392 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



trackless forests are gradually being penetrated and settled, along 

 their borders as well as along the great rivers that drain them. In 

 what might be called the "Wild East" of the Republic of Colombia, 

 there is a broad transition zone where low-lying, grass-covered plains, 

 the llanos, and the great rain forests of the upper Amazon and its 

 tributaries seem to break on the foothills of the towering Andes like 

 billows on a rock-bound coast. This is a sector of the vast area men- 

 tioned in "Partners in Progress," the report to the President by the 

 International Development Advisory Board (March, 1951) : 



In South America, east of the Ancles, runs a 2,000-inile-long stretch of fertile 

 valleys and plateau land which may lend itself to development. If carried through 

 successfully, it would open up a new major source of food for the entire Continent, 

 as well as a home for settlers from the most densely populated areas of Western 

 Europe. (P. 38.) 



This sector of Colombia has been of interest to geographers for 

 many years. Perez wrote almost a century ago : 2 



What was there in the Europe beyond the Rhine in Caesar's time? A vast 

 forest unknown to the Romans, but from which later issued a horde of barbarians 

 who invaded and destroyed the eternal empire. Today in this same forest, now 

 covered with rich and populous cities, kings and emperors who govern a popula- 

 tion of 100,000,000 people, display their power. 



It is certain that within one or two centuries Colombia will have a very large 

 population. Meanwhile the growing population of Pasto, Popayan, and Neiva 

 will push across the Cordillera Oriental ; it will fell the forests, open roads, 

 found towns, and gradually penetrate the vast plains of the immense Amazon 

 Basin. (P. 441.) 



The scarcity of agricultural land in the mountain sectors of 

 Colombia — indeed of Andean South America — has grown ever more 

 acute, especially during the twentieth century. In those areas 

 blanketed by volcanic ash, soils were rich and deep, the inhabitants 

 were industrious, frugal, and prolific, and the ownership of land was 

 the summum bonum. Land was rarely bought or sold ; it was divided 

 equally among the numerous heirs each generation, with the result that 

 plots became so small as to be uneconomical to work and not productive 

 enough to support the owner and his family. Thus land hunger in 

 the mountainous sectors became acute. 



In other parts of Colombia, both in hot country and in cold country, 

 much land formerly intensively cultivated has been incorporated into 

 large estates devoted to cattle grazing. 3 At the same time the intensive 

 agriculturalists have had to move ever higher into the mountains onto 



'Perez, Felipe, Jeografia fisica i politica de los Estados Unidos de Colombia, 

 Bogota, 1862. 



3 Crist, R. E., The Cauca Valley. Colombia, land tenure and land use, 118 pp., 

 Baltimore, 1952 ; The personality of Popayan, Rural Sociology, vol. 15, pp. 134-135, 

 June 1950; Fixed physical boundaries and dynamic cultural frontiers: A con- 

 trast, Amer. Journ. Econ. and Sociol., vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 221-230, April 1953. 



