One Peso

Historical and Issue Context

A country at civil war:In 1860, General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera rose up against the conservative government and, after taking power, took over as Provisional President of a new confederation baptized “United States of New Granada” —transitional name that in 1863 would become “United States of Colombia”.

Mosquera's decrees:To finance the war and the administration of the new State, Mosquera issued Decree 2591 of August 24, 1861, authorizing the issuance of Treasury notes. Given the initial resistance of the public to accept them, Decree No. 2616 of October 8, 1861 —signed together with its Secretary of the Treasury, Rafael Núñez— established for the first time the “forced tender” of paper money issued by the State, forcing its acceptance at the printed face value.

The denomination in pesos:This bill reflects the monetary decimalization of 1847, when the Republic of New Granada divided the peso into ten reales. The printed text “UN PESO (or ten reales)” directly documents this double nomenclature, in force during the transition to the modern centesimal system.

Key Details Visible on the Banknote

• Engraved header:“GENERAL TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES OF NEW GRANADA”, WITH THE PHONETIC SPELLING OF THE TIME (“jeneral” for “general”).
• Promise-to-pay text:“Valid for ONE PESO (that is, ten reales) and accepted at all revenue offices in payment to the Nation”, followed by the place of issue, “Bogotá”.
• Engraved vignettes:image of a steamboat in the upper left and right corners, on the Magdalena River —the main communication and trade route of the country in the 19th century— framing the large counter “1” on each side.
• Official seal:large oval seal in red ink with the coat of arms of Colombia, superimposed on the center of the bill, validating its character as an official Treasury document.
• Handwritten endorsement on the reverse:This circulating specimen was reused as a private receipt, with the following handwritten annotation: “Memorial of disentailed assets — Barbosa, January 21, 1865. It was reported by Jesús Rendón on account of my wasteland debit of one hundred and sixty pesos, which he recognizes in favor of the congregation institution of priests of Yolombó”, signed by Fernando Zeas —a direct testimony of how these treasury notes were circulated and reused as private debt documents long after they were issued.
• Signature of Rafael Núñez:one of the note's two handwritten signatures belongs to Rafael Núñez, who signed in 1861 as Secretary of the Treasury in Mosquera's provisional government —two decades before becoming president of Colombia himself.

Rafael Núñez, the Most Significant Signature

In 1861,Rafael Wenceslao Núñez Moledo(1825–1894) served as Secretary of Finance in the provisional government of Mosquera, and his handwritten signature authenticates this banknote. A writer, lawyer, journalist and politician from Cartagena, Núñez would later be elected President of Colombia in 1880 and again in 1884.

As president, he led the process known as “The Regeneration”, which gave rise to the Colombian Constitution of 1886 —in force for more than a century, until 1991—. Finding his signature on a treasury bill from 1861 connects this piece directly to one of the most influential figures in Colombian political history, two decades before he became president.

Additional Context

These Treasury bills represent an intermediate chapter between the emergency issues of the War of Independence (1811–1815) and the modern private banking that would emerge from 1870 with the Bank of Bogotá. Unlike later banknotes, backed by private reserves, these “vouchers” depended entirely on the credit and authority of the State in the middle of the civil war —an experiment of forced legal tender that anticipated, decades later, similar episodes such as that of the National Bank during the Thousand Days' War.

Sources

• Pick, Albert.Standard Catalog of World Paper Money.
• Hernández, Pedro Pablo.Catalog of Banknotes of Colombia, Ancestor Century 1813 to 1915 (official) — Banco de la República 1923 to 2000, 3rd edition, p.95.
• Numista —numista.com(opens in a new tab)
• Bank of the Republic —banrep.gov.co(opens in a new tab)