From Martyrdom to Mass Mourning: The Political Significance of Public Pilgrimages during the República Liberal in Colombia, 1914–48

In this paper I will present preliminary results of my research on political funerals and pilgrimages in Colombia, between 1914 and 1948. The pilgrimages were part of a set of traditions that connected the participants with the Radical Liberalism of the mid-nineteenth century. Rank-and-file leftist leaders recalled accompanying their grandparents and parents when they were children to visit Uribe Uribe’s mausoleum and the funerals of other veterans of Radical Liberalism. Uribe Uribe’s funeral and the repeated subsequent commemorations of his death (and that of other leaders) show how ordinary men and women created their political pantheon to put an end to the Conservative hegemony. I argue that people used civic rituals such as political funerals and pilgrimages to challenge and subvert the social order. In establishing a society of the dead, Liberals recreated themselves in terms of long-term political exclusion and persecution. Commemorative acts upheld the solidarity between citizens and their party’s ancestors, generating a “sacred” feeling of belonging and mutual coherence.