This research attempts to explain the poor performance of the Colombian economy in the world markets during the late nineteenth century. Based on data on exportable production at the municipal level in 1892, coffee production in 1925 and of public land allocation and land conflicts during the nineteenth and twentieth century, we found that the greatest obstacle that faced Colombian export development was the weakness of settlers’ property rights in the frontier lands. The quantitative results show that in the absence of land conflicts, the municipality’s exportable production would have been at least twice as much as that observed.