Feliciano Ama
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José Feliciano Ama (* 1881 in Izalco ; † January 28, 1932 there ) was an indigenous peasant leader of the Pipil in El Salvador and participant in the Salvadoran peasant uprising in 1932 .
Childhood and youth
At the time of Feliciano Ama's birth, two government decrees by President Rafael Zaldívar fell , through which in 1881 and 1882 the property rights of the indigenous communities were abolished and the jointly managed ejidos were dissolved. The large landowners benefited from the decrees, who also expanded their property in Izalco at the expense of the indigenous peoples and had coffee and sugar cane plantations set up on them. The government decrees also made it possible for indigenous families to own private land, so that Feliciano Ama's family came into the possession of two estates. Under the government of Tomás Regalado from 1898 laws such as the one on imprisonment for debts (Ley de Prisión por Deuda) , usurious interest rates and minimum purchase prices for the agricultural products of small farmers accelerated land concentration. Violence in evicting the Pipil from their land was commonplace. Feliciano Ama was tortured on both thumbs by Regalado government officials. The Ama family hacienda "San Isidro" became the property of the Regalado family.
Cofradía del Corpus Christi
Ama was now a day laborer in Izalco. He married Josefa Shupan, who belonged to an influential Pipil family in Izalco. In 1917 he joined the Catholic brotherhood Cofradía del Corpus Christi , which in addition to its religious tasks also made social demands of the indigenous people on the government.
His father-in-law, Patricio Shupan , Mayordomo of the Corpus Christi Brotherhood , demanded that the government expropriate unused land from the large landowners and return the expropriated land to the indigenous farmers. Patricio Shupan attended a dinner with President Carlos Meléndez in 1917 and died immediately afterwards with severe stomach pain. After Shupan's death, Feliciano Ama took over his offices in the brotherhood, which consisted exclusively of indigenous people. In the years that followed, Ama received great recognition in Izalco and beyond for his commitment to peasant rights.
Feliciano Ama had short hair, cut his beard short, and wore shirt and trousers and leather sandals. He is described as a humble person with a calm, respectful voice, but at the same time full of persuasiveness. Ama, who was a deeply devout Christian , spoke very little Spanish and therefore mostly gave his speeches in his native language, Nawat , which was also the language of his compatriots.
Peasant revolt and death
Since the merger of the Indio community with the Ladino community by law of February 24, 1838 under the government of Timoteo Menéndez , Izalco no longer had any indigenous self-government. In the local elections in 1927, the indigenous Pedro Mauricio received a majority of the votes, but the Ladinos obtained his removal on the grounds that he was illiterate. For many Pipil von Izalco, the local elections on January 3, 1932 were linked with the hope of getting a mayor from their own ranks again, which was again prevented by the intervention of the Ladinos in the election.
On the night of January 22nd to 23rd, 1932, Feliciano Ama led the Pipil farmers of Izalco in an uprising against the large landowners and the military rule of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez . With several hundred insurgents, he marched into the departmental capital Sonsonate . There, insurgents from Juayúa killed the mayor, but the landowners accused the Ama they hated. He fled to Izalco and hid in the hills there, but was tracked down by soldiers of the Izalco garrison under Commandant Cabrera, caught and hanged in the center of Izalco opposite the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin (Iglesia la Asunción) . According to some accounts, Ama was already dead, slain by a mob of Ladinos before he was hanged on the tree. To deter the population, his body was left hanging under guard for weeks. In the massacres after the suppression of the uprising, the " matanza ", more than a quarter of the population of Izalco was murdered, almost every adult man who was regarded as a pipil.
Web links
- Miguel Marmol y Oscar Martínez Peñate sobre José Feliciano Ama (eltorogoz.net)
- Oscar Martínez Peñate: José Feliciano Ama es un mártir popular
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ama, Feliciano |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ama, José Feliciano (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Salvadoran revolutionary |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Izalco , sonata |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 28, 1932 |
| Place of death | Izalco , sonata |