Pasto

Pasto, capital of Colombia's Nariño Department. It was founded in 1539 by Lorenzo de Aldana, among a substantial Indian population. Located astride the main road between Bogotá and Quito, it was a major royalist bastion in the Wars of Independence (1810–1822). Subsequently its elite and masses were severely repressed by the Gran Colombian republic, leaving a power vacuum that non-Pasto leaders like José María Obando and Juan José Flores filled for some twenty years (1823–1842). Once they recovered their power, Pasto's ruling classes and their clients remained extremely conservative and clerically oriented for the next century. A fertile agricultural base and highly skilled artisan industries, including the unique Pasto lacquerware (barniz de Pasto), have attracted a population of about 383, 846 (2005.) Pasto is a center of administration and education (two universities, several business and technical colleges, and numerous secondary schools) and a religious hub, the site of several Catholic religious houses.

See alsoWars of Independence, South America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edgar Bastidas Urresty, Las guerras de Pasto. Pasto: Ediciones Testimonio, 1979.

Jaime Álvarez, S.J., ¿Qué es qué en Pasto? 2d ed. (1985).

Additional Bibliography

Bastidas Urresty, Julián. Historia urbana de Pasto. Bogotá: Ediciones Testimonio, 2000.

Montenegro, Armando. Una historia en contravía: Pasto y Colombia. Colombia: Malpesante, 2002.

Narvaez Portilla, Silvia. Evolución urbana: San Juan de Pasto siglo XIX: historia. Pasto: Fondo Mixto de Cultural Nariño, 1997.

                                        J. LeÓn Helguera