Published
Figures on Colombia Banknotes
From Bolívar and Policarpa to García Márquez and Débora Arango: the faces that have starred on Colombian paper money and what they represent.
- Reviewed by
- Yezid Acosta
A country’s banknotes are a gallery of portraits that reveals whom its collective memory honors. In Colombia, paper money has moved from the heroes of independence to the great names of culture, telling the country’s story along the way.
The heroes of independence
For much of the twentieth century the dominant faces were those of the independence struggle. Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, and Francisco de Paula Santander, “the Man of the Laws”, appeared again and again on Banco de la República issues —Bolívar, for example, on the classic 1,000-peso note. To them was added Policarpa Salavarrieta, “La Pola”, heroine and martyr of independence, one of the few female faces of that stage.
Science, letters, and art
In time, paper money widened its pantheon to figures of culture and thought: writers such as Jorge Isaacs or José Asunción Silva, and scientists and humanists who gave their names to different denominations.
The current family of notes
The series Banco de la República put into circulation from 2016 consolidated that turn toward culture. Among its protagonists are the painter Débora Arango (2,000), the poet José Asunción Silva (5,000), the anthropologist Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda (10,000), the statesman Alfonso López Michelsen (20,000), the Nobel laureate in Literature Gabriel García Márquez (50,000), and former president Carlos Lleras Restrepo (100,000). For the first time, several women starred on complete denominations.
More than a portrait
Each face comes with landscapes, motifs, and symbols that complete the story: monuments, fauna, geography, and historical scenes. To read a Colombian banknote is, in the end, to read a fragment of national identity.
You can see many of these figures and issues in our Colombia banknote catalog.
Sources
- Banco de la República of Colombia — official information on issues and the figures on the notes (banrep.gov.co, banrepcultural.org).
- Standard Catalog of World Paper Money (Albert Pick), Colombia section.
- Monetary history and iconography of the Colombian banknote.