José Francisco Morazán Quezada

Francisco Morazán was a redirect to this article. For the department of the same name in Honduras see Department Francisco Morazán .

Francisco Morazan

General José Francisco Morazán Quezada (born  October 3, 1792 in Tegucigalpa , †  September 15, 1842 in San José ) was a Central American President .

Francisco Morazán was the most important and at the same time most controversial president of the Central American Confederation in the short period of its existence. He fought for the preservation of the colonial unity of Central America and for the establishment of a modern, democratic and federally structured state based on the ideas of the French Revolution and the constitution of the United States. While he is revered by some as a champion for Central American unity, democracy and the rule of law to this day, others classify him as a political fanatic who, thanks to his uncompromising attitude, has fifteen years of almost uninterrupted military conflicts and ultimately also for the downfall of the Central American Unit is responsible.

Life

Origin, youth and family

Francisco Morazán was born in Tegucigalpa as the eldest of four children of the rancher and merchant José Eusebio Morazán Alemán and the Guadalupe Quezada Borjas. His grandfather, Juan Bautista de Morazán, came from Italy and came to Honduras as a merchant around 1760 . Contrary to a legend that emerged at the end of the 19th century, the Morazán family did not originally come from Corsica . This claim, first made in the Morazán biography of the Honduran writer and politician Ramón Rosa from 1892, served primarily to stylize Morazán as a " Napoleon of Central America".

Francisco Morazán attended various private schools in Tegucigalpa. After the school of the Franciscan Father José Antonio Murga, which he last attended, was closed by the colonial authorities in 1805, he took a position as assistant to the notary León Vásquez, who owned one of the most extensive libraries in Central America. Here he acquired extensive legal, philosophical and political knowledge as an autodidact . He later continued his studies in the library of Dionisio de Herrera , where he read the works of Rousseau , Diderot , Montesquieu and D'Alembert , among others , which had a lasting influence on him.

Thanks to his acquired legal knowledge, Morazán worked as a lawyer in Tegucigalpa for several years. He also held functions in the colonial local government of Tegucigalpa.

On December 30, 1825, Morazán married the young widow María Josefa Lastiri Lozano, a niece of Dionisio de Herreras, in Comayagua . With her he had a daughter, Adela Morazán Lastiri (1838-1921), who later married the Salvadoran politician Cruz Ulloa. He also had two recognized illegitimate children: José Antonio Morazán Zelayandía (1826–1883, occasionally also called "José Antonio Ruíz"), who later accompanied him on his campaigns and rose to the rank of general, and Francisco Morazán Moncada (1827–1904 ), who settled in León in Nicaragua after Morazán's death and later was Nicaragua's ambassador in Brussels . Finally, another daughter, Dolores Morazán Escalante (* 1843), is said to have descended from him. However, this was only born after his death, so that he no longer recognized her in any case.

Political and military advancement

Morazán's political career began in colonial times at the side of the liberal Dionisio de Herrera, who played a key role in shaping his political ideas. Herrera initially brought Morazán into his personal secretariat as an employee. A short time later, through Herrera's mediation, Morazán became personal assistant to the Lord Mayor ( Alcalde Mayor ) of Tegucigalpa Narciso Mayol.

Morazán gained his first military experience immediately after the Central American provinces declared independence in 1821, when there was a first conflict between conservatives and liberals in Honduras. While the conservative circles in Comayagua advocated an annexation of Central America to the young Empire of Mexico , the liberals in Tegucigalpa campaigned for the establishment of an independent Central American Confederation modeled on the USA . Faced with the threat to Tegucigalpas from troops of the Provincial Governor of Comayagua José Tinoco de Contreras, the citizens formed voluntary companies. Morazán was appointed company commander of the first company.

Ultimately, the liberals were able to prevent the conquest of Tegucigalpa, but not the connection of Central America to Mexico operated by Gabino Gaínza . During the short period of belonging to Mexico, Morazán did not appear politically.

After Central America became independent from Mexico in 1823, Morazán became a syndic on the parish council of Tegucigalpa. In the same year he was appointed by the Constituent Assembly of the "United Provinces of Central America" ​​to the Commission for the definition of the future member states and the bases of the electoral law.

According to the constitution of the province of Honduras , its first head of state, Dionisio de Herrera, appointed him on September 28, 1824 as general secretary of the provincial government. In this capacity he had a decisive influence on the drafting of the first constitution of the province. Two years later, on April 6, 1826, he was elected President of the Council of State ( Consejo Representativo ).

When, in October 1826, the President of the Central American Confederation, Manuel José Arce , disbanded the federal parliament - contrary to the constitution - in the face of severe criticism from the members of his own (liberal) party against his government policy, there were massive public protests, which the provincial governments also disapproved of Honduras and El Salvador joined. However, Arce had the protests suppressed by force of arms and dispatched troops to Honduras under the command of Lieutenant General José Justo Milla . In this situation Morazán was transferred from Herrera to the command of the defense of the provincial capital Comayagua. After initial success, however, he had to admit defeat and first fled to El Salvador and from there to Nicaragua. Herrera was captured by Federation forces and Milla was installed as the head of state of Honduras.

Head of State of Honduras (1827-30)

In Nicaragua, Morazán gathered an army with which he returned to Honduras just a few months after his escape and defeated the Federation troops. Since the elected head of state Herrera was in captivity in Guatemala City (the capital of the federation), Morazán was named head of state of Honduras on November 27, 1827.

As head of state, Morazán continued Herrera's liberal policies. However, the further development of things at the federal level did not give him much opportunity to set his own accents in the politics of the province of Honduras. Because the Arce government now mobilized troops against his liberal party friend Mariano Prado , the head of state of the province of El Salvador. On March 7, 1829, Morazán therefore transferred the power of government in Honduras interim to his deputy Diego Vigil and led his troops to San Salvador . There they united with the Salvadoran troops and invaded Guatemala under the command of Morazán . On April 13, 1829, Morazan's troops took Guatemala City. Since Arce had fled, Morazán temporarily took over the presidency of the Central American Confederation, but handed it over to Francisco Barrundia on June 25, 1829 in connection with the constitutional mandate to prepare new elections. During the months of the occupation of Guatemala, Morazán gave free rein to his aversion to the conservative circles in Guatemala: His soldiers looted the houses of many leading conservatives as well as churches and monasteries. Countless art treasures were stolen or destroyed.

After the presidency was handed over to Barrundia, Morazán returned to Honduras, where he resumed government on December 2, 1829. Meanwhile, Barrundia set the new elections for mid-July 1830. The Liberal Party chose Morazán as its candidate. This narrowly won against the distinguished conservative José Cecilio Díaz del Valle (who had already run against Arce in the elections of 1824). On July 28, Morazán resigned as head of state of Honduras and went again to Guatemala to take up the presidency of Central America on September 16, 1830.

First Presidency of Central America (1830-34)

During his first presidency, Morazán liberalized trade and concluded trade treaties with Great Britain and the Netherlands . He reformed the education system, in particular the old Real y Potifica Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala , which he transformed into a modern liberal university. He introduced religious freedom and abolished tithe .

Although Morazán made enemies of the long-established merchants and the Catholic clergy with the aforementioned reforms , there were only a few revolts against his policies during his first presidency. The most important was probably the attempt at secession of El Salvador under his head of state José María Cornejo in 1832, which Morazán suppressed with military means (whereby he himself took over the office of head of state of El Salvador interim from March 29 to May 13, 1832). The main reason for the relative calm during these years is likely the policy of his liberal party colleague Dr. Mariano Gálvez was in Guatemala. As head of state of traditionally particularly conservative Guatemala, the pragmatic Gálvez sought a balance with the opposition and thus secured Morazán support in this province, which was difficult from a liberal perspective.

When the next presidential election took place in early 1834, Cecilio Díaz del Valle again stood against the liberal incumbent for the Conservatives and this time Morazán was defeated. Before Díaz del Valle could take office, however, he died on March 2, 1834. As provided by the constitution, after his four-year term on September 16, Morazán initially handed over the official duties temporarily to his Vice President Gregorio Salazar . However, he relied on a clause in the constitution, which granted the runner-up the presidency in the event that the elected candidate was unable to assume government responsibility. Morazán was therefore confirmed in office by parliament and began his second (regular) term on February 14, 1835. Although this process was perfectly legal, it plunged the Federation into a legitimacy crisis, as the Conservatives felt cheated of the victory they had won.

Second Presidency of Central America (1835-39)

In view of the conservative protests and the resulting hostile climate in Guatemala City, Morazán moved the seat of the federal government to San Salvador by decree in 1835.

In addition, Morazán intensified his liberal reform course during his second presidency. Among other things, he led

• a new school law, which determined the general obligation to attend a secular state school and threatened the parents with the withdrawal of custody in the event of non-compliance,
• a new penal code (the Livingston Code developed by Edward Livingston for the US state of Louisiana in 1821-24 ), which provided, among other things, a unified judicial system, equality before the law and jury courts, as well
• a civil marriage law that legalized divorce,

a.

With these new laws, Morazán brought not only the still extremely influential Catholic Church against him, but also the indigenous population, who were deprived of their rights, which were preserved throughout the colonial period, by the Livingston Code , to legal proceedings (at least in the first instance) to be decided by their traditional tribal authorities.

In this situation, when a cholera epidemic spread from Mexico to Guatemala, conservative leaders and Catholic clergy nurtured the belief among the common people that this was a sign of divine anger at the government's liberal policies. The hygienic measures introduced by the government (disinfecting drinking water with chlorine and setting up quarantine areas) also became the subject of bad rumors. It was claimed that the chlorine was a poison with which the government wanted to poison the water supplies and that the quarantine measures were only intended to prevent the population from escaping their fate. This led to uprisings almost simultaneously in several communities in the Guatemalan highlands, which were initially brought under control, but eventually developed into a vehement guerrilla war under the leadership of Rafael Carrera against the liberal governments of Mariano Gálvez in Guatemala and Morazán at the federal level . On January 13, 1838, Carrera's troops captured Guatemala City, Morazán's Vice President Gregorio Salazar was killed and Gálvez had to flee.

In this situation, Morazán first tried to negotiate a peace with Carrera and the conservatives, but this failed. Since he lacked the necessary financial means for effective military enforcement, the Federation Parliament decided, on his initiative, to allocate the customs revenue - until then the provinces were entitled - to the Federation. However, this led to first Nicaragua, then Costa Rica and finally Honduras declaring secession, which effectively brought the federation to an end. In view of this development, the federation parliament decided to give all member provinces free to decide on their further fate themselves and dissolved.

When Morazán's second term ended on February 1, 1839, new elections were no longer possible.

Head of State of El Salvador (1839/40)

Even before the end of Morazán's term of office as President of Central America, Carrera attempted to inflict the last fatal blow on the Federation by attacking El Salvador. Here, however, he was severely beaten by Morazán, who then managed to retake Guatemala City at short notice. There he deposed the conservative head of state Mariano Rivera Paz on the last day of his presidency and appointed the liberal general Carlos Salazar Castro as the new head of state. After only three months, however, Morazán and his troops were pushed back from Carrera to El Salvador and Rivera was reinstated as head of state.

On July 13, 1839, the Parliament of El Salvador appointed Morazan head of state. After he had succeeded in bringing some unrest in El Salvador under control, he made another attempt to recapture Guatemala - which had also declared its withdrawal from the Federation on December 3, 1839 - for the Federation. Carrera's troops defeated him on March 19, 1840 in the middle of Guatemala City. He first fled to San Salvador, where he announced his resignation as head of state on April 4, 1840, and embarked shortly afterwards for Calderas in Costa Rica.

Head of State (President) of Costa Rica (1842)

On April 22, 1840, Morazán arrived in Costa Rica - with the consent of the local head of state Braulio Carrillo - and then settled in the David region in what is now Panama , which was then part of Nueva Granada ( Colombia ) . There, the following year, opponents of the Carrillo government contacted him and convinced him to overthrow Carrillo - who no longer enjoyed great popularity with the people after he had suspended constitutional rights and had himself appointed president for life from Costa Rica to revive the project of the Central American Confederation.

When Braulio Carillo learned that Morazán was gathering troops in David for an invasion of Costa Rica, he informed the government of Nueva Granada and sent an army to the border under the command of General Vicente Villaseñor. Villaseñor, however, allied himself with Morazán in the so-called "Jocote Pact" ( Pacto del Jocote ), which aimed at the resignation of Carrillo and the appointment of Morazán as head of state of Costa Rica. Shortly thereafter, Carrillo submitted to the "Jocote Pact" and resigned. On April 12, 1842, Morazán took over the post of head of state of Costa Rica.

One of Morazán's first official acts was to convene a constituent assembly that put the liberal constitution of 1824, which Carrillo had repealed and guaranteed extensive individual rights, back into force.

Francisco Morazán's grave in the Cementerio de los Ilustres in San Salvador

However, Morazán quickly lost the initial sympathy of the Costa Rican population, when he then introduced new taxes and general conscription to enforce the planned restoration of the Central American Confederation. Shortly before the start of the planned invasion of Nicaragua, riots broke out in Alajuela on September 11, 1842 , which quickly spread to the capital, San José. A few days later, on September 14, Morazán was in Cartago captured and the following day, the Independence of Central America, along with General Villaseñor on the Plaza Mayor in San Jose executed .

Morazán's widow returned with her children to El Salvador, where she lived in poverty until her death in 1846.

According to his last wish, Morazán was to be buried in San Salvador. However, Costa Rica did not agree to a transfer of his remains to El Salvador until six years later. On February 17, 1849, Francisco Morazán and his wife were buried in the center of what was then the main cemetery (today Cementerio de los Ilustres ) in San Salvador.

Act

Morazán is undoubtedly an outstanding but also a controversial figure in the early history of post-colonial Central America. He was a liberal visionary and idealist. Inspired by the ideas of the French Revolution and the political concept of the USA, he tried to radically reform, modernize and unite Central America.

Many Latin American historians, such as the Mexican Luis Chávez Orosco, refer to Morazán as the pioneer of the "petty-bourgeois revolution" in America. Chavez emphasizes that Morazán pushed the liberal reform faster and further than anyone else.

In his endeavors to transform Central America, which had only recently become independent, into a modern, secular and free-democratic model state, Morazán overwhelmed the majority of the population, who were deeply rooted in their traditions. Convinced of the importance and correctness of his mission for the benefit of all of Central America, he continued to pursue his political line uncompromisingly against all odds, taking up arms where words did not lead to the goal.

The historian Rodolfo Pastor, for example, writes:

"Although Central America hardly had to fight at all to defend its independence, in these twenty years (note: 1821-40) it experienced 143 battles in which almost 10,000 people died ... and no less than 110 heads of government ruled the states of the federation. The Central Americans not only lost territory and prestige, they lost the chance of a stable and independent fatherland. The following years showed the dimensions of this error ".

In Guatemala, the traditional heartland of a united Central America, Morazán's uncompromising attitude led to the emergence of a "grand alliance" between the colonial elites (civil servants, officers, clergy, large landowners) and the indigenous population under the leadership of the "tribune" Rafael Carrera.

By trying to push through all of his ideas without compromise, Morazán ended up failing whatever he wanted to achieve. With his death, the idea of ​​a Central American unification was a long way off. All later attempts to revive it (1844, 1852, 1898 and 1921/22) failed. Only recently has the Central American states come closer to one another via economic integration.

Others

Honors

In honor of Morazán, places, streets, squares, buildings and institutions were named after him, especially in Honduras and El Salvador, but also in the other Central American and some other Latin American states. Examples are mentioned here:

Departments

• Morazán Department in El Salvador: By decree of March 14, 1887, the former Gotera Department in eastern El Salvador was renamed the Morazán Department.
• Francisco Morazán Department in Honduras: In Honduras, the central department of Tegucigalpa with the country's capital of the same name was renamed the Francisco Morazán Department in 1957.

cities and communes

• Morazán, El Progreso Department , Guatemala
• Morazán, Yoro Department , Honduras
• Puerto Morazan, Chinandega Department , Nicaragua

Streets and squares

• Parque Morazan, San José
• Plaza Morazan, San Salvador
• Plaza Morazan, Tegucigalpa
• Parque Morazán, Guatemala City (renamed Parque de Jocotenango in 2003)
• Parque Morazan, Matagalpa

Institutions

• Francisco Morazán National Pedagogical University, Tegucigalpa
• various schools

Monuments

From the large number of monuments that can be found especially in Central America, the following are examples:

• San Salvador, Plaza Morazán, statue (1882)
• Tegucigalpa, Parque Central, equestrian statue (1882)
• Managua, Parque Central, still image (1942)
• Santiago de Chile, Avenida Alameda, still image (1969)
• Guatemala City, Plaza de la Federación Centroamericana, bust (2002)

Literary reception

The Chilean Nobel Prize for Literature, Pablo Neruda , dedicated a poem to Morazán in the fourth section "The Liberators" ( Los libertadores ) of his great cycle of poems Canto General (Poem XXXI).

There is also a range of literature by lesser-known Central American writers and poets.

curiosity

Shortly after the equestrian statue of Francisco Morazán was erected in the main square of Tegucigalpa, rumors arose that the statue did not represent Morazán at all, but the French marshal Michel Ney . Allegedly, the government representatives sent to Paris to hire a sculptor were supposed to have brought through the money for the statue in the Parisian nightlife and then bought an equestrian statue of Neys cheaply in a depot for disused monuments. This rumor found its way into the work " The Open Veins of Latin America " ( Las venas abiertas de América Latina ) by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano in 1971 and in 1982 in the speech of the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez at the acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In fact, it has been documented since the mid- 1980s that the statue was made by the Ticino sculptor Francisco Durini Vassalli - who also created the statue of Morazán in San Salvador - and depicts Morazán. Galeano has now publicly withdrawn his claim. The rumors are likely to go back to opponents of the Honduran President Marco Aurelio Soto , under whose government the statue was erected.

Web links

Commons : Francisco Morazán  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Francisco Morazán on the homepage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador
• Francisco Morazán on the homepage of the Guatemalan government
• Freddy Leistenschneider, Morazán y su época

literature

• Lorenzo Montúfar y Rivera , Reseña histórica de Centroamérica , 7 volumes. Tipografía El Progreso (Volumes 1–5) and Tipografía La Union (Volumes 6–7), Guatemala 1878–1888
• Manuel Montúfar y Coronado, Memorias para la historia de la revolución de Centroamérica , 6 volumes. Editorial José de Pineda Ibarra, Guatemala 1963 (1st edition: Aburto y Blanco, Jalapa, Mexico from 1832)
• Ramón Rosa, Historia del benemérito general don Francisco Morazán , Tegucigalpa 1971 (1st edition: Tegucigalpa 1892)
• Freddy Leistenschneider, Administraciones del General Francisco Morazán . Imprenta Nacional, San Salvador 1982
• Rodolfo Pastor, Historia de Centroamérica . El Colegio de México , Mexico 1988, ISBN 84-8377-291-4
• Miguel R. Ortega, Morazán: Laurel sin Ocaso , 3 volumes. Talleres de Litográfica Honupak, Tegucigalpa 1988-1992
• Hector Gaitán A., Los Presidentes de Guatemala . Artemis & Edinter, Guatemala 1992, ISBN 84-89452-25-3

Footnotes

1. ↑ Historia del benemérito ... , p. 51
2. ↑ according to Liberato Moncada, quoted from Freddy Leistenschneider, Morazán y su época
3. ↑ Even if Costa Rica left the Central American Confederation in 1838 and was therefore an independent state, the title of head of government and head of state initially remained Jefe Supremo del Estado (Supreme Head of State). It was not until 1847 that the title of president was introduced.
4. ↑ Morazán heroe continental , Calderón, Tegucigalpa 1941
5. ↑ Historia de Centroamérica , p. 169
6. ↑ "Aunque Centroamérica casi no había tenido que luchar para defender su independencia, esos veinte años presenciaron 143 batallas en las que murieron casi 10 000 personas - cifra enorme en su contexto - y no menos de 110 jefes ejecutivos gobernaron los estados de la federión. Los centroamericanos habían perdido algo más que territorio y prestigio; habían perdido la posibilidad de una partia estable e independiente. Los años posteriores mostrarían el alcance de ese error. "
7. ^ García Márquez's award speech on the Nobel Committee's homepage
8. ↑ Miguel Cálix Suazo, Autenticidad de la estatua de Morazán del Parque Central de Tegucigalpa , Tegucigalpa 2006
9. ↑ El Castellano of October 3, 2005 ( Memento of the original of June 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

predecessor	Office	successor
Manuel José Arce y Fagoaga José Francisco Barrundia José Gregorio Salazar Lara	President of Central America April 13, 1829-25. June 1829 September 16, 1830-16. September 14, 1834 February 14, 1835–1. February 1839	José Francisco Barrundia José Gregorio Salazar Lara Diego Vigil Cocaña
José Jerónimo Zelaya de Zelaya Fiallos Diego Vigil Cocaña	Head of State of the Province of Honduras November 27, 1827–7. March 1829 December 2, 1829-28. July 1830	Diego Vigil Cocaña José Santos Díaz del Valle
José María Cornejo Merino y Guevara Antonio José Cañas Quintanilla	Head of State of the Province of El Salvador March 29, 1832-13. May 13, 1832 July 13, 1839–4. April 1840	Joaquín de San Martín y Ulloa José María Silva
Braulio Evaristo Carrillo Colina	President of Costa Rica April 12, 1842–11. September 1842	Antonio Luis Pinto Suarez