“…Apart from very few exceptions (Martínez, 1998;Nieto, 1976), no in-depth studies of the pre-1891 police have been developed since, and, as a consequence, Castaño Castillo's book has endured as a foundational work and shaped most of the literature on the history of the Colombian police to date. Following the train of thought laid down by Castaño Castillo, most scholars who have addressed the history of policía in Colombia in the pre-1891 period (such as Becerra, 2010;Blair Trujillo, 1993;Gilibert, 2002;Pulido Barrantes, 2005Saldarriaga Vélez, 2012), have developed their analyses on the assumption that references to the term policía in early Colombian legal texts imply the existence of a body or institution. However, as we have shown, policía as used in early-to mid-19th-century texts and legislation rarely referred to a police body, and even less to an institutionalized force.…”