Soledad Acosta de Samper, A Girl’s View of War in the Capital

Twenty-one-year-old Soledad Acosta de Samper (1833-1913) lived through Latin America’s Progress era (1850-1880), which came with a shift in the political power dynamic towards liberals (De Samper 331, Chasteen 165). Although the power tended towards the liberals, there was division within this political party. In 1854, liberal General José María Melo staged a coup, beginning the Colombian Civil War of 1854 (Green 102-4). Melo started this attack because he opposed President José Hilario Lopez’s movement to switch from collective to individual property ownership. Melo and his followers feared that this transition “might weaken social order” (103). In this war, Gólgotas, or liberals that supported the shift towards individual ownership, and conservatives united against Melo’s liberal faction, the Draconianos, or Melistas (Green 103-4, De Samper 335). 

De Samper lived in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá through this war and wrote diary entries about this experience. Her entries indicate the responsibility of women during times of war, such as “embroidering ribbons” with messages to soldiers as well as sending thread and bandages to injured soldiers. (De Samper 334, 338). Her entries provide perspective on the emotional realities of living through a war. Having her city turned into a battlefield takes an emotional toll on De Samper, filling her with “consternation and anxiety” (334). The war forced her into extreme measures of procuring safety; at one point, she had to hide in “the recesses of a monastery” (331). Although De Samper has these negative emotions surrounding the war, she does take a side, aligning herself against the Melistas. At the end of the war, although she feels relief that her love interest was not murdered or hurt, she also feels relieved about the Melistas being defeated (337). She describes the Melistas as “so despicable that they do not seem to belong to a civilized nation” (338). Her words are important in understanding the level of tension that existed between the Draconianos and their opposition; this is more than a political division, the division is so deep that it questions the opposition’s humanity. 

Works Cited

Chasteen, John C. “Progress.” In Born in Blood & Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, edited by Jon Durbin, 4th ed., 161-191. New York: W.W. Norton, 2016.

De Samper, Soledad Acosta. “A Girl’s View of War in the Capital.” In The Colombia Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by López Ana María Gómez, Farnsworth-Alvear Ann, and Palacios Marco, 331-38. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2017. Accessed February 10, 2021. doi:10.2307/j.ctv125jtrj.68.

Green, W. John. “Left Liberalism and Race in the Evolution of Colombian Popular National Identity.” The Americas 57, no. 1 (2000): 95-124. Accessed February 10, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1007713.