Reconstructing the Enemy Within: Legal Debates on Political Criminality and Nation in Late 19th-Century Colombia

Historians of political violence in nineteenth-century Colombia have explored a wide range of issues regarding civil wars and internal conflict –national unity, economic development, actors and patterns of mobilization, and continuities between yesterday’s and today’s conflicts, for instance. Yet, they have paid little attention to the legal aspects of civil strife. Matters such as war legislation, the legal rituality of war, or the legal treatment of traitors and rebels remain partially unexplored. This paper aims to shed some lights on these issues by exploring the links between the legal treatment of political criminality, the regulation of political dissent, and the construction of a national political community.

The paper addresses the legal reconstruction of political crimes and criminals both before and during the War of the Thousand Days (1899-1902). Drawing on trial records, penal codes, and military legislation, it aims to illustrate how government, state officials, lawyers, and rebels debated over the definition and treatment of political crimes such as rebellion and treason. Throughout the last decades of the nineteenth century, the legal treatment of political criminality became a highly contested and mutable terrain. Government altered time and again the legislation on political crimes, aiming to restore public order and repress political opposition. Rebels and political dissidents constantly challenged such changes, in an attempt to legitimize their actions and avoid punishment. This conflictive interplay brought significant consequences not only on the legal and political conception of “the enemy within,” but also on the definition of the boundaries of the nation as political community. Additional reflections on the cases of Peru, Mexico, and Argentina suggest that these debates and transformations were not exclusive of Colombia. Instead, they were part of a common legal and political experience, closely linked to the development of such countries as modern republics.