Welcome to Buenaventura and its Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples
February 23, 2023 10:21 AM CST BY ERIC A. GORDON
Container hoists at the port of Buenaventura, seen from our hotel balcony. | Eric A. Gordon/PW
BUENAVENTURA, Colombia — This South American nation’s port cities on the Caribbean Coast are fairly well known—Santa Marta, Barranquilla and Cartagena, the latter two much visited tourist destinations. On the Pacific Coast are Tumaco and the larger port of Buenaventura. These ports are seldom included on tourist routes. But Buenaventura was a major focus of the January 2023 Witness for Peace delegation I participated in.
“Buena ventura” means “good fortune,” and indeed the port has contributed to the fortunes of Colombia’s elite who have desirable exports to ship out of the country—minerals, gems, agricultural products, including a hardly clandestine trade in coca, one of Colombia’s principal exports.
Colombia’s main port on the Pacific was founded as early as 1540, but was presciently destroyed by the Indigenous peoples before 1600. Later it was rebuilt as a major import-export site for trade with Mexico, Peru, North America and Asia. With the rise of important producing nations such as India, China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Australia, the Asian market has now become as important as the U.S. and European. The port of Buenaventura accounts for almost 60% of all Colombian imports and exports by sea.
The population of the city is estimated now at close to 450,000, and its makeup is unusual, even for multi-racial Colombia. The share of African-descent Colombians in the city is 85%, with whites and mestizos another 11.5%, and Indigenous 1.5%. The majority of Afro-Colombians can be traced back to colonial times when enslaved Africans were brought to this department of Valle del Cauca to work the mines and sugarcane and other plantations. As one might surmise, it is among Colombia’s poorest cities.
More:
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/welcome-to-buenaventura-and-its-indigenous-and-afro-colombian-peoples/
