Global Connections, Local Consumption, and Foreign Commodities in 19th Century Colombia

This talk examines how Colombian peasants, artisans, formerly enslaved people, market women, and small landholders became the largest consumers of foreign commodities between the mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century (1850–1910). It will explore how, far from being indigenous, the material culture of broad sections of the country’s population was inextricably intertwined with global trends by the end of the nineteenth century. It shows that the appropriation of imported commodities by Colombian popular sectors was in great part due to foreign manufacturers’ willingness to alter or redesign their products to satisfy their demands. Thus, by following the preferences of the popular sectors for English textiles, American machetes, and French patent medicines, among many other foreign commodities, Otero-Cleves demonstrates how, in their capacity as free citizens, Colombian consumers became active agents in the construction of the nation’s marketplace as well as dynamic participants in the global circulation of modern commodities. By methodologically shifting from the periphery to the centre, the talk hopes to offer an original perspective on global interconnectivity in the nineteenth century, where the taste of the popular sectors of apparently isolated countries, such as Colombia, played a key part.