Dissolve, alienate and resist. Indigenous in Antioquia, 1845-1863

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the republican policies promulgated in the mid-nineteenth century, punctually between 1845 and 1863, affected the indigenous people in Antioquia as regards of the dissolution of the “resguardos” and the free alienation of their lands. The article argues that the ruling elite hierarchized the population to achieve effective control over it; the indigenous, as a result, were labeled as savage and uncivilized with the purpose of privatizing their “resguardos” and inserting them into the civilizing paradigm of the time. But them, far from being passive actors before such situations, appealed to different forms of resistance and answered from their own forma mentis.