A BRIEF HISTORY OF COLOMBIA
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government was condemned for the massacre by Liberals in congress, led by the
young Jorge Eliécer Gaitán.
As members of the opposition party, Liberals were in a better position than the
Conservatives to channel societal unrest into political action. In general, the
Liberals benefited from increased urbanization of Colombian society; peasants,
recently uprooted from traditional rural life, were more receptive to the new
ideas they encountered in the city — and were upset with the inability of
Conservative governments to meet their needs. In the presidential election of
1930, Liberals took advantage of a split in Conservative ranks and won the
presidency for the first time in nearly 50 years.
After appointing Liberal governors in a few key departments, the new
administration put their party in control of electoral machinery — and local
police forces — and soon the Liberals established their own electoral hegemony.
A virtual civil war between the parties broke out in municipalities along the
border of Boyacá and Santander; hundreds died before this conflict was halted
by a wave of bipartisan patriotism when a Peruvian army attempted to take
Colombian territory in the Amazon region (the only war Colombia has had with a
neighboring country in the twentieth century). Still, the partisan conflict of
1931-1933 foreshadowed what was in store for the nation when the
Conservatives retook the presidency in 1946, initiating the period of conflict
known as La Violencia.
Liberal administrations, especially that of Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934- 1938),
attempted to modernize Colombia and its government, passing labor laws,
reforming the tax code, and encouraging industrial development. Land reform
and an attempt to increase the distance between Church and state (especially in
education) met with less success, while animating and unifying the Conservative
Party under the leadership of the intransigent Laureano Gómez. Eduardo Santos,
the editor of Bogotá daily El Tiempo and the great uncle of the current president
of Colombia, was elected as a moderate in 1938; he was followed again by