El precio de la clemencia: fianzas y presos políticos en la guerra de los Mil Días (Colombia, 1899-1902)

Abstract

Objective/Context: This article analyzes the nature and operation of bail releases for political prisoners during the War of the Thousand Days (Colombia, 1899-1902), as well as the uses that both detainees and authorities made of them. Methodology: The study reviews material from the Central Archive of Cauca in Popayán and the Historical Archive of Medellín, in order to carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of records of political bails from both cities, accompanied by a review of petitions and administrative resolutions associated with such resources. Originality: The article explores a little-studied political-legal mechanism in the context of Colombian civil wars in the nineteenth century: bails or judicial bonds. Additionally, it contributes to the study of a topic that has only recently attracted the attention of historians: treatment of the political opponent through the administration of clemency. Conclusions: Although they represented a way to obtain state clemency, these bails also provided the government with a mechanism to reinforce the submission of dissenters and to produce politically and militarily harmless opponents. Its operation, in fact, was permanently permeated with simultaneous logics of grace, prevention, and punishment.

Keywords

• bails
• clemency
• colombia
• law
• war of the thousand days