A Contribution to the History of Poles in Columbia

Abstract

There are well-documented mentions of the Poles’ presence in today’s Columbia; they come from the beginning of the nineteenth century. One of the heroes who fought for liberation from Spanish captivity was Izydor Borowski (d. 1826), Bolivar’s adjutant, then made a general. On December 25, 1856, Rev. prelate Mieczysław Ledóchowski (1822-1902), the later primate of Poland and cardinal reached Kartagena. He arrived in Columbia as an apostolic delegate and began his ministry in 1857. Ledóchowski resided in Bogota and also represented the Holy See in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela. He left his post in 1861.

The presence of Poles in Columbia to such a large scale began as late as the 1920s when few emigrants arrived from Brazil and Argentina. In the end of 1938 the consulate in Bogota estimated the number of Polish citizens at 1.500, out of whom 97% were Jews. In the same year the number of Poles was estimated at circa 40. In the years of 1935-1936 the Polish Foreign Ministry together with the Sea and Colonial League made preparations the „settlement of the inteligentsia” in Columbia. The plans to establish Polish settlement in this country on other principles than before were renewed in 1939. These plans were destroyed by the outbreak of the Second World War.

After the end of the war several hundred Poles arrived in Columbia, and circa 30 of them thirty had settled there. The Coumbian Polonia was not numerous; in 1970 the whole country was inhabited by 35 Poles. Further Poles came there for family reasons as spouses of Columbian citizens. This process has been going on up to now, and it was more intensive in the 1970s and 1980s. Then many grantholders arrived in the Polish People’s Republic from South America. Since 2003 there has been the Association of Poles in Columbia in Bogota.