This paper presents an overview of the treatment given to communal lands or resguardos within the agricultural policy in Colombia between 1900 and 1960. Presents the arguments of traditional parties, Conservador and Liberal, who held power for long periods of time,the events generated in the period known as La Violencia, the end of it with the signingof treaties and the begin of the FrenteNacional.This paper proposes a reading of the Indian question in the agrarian context, where the concept of race and the resguardo were related to the social conflict of the permanence of uncultivated lands and landless peasants.