Abstract

"The Cartagena Railroad: A Failed Hegemonic Experience and a Laboratory of Social Movements in the Caribbean (1894-1951)"

Juan Correa, CESA Business School (juansc@cesa.edu.co)

The Cartagena Railroad was part of a joint effort to recover the port’s dynamism and to compete with sub-regions that sought to achieve a leading role in the Colombian Caribbean. In this struggle, although partially fulfilling this purpose, the railroad failed to become established as a hegemonic project in terms of territorial dominance, and it was displaced in importance by Barranquilla and its railway line.
Cartagena was not able to impede the Barranquilla railway project and once it started to operate, the city’s position was severely relegated due to the success of Barranquilla and its area of influence. When Cartagena set in motion a railway project (1894) to regularize the flow of goods between the Caribbean and the Magdalena River, this had a limited influence on regional definition. This railway line was a delayed response that sought to compensate the consolidation of a new sub-region with greater dynamism.
Thus, this paper will analyze, first, the role of this railroad in the context of the changes in territorial appropriation patterns in the region at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, despite a rather limited success in recovering Cartagena’s commercial dynamism, the railroad became an important scenario for worker movements in the region between 1930 and 1951, when the railway line ceased operations. For this reason, the second purpose of this paper is to analyze worker organizations that emerged in relation to the railroad and their impact on the operation of the railway line and on the recognition of social demands.