José Rafael Carrera Turcios

José Rafael Carrera Turcios

General José Rafael Carrera Turcios (born  October 26, 1814 in Guatemala City , Guatemala , †  April 14, 1865 ibid) was President of Guatemala twice .

Origin and youth

Rafael Carrera was a mestizo and came from a very simple rural background. He did not go to school and remained illiterate all his life (he only learned to sign by name when he was president). He was married to Petrona Alvarez, with whom he had several children.

In the period after independence from Mexico in 1823, Central America was constantly ruled by armed clashes between conservatives and liberals , which were often fought with incredible brutality. This situation also shaped Carrera in his youth. At the age of 15 he was a temporary drummer with the conservative troops, but after their defeat by Francisco Morazán in 1830 he retired from the military and worked as a swineherd.

In 1837, cholera broke out in the Guatemalan area where Carrera was staying . Rumors that this was due to the Liberal government poisoning the water sparked an uprising that was soon put down. Although Carrera was not involved in the uprising, his wife and his elderly mother, Juana Rosa Turcios, were severely ill-treated by the liberal forces. As a result, Carrera made the fight against the Liberals a life's work.

The way to power

Carrera gathered a small force of like-minded people and started a guerrilla war against the liberals. Although he initially had no chance in direct combat against the well-trained Morazán troops, he always quickly regained lost territory after their withdrawal, which led to increasing wear and tear among the liberal troops. Carrera also benefited from the fact that the Conservatives - unlike other provinces of the Central American Confederation - were very strong in Guatemala and some of their leaders tried to use it for their own purposes. By ultimately playing off the conservative leaders against one another, Carrera managed to become the de facto ruler of Guatemala within a very short time.

On January 13, 1838, Carrera's troops captured Guatemala City . This resulted in looting, murders and rapes on an unprecedented scale. The Vice President of the Confederation, José Gregorio Salazar Lara , who was President at the time , was also killed. The liberal head of state of Guatemala, Dr. José Mariano Felipe Gálvez fled and Carrera had Mariano Rivera Paz appointed as the new head of state. Mainly on Carrera's initiative, Guatemala left the Central American Confederation the following year and became independent.

As a reaction to the riots during the occupation of Guatemala City and the change of government, the departments of Totonicapán , San Marcos , Huehuetenango , Quiché , Retalhuleu and Quetzaltenango of Guatemala dissolved on February 2, 1838 and declared themselves an independent sixth state ( Sexto Estado or Estado de Los Altos , short- Los Altos ) of the Central American Confederation. The Guatemalan National Assembly immediately declared this separation unconstitutional. In 1840 the Carrera government commissioned the restoration of state power in the above-mentioned departments. Carrera fulfilled this mandate with an extremely hard and bloody campaign.

First presidency

After he had initially only indirectly exerted influence on politics through the governments of Mariano Rivera Paz and José Venancio López Requena , who were appointed by him, Carrera was finally elected President on December 11, 1844 by the National Assembly itself.

The most outstanding event of Carrera's first presidency was the declaration of Guatemala as an independent republic by decree of March 21, 1847. This - eight years after the de facto separation - also formally sealed the end of Guatemala's membership of a Central American state. In addition, he took back some of the anti-clerical laws of the liberal governments and, on the initiative of Juan José de Aycinena y Piñol, called the - already in 1767 by the Spanish King Charles III. displaced - Jesuits returned to the country. Under pressure from the liberal, but also parts of the conservative party, Carrera declared his resignation on August 16, 1848 and voluntarily went into exile in Mexico. Although he wanted to return to Guatemala a short time later, the National Assembly forbade him to do so on the penalty of death.

Return and second presidency

In Carrera's absence, the three moderately liberal Presidents Juan Antonio Martínez , José Bernardo Escobar and Mariano Paredes failed to gain control of the country and impose a recognizable political line. As a result, the call for Carrera to return grew louder and louder. Finally, on October 22, 1851, Paredes resigned and the National Assembly elected Carrera as his successor. He returned to Guatemala and took office on November 6th .

Carrera now also revoked all liberal reforms that had initially been left in place: he reintroduced the tithe , abolished freedom of the press and returned all goods to the Catholic Church .

In addition, however, he also carried out numerous progressive reforms: for example, he promoted the cultivation of wheat and mining, he had the country's first public hospital (the Hospital San Juan de Dios ) and the first road to the Atlantic coast built, he had set up public street lighting in the capital and set up the first civilian police corps. Finally, his government recognized the sovereignty of Great Britain over British Honduras with the treaty of April 30, 1859 ( Aycinena- Wyke Treaty) .

On November 25, 1854, the National Assembly proclaimed Carrera president for life. He died on Good Friday , April 14, 1865 and was buried in the cathedral of Guatemala City with great sympathy . With a total reign of over 18 years, he is the second-longest president in Guatemalan history.

Web links

Commons : José Rafael Carrera Turcios  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Rafael Carrera on the homepage of the Guatemalan government

literature

• Hector Gaitán A .: Los Presidentes de Guatemala. Artemis & Edinter, Guatemala 1992, ISBN 84-89452-25-3
• Ralph Lee Woodward jr .: Rafael Carrera and the Emergence of the republic of Guatemala, 1821-1871 . University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia 1993, ISBN 08-20314-48-X

predecessor	Office	successor
Mariano Rivera Paz Mariano Paredes	Presidents of Guatemala December 11, 1844 - August 16, 1848 November 6, 1851 - April 14, 1865	Juan Antonio Martínez Pedro de Aycinena y Piñol