Andean Scapes team · Updated
Before the wars: concessions, the bank and La Violencia
The Green Wars did not start from nothing. A century of concessions, a state that ran the mines and then let them go, and a political war that reached the emerald towns.
A republic hands out the mines
After independence, the new Ministry of Finance granted the Muzo mines to a general who had fought alongside Bolívar and to two private partners. It started a long Colombian tradition of the state handing natural resources to individuals.[2]
Sources disagree on the year: 1827 in Spanish Wikipedia’s account[1], 1828 in Alfredo Molano’s.[2] The nineteenth century then went by in civil wars and state experiments in managing that wealth.[2]
The central bank runs the mines
From 1947 the Banco de la República operated the emerald mines directly, except Chivor. Hundreds of Colombians meanwhile tried to make a living searching illegally, in the middle of state indifference.[3]
In 1966 the bank handed the mines back to the government, and what followed was invasion and looting.[3] Spanish Wikipedia dates the bank’s role from 1944, when it named a delegate to run the mines.[1]
La Violencia reaches the emerald towns
The link between violence and emeralds became plain in the 1950s, with the appearance in Boyacá of the pájaros, the partisan gunmen of La Violencia.[2]
One of them, a former soldier turned outlaw, came to western Boyacá as a gunman for the conservative traders who ran the emerald business and was paid with control of a mine near Muzo. He was killed in Bogotá in June 1965, after five hours of combat with more than 1,200 soldiers.[2]
The green fever
In the 1960s Boyacá lived a real green-gold fever. Hundreds of men and their families moved to Muzo, Chiquinquirá or Pauna in search of the fuego verde.[2]
When conflicts over the mines grew sharper, mixing huge profits with the weapons to defend them, the government ordered the army to occupy the emerald mines.[2]