Patio society in the second half of the 19th century

Abstract

The XIX century was full of social events in the Patía. In addition to the military events of the War of Independence in which the patianos participated, initially in the service of the Spanish Crown and later of the Republican Armies, in the other orders of life this century meant great changes.

The patianos discovered their military value for the greater society involved in successive civil wars. Their participation in them, the increase in communications between Pasto and Popayán, and some interference of the Creoles in the region, prompted them to establish the limits of their area of influence by undertaking the colonization of hitherto abandoned lands on the eastern edge of the valley.

A greater awareness of their uniqueness in relation to nearby social groups allowed them to fix their folkloric expressions.

All this in a process where the consolidation of their own customs and values is mixed with the assimilation of the customs and values of the larger society. It is as if the return of the war of independence, in its incorporation to the hegemonic, had allowed them to recover their own culture and to consolidate it without losing the dialogue with the greater society.