Muddied Waters: Race, Region, and Local History in Colombia, 1846–1948

Having admired Nancy Appelbaum’s 1999 article in the HAHR, I looked forward to reading this monograph. I was not disappointed; Muddied Waters is a thoughtful and timely exploration of the constructed nature of regional identity, focused on the conflicting identities of the Riosucio district in Colombia’s western Andes. The book’s central premise is that regions are as much imagined communities as are nations, and that in the case of Colombia, race has played a central role in creating and articulating these community identities.The book examines the varied stories that Colombians and foreigners have told about the settlers and settlement of Riosucio. The Department of Caldas, in which Riosucio is located, has traditionally been described as “white,” having supposedly been colonized by enterprising migrants from the equally white province of Antioquia. Its hardworking inhabitants were said to contrast with the dissolute and unproductive former slaves of the Cauca Valley. Appelbaum shows very successfully that Caldas was, in fact, settled by immigrants from both Antioquia and the Cauca Valley and that the dominant narrative of the zone as “white” is as much construction as reality. She further charts the role of racial dichotomies in solidifying claims to departmental status. Thus, in the early twentieth century, inhabitants of the town of Manizales described themselves as constituting a distinct “cultural, economic, and ‘racial’ region” in order to justify their control over the newly created department of Caldas (p. 144). The residents of Riosucio itself have described their town variously as “white” and “mestizo” in order to differentiate it from the “black” Cauca Valley and “white” Manizales. Alternative identities were articulated by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages and resguardos, who came to describe themselves as indigenous or black and who on occasion insisted that Riosuceño identity be adapted to include them as well. Appelbaum shows that none of these identities are historically or geographically inevitable, but they nonetheless played important roles in the formation of a sense of regional identity. History, Appelbaum argues, shapes geography as much as geography shapes history.The book does an excellent job at analyzing local and regional histories as constituent elements of the creation of local and regional identities. Lurking behind these identities is the specter of party politics. Appelbaum makes it clear that political conflicts played an important role in determining the affiliations and schisms between individuals and locales, but the nature of political affiliation itself is not a major focus of discussion. We are told that this or that region became known as “liberal” or “conservative,” but the beliefs behind these political identities are not explored in any detail. Instead, it is suggested that “identifying with a place increasingly implied identifying with a specific political party or faction” (p. 99), as if, for individuals, regional identity preceded political identity. This book has not advanced my understanding of how Colombians came to identify with particular political parties, but then that is not its central purpose. The volume ends with some observations about the vitality of regional identities in contemporary Colombia, in contrast to the rachitic nature of national identity. Overall, this careful study both sheds light on the interconnectedness of racial and regional identities and also enriches our understanding of one of Colombia’s national myths—that of the Antioqueño colonization of the coffee zone.