414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



nature as terrors to be placated, but rather as beneficent powers with 

 which man may cooperate. 



There has been no steady pushing back of the frontier on a broad 

 front ; rather the forest has been encroached upon in widely scattered 

 areas for the exploitation of whatever resource was most highly prized 

 at the time. For centuries minerals, or forest products such as rub- 

 ber and quinine, played that role. As the mountain population slowly 

 began to recognize the soil of the rain forest as an important, valuable, 

 exploitable resource, they were able to effect what might be termed 

 a "break-through" into the Andean foothills and tropical lowlands 

 in the Vjllavicencio and Florencia sectors, where they are rapidly 

 consolidating their gains. The temporary break-through south from 

 Sogamoso has been largely halted by an unfavorable political climate, 

 while Pamplona is not yet successfully tied to the plains area to the 

 south. Settlers from the mountain sectors of southwest Colombia 

 are in the process of effecting their break-through to the east, along 

 the highways mentioned, but thus far various factors have made it 

 impossible for them to anchor themselves by permanent agriculture 

 and grazing. New roads are being constructed only very slowly and 

 roads already open have not been too well maintained, education 

 and public health campaigns have been neglected, and the capacities 

 of the indigenous Indian population have not been fully realized. 



The tragedy of the llanos is the tragedy of a frontier zone that by its 

 very nature is not yet able to live a life of its own, somewhat like 

 our own Middle West a century ago. As long as the Middle West 

 led a kind of colonial existence vis-a-vis the eastern seaboard it could 

 not work out its own regional salvation. Once it was settled by 

 an industrious, agricultural people, and was crisscrossed with rail- 

 roads and motor roads for intraregional as well as interregional trade, 

 it could and did develop its own complementary industrial society. 

 With the introduction of adequate roads and transportation facilities, 

 education and public health measures, and permanent rather than 

 nomadic agriculture by a vigorous and hard-working people, the llanos 

 may indeed experience an evolution similar in many respects to that of 

 our Middle West during the first half of the nineteenth century. 



The densely populated Andean heartland of the nation is being 

 subjected to centrifugal forces that are already undermining its im- 

 memorial dominance. Although the center of gravity is still in the 

 cool to cold mountain sectors, the frontier of settlement is actually on 

 the march into the low-lying hot country. 



