RoutePopayán

Cauca Valley: Sugar, Struggle & Afro-Colombian Heritage

The Cauca River valley south of Popayán is Colombia's most complex social landscape — sugarcane plantations worked by Afro-Colombian communities, Nasa indigenous territories on the hillsides, and the legacy of colonial hacienda society coexist in extraordinary tension

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Afro-Colombian communities
The Afro-Colombian communities of the Cauca Valley—descendants of enslaved Africans brought to work in the colonial mines and haciendas—maintain distinct cultural traditions; woodcarving, marimba music (ancestor of both cumbia and the Afro-Pacific tradition), and communal land tenure are distinctive
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Sugarcane monoculture
The floor of the Cauca Valley is dominated by industrial monoculture of sugar cane — the large plantations supply Colombia's sugar and ethanol industries; the ecological transformation of the valley from diverse indigenous agriculture to monoculture is one of Colombia's most dramatic land-use changes
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Hacienda San José Heritage
The colonial haciendas of the Cauca Valley—some dating to the 17th century—represent the plantation system that structured colonial Cauca; several haciendas have been preserved as cultural heritage; the architecture, slave quarters and processing plants tell a complex colonial history
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Popayán's elite and colonialism
Popayán was the richest city in colonial Colombia—the "city of academics" that produced a disproportionate number of Colombian statesmen and intellectuals; the white elite of Popayán and their relationship to the plantation economy of the Cauca Valley is central to understanding Colombian social history
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Land conflict in Cauca
The Cauca department has Colombia's most intense and ongoing land conflict — between indigenous peoples who want to restore land, Afro-Colombian communities defending territorial rights, sugar cane companies and coca farmers; the armed conflict has cost thousands of lives in the valley and mountains
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Marimba Music Tradition
Marimba de chonta - the wooden xylophone of African origin played by Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific coast and the Cauca Valley - is UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage; the music of the marimba, the accompanying songs (cantos) and the traditional dance (currulao) are living arts in Cauca communities