From the Violence of Peasants to Political Sectarism in Cauca (1938-1953)

Abstract

La Violencia en el Cauca” is an unknown phenomenon for Colombian historiography unlike other regions, It had its determinants only in political aspects. And the above was verified using descriptive statistics techniques oriented from a social and regional history approach. To that end, two documentary sources were analyzed mainly: one, “El Liberal” (local newspaper) between 1938 and 1959, 17 judicial files of Cauca between 1940 and 1953. From them the following data were extracted: number of violent events, proportion of the motivations of violent acts and proportion of the violence actors mainly. As a result, there is evidence of an increase in violence based on political situations among peasants. Thus, it can be concluded that in the fifties there was an increase in violence fostered by political sectarianism, distancing this process from other departments.