, the nuns emerged unscathed. However, opposition
toward them remained, as employees of the convent could not even go in
the streets without receiving insults, according to the annals.66
The crowd also targeted the Instituto Salesiano, which had been estab-
lished to round up orphaned and abandoned children from the streets and
impart to them religious instruction and vocational training. Not only was
this religious order a partner in the campaign for order and morality, the
children in its workshops produced goods that competed with those of
artisans. Even prior to the riot, artisans had expressed discontent with this
competition. They deemed it unfair since the workshops received govern-
mental assistance and favors, such as equipment and an exemption from
customs duties.67
The riot that occurred on the streets of Bogotá in January 1893 only con-
firmed the fears of the Church, the state, and many elites regarding social
upheaval and moral degeneracy. Several pro-government and Catholic
newspapers defended Gutiérrez and censured those who participated in
the riot. They were the “men of bad customs,” “the pernicious element,”
the “dregs” of society, and a “deleterious miasma of vice and crime.”68
The Council of the Apostolado de la Oración issued a manifesto in defense
of Gutiérrez and Colombia Cristiana, which contended that “serious” arti-
sans did not participate in the riot. The manifesto insisted that there were
working families that, “though they have not achieved the moral level
of the most elevated class, observe good conduct.”69 Surely, it declared,
these families did not participate in the events of January 1893. Rather, the
participants were “men of the working class who were incapable of under-
standing, due to their humble condition, the writings of Sr. Gutiérrez and
of appreciating his opinion regarding the existence in the city of Bogotá
of working-class families that were “just as honorable as the most distin-
guished of high society.”70 The manifesto concluded with a strong plea to
allow Colombia Cristiana to resume publication, as it had been suspended
indefinitely. Colombia Cristiana, it argued, exercised an important role in
the Colombian project of Regeneration by disseminating Christian ideas

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The Latin Americanist, March 2009

and working to infuse the population with the habits of saving, sobriety
and the like.
Though some artisans were inspired by socialist and anarchist doc-
trines, I do not believe this can fully explain the Bogotá riot of 1893. Indeed,
David Sowell, in particular, recognizes multiple causes. He concludes that
the economic policies implemented by the Regeneration governments that
resulted in higher taxes, rising food prices, and general inflation con-
tributed to the “tense social climate,” but cannot fully explain the riot.
Instead, he declares that the artisans were “defending their social stand-
ing in an attempt to rectify what they perceived as an injustice done to the
“good name of the artisan.” More broadly, he views the riot as a reaction
to the growth and uncertainty prevalent in a “modernizing” city. Indeed,
social and economic concerns were important. However, by focusing on
the years prior to the riot and gaining an understanding of the central-
ity of morality and religion to the Regeneration governments, we gain a
more complete understanding of the reasons for which the poor rioted.
Combined with socioeconomic factors, many were seemingly frustrated
with the attacks on their character. Furthermore, the targets of their ire,
indicate a resentment of the efforts of the Regeneration governments to
“crack down” on their ways of life, or, perhaps, bitterness over the fail-
ure of those in the “respectable” class to understand the causes of their
poverty.
Though the rioters seeemed to have been reacting in part to the Regen-
eration emphasis on morality, or lack thereof, the riot and the years prior
help demonstrate how central elites felt that morality and religion were
to progress. This is demonstrated by elite discourse on the poor and their
supposed immoral habits, the establishment of charitable institutions, as
well as the police campaign against perceived immorality. Through char-
ity, sermons, the press, and a police campaign, the Regeneration elites and
the Catholic Church sought a moral regeneration that involved the forma-
tion of healthy individuals who would engage in honorable behavior that,
in their eyes, was requisite for social citizenship and national progress. In
this “degenerate” society the obstacles to progress and a positive national
image were the idle and those who spent beyond their means and failed
to prepare for the future and contribute to the development of the city and
the nation. By engaging in a project of Catholic modernity, Regeneration
proponents and officials used a set of moral and gendered criteria to form
healthy, moral, and industrious citizens that would divert Colombia from
the percieved path of barbarity and degeneration to that of civilization
and progress. Through religion, charity, and moral instruction, a hierar-
chical, harmonious social order was to be maintained in a time of social
and economic change. Morality was paramount to progress.

Notes
1
Ignacio Gutiérrez, “La Mendicidad II,” Colombia Cristiana, año I, no. 11
(December 21, 1892), p. 92.

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 Froysland

2
Ibid.
3
See Ignacio Gutiérrez, “La Mendicidad,” Colombia Cristiana, año I, no. 10
(December 14, 1892), p. 85 and Ignacio Gutiérrez, “La Mendicidad IV,”
Colombia Cristiana, año I, no. 13 (January 4, 1893), p. 111.
4
Gutiérrez, “La Mendicidad,” p. 85.
5
Miguel Aguilera Peña, Insurgencia urbana en Bogotá (Bogotá: Colcultura,
1997), Chapter Three.
6
Historians differ in their periodization of the Regeneration. It can be ar-
gued that the “Regeneration” actually began in 1878, but was not consoli-
dated until Núñez’s second term began in 1884 and the new Constitution
was implemented in 1886. It was in 1878, however, that Núñez criticized
what he and many other political elites, including some Liberals, saw
as excessive federalism and laissez faire economic policies that had been
implemented by the Radical governments and that resulted in chaos. To
Núñez, there was no other choice now but “fundamental regeneration or
catastrophe,” which would require an emphasis on religion and a strong
role for the Catholic Church (which was accorded in the Constitution of
1886 and the Concordat of 1887). Núñez was first elected in 1880, serving
a two-year term. The Regeneration ended in 1900 when the Conserva-
tives ousted the Nationalists. Frank Safford and Marco Palacios adopt
this periodization in Frank Safford and Marco Pamplona, eds. Colombia:
Fragmented Land, Divided Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),
p. 241.
7
Some of the language that appears here and on a few other occasions
in this essay also appeared in Hayley Froysland, “La regeneración de la
raza in Colombia,” in Don Doyle and Marco Pamplona, eds. Nationalism
in the New World (University of Georgia Press, 2006) as well as in the
Portuguese translation as, “A regeneraçao da raza no Colombia, Don Doyle
and Marco Pamplona, eds, A Nacionalismo u novo mundo (Rio de Janeiro:
Editora Record, 2008) and are reprinted with permission.
8
For an elaboration of these themes and a discussion of the discourse and
campaigns against other perceived vices, see Hayley Froysland, Para el
bien común: Charity, Health, and Moral Order in Bogotá, Colombia, 1850-1936,”
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2002.
9
I have made this assertion in Froysland, “La regeneración de la raza in
Colombia.”
10
Juan Maiguashca also sees the merit of the concept of “Catholic moder-
nity” in his essay on Ecuador and discusses my argument for the case of
Colombia as well as some other recent works on Ecuador and Bolivia that
advance similar arguments. See Juan Maiguashca, “El proyecto de mod-
ernidad católica republicana en Ecuador, 1830-1875,” in Marta Irurozqui
Victoriano, ed., La Mirada Esquiva: Reflexiones históricas sobre la interacción
del estado y la ciudadanı́a en los Andes (Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú), Siglo XIX
(Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientı́ficas, 2005), pp. 233-
259.

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The Latin Americanist, March 2009

11
It should be noted that at least one other newspaper criticized the com-
ments made by Gutiérrez as unfair. Furthermore, possibly in anticipation
of an uprising among artisans and the working poor, even the editor of
Colombia Cristiana issued an editorial note which accompanied Gutiérrez’s
final article. The note explained that the editors had agreed to publish the
articles before they had read them. It also attempted to temper the potential
effect of the articles by insisting that the injurious statements applied only
to a minority of the artisan class. Most artisans, declared the editors, were
respectful, honorable, and of good moral conduct. See, “Nota Editorial,”
Colombia Cristiana, año I, #13 (January 4, 1893), p. 111.
12
Gutiérrez, “La Mendicidad,” p. 85.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Ignacio Gutiérrez, “La Mendicidad, II,” p. 92. In this issue, Gutiérrez de-
termined that a couple occupying even the lowest paying positions, peons
or day laborers, should be able to save $1.40 pesos/year. He condemned
them for their failure to do so. Careful analysis of his figures, however,
actually show how precarious was the existence of many workers in Bo-
gotá. First, Gutiérrez himself asserted that a woman and a man working as
peons or day laborers (a significant portion of the population) could save
only $1.40/year, as expenses totaled $217.00/year and their combined in-
come was $218.40/year ($156 from the man and $62.40 from the woman).
The sum of $1.40 would have been the equivalent of approximately three
days worth of food, hardly a cushion against illness or unexpected ex-
penses. Moreover, in reaching this figure Gutiérrez committed an error
in basic addition that reduced the actual expense of clothing for a fam-
ily of four by $2.00 pesos. He calculated the yearly expense for a man’s
clothing at $25.80, a woman’s wardrobe at $27.80, and clothes for two
children at $16.00 and reached a total of $67.60 instead of $69.60. Correct
addition would have shown that total expenses actually exceeded total
income and such a family would have been unable to save anything. Sec-
ond, his method of calculating yearly costs of food and rent is unclear. He
reached a total monthly cost for these expenses of $12.80. He did not give
a yearly figure, but one might assume that he subtracted his incorrectly
calculated sum of $67.60 for clothing from the sum of total expenses of
$217.00 to reach an annual expense of $149.40 for food and rent. How-
ever, if one multiplies his estimated monthly expense for food and rent
by 12 the yearly cost is $153.60, a disparity of $4.20 that, once again by
mathematical miscalculation, underestimates total expenses. Third, it ap-
pears as if Gutiérrez may have miscalculated the yearly cost of food if
one assumes that there are 7 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, and
12 months in a year (an actual underestimation of the number of days
in the year, as all but one month have more than 28 days). Indeed, he

154
 Froysland

used these assumptions when he calculated wages, which were based on

working 6 days a week for a yearly total of 312 days. He calculated the
weekly cost of food as $3.20 and rather than multiplying it by 4 to ob-
tain a monthly sum of $12.80 he asserted that the monthly cost for food
was $8.40 with no explanation for the discrepancy. Thus, his estimation of
the monthly expense for food ($8.40) and rent ($4.00) was $12.80 instead
of $16.80 ($12.80 for food plus $4.00 for rent). If one uses the seemingly
mathematically correct sum of $16.80/month for food and rent, the yearly
cost would total $201.60, not $149.40. Thus, total expenses of food, rent,
and clothing for a family of four for one year would total $271.20, not the
$217.00 calculated by Gutiérrez. Hence, this family’s total annual income
of $218.40 fell $52.80 short of meeting the expenses listed by Gutiérrez.
His own figures, then, actually demonstrate that such a family would be
able to afford only 80.5 percent of basic expenses, let alone be able to save.
It must also be recognized that the budget Gutiérrez allotted for food,
shelter, and clothing allowed for only the bare necessities. It was based on
a simple diet of bread, cornmeal, panela, chicha, salt, and a small amount
of meat. It included a wardrobe that, among a few other essential items,
consisted of only two pairs of underwear, one pair of pants and two shirts
for the year for men. It assumed the family would live in a hovel at the rate
of only $4/month, the very hovels he denounced. Furthermore, though he
criticized the poor for having no furniture in their homes, he did not allow
an expense for furniture in their budget. While he condemned the poor
for wearing torn and dirty clothing, he allotted a sum sufficient enough to
purchase only one pair of pants. As he censured the poor for using their
torn and dirty clothing to sleep on, he failed to itemize an appropriation
to purchase mattresses, pillows, and blankets. The budget for a working
family outlined by Gutiérrez included only the minimum requirements
for sustenance in the categories of food, shelter, and clothing and only a
small allocation for other expenses that might also be considered essential,
such as cooking implements, matches, soap, etc. In addition, it must be
recognized that Gutiérrez’s conclusions were premised on a two-parent
household in which both parents worked, an assumption that did not co-
incide with reality. Many households were headed by single parents, espe-
cially females. With market wages significantly lower for females than for
males, most such female-headed families lived in a state of indigence. Even
women occupying positions higher on the pay scale, would have found
subsistence difficult. Gutiérrez also assumed that these workers worked
six days a week, 312 days a year. In his calculation of total income he
included holidays, days on which no wages were actually earned. In ad-
dition, he assumed that day laborers found work six days a week. In fact,
many discovered great difficulty in finding enough employment to keep
them occupied. Furthermore, Gutiérrez did not account for the manner
in which non-school-age children would be cared for while the parents
worked. Gutiérrez’s calculations were also based on a family with two
children. His budget did not include the added expenses that providing

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for additional children or elderly, ill, or disabled relatives would entail.

Finally, in their statistical analysis of Colombia, Miguel Urrutia M. and
Mario Arrubla concluded that the monthly budget for food alone was
$276.00 in 1892 and $353.00 in 1894. If we include the annual sum of
$117.60 for rent and clothing (based on Gutiérrez’s $69.60 for clothing and
$4.00/mo. for rent), an average budget would total $393.60 in 1892 and
$470.60 in 1894. Though families of skilled craftsmen were certainly better
off and could afford a relatively comfortable lifestyle, a significant number
of working-class people would have found it difficult to provide for their
families. Provision for unexpected expenditures and illness would have
been nearly impossible for most. See Miguel Urrutia M. and Mario Arrubla,
eds., Compendio de estadı́sticas históricas de Colombia (Bogotá: Universidad
Nacional de Colombia, 1970), pp. 83-87.
18
Gutiérrez, “La Mendicidad,” p. 85.
19
Froysland, “La Reegeneración de la raza,” p. 167.
20
“Ensayo sobre el trabajo industrial,” Colombia Cristiana, año II, no. 75
(July 1, 1894), p. 198.
21
Pbro. Raimundo Ordoñez Y., Los ricos de nuestros dı́as y la limosna (Bo-
gotá: Imprenta y Librerı́a de Medardo Rivas, 1897), Biblioteca Nacional
[Hereafter, BN], Misc. 110, no. 4, p. 25. Also quoted in Froysland, “La
Regeneración de las raza,” pp. 167-68.
22
Mariano Ospina, “Conversaciones familiares sobre cuestiones sociales:
El lujo,” Repertorio Colombiano, vol. I, no. 2 (August 1878).
23
Ibid., pp. 140-145, 148.
24
David Bushnell, The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation In Spite of Itself
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 119.
25
José Enrique Rodó, Ariel, trans. Margaret Sayers Peden (Austin: Univer-
sity of Texas Press, 1988).
26
Ospina, “Conversaciones familiares,” pp. 146, 151, 152, 155, 157.
27
Ibid., p. 147.
28
Ibid., p. 155.
29
Ibid., pp. 153-155.
30
Ibid., pp. 151-158.
31
Portions of the above discussion of Ospina also appeared in Froysland,
“La Regeneración de la raza,” pp. 168-169.
32
Helen Delpar, Red Against Blue: The Liberal Party in Colombian Politics
(University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press), p. 302.
33
Sergio Arboleda quoted in Ibid.
34
Jaramillo Uribe, El pensamiento colombiano en el siglo XIX, (Bogotá: Planeta
Colombiana Editorial S.A., 1996), p. 302.
35
“No desesperemos,” Colombia Cristiana, año II, no. 64 (April 15, 1894),
p. 106.
36
Rafael Núñez quoted in Helen Delpar, Red Against Blue), p. 76.
37
Rafael Núñez, La reforma polı́tica en Colombia, vol. II (Bogotá: Biblioteca
Popular de Cultura Colombiana, 1944), pp. 444-445.
38
Rafael Núñez quoted in Helen Delpar, Red Against Blue, p. 78.

156
 Froysland

39
Miguel Antonio Caro, “El paganismo nuevo,” in Escritos polı́ticos, in
Carlos Valderrama Andrade, ed. (Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1990),
p. 102.
40
Miguel Antonio Caro, “El monstruo inaugural,” in Ibid., p. 87.
41
Quoted in Guerrero, “Caridad y filantropı́a,” p. 46.
42
For a more extensive discussion of poverty and charity in nineteenth
century Bogotá, see Froysland, Para el bien común.
43
Marco Fidel Suárez, “Discurso del Presidente de la sociedad,” Colombia
Cristiana, año I, no. 21 (May 15, 1893), p. 158.
44
El Taller, serie VIII, no. 91 (July 3, 1888)
45
Pedro M. Ibañez, Papel Periódico Ilustrado, vol. 3, no. 55 (October 15, 1883).
46
“Bienaventurados: Los misericordiosos,” Colombia Cristiana, año 1,
no. 35 (August 20, 1893), p. 273.
47
Quoted in Aguilera, Insurgencia urbana en Bogotá, p. 231. The above is
also printed in Froysland, “La Regeneración de la raza, p. 176.
48
Froysland, Para el bien común, pp. 355-358.
49
The connection between family and nation in Latin American countries
has also been analyzed in the following: William French, “Prostitutes and
Guardian Angels: Women, Work, and the Family in Porfirian Mexico,”
Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 4 (November 1992); William
French, A Peaceful and Working People: Manners, Morals, and Class Formation
in Northern Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 19960; “
Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation
in Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991); and Teresita
Martı́nez-Vergne, Shaping the Discourse on Space: Charity and Its Wards in
Nineteenth-Century San Juan, Puerto Rico (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1999).
50
For a discussion of the perception of women’s roles, as well as the num-
ber and content of the newspapers and magazines directed toward women,
see Patricia Londoño, “Las publicaciones periódicas dirigidas a la mujer,
1858-1930,” Boletı́n Cultural y Bibliográfico, vol. XXVII, no. 23 (1990): 3-23.
Examining the efforts to regulate behavior and inculcate a work ethic in
Northern Mexico, William French delineates a joint campaign by the Mexi-
can bourgeoisie and the state. In Puerto Rico, Teresita Martı́nez-Vergne also
depicts such a partnership. In each study, the Church is conspicuously
absent. Seemingly, the Church did not play a significant role in the “mod-
ernizing” projects of these other Latin American countries. See French,
A Peaceful and Working People, esp. chaps. 3 and 4 and Martı́nez-Vergne,
Shaping the Discourse.
51
Portions of this next section are adapted from Froysland, “La Regen-
eración de la raza,” pp. 170-171.
52
Ceballos, Beneficencia pública, Doctoral Thesis, Externado de Colombia
(Bogotá: Imprenta de Echeverrı́a Hermanos, 1892), pp. 11-12.
53
Ibid.
54
Ibid., pp. 11-12, 31.

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55
Letter from Dr. Gabriel Castañeda, médico del servicio de sifilı́ticas,
Hospital de San Juan de Dios, to Carlos Michelsen U., Sı́ndico del Hospital
de San Juan de Dios, May 1, 1890 in “Informe del Sı́ndico del Hospital de
San Juan de Dios,” May 10, 1890 contained in Bernardino Medina, Informe
del Presidente de la Junta General de Beneficencia dirigido al Gobernador del
Departamento (Bogotá: Imprenta de Echeverrı́a Hermanos, 1890, p. 45.
56
Medina, “Informe del Presidente de la Junta General de Beneficencia,” in
Memoria que el Gobernador de Cundinamarca dirige a la Asamblea Departamental
en sus sesiones de 1888 (Bogotá: Imprenta de Silvestre y Compañı́a, 1889),
p. 121.
57
Ibid.
58
On the new police force see, Carlos Holguı́n, Informe del Ministro de Gob-
ierno al Congreso Constitucional de 1892 (Bogotá: Imprenta de Antonio Marı́a
Silvestre, 1892), pp. XLIV-XLVIII; Gonzalo Mallarino-Constans, “Contrato
celebrado entre Gonzalo Mallarino, Encargado de Negocios de Colombia
en Parı́s, y M. Constans, Ministro del Interior de la República Francesa
of “Documentos” in Holguı́n, Informe del Ministro de Gobierno. . .1892, pp.
120-121; Holguı́n, “Decreto número 1000 de 1891,” November 5, 1891,
of “Documentos” in Holguı́n, Informe del Ministro de Gobierno. . .1892, pp.
122-124; José Marı́a Gilibert and Pedro M. Corena, “Informes del Director
y Subdirector de la Policı́a Nacional,” July 10, 1892 in “Documentos” of
Holguı́n, Informe del Ministro de Gobierno. . .1892, pp. 152-163.
59
Sowell, The Early Colombian Labor Movement: Artisans and Politics in Bo-
gotá: 1832-1919 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), pp. 110-111.
60
Ibid., p. 111. For more details on the riot see also David Sowell, “The
1893 bogotazo: Artisans and Public Violence in Late Nineteenth-Century
Bogotá,” Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (May 1989): 267-
282.
61
Aguilera Peña, Insurgencia en Bogotá, pp. 162-163.
62
José Marı́a Cordovez Moure, Reminiscenias: Santafé y Bogotá, 6th ed., vol.
10 (Bogotá: Instituto Gráfico Ltda.), p. 175.
63
Sowell, “The 1893 Bogotazo,” p. 280. See also for additional details re-
garding the political environment and details of the riot.
64
Anales de la Congregación de Nuestra Señora de Caridad del Buen Pastor de
Angers en Bogotá (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1918), p. 32. The account
related in this paragraph was not documented by Sowell.
65
Ibid., pp. 31-32.
66
Ibid., p. 36.
67
Miguel Samper, Retrospecto in Escritos Polı́tico-económicos, vol. 1. Eds.,
José Marı́a Samper Brush and Luis Samper Sordo (Bogotá: Editorial de
Cromos, 1925), p. 140.
68
Quoted in Aguilera Peña, Insurgencia en Bogotá, p. 166.
69
Manifiesto del Consejo del Apostolado de la Oración á los Suscriptores y Amigos
de Colombia Cristiana (Bogotá: Imprenta de Vapor de Zalamea Hs., 1893),
BN, Misc. 777, no. 2, p. 11.
70
Ibid., pp. 12-13.

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