LeGrand says the purpose of this study has been to describe the patterns of landholding and social relations that took form in Colombian frontier areas and to examine how and why such patterns emerged. She focuses on the development of frontier regions in Colombia from 1850-1936 to explain how processes that led to concentrated landholding led to rural conflicts, and how these conflicts in turn affected both the process of change and government policy towards those changes. She looks at new source material and sheds light on the origins of the concentration of landholding, rural poverty, and social tension that mark the Colombian countryside. 

 

LeGrand's study points out the longevity of squatter struggle, and their centrality to the evolution of land policy in the modern Colombian state. The distribution of the land did not generally lead to significant increases in the peasants' standard of living. Meanwhile, the struggle for resources in parcellation zones generated friction among the peasants themselves. She shows that the large estates in modern-day Colombia are not a colonial heritage. 

 

The study of the process of frontier expansion explains the persistence of poverty in the Colombian countryside. Both peasants and land entrepreneurs were economic actors but their interests clashed. LeGrant paved the way for a comparative Latin American frontier work.