History toward the future 

Xamundíes, Lilis, Bixes, Cálacotos, Guacanes, Sonsos, Bugas and other tribes lived in the Cauca River Valley, which was coyered by an immense, dense forest. They lived on ranches of ten or more huts. They were herbalists; the hunt also provided them with nutrition. They cut stone to make mortars and pestles with which they milled the grain from their harvests. They polished darts, bows, arrows and clubs for their wars. They constructed small boats and canoas. They were potters and goldsmiths. They buried theír dead with funcreal offerings. Archacology has confirmed and enriched the tales with artifacts that, over the years, acquired life through their use for carthly and religious purposes.

The process of interculturization accelerated with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. They introduced tivestock and other domesticated animals, as well as wheat, vegetables and European fruit. The farms grew oranges, pomegranates, pincapples, guavas, avocados, "caimitos" and melons. Slaves were imported and substituted for indigenous Indians, which were being exterminated. Ethnic mixing increased. Domestic servants abounded and were employed through annual, written contracts. Santiago de Cal¡ was an insignificant town with houses made of "bahareque," a mud-and-cane mixture used for building. The houses were surrounded by stone wall and covered with straw thatching, a few with clay tile. The parochial church was a ranch with a simple, wood-seaffold bell tower located on a plaza check- cred with grass. With the passage of time, herds of cows became a common sight on large, rural estates. Agriculture began to de- velop, becorning more and more culturally diverse and com- merce extended as far as the last village. Beginning with Cal¡, the villages of the region were founded one by one: Anserma, Car- tago, Buenaventura, Buga, Guacarí. They were strategically lo- cated in,the valley and functioned as a transit nexus and as bastions of conquest and had civilian institutions governed by a cabildo, or mayor.

The natural richness of the carth, the gold and the buried Indian treasures and alluviurn, in addition to the labor of the lndians (whether forced or arranged through chcap contracts), all contributed to the power of the conqueror and were the foundations of the region's accumulation of agricultura and livestock. The settlers operated manual mills to grind the sugarcane that grew throughout the district. Sebastián de Belalcázar is credited with importing sugarcane to his property in Yumbo in 1541. Apart from what the carth gave and the parts of the earth transformad by the work of artisans, everything else was imported: paper, cloth, metal, wine and other staple products. Coins were in short supply, but pieces and powder of gold also functioned as currency. Salt was brought from Buenaventura; the Indians were paid with ít along with provisions of fowl, fish, beans, corn and other vegetables. For short journeys between settlements, settlers mainly traveled the Cauca River in canocs and small boats. For long journeys, travelers preferred to take paths that ran along both sides of the river and followed the lines of the Indian routes in the foothills.

Beginning in the first half of the seventeenth century, the commercial prestlíze of the region was rooted in the abundance of livestock. Herds many as 4000 young bulls and heifers were taken as far as Quito. In addition, hogs were taken to Remediaos, Zaragoza and Cáceres, mining land in distant Antioquia. The same with bcef jerky, honeycomb and bottled honey, which fed the mines. Expert cowboys drove their charges through the Cauca Valley or into the frontier.

The country estates evolved through the continuar partitioning of inheritances. By 1721, there were an abundance of plantations in the Cauca River Valley dedicated to livestock pasture, mares, colts, donkey breeding, mules, pig farms; severas farmers grew rice, cocoa, wheat and tohacco. There was 33 rnills in operation. The labor was mostly enslaved. But on the edges of the roads, on the banks of the rivers and on the boundaries of these plantations were many small mulatto landowners and freed slaves and mixed- race, Indo-European families that had settled on their own land and had begun to form a growing community of small farmers.

The eighteenth century witnessed an enormous cultural expansion founded in the sácks of gold from the mines in Gelima, Chontaduro, Raposo, Cajambre and Anchicayá. The mansions of Concepción de Amaime, japio, Alisal, Cañasgordas and others rose up. The church Matriz de San Pedro and San Francisco were built in Buga; so was the priest's residence in Guacarí and the San AntoWio Cathedral, the Franciscan convent and the Mudéjar Tower in Cali. In Cartago, builders crected the San Francisco Church. Artisans worked on those projects, which are testament to the ordirriry practices of the colonial era. A new society arose among businessman who were settling in the region; along with mestizos like Bernardo Núñez, they became powerful. 

In 1749, the Real Hacienda levied an alcohol tax that provoked widespread unhappiness in the viceroyalty. In Cali, discontent spread, extending as far as Llanogrande and Candelaria; it was tempered when the cabildo closed the stills and gave permission for residents to distill the liquor in their homes. The viceroy didn't like this measure but accepted it on the condition that consumers pay a surcharge in proportion to their assets.

The alcohol rebellion wasn't the only one in the Cáuca Valley. When it was decided in 1776 to open a new route from Cartago to Chocó, a resistance began to form in Llanogrande among some of the freed mulattos who didn't want to be subjected to forced labor. They said that pestilence and a plague of locusts were crippling their incomes and that they had to devate their efforts to their shops and farms. The cabildo of Buga decided to suspend the order but the viceroy upheld it.

In the Buga plains, where tobaceo grew, a scienúfic commission arrived at the behest of Carlos IU in order to teach lessons in processing. The production intensffled beginning in 1778 among small rented or owned parcels of cultivators in Caloto, Buga, Tuluá, Toro and Cartago. Near the parish of Nuestra Señora del Palmar, the building called La Factoría was built. The largest production of tobacco was concentrated there. The village of Palmira grew alongside the growth of the tobacco market. In her will, Señora Margarita Rengifo, owner of an estate in Llanogrande, liberated severas slaves and left them land and animals so that they could live free.

At the same time the Common Revolution oecurred in the Socorro, yet another uprising occurred in Hato de Lemos where men, women and children raided the alcohol stills, spilling the liquor on the ground and tearing up the tobacco. The same thing happened in Toro. The authorities in Cartago formed an army and issued a death penalty. Finally, the rebellion ended. An investigation pardoned the Parroquiano muleteers, messengers and peasants who, on their farms, had tobacco and caffaduzal to make aguardiente, from which they were earning their living. In these communal movements were dramatic signs of an emancipative dynamic. In fact, Cali was the first city in the viceroyalty to proclaim it's autonomy. The cry of independeñce sounded on july 3, 1810. Anserma, Buga, Cal¡, Caloto, Cartago and Toro formed the league of Frierídly or Confederate Cities. Agriculture suffered greatly because enlistment -farmers as soldiers or landholders as commanders-- uprooted men from the countryside. Many never returned. The population of Cauca reached 193,000 inhabitants.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, much of the trade with Valle del Cauca was routed through Chocó. Forcign products were introduced to Cauca from Quibdó by way of Nóvita, while mule trains traveling from Cauca to Chocó carted cu red meat, corn and panela -the staple foodstuffs of the blacks working in the mines.

The first printing press opened in Cali in 1837. The free market for tobacco opened in 1850. Slavery lasted until 1851; abolition had an impact on the mines, mills and plantations. In the latter, the trauma was assuaged by the enlistment of unskilled laborers and the use of terrazguero, a system of land rent which unffled the peasant class. The livestock herds began expanding in 1854; farmers produced supplies for seif-sufficiency.

The completion of the train connection between Colón and Panama in 1855 reduced the importance of Buenaventura. A telegraph service between Cali, Palmira and Bogotá was established in 1872. The train system reached Buenaventura in 1878; in 1882 an underwater cable connected this port to other parts of the world. The mule route to Quibdó hegan to disappear as maritime commerce (by way of the Magallanes narrows) began to expand. River transport in Cauca began in 1888. The number of steamships grew year by year and the river became a great transportation corridor and facilitated the exportation of coffec: Beans grown in Caldas were sent to Cali for threshing and then transportes to Buenaventura on muleback. This was an age during which family-run coffec farms began sprouting up on both cordilleras. The towns of Versalles, Argelia, Darién, Sevilla and Caicedonia arose wíth this expansion of transportation and trade. In 1890, Ulpiano Lloreda González built an ice factory in Cali specifically in El Peñón. He also produced chocolate pastries. In 1901, Santiago Eder opened the Manuelita sugar mill, which was powered by steam. The factory heralded the industrialization of "cañamiel." The Thousand Day Uprising was already coming to an end. In 1903 Eder began to edit the Correo del Cauca, from which he launched the campaign to create the department of Valle; the entity was formalizad in 1910,with the division of Cauca Grande. The landmark electrie plant of Cali was ínaugurated. The tramway started rolling thanks to the work of Emilio Bizzot and Guillermo Beyyert. Also in 1910 the Biblioteca del Centenario was inaugurated and Pope Pio X created the Cali Diocese. In 1904 Manuel Carvajal Valencia laid the foundations for his publishing house. The first car arrived in 1913; it was brought by Jorge Zawadzky. Emmanuel Pinedo installed a telephone service in 1914. Antonio Dishington founded La Garantía in 1915 to produce knitted fabric. The train arrived and, a short while later, the tracks were extended to the north. Construction on the Carretera Central also began. And with the Panama Canal already open, Valle was able to communicate by sea with North America and Europe. A wealthy agricultural industry began to take shape in the form of janeiro, guinea, and pará fields and with herds of Holsteins, zebu, Guernsey, Chyolais, Hereford, Shorthorn, Red Poll and Normandy.

During World War 1, Valle was elosed off from forcign markets. The region was left to depend on its own industrias and commerce. Around 1920, many firms were operating in the principie cities of the Vallecaucano territory. Boats that were navigating the Cauca River were pulled out of circulation little by little. The train and roadways running alongside the prairie linked transportation,routes and boosted exportation of coffec, animal skins, cocoa, tobacco, rubber, balata, turtles, herons, ivory palm, gold dust and platinum, all of which contributed to economic growth. Valle experienced a spread of wealth, an inercase in raw products, an expansion of job opportunities. But simultancously, the region witnessed population migration from the countryside to the cities. Construction on the road between Popayán and Pasto was completed. And due to the Pacific Railway between Armenia and Ibagué, Buenaventura acquired a national importance that it never had during the nineteenth century. Laborers began constructing the Carretera del Mar.

Up until the Great Crisis of 1930, a model of mercantile importation held sway, but by the late 1920's industrialization had begun to take hold. Centrifugally produced sugar was already being imported; regional sugar production had significantly dropped despite the founding of the Providencia mill in 1926 and the Riopaila mill in 1929, projects undertaken by Modesto Cabal Galindo and Hernando Caicedo Caicedo. In 1932 the Facultad de Agronomía y Agricultura Tropical was established in Palrnira; the founders had in mind the fertility of the ground for the production of food. The Mision Chardon outlined hig designs for the agricultural development in Valle.

During World War II, most of the few imports that were then able to enter the country passed through Valle del Cauca. Buenaventura began to grow into the country's principle port. The Grace Co. launched seaplanes in the Buenaventura bay in 1937 and, at the start of the war, moved its operations to the Marco Fidel Suárez base in Cali. Panagra tied Valle del Cauca to the rest of Latin America. A telegraph network covered all the municipalities. There were 710 industrial institutions.

The foreign currency that had been saved during the World War was invested in the industrialization process. Valle del Cauca had 612,230 inhabitants. The manufacturing push increased in force with the first great wave of multinational companies; native industrias based on various produets were started. By the end of the decade, cighteen sugar factories were already in operation. In 1945 the University of Valle opened. Construction companies were formed to pave the region's roads. One thing was certain: Valle del Cauca had entered the modern age.

In the 1950's numerous enterprises were begun: high schools, some of which were bilingual; charitable organizations; the newspaper El País; La Tertulia; the Bullfighting Ring in Cañaveralejo; Gimnasio Olímpico; the Planta Térmica de Yumbo; Oleoducto del Pacífico; the Corporación Autónoma Regional del Cauca, CVC; Asocaña; and other national companies. Another wave of multinational firms arrived in Valle during this time.

In the 1970's the Corporación Financiera del Valle was formed. Carvajal, Caicedo González, Carlos Sarmiento Lora, María Cristina Palau de Sarmiento, FES and the Fundación para el Desarrollo Empresarial also began their various activities. The First Arts Festival was held, Cali was designated as a host of the Pan-American Games and, in 1971, Valle del Cauca opened itself to the Americas aud the world. The Centro de Investigaciones de la Caña de Azúcar (Center for the Rescarch of Sugar Cane) -Ce- nicaña - was founded in 1977. Also during the 1970's, various institutions began to address the trauma of immigration; the manufacturing industry obtained production power; native leaders were replaced by outsiders who had come to the arca to attend the universities.

In the 1980's, foreign coffee sales began to collapse and the internacional sugar market became saturated forcing forcign sugar prices downward. Despite this hardship, the sugar growers contributed to the construction of the Parque de la Caña de Azúcar (Sugar Cane Park), which was inaugurated in 1983 by the administration of the Corportation for Popular Recreation (which became a rnodel for similar organizations). Today, cach Valle- caucano municipality has a recreational park. The dream of Ciro Molina Garcés to construct Salvajina was realized in 1986; in the rainy winter of 1988 the Cauca River didn't overflow but rather flowed quietly. The project has saved around 70,000 hectares from flooding; that acreage has been used for modern agricultura. (Meanwhile, though, the region continuas to suffer flooding problems and needs to conduct reforestation projects and build irrigation channels for the river's tributarios.) In 1989, the population of Valle was measured at 3.2 million inhabitants; a high degree of urbanization was occurring throughout the territory.

Valle's evolution is clear Neither an extensiva livestock industry nor coffee nor sugar is dominant; instead, manufacturing and the modern service sector is strong. With the opening of the internacional markets, the region carne face-to-face with the global economy. This has been a chalienge in all flelds, from education to production. T'he largest challenges facing the Vallecaucanía are to overcome insecurity, to shake off high unemployment, to expand the exportation portfolio and to invest in rescarch into technologies that help the region's production apparatus. With the Puerto de Aguadulce in Buenaventura, with the realization of the hydroclectric project Calima III, with the Poliducto del Pacífico, with the new petrolcum terminal and, moreoyer, if the roadway through the Central Cordillera is quickly developed, the region and the country will be prepared to enter the twenty-first century and the great market of the Pacific Rim.

In addition to all that, cooperation between the private and public sectors is crucial for the improvement of the quality of life for the most number of citizens. Valle's investors must also put their money in strategic development. And the region must construct a realistic vision in which culture is both material and spiritual, a vision that shrinks the distances between countries, a vision in which Valle is facing the world and, moreoyer, is part of the planetary fabric. The future has already begun.