Cañada uprising

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cañada Rebellion was an uprising of the indigenous people in the Matagalpa department in Nicaragua in 1881. It was directed against the attacks on the Cañadas Cabildo de Indios system by the government under Joaquín Zavala .

Ley Agraria

Coffee has been grown in Nicaragua since around 1870. On May 17, 1877, the Ley Agraria passed a law that abolished the ejidosystem in favor of the commercialization of soil as a means of production . This was intended to create latifundia for capitalist agriculture. On March 5, 1881, the Joaquín Zavala government applied the Ley Agraria and around 200,000 manzanas (140,000 hectares ) became the property of Cafetaleros, the majority of whom belonged to the Partido Conservador of the politically and economically powerful in Nicaragua. The government considered the expropriation to be necessary to promote coffee growing.

Telegraphy for Matagalpa

In 1881 the government had classified the construction of the telegraph line to Matagalpa as a key infrastructure project to promote trade and for strategic reasons. The Prefect of the Matagalpa Department Gregorio Cuadra ordered the Capitánes of the Cañadas to provide unpaid workers to set up a telegraph line. This unpaid community work was reintroduced in 1852; with it the tributo - a poll tax that the indigenous people had to collect collectively - was paid in colonial times . She was forced labor under capitalist conditions . Thousands of workers had to be provided who had to work hard in the construction of access roads , far away from their families and their milpas . Many indigenous people fell ill as a result of the tough work regime involved in building telegraphs, an increasing number died and there was a lack of labor in the subsistence economy . Cuadra patronized the Capitánes of the Cañadas and banned the production of Chicha bruja , which was brewed for religious festivals. He also banned the slaughter of domestic animals in the cañadas.

April 1881 uprising

On the morning of March 31st, a few thousand indigenous people from the Cañadas of Uluse , El Horno , El Gorrión , San Pablo , San Marcos , El Zapote , El Matasano , Jucuapa and Potrero de Yasica besieged the city ​​of Matagalpa and attacked under the direction of Lorenzo Pérez , to the Capitán de San Pablo the small garrison of the Ladinos. After a few hours and an unknown number of victims on both sides, the indigenous people withdrew from Mataglapa and formed a coordination council in Guanuca. In the days that followed, Prefect Gregorio Cuadra claimed an interest in a dialogue with the leaders of the uprising and accepted the offer of mediation by the Jesuits. The Jesuits were held in high regard by the indigenous people. The government called for an end to the attacks, the handover of weapons owned by the indigenous people and submission to local and state authorities. A few days passed, messages were sent in which the indigenous people stated that they had no weapons to the government and that they would not hand over their own. The withdrawal of the prefect's troops was demanded as a condition for ending the uprising. The negotiations were unsuccessful, but the prefect gained time while the government recruited forces that they sent to Matagalpa. Under the command of Captain Joaquín Elizondo, who stayed until May 4, 1881, when the indigenous people withdrew to their cañadas.

Deportation of the Jesuits

In 1871 José Vicente Cuadra took in the Jesuits deported from Guatemala by Justo Rufino Barrios Auyón to Nicaragua. The Jesuits gave pastoral care and schooling among the indigenous people. a. in La Recoleccion in Leon. In May 1881 Joaquín Zavala had found a law of 1830 that forbade the Jesuits to form a convent and used the Convento de la Recoleccion in Leon to have the Jesuits deported. In Leon there was an Instituto de Occidente , which was run by Jesuits. Dr. Apolonio Orosco was a Jesuit. There were 40 to 50 Jesuits in León. There were around 20 Jesuits captured in Matagalba. 800 soldiers with some Gatling Guns were sent from Managua to Leon, where they arrived on May 11, 1881 under the command of the Minister of Government Vicente Navas and attacked the Convento La Recoleccion . Finally, a New York Times article threatens the Jesuits with Krupp and Gatling Gun . On May 5, 1881, 15 Jesuits from Matagalpa were concentrated in Granada. On June 7, 1881, 14 Jesuits were brought from Leon to Corinto (Nicaragua) and deported there by ship. On June 8, 1881, the 15 Jesuits from Mataglapa, three from Masaya and two from Granada, were expelled from Nicaragua on a steamer over Lake Managua and Río San Juan. On June 8, 1881, two Jesuits from Rivas (Nicaragua) were deported via San Juan del Sur . Two Jesuits from Ocotal were later deported.

As a result of the deportations, there were further protests by indigenous peoples in Matagalpa, Sutiaba (near Leon ), Telica and Masaya in 1881 . Zavala led the current of the Progresistas , which the Iglesieros faced within the Partido Republicano . In 1884 his policy was controversial in the Partido Conservador , in 1884 the Iglesieros revolted .

Despite the uprising, work on the telegraph line continued. The policy of controlling indigenous communities has also continued. The deportation of the Jesuits was a loss for the indigenous communities. On July 27, 1881, Gregorio Cuadra was replaced by Enrique Solórzano as prefect of Matagalpa.

Uprising of August 1881

On August 4, 1881, Alejandro Miranda tried to send signals over the line from Matagalpa to Metapa , but the connection between Metapa and Matagalpa at Loma Larga had been cut and three masts had been dragged. On August 5, 1881, around 3,000 indigenous people armed with tafixtes (arrows made from peach palm ), led by Lorenzo Pérez, Toribio Mendoza and Higinio Campos, besieged Matagalpa. On August 8, 1881, they attacked the Matagalpa garrison . In the garrison about 170 men defended themselves with single-shot rifles. The indigenous people had occupied almost the entire village when government troops arrived on the morning of August 10, 1881. It was a large number of soldiers who used rifles and artillery (which at the time included the Gatling Gun). The indigenous people ended the fighting in the village, and hundreds were killed and injured.

Burned earth

Alejandro Miranda reported that more than 500 killed indigenous people were buried in pits on the banks of the Río Grande de Matagalpa. Lorenzo Pérez and Toribio Mendoza were fusilized by government troops and Higinio Campos disappeared. Government troops reported three dead and 20 injured. The number of Ladinos killed, members of the Cabildo de Españoles de Matagalpa, is not known. The government commissioned General Miguel Vélez, father of Juan José Vélez, the Inspector de Telégrafos , who had been killed by the indigenous people with his assistant Benedicto Vega , to carry out the "pacification" policy of the scorched earth . Vélez implemented a policy of persecution and extermination of the indigenous people, which was the most casualty in late 1881. In February 1882, most of the Capitanes de Cañada had been captured and many were shot.

The uprising is believed to be the most casualty in Nicaragua in the 19th century. The uprising is a continuing questioning of the social model offered to the indigenous people by the beginning of industrialization. This social model was politically implemented through the Pacto of the Partido Democrático with the Partido Legitimista , which was manifested in the election of Joaquín Zavala by parliament.

literature

  • Jaime Wheelock Román: Raíces indígenas de la lucha anticolonialista en Nicaragua. De Gil González a Joaquín Zavala (1523 a 1881) , 7th edition México, DF (Siglo XXI Ed.) 1986.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ manfut, Boacs Pueblo Indígena
  2. ^ New York Times , June 2, 1881 Jesuits Expelled Troops Resisted and Several Persons Killed.
  3. ↑ Jeffrey L. Gould To Die in this Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965 , Duke University Press, 1998
  4. ↑ a b Alejandro Miranda Una Odisea Centroamericana, 1861-1937 pdf
  5. ^ El Nuevo Diario 19 de Junio ​​de 1999 Dora María Téllez , ¡Muera la Gobierna! Colonización en Matagalpa y Jinotega (1820-1890) ( Memento from June 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ manfut, causa de división entre indígenas