INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bteedth rough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that Ihe author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Transcript
INFORMATION TO USERS
This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy subm itted. Broken or indistinct print colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bteedth rough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that Ihe author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.
Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.
Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA
800-521-0600
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
A Sovereign State o f Every Village:City, State and Nation in Independence-era Central America, ca. 1760-1850
by
Jordana Dym
A dissertation submited in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department o f History
New York University
September, 2000
Profe: Ada Ferrer
Professor Antonio Feros
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number 9985245
Copyright 2000 by Dym, Jordana
All rights reserved.
__ ___ __<Mf
UMIUMI Microform9985245
Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Cities that are established and founded are the security and constancy of conquered kingdoms, and, more, their principal heads, for they are the center for establishment of the first armed forces, and political government, for application when one or the other is needed. They further are the retreat that receives the militias that return victorious or routed, and in them commerce, the principal nerve that keeps and nourishes monarchies, happily plays. In the cities the cult o f God is resplendent with sumptuous and rich temples, and they are adorned not only with illustrious houses, important and renowned, but with venerable and respectable ecclesiastic and secular tribunals. Their foundations should thus be well considered, not just for their preservation but for their growth.
Francisco Fuentes y Guzman (1642-1699), Recordation Florida, Book 5, Chapter 4. (ca. 1686)
* *
The principal guarantee of order rests in local authorities... one o f whose principal duties is to conserve public peace.
Father Juan Jose Aycinena, Minister of Interior, Justice and Ecclesiastic Affairs, Guatemala. 1837: Circular to Local Governors, 19 December 1837
One of the principal defects of the Spanish Constitution, that here we have wanted to follow blindly, is to overturn the municipal regime of the populations, established by use and custom, attempting to set up a uniform system that the ignorant multitude—over which habit holds the only moral force—cannot understand with ease or rapidity. It is something that, evidently, has always been felt, particularly in modem times: when the municipal regime is suddenly upset, the public calm is altered, because [the change] directly attacks the primary base o f the social order, which is the specific regimen of the pueblos— established by themselves, learned by tradition and rooted in habit. One can see that one should not modify the municipal regime, the basis of all republican government.
Mariano Aycinena, 1845, Dissenting Opinion on the Modification of Municipal Law, Guatemala
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
DEDICATION
For my parents, Clive L. Dym and Rita T.Gelb.
v
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project has been made possible due to generous financial support from New
York University’s Graduate School o f Arts and Sciences, Center for Latin American
and Caribbean Studies, International Center for Advanced Studies and King Juan Carlos
I Center. Special thanks to program directors Professors Christopher Mitchell, Thomas
Bender and Jim Fernandez for their warm support o f this project. Additional research
funding from Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs permitted my first research trip to the
Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain.
The advice, encouragement and attention o f Professors Ada Ferrer, Antonio Feros,
Aldo Lauria-Santiago, Sinclair Thompson, William Roseberry and Thomas
Abercrombie have repeatedly served to clarify, challenge and correct this work in all of
the stages o f preparation and production. I was fortunate to work with a dynamic group
o f scholars, whose range o f knowledge and experience regarding political and cultural
processes in Spain and Latin America has greatly enriched this work.
I am also indebted to the directors o f the Archivo Historico Nacional (Honduras),
Francisco Maldonado, and his counterparts in the national archives o f El Salvador and
Guatemala, Eugenia Lopez and Julio Diaz for their support and assistance. Without the
advice of the researchers and staff o f the Archivo Historico del Arquidiocesis de
Guatemala, I would not have found all o f the correspondence that proved among the
most interesting evidence o f post-independence municipal involvement in regional and
national politics. In both Tegucigalpa and Sonsonate, municipal archivists proved the
vi
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
key to finding old town council records without which reconstructing the activities of
those city governments would have been next to impossible. It was a pleasure to find so
many municipal documents intact in countries in which civil war followed by neglect
and disintrest have contributed to the destruction of the nineteenth-century local
historical record. Finally, the staff of the Archivo General de Indias, Biblioteca
Nacional, and Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid) o f Spain, and o f the archives of the
French Ministry o f Foreign Affairs, were invaluable resources.
Friends and colleagues in Central America, Europe and the U.S. have also provided
the material, intellectual and emotional support that helped both author and project
advance. Their numbers include: Lie. Miguel Angel Alvarez A., Xiomara Avendafio,
Marvin Barahona, Christophe Belaubre, Sylvie Bermann, Joel Budd, Alejandro
Appendix R: Political Divisions, Central American Federation and the States of
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, 1825-1855
R l: Federation, 1825: States, Departments, Towns & Villages 514
R2: Federation, 1824: Cabeceras with juntas populares 515
R3: Federation: Juntas Electorates de Partido that voted in the 1825
Federal presidential elections 515
R4: Territorial Division, State o f Guatemala, 1825 516
R5: Territorial Division, State o f Guatemala, 1839 & 1840 518
R6: Departments, State of Guatemala, 1851 518
R7: Territorial Division, State o f El Salvador, 1824 518
R8: Territorial Division, State o f El Salvador, 1855 518
R9: Territorial Division, State o f Honduras, 1825 519
R10: Territorial Division, State o f Honduras, 1831
(not implemented) 520
Rl 1: Territorial Division, Costa Rica, 1825-1838 520
Appendix S: Important Political Events, Central America, 1825-1842 523
xvi
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
ABBREVIATIONS
AGI Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla
AGCA Archivo General de Centroamerica, Guatemala City
AGN Archivo General de la Nacion, San Salvador
AHAG Archivo Historico Aquidiocesano Francisco de Paula GarciaPelaez de Guatemala, Guatemala City
AHN Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid
AMS Archivo Municipal de Sonsonate
AMT Archivo Municipal de Tegucigalpa
ANH Archivo Nacional de Honduras, Tegucigalpa
Art. Article
BAE Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles
BN Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid
Exp. Expediente
Leg. Legajo
MAE Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris
RC Real Cedula
RO Real Orden
Recopilacion Recopilacion de leyes de los reinos de las Indias, 1680
U. University
xvii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Fig. 1: Audiencia de Guatemala, ca. 1600
Source: Antonio Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierrafirme del mar oceano (Courtesy, Library o f Congress, Geography & Maps Division).
xviii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Fig. 2: Audiencia de Guatemala, 1657
Source: N. Sanson d 'Abbeville, L'Amerique en plusieurs cartes (Paris, 1657), Subject 7 (Courtesy, Library of Congress, Geography & Maps Division).
xix
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Fig. 3: Yucatan and Guatemala, ca 1671
Source: Montanus, Yucatan Conventus luridici Hispaniae Novae Pars Occidentulis et Guatimala Conventus luridicus, (Berlin, 1671) Courtesy, Library o f Congress, Geography & Maps Division.
XX
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
WJi
S
*tn
t 6*
Fig. 4: Kingdom of Guatemala, ca. 1690
Source: Francisco Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, reprinted by George Barrie and Sons, 1905.
xxi
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Map
of
Cent
ral
Am
trica
. Fr$
m G
ntm
nn't
" H
terJ
/ua*
/Y
ir/ia
,” iv
ritlt
n in
iht
itvtn
utnl
k ttn
inrj
.
11**
10
Introduction
Writing at the midpoint of the nineteenth century, Argentine statesman Domingo
Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) observed that
the South American republics have all, more or less, passed through the propensity to decompose into small fractions, attracted by an anarchical and rash aspiration to a ruinous, dark independence without representation on the ladder of nations. Central America has made a sovereign state of every village: the old Colombia yielded to three republics; the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata (Argentina) dissolved into Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Argentine Confederation, and even this last took the zeal o f dissolution to constitute itself into a chaos without constitution and without known rule...1
Central America did not, in fact, turn each village into a sovereign state, but, by
1850, one kingdom had splintered into five republics and a Mexican province. As
Sarmiento suggests, the process by which the Kingdom o f Guatemala became a weak
country—the Central American Federation (1821-1839)—before succumbing after
twenty years of civil war into the republics o f Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras,
Nicaragua and Costa Rica was not unique. Most South American countries suffered
similar fragmentation, and the exceptions, Mexico and Brazil, experienced the same
internal strife, if not the ultimate dismemberment of their colonial territory. No one has
yet adequately explained the origins or endemic nature o f violence in societies known
for little full-scale rebellion under Spain’s rule, nor the reasons that allowed some but
not all colonial territories to hold together. This work examines the Central American
case. Hopefully, answering the question of why one apparently stable Spanish colony
1 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argiropolis ([Buenos Aires]: Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion, A:Z Editora, 1994), p. 79. The text, which proposed a new capital for the Federated States o f the Rio de la Plata, was originally published in 1850.
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
was unable to maintain political unity after independence will have implications for the
political processes that fragmented the others.
That no explanation has emerged that ties together the upheaval in different
parts of Spanish America in the early nineteenth century is not due to neglect. Since
Sarmiento’s time, historians have pursued the question o f why the majority o f Spain’s
former colonies failed to consolidate their vast territories into extensive republics or
federations after their independence in the early nineteenth century. Early works, and
particularly works by contemporaries to the events, tended to look at divisions between
elite factions in the new states, assigning blame to “conservatives” or “liberals” and
focusing primarily on the political activities within a national capital.2 Early twentieth-
century historians pointed out the Spanish “colonial heritage” of a semi-feudal society,
unprepared for the freedoms and responsibilities o f democracy.3 The “new history” o f
the 1960s through 1980s produced a silence in the literature, in part due to a turn to
social and cultural rather than political history, in part due to events in Latin America
that limited scholarly access to archives, and in part due to the daunting task of
' For a study of early North American Latin Americanists see Alfred M. Tozzer, “Stephens, and Prescott, Bancroft and others,” Los Mayas antignos (Mexico: Colegio de Mexico, 1941), pp. 33-60. David Fowler has provided a recent historiography o f the Mexican case, "Introduction: The "Forgotten Century": Mexico, 1810-1910." Bulletin o f Latin American Research 15:1 (1995), pp. 1-4. See also Peter F. Guardino and Charles Walker, “The State, Society and Politics in Peru and Mexico in the Late Colonial and Early Republican Periods,” Latin American Perspectives 19:2 (Spring 1992), pp. 10-43; Timothy E. Anna. “The rule o f Agustin de Iturbide: a reappraisal,” Journal o f Latin American Studies. 17:1 (May 1985), pp. 79-119; and Josefina Zoraida Vazquez, “Un viejo tema: el federalismo y el centralismo” Historia Mexicana 42:3 (1993), pp. 621-631; and Jose Agustin de la Puente Candamo, “Historiografia de la Independencia del Peru,''Revista de Historia de America 59 (1967), pp. 280-293. Well-known proponents of partisan views include Lucas Alaman, Silvio Zavala, Jose Maria Luis Mora and Carlos Maria Bustamante for Mexico. For an example o f historical writing on the impact of liberals and conservatives, see for example, Charles A. Hale for Mexico.
2
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
assessing a period with multiple leaders, multiple and shifting centers o f power,
multiple and ephemeral governments and innumerable conflicts and policy changes.4
By the 1990s, stability and a new set of questions led to a wealth o f studies of
post-independence period in Mexico and Peru has revived interest in “the forgotten
century.” and turned the historical gaze to the provinces that made creation o f a strong
central state a task only a strong man, or caudillo, could accomplish. These studies
have complicated the understanding of elite political ideas, highlighted the struggles of
the lower classes to make their voices heard for and against policies emanating from
distant capitals, and looked sympathetically on attempts by provincial elites to influence
the outcome of political and military confrontations on a national stage.5 Brazil has
benefited from a similar attempt to unravel the dynamic o f strife between a powerful
capital and distant provinces desirous of political and economic independence.6
J See for example, the works o f Hubert Bancroft. For more recent adaptations of this approach, see Stanley J. and Barbara Stein, The Colonial Heritage o f Latin America: Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970).4 See, for example, Lynn Hunt, ed.. The New Cultural Historv: essays (Berkeley: U. o f Califiomia Press, 1989).s Brian Hamnett. “Benito Juarez, Early Liberalism, and the Regional Politics of Oaxaca.” Bulletin o f Latin American Research (1991): 10(1): 3-22; David Fowler, “Introduction: The ‘Forgotten Century’: Mexico, 1810-1910”; Jaime E. Rodriguez O., ed., Mexico in the age o f democratic revolutions, 1750- 1850 (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994); Will Fowler, Mexico in the age o f proposals, 1821-1853 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998); Timothy Anna, “Inventing Mexico: Provincehood and Nationhood After Independence,” Bulletin o f Latin American Research 15:1(1995), pp. 7-17; Peter Guardino, Peasants, politics, and the formation o f Mexico's national state: Guerrero. 1800-1857 (Stanford, CA: Stanford U. Press, 1996). For Peru, see Mark Thumer, From Two Republics to One Divided: Contradictions o f Postcolonial Nationmaking in Andean Peru (Durham, NC: Duke U. Press, 1997); Sarah C. Chambers, From Subjects to Citizens: Honor, Gender and Politics in Arequipa, Peru,1780-1854 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999); and Charles Walker, Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the creation o f Republican Peru, 1780-1840 (Durham: Duke U. Press, 1999).6 Roderick Barman, Brazil: The Forging o f a Nation, 1798-1852 (Stanford: Stanford U. Press, 1988), Emilia Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: myths & histories (Chapel Hill: University o f North Carolina Press, 2000).
3
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The historiography on Central American independence has followed the general
arc, although focus on provincial tensions in an attempt to explain the instability that
prevailed in the 1820s and 1830s was a constant, rather than intermittent, theme.
Historians contemporary to the events set the stage for their successors by blaming
competing elite political groups and their partisan sniping.7 Along with twentieth-
century studies, they further argued that conflict o f provincial capitals and elites with
those of the colonial and national capital, Guatemala City, doomed the federal
experiment and led to the “failure of union.”8 A less common critique argued that
conflict between “dominant classes” and the masses within the separate states provoked
the fragmentation of the period.9 This Marxist approach, which served as the
underpinning of much recent North American scholarship, has found little favor among
Central Americanists, in part, perhaps, because of the current political climate. The
overwhelming evidence o f wrangling among elites in the principal centers of power,
however, suggests other reasons for the reluctance o f scholars to focus solely on class
tensions within the Central American Federation. However, in recent years the kind o f
local study undertaken by Peruvianists and Meixcanists has begun to appear in the
' Alejandro Marure. Bosquejo historico de las revoluciones de Centroamerica, desde 1811 hasta 1834, 2 vols. Vol. 65-66, Col. 15 de Septiembre (Guatemala: Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 1960 (1838)), and Manuel Montiifar y Coronado, Memorias para la Historia de la Revolucion de Centroamerica, 2 vols, Vol. 65-66, Col. 15 de Septiembre, (Guatemala: Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 1963(1832)).8 Thomas L. Karnes, The Failure o f Union: Central America 1824-1960, Chapel Hill, NC: University o f North Carolina Press, 1961); Mario Rodriguez, The Cadi: Experiment in Central America, 1808 to 1826. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978); Miles Wortman, Government and Society in Central America, 1680-1840 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); and Carlos Melendez, La Independencia de Centroamerica (Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE, 1993).9 Julio Pinto Soria, Raices historicas del estado en Centroamerica (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria de Guatemala, 1980) and Centroamerica, de la colonia al Estado nacional, 1800-1840 (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria de Guatemala 1986).
4
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
literature. One particularly fine example is a study of the breakaway state o f Los Altos
(Guatemala) examined the political processes o f one province to show the more
complicated interactions between center and periphery, rich and poor, indigenous and
white, in the period.10
For all their differences, these arguments emphasized the breakdown o f political
structures in the federal period of 1821-1839, not the beginnings o f a new political
order. This emphasis has led to general support for the case that effective state
formation began with the Conservative strong-man governments o f the 1840s, and that
nationalist ideology (“inventing nations”) within states emerged as a powerful discourse
only in the 1870s.11 To date, the only exception to this rule is an in-process work by
historian Victor Hugo Acuna that posits that the ideological elements for a Costa Rican
national identity were part o f the rhetoric o f the 1820s.12
Certainly, independence-era Central America suffered disputes in every
province that would suggest fracture o f states rather than their construction. The cities
o f Tegucigalpa and Sonsonate both sought to head independent states in the federation
made up of their colonial districts before agreeing to participate in the larger entities of
El Salvador and Honduras. San Salvador championed the establishment o f a bishopric
to mark its province’s religious as well as secular independence from Guatemalan
10 Arturo Taracena Arriola, Sueho Criollo, Realidad Ladino, Pesadilla Indigena: El Estado de Los Altos, 1740-1850 (Guatemala: CIRMA, 1998)." Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., Rafael Carrera and the emergence o f the Republic o f Guatemala, 1821-1871 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1993); Hector Lindo-Fuentes and Lyle Gudmundson. Central America, 1821-1871 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabamaa Press, 1995); Stephen Palmer, “A Liberal Discipline: Inventing Nations in Guatemala and Costa Rica, 1870-1900,” PhD Thesis, Columbia U., 1990.12 Victor Hugo Acuna, “Comunidad politica e identidad politica en Costa Rica entrel821 y 1870,” V Conferencia de Historia Centroamericana, San Salvador, July 2000.
5
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
political control, setting off the isthmus’ first civil war in 1824. At the same time, the
cities o f Granada and Leon began the first o f a series of civil wars that brutalized
Nicaragua almost from the moment of the federation’s creation. Costa Rica, initially an
exceptionally harmonious province, later experienced a civil war engaged by its four
district capitals that led to the permanent relocation of the state capital from Cartago, its
colonial center, to San Jose. Also in the 1830s, Creole elites in Quezaltenango, an
important Indian city in Guatemala’s highlands, tried repeatedly to attract neighboring
districts into a breakaway state, with brief success in 1838-1839.1'* The federal capital
moved from Guatemala City to Sonsonate, to San Vicente, to San Salvador in search of
an acceptable home. Overall, the period between 1821 and 1839 was characterized by
unstable state and federal government, peripatetic capitals, and numerous military
conflicts.14 By 1848, the federal congress decreed that each state could withdraw from
the republic should it so desire, but the federation was already extinct. Simply adding
up the number and types of disputes, one could conclude, with Sarmiento, that in
Central America every village had indeed attempted to form a state.
Yet at the end o f the 1840s, what emerged was not a state for each disgruntled
municipal district, but the same five states o f the Central American Federation solidified
13 See the conceptually and informationally interesting book by Arturo Taracena Arriola, Sueiio Criollo. Realidad Ladino, Pesadilla Indigena: El Estado de Los Altos. 1740-1850 (Guatemala: CIRMA, 1998).14 In all. a hundred and twenty five heads o f the five states of Central America and its federation presided over 143 official military engagements between 1821 and 1842. Although relatively few lives were lost in these engagements (7088 dead, 1735 wounded), many non-combatants bore the consequences of requisitioning passing troops (Marure, Bosquejo histdrico de las revoluciones de Centroamerica, pp. 133- 157; Rodriguez, The Cadi: Experiment, p. 251-253). The list of unsanctioned “uprisings” for Guatemala and El Salvador tops 65 for the twenty years following independence. Most of these uprisings are associated with particular towns. Index, Motines and Asonadas, 1821-1850, Archivo General de Centro America (AGCA) Catalogue, Drawers 11-49 (Guatemala), 11-50 (El Salvador).
6
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
into sovereign countries. However reluctantly, Quezaltenango, Sonsonate, Tegucigalpa,
Granada, Cartago and numerous other towns and villages accepted their integration into
larger political districts. Thus, the failure o f federal unity is really only one o f two
trends that historians should note in this period. Historians must also propose to explain
how weak and internally divided colonial provinces formed viable independent states.
Such an explanation requires tackling two principal paradoxes of the period.
First, in a period succeeding the supposed program o f centralization undertaken by the
Bourbons in the 1780s, to what can one attribute the origin, strength and endurance of
such municipal movements, which were legion and not limited to the years immediately
following independence? Second, what mechanisms led provinces to survive as states
in a period when most were rocked by civil wars that were, in turn, engendered, for the
most part, by secessionist movements led by their principal municipal districts?
To address this paradox, we must first stop assuming the existence o f the
independent state as a pre-determined entity. Based on post-independence political
activity, it is insufficient to take Central America’s state-formation to be nothing more
than a formal renaming of Spanish provinces as unified national states, either at
independence or with the failure o f union. Not only the civil wars o f the period, but the
behaviors of the early national and federal congresses, demonstrate that the formation of
political states was a process in which numerous claims were considered. Having
recognized that political conflicts o f the period originated in contests between municipal
elites and “divided the interior space o f each province,” we must now begin to ask how
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
that division in the end brought about the sovereignty, rather than fragmentation, of
each federal state.15
This different picture emerges by shifting the timeline for analysis of state-
formation not forward from the mid-nineteenth century but back fifty years prior to
independence, to the period o f the Bourbon Reforms (1765-1807). Also required is to
change the scale of analysis from the provinces that fitfully emerged to a study of the
municipalities that made them up. Breaking down the provinces into their constituent
units—the cities and their politically, economically and socially dependent hinterlands
filled with smaller towns and their authorities—we continue a colonial history that put
political legitimacy in the city of the sixteenth-century conquest. We also find a long, if
uneven policy begun by Bourbon officials, expanded by the liberal Spanish parliament
of 1808-1814, and consolidated by the leaders of post-independence state and federal
governments, to foster elite and popular political organization through municipal
institutions.
In the Bourbon period, the city councils of Central America were encouraged to
increase their revenues, and limited council functions were extended to an increasing
number of villages. Under the Spanish Constitution (1812-1814; 1820-1821) any town
with 1000 residents was authorized a full-fledged city council, with all o f the privileges
and responsibilities that had previously been reserved for a dozen Spanish towns and
cities. Furthermore, the seats on the councils were opened to general election. For the
first time, Indians, Spaniards and their mixed-race descendants operated under one legal
15 Xiomara Avendano Rojas, “Procesos Electorates y Clase Politica en la Federacion de Centroamerica,
8
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
system. After independence, the Central American governments reinforced the role o f
municipal councils, extending them to communities with as few as 200 residents, and
including men o f African origin among the citizens eligible to vote and serve in office.
In all periods, the governments favored city councils as state agents in a vast
countryside where governors and other central officials were few in number and limited
in power. Is it any wonder, then, that the city remained a place of political activity and
organization well into the nineteenth century?
Yet, it is not enough to look simply at municipal government to understand the
politics of post-independence. Concurrent with the municipal revival, the same
authorities created and supported provincial institutions and government. In the 1780s,
the Bourbons consolidated several municipal districts into intendancies under one
governor. In the Constitutional Period, the creation of provincial deputations, whose
deputies were elected by the principal municipal districts, attempted to develop some
form of provincial unity and cooperation. The establishment o f state and national
congresses after independence replicated this trend.
The contradictions inherent in the simultaneous sponsorship of city and
provincial institutions lie at the root o f the independence-era political and military
conflicts, and cannot be explained when only province-level processes are studied.
Despite significant study of the role o f provincial strife in this period, there is a curious
silence in scholarship regarding the role o f the city in post-independence politics. If
recent works on subaltern communities have returned directly and indirectly to the
IS 10-1840.” PhD thesis, Colegio de Mexico, 1994.
9
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
village or municipio to discover political unity and the basis of activism and
organization, little attention has focused on the parallel municipal organizations of big
cities. Perhaps the proliferation of provincial, state and national congresses in the
constitutional governments of the early nineteenth century has masked the resurgence
and extension of municipal government, and caused historians to sideline study of the
city as a place of government and source of political power and identity. Certainly the
turn away from political history in the 1970s and the stress on subaltern or
disenfranchised populations in the 1980s and 1990s has marginalized the study of what
was, until the early nineteenth century, an institution of elites.16 Regardless of the
cause, when looking at the literature of independence, one would think that not just the
power, but the institutions of city government, had vanished with the rejection of Spain.
There are indications that this misconception is about to be permanently
shattered. A recent Argentine study has finally turned to the source of the “first
sovereignties,” the city councils, to understand the ways in which political power
operated through municipal authority in the key years of independence in the
viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. Although this work highlights the importance of the
city as the basis for the state is highlighted, its reliance on published declarations
authorities in the capital city, rather than on the records of a variety of city councils of a
16 See for example, the works of, Peter Guardino, Peasants, politics and the formation o f Mexico's National State: Mark Thumer. From Two Republics to One Divided; Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: the making o f postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1995); and Terry Rugelcy, Yucatan's Maya Peasantry and the origins o f the Caste War (Austin: U. ofTexas Press, 1996).
10
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
variety of types, limits the exploration of the practical ways by which cities operated in
relation to each other and within provincial and then state and national governments.17
What is missing, however, is an analysis that integrates recent advances made in
understanding political conflict in individual districts, or provinces, within a greater
government, with an acknowledgment that focus on the institution that represents what
different authors call municipal communities or towns, that is, the city council.
This thesis takes that extra step. That is, it suggests that to plumb the centrifugal
forces that spun one colony into many countries the observer must first understand the
political place of city government within the Spanish imperial system, from its
implantation in the sixteenth century, through its crown-sponsored revival and
extension during the Bourbon Reforms (1759-1788) and constitutional monarchy
(1808-1814, 1820-1821). City government was not a static institution, serving different
functions and groups at different moments, so the thesis has been organized into seven
chronological chapters to mark the most important developments, from conquest to
early national state formation. The first chapters, “A Republic o f Cities (1524-1759)”
and “City and Colonial State (1542-1760)” provide the background for an analysis of
the role of the city in independence-era government and political ideology with a
discussion of the origin, development and function of municipal government in the
Kingdom of Guatemala (Central America). Rather than presenting an institutional
1' The Argentine historian Jose Carlos Chiaramonte comes closest. In his book, Ciudades, provincias, Estados: Origenes de la Nacion Argentina (1800-1846) ([Buenos Aires]: Co. Editoria Espasa Calpe), Chiaramonte explores the role of the city in independence-era Argentina, paying particular attention to importance of municipal government to political ideas. His book is strangely silent, however, on the operation of city government outside the capital of Buenos Aires, on the practical relations between city
11
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
study of the Spanish city council (cabildo), this chapter explores the New World legacy
of the Spanish political and legal philosophy that city living equated with civilization
and city government meant good government for both Spanish and non-Spanish
communities, each of which was considered a separate “republic.” The approach argues
for the elimination of the artificial distinction between “local” and “imperial” or “royal”
government as such a distinction was not reflected in contemporary understanding. City
government was more than a resented or limited local authority; in theory, law and
practice, the status of the city in the Spanish imperial political system was equivalent to
that of imperial governors and the clergy. The Spanish city, or the republic as it was
called, was the source of civilization and political legitimacy, with residency (yecindad)
within a city conferring political status within the broader Spanish realm. The network
of Spanish cities established at conquest represented more than a dozen urban centers in
a wild territory. The Spanish conquest cities and their multi-league hinterlands, over
which they exercised judicial, administrative, and political authority, provided not just
supplies and labor but the territorial foundations for the provinces and districts of the
colony, and later the independent states of Central America.
The third and fourth chapters address the Bourbon City and Spanish State from
1760 to 1808, and find the political influence and dynamism o f city councils on the rise
in Central America in an era of political reorganization, despite universal grumbling of
local and imperial officials about the city’s waning influence. Analysis o f specific
economic and territorial policies shows that rather than abandoning city government,
and state government, and on the role o f non-Spaniards in the expansion o f city government in the
12
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the reforms o f Bourbon King Charles III attempted to increase the number of towns
exercising political and fiscal authority. This reevaluation of the purpose of the
Bourbon reforms challenges traditional interpretations o f a “centralizing” policy and
argues instead for an attempt at a uniform decentralization of political authority that
kept power divided between imperially-appointed governors and local authorities.
Since this policy evolved simultaneously with a move to consolidate certain territorial
jurisdictions, contradictions led to challenges. From the challenges posed at a
municipal level, I argue for the growth of a city-based regionalism that reinforced
tensions between new and old town councils forced to co-exist within a single province.
This regionalism would have a determinant impact in the independence era.
Addressing dramatic political changes underway in the aftermath of Napoleon’s
invasion o f Spain in 1808, the fifth chapter, “From Cabildo to Ayuntamiento
Constitutional: City and State On the Cusp of Independence (1808-1821),” considers
how the establishment of fully elective town councils (aynntamientos constitutionals)
under the Constitution of 1812 irrevocably altered the foundations o f city and state
government in the Spanish world. It shows how the democratization o f city council,
and the first rejection o f the “two republics” (one Spanish, one Indian), led to increased
popular participation in local government and increased expectation o f political
opportunity by the region’s mixed classes, particularly those of partially African
descent. The tensions that emerged between Indian and casta communities that
developed in this period due to the need to compete for places in formerly one-ethnicity
Spanish Constitutional period.
13
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
city councils would serve as a disruptive force after independence. Yet, once again,
government reforms meant not just strengthened and expanded municipal institutions
but attempts to forge provincial government through an entirely new political
institution—the provincial deputation. The success and failure o f the provincial
deputation as a source o f alternate legitimate local power is explored.
Chapter 6, “Anarchic Dogma, Natural Liberty, New Socieities: The Central
American Municipality at Independence, 1821-1823,” demonstrates the results of the
strengthening of city government in communities o f all types and sizes in the two years
following Central American independence. From individual declarations of
independence made by the principal cities of the isthmus in the fall o f 1821 (each with
its own conditions) to a referendum o f over 175 city councils on whether to join the
Mexican Empire of Agustin Itiirbide, the independence o f the Kingdom of Guatemala
from Spain was a purely municipal affair. After exploring the implications o f placing
the decisions about the isthmus’ future in the hands o f the growing number o f city
councils, this chapter explores in depth one instance o f the type o f provincial rivalry
which would continue to plague the states of Central America after independence. It
follows the rivalry between the cities o f Tegucigalpa and Comayagua to head the
province o f Honduras, and the intricate web o f relations and alliances between principal
cities and the small towns of the countryside through which the rivalry operated.
The final chapter, “City, State and Nation in Central America, 1825-1850,”
demonstrates the results o f the municipal heritage in independent Central America.
The tensions between city and province spilled over into the era o f city and state, and
14
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
fostered instability and fragmentation, but also contributed to the eventual consolidation
of the states o f Central America. First, the chapter explores the initial attempts o f the
constituent congress o f the Central American federation to evolve a political ideology
that would move sovereignty from the cities to the state. Then, it shows the tensions
that arose between this philosophy and the extension by Central American legislators of
the traditional political system that delegated most implementation o f government
responsibilities— from conducting censuses to collecting taxes to military recruitment—
to democratically elected city councils of each state. Finally, by distinguishing the
political behavior of the principal cities—divided in independence as they were in the
years leading up to it—and the smaller cities, the thesis concludes that the states o f
Central America survived despite the disputes of the ciudades and in large part by the
determination o f the villages, or pueblos, to ensure the existence o f some central
authority capable of mediating in their most difficult disputes. The behavior of the
smaller towns, seeking stability, is contrasted with the bitter and heedless rivalries of
the bigger cities that promoted the civil wars that beset the isthmus from the 1820s
through the 1840s.
Since the city councils acted in response to the decisions o f their members, each
chapter also considers briefly the men of the city councils of three Central American
cities—the colonial capital, Guatemala City; the port town of Sonsonate; and the mining
center of Tegucigalpa. Each o f these cities governed an extensive district and their
members, in all periods, came from the best families each community could proffer. If
the families changed with the different opportunities o f the different periods, and
15
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
different methods o f selection city councilors (sale of office, limited election, general
election), the political careers o f the men involved did not. In each and every
generation, city councilors combined these duties with work as royal officials in the
colonial period, government officials after independence, and military service in both
periods. The men of the last colonial and first independent city councils became some
of the isthmus’ finest statesmen. The discussion of the political careers of municipal
members addresses the permanent role of big city governments as the training ground
for state and national politicians.
By taking the city as our unit of analysis and studying it in the context of the
states or provinces it made up in a time of political change, this project moves to clarify
the source of the anarchical or separatist tendencies of this period beyond vague,
imprecise and contradictory descriptions of “regionalism” or “provincialism” that are
currently used. For different authors, “region” described a province or county, an
important town and its satellites, or an area with pretensions to statehood which
combined several colonial administrative divisions.18 “Provincialism” applied both to
towns fighting for position in a provincial hierarchy or to a province disputing its
sovereignty with the colonial capital. Even scholars developing new theoretical models
to study the local in national politics19 have not agreed on the identification— or
definition—of a legitimate geopolitical site from which to study the evident unrest of
18 Barman, Brazil: The Forging o f a Nation; Momer, Region and State- Guardino, Peasants, politics and the formation o f Mexico's National State.19 Mallon, Peasant and Nation; Joseph and Nugent, eds., Everyday form s o f state formation: Aldo Lauria- Santiago, “Polity without a National State: State Formation, Sovereignty, and the Indian Peasantry of El Salvador during the Early Nineteenth Century. MS, 1995; Xiomara Avendaho Rojas, “Las Caractcristicas
16
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the period. For example, some study the mechanism o f change in one particular town
over time, others the meaning of voting in two new states.20 Although assigning
multiple meanings to a concept o f region is not necessarily a contradictory practice, it
should at least be a conscious one. Provinces were made up o f municipal districts.
Regions, whatever their larger structure, also broke down into municipal districts.
Study o f the behavior o f these municipal districts, in relation to their local governors,
state authorities and imperial or national institutions, provides a way to theorize the
divisive behavior of many of them in a way that can be compared across regions and
across nation-states. For, at least through independence, all of Spain’s American
colonies experienced the municipal revival pushed by the Bourbons and the Spanish
Cortes. In their response to this municipal strength after independence, we can begin to
discover why the dissolution favored by the advance o f local and regional projects
within a larger polity proved overwhelming in Central America, Gran Colombia and the
River Plate (Argentina) but not in Mexico.
Using the city as a unit of analysis, we can also begin to bridge some o f the gaps
in the current historiography of Latin American nation-state formation. Instead o f
focusing on social groups—provincial elites, indigenous peasants, mestizo laborers or
artisans—we can begin to understand the relationships among and between urban
merchants, rural landowners, small farmers and laborers of varying ethnic backgrounds
through the organization which each group fought to control and uniformly used to
de la Ciudadania en Centroamerica durante el siglo XIX: Estudio de los distritos electorates de Quezaltenango y Granada,” Revista de Historia, 5-6 (1995): 20-29.:o See note 19: for the former point, Lauria-Santiago and Mallon; for the latter Avendano Rojas.
17
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
communicate requests, demands and responses to state and national governments and to
each other: the city councils. Such an approach makes explicit what is implicit in many
recent studies: cities are the lived, organized and structured “imagined community”—
the political community that is the direct descendant o f the republic.21
Terminology
This dissertation tells the story o f a plethora o f cities and provinces, some of
which go through repeated name and alliance changes. Several maps have been
included to help the reader locate places physically, but it is more difficult to find a
linguistic thread that communicates the changing terminology of three hundred years of
geographical nomenclature. The following paragraphs explain the choices made and
conventions used to provide some unity or clarity to a complicated jumble of name-
changing redistricted places. Some o f the conventions require an anachronistic use of
names, but hopefully the reader will forgive the sacrifice o f absolute authenticity for
understanding.
Let us start with the basics. The dissertation deals with the territory included in
the Kingdom o f Guatemala, a colony of the Spanish empire that stretched from Chiapas
to Costa Rica. At times, to avoid confusion between the kingdom and one of its
provinces, Guatemala, I refer to the Kingdom of Guatemala as “Central America.” This
21 City and town councils make repeated appearances in such works, both as representatives of their communities in larger struggles, and as the body to which local residents turn to in times of crisis. Terry Rugeley, for example, in his study o f Mayan participation in a caste war in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico in 1S47 begins with a discussion of the municipal organization through which the Mayan communities operated. Florencia Mallon’s Peasant and Nation relies on the study of two peasant communities, and repeatedly draws attention to communication between the communities and their provincial, state and national interlocutors by means of their municipal councils. Rugeley, Yucatan's Maya peasantry and the origins o f the Caste War, Chapter 1; and Mallon, Peasant and Nation.
18
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
term was not in use during the colonial period, and originated as an official name for the
United Provinces of Central America, later the Central American Federation, in 1824.
For the colonial period, “Central America” should be understood to include what
became the five states o f Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa as
well as the territory that is now the Mexican state of Chiapas. Chiapas was an integral
part of the Kingdom of Guatemala until its independence, and the direct link between
that colony and the Mexican port of Veracruz. The term does not, however, include
either Panama or the Dominican Republic, sometimes included as part o f an economic
Central American unit in the twentieth century. At the time under consideration,
Panama was a province o f Colombia and the Caribbean island-state, the Domincan
Republic, has never had direct political ties with Central America. The country of
Belize, formerly an English colony to which the country of Guatemala still lays claim,
is not politically or economically considered by nineteenth-century or modern-day
Central Americans as part o f their community.
When referring to a new city or town, I will sometimes include the province to
which it belonged in parentheses, to help the reader locate the place geographically.
However, since the Kingdom of Guatemala comprised as few as 15 and as many as 32
“provinces” in the colonial period, the reader may find it useful to consult the maps in
the beginning to determine the actual political affiliation o f a particular place. The
country now known as El Salvador was a province called San Salvador. The term El
Salvador, which became the name of the independent state in 1824, is used here to
distinguish the province from its capital, San Salvador. Eighteenth-century documents
19
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
sometimes refer to the territories we now know as the countries o f Honduras and
Nicaragua as Comayagua and Leon, respectively, the names of the capital cities of the
intendancies established in 1786. The country names are used in the text to refer to
provinces, to prevent confusion between the cities and the more extensive jurisdictions.
Most city names remain constant during the period under consideration. There
is however, one notable exception. The current capital o f the country o f Guatemala is
known as Guatemala Ciudad, or Guatemala City. The same city was also the capital of
the Kingdom o f Guatemala. From the conquest until an earthquake forced the
relocation of the kingdom capital, the city was located in the valley o f Panchoy and was
called Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala (1524-1776). The abandoned Santiago
repopulated over time, took the name “Antigua Guatemala" and is called simply
Antigua today. The new capital, with the relocated population and institutions of the
old capital, was located about 30 miles away in the Valley o f the Hermit, a.k.a Valley of
the Cows. The common name of the refounded city was Nueva Guatemala or “New
Guatemala” but its official title was Asuncion de Guatemala (1776-present). In this
work, I generally refer to Guatemala City. If the events take place before 1776, the
reader will know that the action occurred in Santiago/Antigua. If they take place after
1776, the reader may imagine the scenery o f Asuncion/Nueva Guatemala.
As will become clear in the text o f the dissertation, the types o f provinces in
which a city, town or village could be located changed under different administrations.
In the early colonial period, there were alcaldias mayores, corregimientos, gobiernos,
provincias, distritos, and partidos, each with a different type o f governor and of
20
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
different size. In general alcaldias mayores and corregimientos tended to be county
sized districts with one principal Spanish city or Indian town in which a governor
resided. Provincias and gobiemos were larger territories whose governor had, in
addition to fiscal and political responsibilities, military and defense charges; they might
include several important towns. However, the term provirtcia did not always have a
fixed meaning. Finally, distritos and partidos were smaller sections o f a larger district,
likely to represent a parish circuit. Ater independence, terminology o f the French
revolution led to the division of new states into departments (departamentos) and
districts (distritos). The distinctions between the types o f district are dealt with in more
detail in the text, as different terms come to be used in the Kingdom o f Guatemala and
its successor states.
21
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 1
A Republic of Cities: the Kingdom of Guatemala, 1524-1760
Cities that are established and founded are the security and constancy of conquered kingdoms, and, more, their principal heads, for they are the center for establishing the primary armed forces and political government. . in them commerce, the principal nerve that keeps and nourishes monarchies, happily plays (juega). In the cities, the cult of God is resplendent with sumptuous and rich temples, and they are adorned not only with illustrious houses, important and renowned, but with venerable and respectable ecclesiastic and secular tribunals. Francisco Fuentes y Guzman, ca. 1680
Recordation Florida, Book 5, Chapter 4
“Pedro de Alvarado sped with his army through the whole land like a bolt o f
lighting subjecting most of it by force of arms and the rest by fear,” wrote one o f
Guatemala’s early historians, Dominican friar Antonio de Remesal (1616-1617), of the
man who led the forces that brought much of current-day Guatemala, El Salvador and
Honduras under Spanish control between 1523 and 1527. Alvarado was no less rapid in
consolidation of his conquests. In July of 1524, when he arrived at the site the natives
called Panchoy, he founded his first capital. First came the physical creation, building
houses with the help o f Mexican troops and Guatemalan natives. This was not,
however, sufficient, as Remesal noted, for Alvarado “did not name the settlement nor
[establish] more government (policia) or form o f Republic than an army lodged in its
tents and pavilions.” A republic, for a sixteenth-century Spaniard, was a city, and it was
not until a conquistador formally established his capital that he fulfilled his goal not just
to “discover” but to “settle” (descubrir y poblar), and could legally allocate victory’s
spoils. Conquest without government was not a legitimate exercise. Soldiers’ camps
22
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
had to be replaced with official settlements and their officials, to legitimize and confirm
battle results.1
Alvarado did not wait for very long before consolidating his political authority. On
the Monday following the initial construction, July 25, 1524, he ordered his men into
battle formation to the sounds o f fifes and drums, harquebuses and muskets. After
hearing mass said by the army’s chaplain, governor and men solemnly called on the
apostle Santiago, bestowed his name on the new city, and dedicated their church to him.
On the same day, Alvarado named the first mayors and aldermen, including a town
constable, who served as Santiago's skeletal town council (cabildo). Three days of
celebration followed. Then, on the July 29, Alvarado’s soldiers completed the exercise
of foundation, figuratively exchanging sword for ploughshare, and established
residency in their new hometown by inscribing themselves as the original householders
{vecinos) o f the community. In most other cities, incorporation was followed
immediately with the tracing o f the city layout and allotment by the town council of
land and lots for houses and civic and ecclesiastic buildings. In many cases, the
conquistador or council also assigned the labor of the conquered Indian populations to
the new vecinos.2 In Santiago however, the site was only “lent” to Alvarado’s troops by
1 Antonio de Remesal, Historia General de las Indias Occidentales y particular de la Gobemacion de Chiapay Guatemala, ed. Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, Vol. 175 (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1964-1966), Book 1, Chapters 2 & 3, pp. 81-83. Translations are mine, unless otherwise noted.* See, for example, the 1536 foundation of the Villa de San Pedro del Puerto de Cavallos (San Pedro Sula) by Pedro de Alvarado, who, after “trasar y asentar una villa....la poblo de los vezinos que hera/ ne<;esario. A los quales luego les repartio los yndios de la comarca. Demas desto, para mejor ftmdai^ion, poblamiento y sustentacion de la Villa y vezinos della, proveyo de mas de dozientos yndios de sus
23
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the native residents o f an existing settlement, and the procedure of land distribution was
postponed for three years, until the city relocated to its first permanent home in a
neighboring valley.3 The delay, however, emphasizes that for the Spanish of the
sixteenth century, legitimate government meant establishing cities, and that if the
physical trappings of such government could be postponed, the legal and political
foundations could not. Central America, like the rest o f Spain’s conquered territories in
the Old and New Worlds, would be first and foremost a network o f self-governing
cities.
The contemporary understanding o f the role o f the city is well captured by
Guatemalan historian Francisco Fuentes y Guzman (1612-1696), descendant of
conquerors, city councilor and organizer o f the municipal archives o f Santiago, “my
Cabildo,” and aspirant to a Crown appointment as Guatemala’s official historian.
Fuentes y Guzman wrote that
[cjities that are established and founded are the security and constancy of conquered kingdoms, and, more, their principal heads, for they are the center for establishing the primary armed forces and political government...; in them commerce, the principal nerve that keeps and nourishes monarchies, happily plays. In the cities, the cult o f God is resplendent with sumptuous and rich temples, and they are adorned not only with illustrious houses, important and renowned, but with venerable and respectable ecclesiastic and secular tribunals.4
esclavos a hazer las labrantas para senbrar mayz.” “Relacion hecha por el Cabildo de Gracias a Dios sobre lo sucedido en la provincia de Higueras y Honduras..., 21 de diciembre de 1536” in AGI Guatemala 44. Printed in Hector M. Leyva, ed., Documentos Coloniales de Honduras (Tegucigalpa: Centro de Publicaciones Obispado de Choluteca, 1991), pp. 1-7.3 Remesal, Historia General, p. 83.4 Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, in Fuentes y Guzman, Obras Historicas de Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman, ed. Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, Vol. 230, (Madrid, Ediciones Atlas, 1969-1972), Book 5, Chapter 4, p. 159.
24
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Civil, military and ecclesiastic government, as well as commerce, all operated from
a municipal base. A city, town or village with its town council (concejo or cabildo),
was, in the language o f the times, a republic (republica) and had the requisite
legislative, executive and judicial attributes to govern land and people.5 Historians of
early modem Spain differ on whether the republican tradition derived directly from
Roman institutions or from the processes of the medieval reconquest during which the
kings of Spain granted extensive jurisdictions, rights and privileges to the settlers who
repopulated territories conquered from the Muslims. In the New World, as had
happened in each region and each phase of the reconquest, the political system created
was municipal, establishing autonomous Christian city-states responsible directly to the
monarch and with the responsibility o f representing their community in the Spanish
Cortes.6 Each city had its own royal charter and regulations, so there was no
standardized body o f law relating to city government.7
5 Juan de Solorzano (1575-1655) in his Politica Indiana, Title 4, Book 5, Chapter 1, referred to the cities, villas and places (lugares) o f Spaniards as Republicas or poblaciones. The term was in Central America from the moment of foundation of Santiago. It is interesting to note, however, that in medieval Spain in the privileges and fueros granted by the crown to reconquista towns, the word republic was not used. See for example, the 1847 collection of numeros royal grants from 900 to 1250, Tomas Munoz y Torrero, ed., Coleccion de Fueros Municipales y Cartas Pueblas de las (sic) reinos de Castilla, Leon, Corona de Aragon v Navarra. (Valladolid: Lex Nova, 1977). However, Law 1, Title, 2, Book 7 o f the Novisima Recopilacion de las Leyes de Espana (Madrid: [s.n.], 1805-1829), refers to the Republica that “the justicias, regidores y oficios o f the cities and towns are to govern” (1480).6 Helen Nader makes a persuasive case for this point of view in Liberty in Absolutist Spain: The Habsburg Sale o f Towns, 1516-1700 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 92-94.' Munoz y Torrero, ed., Coleccion de Fueros Municipales y Cartas Pueblas, passim.
25
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
A Municipal Conquest
Central America experienced its ‘municipal conquest’ in the early sixteenth century,
as one conquistador after another sailed, marched, fought, founded a city to consolidate
victory and then repeated the exercise. Most o f the dozen or so principal towns and
cities of the isthmus that stretches from present-day Chiapas to Costa Rica trace their
foundation to this twenty-year process of “fight and found” (1524-1542) undertaken by
three groups of Spanish military men. (See Table 1.1) Achieving far more than legal
justification for the domination o f several Indian kingdoms, this extended ‘municipal
conquest’ established the bases for the region’s territorial, economic and political
organization and the capitals around which both colonial and independent Central
America would organize.
Pedro Alvarado, his brothers and their expedition conquered the Quiche and
Kakchiquel kingdoms, and brought most o f what constitutes the modem republics of
Guatemala and El Salvador under Spanish control between 1524 and 1536. Pedrarias
Davila (Pedro Arias de Avila) established his group of conquistadores in Nicaragua,
while Francisco Montejo conquered the Yucatan peninsula and Chiapas. The territories
of modern-day Honduras were the meeting point contested by all three leaders who
founded several towns and cities on the Caribbean coast and in the mountain highlands
of the interior in attempts to lay claim to what would become a separate province. The
conquistador capitals of this period—Santiago (1524), Leon (1523), Ciudad Real (1528)
and Comayagua (1540)—became secular and ecclesiastical capitals of the provinces of
26
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chiapas and Comayagua (Honduras), which were joined by the
Spanish crown into one politico-administrative district, the Kingdom of Guatemala, in
1542.8 Of the major towns, only Costa Rica’s Cartago (1565) owes its founding not to
the initial conquest but to later exploration. The conquest gave Central America its
capitals.
3 Located in an area without densely settled Indian populations or metal riches, it took a second wave of settlers to consolidate an early conquest with a durable city foundation. According to Juarros, Costa Rica was conquered in 1522, and one o f the Alvarados had extended his conquests into the land between the mouth of the San Juan River and the Escudo de Veraguas (Panama). However, Santiago de Cartago owed its title of city to settlement forty years later. Information on this and other foundings comes primarily from the work of nineteenth-century Guatemalan historian, Domingo Juarros, Compendio de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala. 1500-1800 (Guatemala: Editorial Piedra Santa, 1981), p. 315.
27
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 1.1: Foundation of the Principal Spanish Towns and Cities of the Kingdom o f Guatemala, 1523-1821________________________
Municipality Status Founded Political PositionGuatemala City 1524-1776: Santiago 1776- : Asuncion Santiago (Antigua)
Ciudad 1524 A
{1776)
Capital: Kingdom o f Guatemala (1549-1821); Location moved in 1776 after an earthquake; to 1753: 76 pueblos de indios
Capital o f Alcaldia mayor, Sacatepcquez; 1799- town councilQuczaltcnango Pueblo 1523 Capital o f Corregimiento (1523-1821) ; 1 “ ayuntamiento: 1805Trinidad de Sonsonate
Villa ca. 1552 Capital o f Alcaldia Mayor (1552-1821) Port city (Acajutla); 21 pueblos in 8 parishes
Ciudad Real de Chiapa
VillaCiudad
1528 M 1565
Capital o f Alcaldia Mayor (AM) (1529-1786); o f intendancy & partido (1787-); 56 pueblos, 20 parishes
San Salvador VillaCiudad
ca. 1526 1545 or 1543 A
Capital o f Alcaldia Mayor (1542-1786), of Partido & Intendancy (1786-1821); 50 pueblos in 11 parishes (1526 rder/ 1528 founding)
S Miguel de la Frontera
VillaCiudad
1530 A pre-1599
Capital o f Partido in AM S Salvador: 2 villas, 40 pueblos, valles & haciendas, in 7 parishes
San Vicente de Austria, o Lorenzana
PuebloVillaCiudad
163516581812
Capital o f Partido in AM S Salvador, 5 parishes, 1 villa and 12 pueblos, with haciendas and obrajes
Valladolid o Coma vacua
VillaCiudad
1540 1557 Mo
Capital o f Gobcmacion (15497-1787); from 1787, o f partido and intendcncy, o f 94 pueblos and other places in 25 parishes
Xercs de la Frontera -Choluteca
PuebloVilla
1526 1585 D
S Jorge de Olancho Villa 1530 A (San Jorge Olanchito)S Pedro Zula Ciudad 1536 A Cabildo extinguished by 1800; founded as S. Pedro Puerto
CaballosTegucigalpa Real de
MinasVilla
-1580
1768
Capital AM, then Partido, then AM (1580-1788; 1812-1821): villa, 6 lugares de ladinos, 17 pueblos de indios, 13 minerales, valles & haciendas, 10 parishes
Truxillo en Honduras
VillaExtingReest
152416361807
Port; Founded on orders by Cortes; abandoned after Dutch pirate attack, 1643; rcpopulated 1789, w families fm Galicia & Canaries
Gracias a Dios Ciudad 1536 D Capital, Gbno of Honduras (1536-1542); Aud. de Ios Confines (1542-1549)
Leon de Nicaragua Ciudad 1523 D Capital o f Gobiemo (-1786), partido and Intendancy (1787- 1821), 2 villas, 6 pueblos, many valles and haciendas
Granada Ciudad 1523 D Capital de Partido, Gbno. of Nicaragua: de 1 villa & 17 pueblosNueva Segovia Ciudad
Reestca. 1530 (1809) D
Capital de Partido in Gbno. o f Nicaragua: 1 villa and 5 pueblos
Rcalcjo Villa 1534 A Capital o f Partido, villa of mulatto carpintcrs; portRivas Villa 1783 Title of villaCartago Ciudad
Reestca. 1565 1778
Capital o f Gobcmacion (1565?-1821), of 3 villas , 10 pueblos
Monasteries: F = Franciscan, D = Domincan, M = Mercedarian, SJDD = San Juan de Dios Conquistadores: A-AIvarado, M-Mazariegos, Mo-Montejo, Ch- Chaves, D- Davila, de la Cueva (or lieutenants) Sources: Juarros, Compendio, passim. Taplin, Middle American Governors, passim ; Bemabe Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala durante el gobiemo de Antonio Gonzalez Saravia, 1801- 1811, passim. Truxillo (1789): Gonzalez, AGI Guatemala 453. Rivas title, Ricardo Magdaleno, Titulos de Indias, p. 283. Choluteca:www.hondudata.com/enciclopcdia/encicIoncw/honduras/mapas/municipios/ChoIutcca/MunidcchoIuteca.htm
28
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Not only the capitals came from the process o f “fight and found,” but also the
provincial organization of the Kingdom developed from the satellite towns (villas)
founded by the conquistadors. These satellite towns were founded by small groups of
settlers dispatched from the first cities to ensure the submission o f indigenous groups,
whose tendency to rebel threatened the early Spanish settlements, and to defend a
territory’s far reaches from the predations of rival groups of conquistadors. These
towns became capitals (cabeceras) o f smaller districts— alcaldias mayores and
partidos—within the larger areas controlled by each conquistador, and, later Crown-
appointed Spanish governors and bishops. For example, the Alvarado contingent,
responding to Indian uprisings in the Cuscatlan district, established the city of San
Salvador (1526) and marked an outer boundary to its jurisdiction with the founding of
the town o f San Miguel (1530). These two towns anchored what would become the
province, and later intendancy of San Salvador, along with the town of San Vicente,
founded in 1658 at a mid-way point between San Salvador and Guatemala City.9
Similarly, Pedrarias Davila, established established the jurisdiction o f what would
become the province, and later intendancy of Nicaragua in his network to the south
where he and his allies had participated in the foundations o f Leon (1523), Granada
(1523) and Nueva Segovia (ca. 1530).
9 Fifty Spanish families founded a village in 1635, and convinced the crown to grant it an ayuntamiento and villa status in 1658 with a 1600 peso donation to the crown. Juarros, Compendio, p. 269. For a thorough treatment of indigo production and commerce, see Robert S. Smith, “Produccion y comercio de anil en la Guatemala colonial,” in Luis Rene Caceres, ed., Lecturas de Historia de Centroamerica ([San Jose, CR]: Banco Centroamericano de Integracion Economica, 1989), pp. 141-175.
29
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
As is clear from Maps 1 through 6, Central America's municipal conquest
permanently shaped territorial organization of the isthmus, with provinces and districts
forming around the principle Spanish settlements. It also produced economic
development that favored the western half o f the isthmus. For the mountain highlands
were not only where most Spanish cities flourished, but also were where the Indian
peoples lived. These highland districts became centers for internal trade o f the
agricultural and industrial products of the isthmus. Lowland towns on the Caribbean
shore were limited to ports and military outposts meant to trade with Spain and deter
British incursions. Although also founded at the time of conquest, they later often
became depopulated because of piracy and a difficult climate. Entrepots for trade and
without a significant or permanent Spanish population, they had little political or
religious clout within the system. Most were in the north and favored the growth of
Santiago as commercial center: San Pedro Sula, (1536),10 Truxillo (1524-1646), Santo
Tomas (1604) and Golfo Dulce (1674), and, much later, the fortress of Omoa (1740).
In the south, there was only the port of San Juan, on the Caribbean coast o f Nicaragua;
by the seventeenth century it was often controlled by British privateers.11
10 The 1536 act of incorporation of San Pedro de Puerto de Caballos by Pedro de Alvarado, along with the list of repartimientos of Indian villages has been printed in Mario Felipe Martinez Castillo, Apunta- mientos para una historia colonial de Tegucigalpa y su alcaldia mayor (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Universitaria, 1982), pp. 91-96.11 Juarros, Compendio, p. 36. It is likely that the Alvarados also sent some of Guatemala's early vecinos to found Sonsonate in order to have a Pacific port with which to trade with Peru, in whose conquest the indefatigable Alvarado also took part. A fire in 1564 destroyed that city’s act o f foundation. Santiago's vecinos had encomiendas of Indians in the Sonsonate district, suggesting long-standing connections. JuarTos, Compendio, p. 267. For a first-person account of a Dutch pirate’s predations in the Caribbean,
30
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
On the Pacific Coast, communication among the American territories led to
development of two ports that serviced the legal and illegal trade that exchanged indigo,
sugar, cacao, tobacco and silver for wines from Peru and Asian goods imported from
Mexico. Acajutla was a way station managed from the nearby town o f Sonsonate
(1552). Realejo (1534) developed a shipbuilding industry in the sixteenth century, and
served as the Pacific outlet for the Nicaraguan district, as it was only 4 leagues from
provincial capital Leon.12
Together, these highland and lowland towns (or republics) filled in the conquered
territory, set the general limits and affiliations o f the provinces of the isthmus, and
provided the republic o f cities that was the backbone o f the Spanish political and
economic network in Central America. See, for examples, three seventeenth-century
maps—one by Fuentes y Guzman—that emphasize the locations o f city settlements, and
a fourth, from 1657, that show the towns and cities in relation to their provinces. As
was traditional with contemporary Spanish map-making, cartographers represented only
key features on land— rivers, mountains, and cities. A cluster of houses represented
towns or cities, with bishoprics distinguished by the addition of a distinctive church
building to the group. Yet, where Spanish maps were dotted with hundreds of cities,
towns and villages, only the dozen or so conquest towns o f Central America found their
see John Esquemeling, The Buccaneers o f America, First Publish'd in 1784 (Glorieta, NM: Rio Grande Press, 1992).u Juarros, Compendio, p. 21,
31
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
way onto the maps, while Indian villages, no matter how important, did not.13 If there
were provinces—and there were dozens, as we shall see below—it was rare for them to
be located at a point on the map; instead, province names floated above an area, fixed
neither to a territory nor a series of towns (see Figures 1-4). In a rare instance of an
eighteenth-century map distinguishing among the different districts of the Kingdom of
Guatemala, the city-based nature of political territory is equally clear. In a map whose
borders are too regular to reflect the reality o f the mountainous, uneven territories, one
can see each province was named for the city whose seat was its capital (Figure 5). The
representation, then, was clear: cities were not only the places where civilized people
lived; they were the places that mattered politically. An immigrant or visitor was
encouraged to head to one o f the limited number of Spanish communities to establish
himself. They were the only places he could see ahead o f time on the map.
13 For examples o f maps o f sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain, see the Osher Map Collection at the University o f Southern Maine, which includes sixteenty-century maps by Girolamo Ruscelli and Hessel Gerritsz.
32
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 5: Audiencia de Guatemala, Eighteenth Century
Source: AGI, Mapas y Pianos, Guatemala 309 (Courtesy, Archivo General de Indias)
33
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Networks and the Republic of Cities
Some studies of the “urbanization” o f conquest have correctly identified the
importance o f municipal organization as a key feature of Spanish American society.
However, some of the findings based on studies o f the larger districts of Spanish
America, notably the viceroyalties of New Spain (Mexico) and Peru, do not hold up in
the case o f Central America. Historian Lyle Me Alistair has argued that there were four
principal characteristics o f the “urbanization” of conquest. The first three were the
haphazard and unstable nature of the earliest cities, which led to a significant number of
peripatetic capitals; dispersal and isolation of the centers o f population to places where
labor supplies were available; and weak articulation o f urban networks due to the
distances as well as natural barriers that separated Spanish towns and discouraged
communication among them. Lastly, McAlistair argued that the Spanish cities looked
outward to major administrative centers, where privileges were dispensed by imperial
authorities, leading to location of towns to favor export and imports (i.e. on the
Caribbean Coast) and closer contacts between these ‘isolated’ cities and Spain, than
between the cities themselves.14 In part because o f its fairly compact extension,
compared to the extensive viceroyalties o f Mexico and Peru to the north and south, and
in part because of the terrain, Central America’s municipal development did not share
these characteristics.
u Lyle McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700 (Minneapolis: University o f Minnesota Press, 1984), pp. 150-151.
34
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Some cities, like Santiago, did relocate in the initial years, but their foundation, as
seen above, was anything but “haphazard and unstable.” Santiago moved once because
its initial site was known to be temporary from the start, selected to make a political
statement and to take advantage of alliances with one group of Guatemalan natives in
order to establish a base from which to attack mutual enemies. Three years later, the
battles won, Santiago’s vecinos visited several different sites and voted, after extensive
discussion, on the site on which to trace out and build their city. Fifteen years later, a
devastating flood that killed the only woman governor of the colony, prompted them to
repeat the exercise. If the physical site o f Santiago changed, the government and
vecinos did not, nor did the city’s name.15 Further, each move reflected the suppleness
o f the city as both political and physical body: the physical location could shift without
undermining political organization. Even after two hundred years, the principle
remained valid. After a 1773 earthquake led to a difficult and contested decision to
abandon Santiago, the new city was considered a continuation o f the old. The city
council’s remove to a temporary home at the new site in 1776 that confirmed the
successful establishment of Nueva Guatemala de la Asuncion (Guatemala City), just as
15 Alvarado’s choice had fallen on the fortress of Iximche, as he stated, because it was “the center of all the country" with “more and better arrangements” to consolidate the conquest; it was also the capital of the Kaqchiquels, Alvarado’s ally against the Quiche Maya. In 1527, the permanent settlement of Santiago de los Caballeros was founded in the Kaqchiquel valley of Almolonga. After a flood in 1541, which killed Alvarado’s widow and interim governor Beatriz de la Cueva, the capital moved to the site of the present-day Antigua, Guatemala, its home for over two hundred years. Pedro de Alvarado to Heman Cortes, cited in AdriaanVan Oss, Catholic Colonialism: a parish history o f Guatemala, 1524-1821 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 10-11. For the discussions on moving the capital, see the town council acts o f 1527 in Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, ed, and Maria del Carmen Deola de Giron,
35
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the foundation o f a council had provided legitimacy to the foundation of Santiago. It
took a full decade to build the physical plant o f the transferred city and convince
residents, the bureaucracy and the church of the former capital, called Antigua, to
follow their government.16
Whether they moved or not, most o f these towns and cities became capitals of
provinces or districts. Several, like San Salvador, Chiapas, and Comayagua were
rapidly promoted from villa to ciudad, an increase in status that reflected the increased
value of their products and jurisdictions, and the astute decisions o f their founders to
place them in economically and politically viable locations.17 Comayagua, for example,
was not only near to mines discovered after its foundation and equidistant between
Caribbean and Pacific coasts as well as centrally located between Guatemala and
Nicaragua, but also had a climate better than several Honduran coastal towns where,
Comayagua’s cabildo wrote simply in 1555, “many die.”18 Some cities did become
depopulated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when even the more productive
cities experienced urban flight. However, this “ruralization” did not reflect poor
planning on the part o f the conquistadors. Instead, it derived directly from an economic
paleography, Libro Viejo de la Fundacion de Guatemala (Guatemala: Academia de Geografla e Historia de Guatemala, 1991), pp. 12-20, or Remesal, Historia general, pp. 83-86.10 For a detailed presentation o f the 1776 move of the capital and the tensions beween captain general and cabildo, see Pedro Perez Valenzuela. La nueva Guatemala de la Asuncion (Guatemala: Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 1934). Original documents, including a royal order o f 17 May 1776 expressing the king's displeasure with the cabildo’s resistance to the move, and the city’s protestations of cooperation and loyalty of 9 October of the same year, can be found in AGI Guatemala 534.1' Comayagua became a city in 1557 and Chiapas in 1565, per royal decree. San Salvador received its title from the king in either 1543 or 1545. Juarros cites two different dates in his Compendio pp. 21, 263. 18 “Informe de Cabildo de Comayagua, afio de 1555” in Martinez Castillo, Apuntamientos, pp. 97-98.
36
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
crisis that essentially cut off overseas trade and indirectly from Spanish maritime
weakness. Devastating pirate attacks along the Caribbean and even Pacific coasts sent
the inhabitants o f Leon, Granada and other cities to live on their inland farms.
However, when the economy revived in the eighteenth century, these same towns
resumed their former status. These “municipal conquest” cities also proved sufficient to
house and connect the Spanish residents o f the Hapsburg Kingdom of Guatemala for
two hundred years: only one new Spanish town incorporated in the seventeenth
century.19
Compared to modem times the Spanish cities of Central America were isolated and
separate. Even with a regular mail system established in the 1790s, it still took four
months for messages to travel from the capital to Costa Rica and back with the official
mail. However, most of the cities sent and received mail to other cities less than 100
leagues distant, with a turnaround time that, including a break to send cordilleras
through the dependent villages and to compose answers, was 30 days or less.20 The
fastest turnaround for correspondence with Spain was close to ten times longer.21
19 For a discussion of the process of ‘ruralization’ in the Kingdom of Guatemala see Fonseca, “Economia y Sociedad en Centroamerica (1540-1680)”, in Julio Pinto Soria, ed., Historia General de Centroamerica, v. 2. El Regimen Colonial (1524-1570), (Madrid: FLACSO, 1993), pp. 140-142. Fonseca argues that in the case of Nicaraguan cities Leon and Granada, it was not the general crisis but specific local factors that precipitated the abandonment of urban living. Leon changed sites after a 1610 earthquake, and many vecinos didn't build houses in the new provincial capital. Granada, on the other hand, had only 39 of 200 %-ecinos in residence 1679 because pirate attacks made rural living a more prudent choice.20 For a complete list o f distances from the capital to the cities and cabecera.' de partido o f the Kingdom of Guatemala in 1793, see AGCA A3.8, A1.25 Leg. 2603, Exp. 21389, f 4. O f the 43 places listed, only 6 were further than 200 leagues, 10 between 100 and 150 leagues distant. Fully half were less than 100 leagues from the capital, and 9 were under 50 leagues.21 Although correspondence could reach Spain in two months, it more often took four to six months for government correspondence to reach its destination in the Peninsula. Prepared after deliberation and
37
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 1.2: Kingdom of Guatemala, Frequency of Mails, 179422From Capital (Guatemala) Trip Takes Receive Back After DistanceTo: # Days # Days (in leagues)San Salvador y sus partidos 15 30 60San Miguel 23 50 97Comaiagua y sus partidos 30 40 117Costa Rica 60 60 400 (Cartago)Totonicapan 15 30 21Chimaltenango 10 20 11Solola 15 25Peten 60 60 165Verapaz 15 30 147 (Coban)Chiquimula 34 40 40Golfo (Dulce) y Omoa 34 40 81; 101 VSSonsonate 24 30 59Leon y su Provincia 23 50 183Quezaltenango 10 20 43Mazatenango 10 20 61Ciudad Real 40 60 140Zacatepeques 8 15 9 (Antigua)
Without minimizing the discomforts and dangers of isthmian travel,23 it seems likely
that from the sixteenth century, most Spanish towns and cities could reach the capital, or
its most important local trading partner, in a few days’ journey or less.24 So, while the
authorization, most responses did not arrive in the Kingdom of Guatemala before at least a year had passed. For this reason, appeals o f local decisions often took two to three years to resolve." AGCA A3.8/A1.25 Leg. 2603, Exp. 21389, f 4, 12. Estado o razon...., Pedro Gomez de la Pena, 1793, & Emplazamientos y recepciones de Prueba de todas las provincias del reino..., Nueva Guatemala, 23 April 1794, Juan Hurtado.23 Adriaan Van Oss, “The Autarkic Colonial Cities o f Central America” in eds. Robert J. Ross and Gerard J. Telkamp, Colonial Cities: essays on urbanism in a colonial context (Boston: M Nijoff, 1985), quantified archbishop Cortes y Larraz’ complaints o f his visit to the diocese o f Guatemala and San Salvador in the 1760s. O f 143 different overland trajectories, more than half (73) included violent climbs or descents: 65 mentioned rivers crossed by wading, canoe, sitting on a chair carried by wading Indians, or slung in a sack shot across the river. Thirty-nine routes suffered loose rocks or landslides; in another 34, either marshes or heavy brush and woods impeded progress. The bishop visited densely populated areas nearest the capital; it is hard to imagine the rest o f the provinces boasted better conditions.2-1 In an 1816 complaint o f the mayors of Sonsonate about restrictions placed on their jursdiction by the alcalde mayor, Mariano Bujons, it took less than a week for the complaint to travel to the Kingdom capital, three weeks for the complaint to be resolved, and eight days for the decision to reach Sonsonate.
38
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
urban centers o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala fostered communication and trade with
Spain, a developed internal communications network had greater importance.
The cities o f the Kingdom of Guatemala depended on the existence o f nested
networks: each capital of a partido or province served as local market and center of
departmental trade that connected it to its neighbors and the capital. Distance, natural
barriers, and competition did not in the case o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala lead to
external orientation, isolation and instability, or “an inordinate population concentration
in a few administrative centers long after Spanish domination o f the region ended.”25
Most of the isthmus’ Atlantic and Pacific ports were in decay or abandoned in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, due to a deadly climate, pirate raids and a crisis in
Spanish shipping. The towns in the densely populated Indian highlands— Santiago, San
Salvador, Tegucigalpa, Ciudad Real—grew and flourished while the coastal cities of
Gracias a Dios, Truxillo, Granada and Realejo faltered. As various authors show, the
commerce o f the Kingdom of Guatemala for much o f this period was primarily regional,
Alcaldes Ordinarios, Sonsonate, to Captain General, 20 January 1816; Antonio Arroyave to Alcaldes Ordinarios o f Sonsonate, Guatemala, 24 January 1816 and 14 February 1816. AMS, Caja 1810-21/3, Sobre que el Ale. Mr. Intento quartar la Jurisdiccion q. siempre han exercido los Alcaldes Ordin.s de este N.A. de 4 leguas en contomo... Chiapas’ mail was likely slow because of the need to coordinate with Oaxaca, whence the kingdom received most mail from the “Metropolis, Islands, y Mexican Kingdom." Yet, even Oaxaca could be reached by a courtier in a thirteen-day journey that included stops in six towns to pick up and deliver mail along the way. In 1805, Captain General Antonio Gonzalez M. ordered a second mail run each month. Mail took 13 days to reach Oaxaca from Guatemala, stopping in Totonicapan, Quezaltenango, Comitan, Ciudad, Real, Tuxtla, and Texuantepec. AGCA A1 Leg. 6091, Exp. 55306, f 74. Cuademo de Providencias, Despachos, Ordenes y Comunicaciones, 30 April 1805 ' 5 Lyle McAlaistair, Spain and Portugal in the New World, p. 151. As part o f a court case against Guatemala City in 1803, syndic Sebastian Melon compiled his 37 policy papers into a testimonial. These papers provide insight both into the role o f the syndic as city lawyer and conscience, the abuses of power that could exist in a council, and the relations between the Guatemala council, captain general and audiencia. AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 20.
39
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and was conducted between and among the principal urban centers o f the isthmus and
their American neighbors.26
More compact than most o f Spain’s American territories, the Kingdom o f Guatemala
had two principal trading circuits: the northern trade sector, which stretched from
Tegucigalpa through San Salvador and Chiapas to Oaxaca, and Veracruz in New Spain,
and the southern group that included part of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and
Caribbean and Peruvian trade and contraband (see Figures 6 and 7). Despite production
of export crops in Soconusco, Costa Rica, and the Izalco region o f Salvador (cacao) and
San Salvador and San Miguel (indigo), the Kingdom’s economy was reasonably self-
sufficient. The valley o f Guatemala specialized in wheat and sugarcane; the city
produced artisanal goods. The rest of the provinces produced for internal consumption
and surplus trade with nearby Mexican and Peruvian provinces: grains, cattle, cotton and
woven fabrics. For most o f the Spanish period, Tegucigalpa produced little more silver
than that necessary to support this economy.27 A limited contraband trade with the
British (cheap textiles), Peru (wine) and Mexico (various goods) supplemented what
could not be produced locally or profitably traded with Spain. Such an internal economy
required regular communication and cooperation in the organization of the ferias and
26 See Appendix G for a copy of a region-by-region analysis of the principal products o f the Kingdom of Guatemala, attributed to Spanish merchant Juan de Zavala (1753-1800). For more detailed discussion of the networks o f trade, see, Antonio Larrazabal, Apuntamientos sobre la agricultura y comercio del Reyno de Guatemala (Guatemala: M. Arevalo, 1811), also in Melendez, Textos Fundamentales, pp. 70-82.27 For discussion of the 17th century economy of the Kingdom of Guatemala and its economic crisis, see Murdo Macleod, Historia socio-economica de la America Central espanola, 1520-1720 (Guatemala: Editorial Piedra Santa, 1990), and Elizabeth Fonseca Corrales, “Economia y Sociedad...” in Julio Pinto
40
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
setting of market days so that it could function, more than it demanded frequent overseas
contact. The internal economy developed in the Kingdom of Guatemala favored
regionalization that centered on micro-economies, not on rejection o f local ties for
commerce.
Soria, ed., Historia General de Centroamerica. v. 2, El Regimen Colonial (1524-1570) (Madrid: FLACSO, 1993), pp. 137-149.
41
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 6: Commercial Trade Routes of Colonial Central America
i
<u$
5
v p y
k\ i ^s • :* .»% i *
i f ! ! n *t '*;■ j jn
. ' r I i
\ -, /
Source: Julio Pinto Soria, ed., Historia General de Centroamerica, v. 2, El Regimen Colonial (1524-1570) (Madrid: FLACSO, 1993). Figure 2.6.
42
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 7: Principal Agricultural Products, Kingdom of Guatemala
c\j
<\J
c\j m
ro
in
r o ^ m id
m
Source: Julio Pinto Soria, ed., Historia General de Centroamerica, v. 2, El Regimen Colonial (1524-1570) (Madrid: FLACSO, 1993), Figure 4.2.
43
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Certainly, the Kingdom o f Guatemala had an administrative center, the capital
Santiago, with an almost exclusive stranglehold on the export economy that increased
during the eighteenth century, despite some Bourbon efforts to strengthen provincial
autonomy. Guatemala’s elites had educational advantages over the rest of the audiencia,
because the sole university was in their city, and more access to interim governorships
and other appointments in the captain general’s gift. However, since most privileges and
immunities were dispensed directly by the monarch, this administrative importance did
not have the same weight as it might have had the economy, in fact, focused primarily on
the imports and exports whose official trade the capital’s merchants controlled, or had
there not been important contraband carried out on both coasts. There was inequality:
capital Santiago had more than its “fair” share of human, political and economic
resources. But spread throughout the isthmus were other regional centers, with their own
trade and power networks, anxious to skim some of that power and profit for themselves.
City Space
The above discussion explains the municipal organization that underlay all political
and territorial organization that followed the conquest o f Central America. However,
there is an important silence regarding the extensive territory that each city controlled. A
modem dweller o f high-rises associates the idea of a city with a built-up, densely
populated center and city limits with the division between urban sprawl and the first
signs of some sort of open space. The maps above would tend to support a mental image
44
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of a city reduced to an urban center. To a large extent, historians have applied these
same criteria to the study o f colonial Spanish American cities, focusing on the urban side
of city life and city government.28 However, in practice, the Spanish city was an urban
center, or casco, with a significant ‘hinterland’ (termino) that stretched for many leagues
and included numerous pockets o f human settlement. Such settlements ranged from
structured Indian villages, or pueblos, to ranches (haciendas), mines (minas), and aldeas,
lugares and valles (other forms o f rural Spanish settlement) in which Indian, Spanish,
mulatto and mestizo populations lived unregulated by official administration. The
republic of cities was more than just a series of connected urban centers; it was a series
of often-abutting provinces.
It was traditional for a republica to include large swathes o f land, to ensure that
every last square inch of countryside pertained to a legitimate community. According to
Castilian law, a city’s limits were defined in relation with those o f its neighbors, and a
new city’s land claims were not to infringe on those of its nearest neighbor.29 In the
Central American case, there were no pre-existing Spanish towns prior to the advent o f
the conquistadors of the 1520s, so initial terminos o f the conquest cities and towns were
vast jurisdictions coterminous with the provinces for which the cities later served as
capitals, or cabeceras. Although in some cases further settlement led to reduction o f the
initial boundaries, throughout the colonial period, Central America’s conquest
:s For more on the responsibilities and activities of city government, see Chapter 2.
45
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
municipalities controlled significant territories. Pedro de Alvarado, for example, stated
that Santiago was the termino of the province o f Guatemala; this city originally governed
over 58 leagues of mountain and coastal territory.30 In 1573, the Crown succeeded in
reducing its reach to a still-important area of 11 leagues, yet even this more restricted
termino still included seventy-six pueblos de Indios ? x
29 Novisima Recopilacion de las leyes de Espana: dividida en XII libros. See Helen Nader’s Liberty in Absolutist Spain, Chapter 1, “The Constitution of Land and Council,” for a lucid introduction to the process o f town incorporation in sixteenth-century Castile.0 In the act o f foundation, Alvarado states, “asiento y pueblo en este sitio la ciudad de Santiago, el cual
dicho sitio es termino de la provincia de Guatemala.” Act o f 22 November 1527. Libro Viejo, p. 39. jl Emesto Chinchilla Aguilar, El Ayuntamiento colonial de la Ciudad de Guatemala (Guatemala:Editorial Universitaria, 1961), p. 30, for 58 leagues. Guatemala City’s eleven league jurisdiction was confirmed by the crown in a royal cedula o f 1573, and reconfirmed against audiencia appeals in 1604 and 1607. In 1680, this jurisdiction was codified into the Recopilacion de Leyes de Indias, as Law 64, Title 2, Book 3 as suiting “public utility” (por convenir a la utilidad publica). Impreso, GC, [1760s?], AGI 533.
46
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 8: Plan of New Guatemala City, 1776
Source: AGI, Mapas y Pianos, Guatemala 220 (Courtesy, Archivo General de Indias).
47
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
If Santiago's initial jurisdiction was unusually extensive, it was far from the only
Central American city with an outrageous territorial footprint. San Salvador, capital of
the alcaldia mayor o f San Salvador, governed a 30-league valley, as did Granada of
Nicaragua. San Miguel, in Salvador, and Tegucigalpa, in Honduras, each had 40-league
jurisdictions.32 San Vicente’s authority over sixteen leagues in San Salvador seems
paltry until compared with the exceptional fifteen league termino granted to Mexico City
in 1539 as capital o f the entire viceroyalty of New Spain.33 Each of these enormous
jurisdictions included numerous Indian and, later, mestizo, ladino, pardo and mulato
villages and settlements, as well as the haciendas, sugar mills, indigo workshops, and
mines on which the population labored—and from which the urban Spanish elite derived
much of their income.34 In brief, the size o f the size of each city’s hinterland made the
colonial Spanish city more of a province than a simple urban center.
Laws subsequent to the conquest that established municipal jurisdiction at a
reasonably manageable 4 square leagues35 were rarely invoked in early colonial Central
America, except in cases when the incorporation of new Spanish towns or cities reflected
32 AGI Guatemala 572, Consulta del ayuntamiento de Granada, 24 April 1785. Real Cedula de 3 September 1783.
Law 3, Title 8, Book 4, Recopilacion, (RC 5 October 1539).’4 The most complete information on the inhabitants o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala and their economic status is to be found in the visitas made by bishops and archbishops to their districts. O f these, the account prepared by Archbishop Pedro Cortes y Larraz in the 1760s on the jurisdictions o f Guatemala and El Salvador is by far the most detailed. Pedro Cortes y Larraz, Descripcion geografico-moral de la Didcesis de Goathemala (Guatemala: Sociedad de Geografia e Historia de Guatemala, 1958).35 Law 6, Book 4, Title 5 (Felipe II (1527-1598), Ordenanza 88, 89) o f the Recopilacion authorized a territory of four square leagues or 4 leagues in length to a new Villa de Espaholes that met the minimum requirements: 30 vecinos, or households, a priest, and a church. The four leagues had to be at least five leagues from any extant City, Villa or Settlement (Lugar) o f Spaniards, and not harm Indian villages.
48
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the process o f breakaway settlements typical o f reconquista and Habsburg Spain.36 Until
the 1750s, Spanish authorities made no concerted effort to reduce the areas under
municipal control. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Crown favored
municipal government o f extensive territories, on the grounds that it improved
government in the countryside. For example, in the seventeenth century, the Crown
abolished a district in Nicaragua, and ordered the governor to name one o f the mayors o f
the city o f Leon to govern the three pueblos it had included. The royal order of
September 1673 stated that in this way the Indian residents would receive the same
“good government” and lack of financial hardship as the Indian towns under the
jurisdiction of Santiago.37 As late as 1753, Ferdinand VI confirmed the city o f San
Salvador as governor (corregidor) of its 30-league valley.38 On the eve o f the
Intendancy Reforms of 1786, most Central American ciudades and villas in fact
continued to administer territories the size o f small- and medium-sized provinces.
j6 One case on record is that of the town of Sonsonate. Sonsonate's mayors fought in vain for much of the 16th century to receive the right to 4 leagues of jurisdiction, refused because a Santiago resident had an encomienda of Indians in the district. Because Santiago’s special privileges included extension o f the mayors’ privileges to any labor-supplying Indian town (pueblo encomendado), Sonsonate could not even administer the 4 leagues and 22 villages of their jurisdiction. Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Book 10, Chapter 11, Volume 259, p. 177.3‘ AGI Escribania 339b. Queen to Fernando Franco de Escobedo, President of the Audiencia of Guatemala, Madrid, 3 September 1673. The royal cedula also ordered the governor of Nicaragua to relocate from Leon to Granada, where he could better organize the province’s defense, and showed that the practice o f corTegidores of forced sale of goods was endemic even in this period. At the same time as the district of Sutiaba was extinguished, so was that o f Monimbo, within 3 leagues o f the city of Granada. The Indian towns o f this jurisdiction would come under the direct jurisdiction of the Governor, who was forbidden to name a lieutenant to fulfill this function.j8 A 1753 royal order reconfirmed that the city, not the alcalde mayor, was responsible for justice in this area. AGCA A 1.23 Legajo 61, Expediente 1528, Real Cedula 1 December 1753.
49
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
As might be expected, what Bourbon reformers later called “monstrous jurisdiction”
led to significant overlap of authority when, after 1542, the town councils shared
territorial jurisdiction with Spanish governors. As we shall see in the discussion o f the
role o f city government within the imperial political system, our understanding of the
position o f the city council needs to be reexamined in light o f the contemporary
conceptualization o f its role as equivalent to that o f imperial governors. Many of the
acrimonious disputes that marked city relations with governors throughout the colonial
period derived from the two institutions’ competing authority to assign Indian labor and
influence the purchase of their produce.
City Residents
A city was more than just its territory, however. It was also the locus o f civilization.
That political life was first and foremost organized in the city was taken for granted in
the society of early modem Castile. As Helen Nader observed, civil status, legal rights
and political power derived from “citizenship” (vecindad) in a municipality. Civil law
(derecho civil) covered “all that pertained to the city.”39 Urban residence was the source
of civil and political status and the countryside was a place without civilization. The city
as place o f government and civilization was so deeply ingrained in Spanish culture that
the term “villano,” one who lived in the countryside, had his nature defined by a
39 Sebastian de Covarrubias Horozco, Tesoro de la lengva castellana, o espanola (Madrid.Luis Sanchez, Impresor del Rey, 1611), under “Ciudad,”— “Civil todo lo que pertenece al derecho de ciudad.”
50
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
seventeenth-century bibliographer as “discourteous and rude.”40 To understand clearly
the connotation o f villano, we have only to recall that this word is the direct ancestor o f
our English word “villain.” Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Spanish
conquest of the Americas in the sixteenth century meant the transfer of the republic and
the municipal mindset to the new territories, adapted to meet the specific challenges of
the situation.
I f the sheer scope of municipal jurisdictions was something unique to the New
World, so too was the need to govern a diverse and diversifying set of peoples. How
was citizenship, defined by residency within a city, to distinguish among the different
classes of New World resident so that the Spanish could retain for themselves and their
descendants a monopoly on official power? The question was resolved in two stages.
First, the Spanish adapted the terms of vecindad to suit the circumstances of a
transplanted and minority population. Second, they created separate republicas o f
Spaniards and native residents—called varyingly naturales (natives), indigenas
(indigenous), and indios (Indians).
Repiiblica de Espanoles: As in Spain, the Spanish-American city was the source of
political rights and duties for its Spanish inhabitants. Civil status, legal rights and
political power derived from “citizenship” (vecindad) in a municipality. Yet the new
context led to a reconceptualization of the categories o f resident who could be
'° Covarrubias Horozco, Tesoro de la lengva castellana. According to Covamibias, villa originally was a settlement in the countryside, separate from and outside o f a city in which laborers worked for their lord.
51
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
considered fully enfranchised in the system. Over the course o f the colonial period,
adaptations o f the practical meaning o f vecindad proved adept at integrating new
members into elite political society when such integration was in the interest o f the
community.
Such integration began with the conquest. In Spain, civil society was divided into
the nobles (caballeros or hidalgos), professions (ciudadanos) and householders who
came from the common classes (vecinos).iX In Central America, the former two
categories immediately merged, and at the time o f conquest, any Spaniard who
established his residence in a town or city could register as a vecino and was fully
enfranchised. As vecinos, the Spanish residents o f a city qualified for allocation o f land
and conquered Indian villages, in the initial years, and to rent city lands in subsequent
generations. They also became eligible to serve their communities by holding public
office as mayors and aldermen, and were required to contribute to local taxes and
military needs identified by the governor or town council. The rest o f the city
inhabitants, of Indian, African or mixed heritage, were excluded from the group o f
vecinos. Instead, they were the “public,” part of the comun and pleve (plebe), a class
which was represented not by the official city government, the cabildo, but by their own
Covarrubias characterized villanos as “very rustic and “unpeacefiil.” The entry continues that “De villanos se dixo villania, per el hecho descortes y grosero.”41 In early seventeenth century Spain, the term ‘ciudadano’ was used for the professional residents o f a city who could aspire to hold municipal office. The less specific term ‘vecino’ was used in the Americas to indicate fully enfranchised city residents. “Ciudadano—el que vive en la ciudad y come de su hasienda, renta o heredad: es un estado medio entre cavalleros, o hidalgos, y entre los oficiales mecanicos. Cuentase entre los ciudadanos los letrados y los profesan letras y artes liberates; guardado en
52
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
neighborhood justicias*2 By making vecindad open to all conquistadores, governors
could reward their followers while establishing a permanent community in which all
Spaniards had a stake in its survival and development and incentive to remain unified
against Indian and African subjects.
Vecindad served to integrate later arrivals, as well as subsequent generations, into the
political community because it demanded evidence o f permanent settlement—marriage
or an established household—rather than place of birth for inclusion. Thus, both married
sons and daughters of the original settlers, as well as other relatives and immigrants,
became vecinos when they maintained their own households (casa poblada). By the
seventeenth century, vecindad could also be authorized to an individual who had lived in
a city for four years, owned property there, and attended council meetings when called.43
The result in Central America was an incentive for Spaniards and other immigrants
living and doing business in the cities o f the Kingdom to set up households in the cities
or towns o f their residence. This incentive increased for those who wanted to participate
in local politics, for membership on the town council was limited to vecinos and then
further restricted to men with specific credentials: not just an independent household
{vecindad) but untarnished Spanish lineage and appropriate circumstances. Leon’s town
esto en razon de repartir los oficios, la costumbre y fuero del Reyno o tierra.” See entries for both terms in Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana.43 “Plebeyo: el hombre baxo en la republica, y que ni es cavallero ni hidalgo ni ciudadno, Lat - plebeius, la plebe.” Covarrubias Horozco, Tesoro de la lengua casatellana.43 Recopilacion de Indias, Book 4, Title 5, Laws 6 and 8, and Book 4, Title 10, Law 6 (21 April 1554). Miguel Molina Martinez, El municipio en America', aproximacion a su desarrollo historica (Granada: Union Iberoamericana de Municipalidades, 1996), p. 48.
53
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
council, at the close o f the eighteenth century, referred to those eligible for municipal
service as vecinos republicanos.44
The last qualification of appropriate circumstances translated, in practice, into
membership or alliance with a family of good standing in the local community and solid
financial resources in commerce, land or mining. Often, such alliances were achieved in
marriages by Spanish immigrants with daughters o f prominent Creole families, in which
the son-in-law acquired access to political posts, such as a seat on the town council held
by his wife’s father, and the family profited from the newcomer’s commercial network
or ambition. In the colonial capital Guatemala City, most Spanish immigrants acquired
their seats in this way.45
If all Spaniards were o f equal status in the first, conquest generation, divided
categories of vecinos emerged in subsequent generations. For legal purposes, all official
vecinos had the same status: when giving testimony or signing a contract, an individual
indicated his status by naming the city o f his vecindad, and any Spanish city o f the New
44 AGI Guatemala 414. Carta del Capitan General de Guatemala a SM, 20 March 1793. The letter summarized Leon’s request to return to a system of annual mayoral elections which had been replaced by biannual elections in the Ordenanza de Intendentes.45 For numerous examples o f Spaniards achieving city posts through their fathers-in-law in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, see Stephen A. Webre, "The Social and Economic Bases o f Cabildo Membership in Seventeenth-Century Santiago de Guatemala," PhD, Tulane University, 1980; and Jose Manuel Santos Perez, "Politica y comercio: el cabildo y los regidores de Santiago de Guatemala, 1713-1787." PhD, Universidad de Salamanca, 1996. Both works effectively disprove previous arguments that cabildo membership was restricted primarily to conquest-era families. Silvia Casasola Vargas and Narda Alcantara Valverde refine this argument, showing that the wealthiest and most prominent Creole families preferred to marry their daughters to members o f their own family groups to maintain family wealth and that the percentage of marriages of Creole daughters to Spaniards was lower than expected, around 25%. This genealogical survey thus indirectly confirms the hypothesis that what Spaniards achieved through their marriages to Creole daughters was not wealth but status. “La estrategia matrimonial de la red de poderde Guatemala colonial.” 1999 unpublished.
54
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
or Old World was acceptable.46 By the seventeenth century, however, distinctions were
drawn between at least two different types o f Spaniard—the American-born (Creole, or
criollo or americano) and the Peninsular-bom (peninsular or gachupin). By the
eighteenth century, there was yet a third category (close) operating in some towns, in
which a dearth o f clearly pureblooded Spaniards was addressed by conditional
acceptance of educated and well-off men o f mestizo or mulatto heritage as vecinos o f an
inferior order, as we shall see below. Through adaptation to a changing society, the
concept of vecindad retained its weight as a means to include or exclude individuals and
families from the power of citizenship within the municipal community.
Through the records of municipal office-holding, we can see how residents
distinguished between criollo and peninsular vecinos, and developed mechanisms to
ensure that both groups had equal access to one of the most important rights and duties
of vecindad: a seat on the town council. The balance became codified in different ways
in different cities. In Santiago, by 1700, there was an unwritten and apparently amicable
understanding that provided for alternate election of Spanish- and American-bom
mayors and syndics that residents referred to as the alternativa. This understanding
governed elections with only one hiccup until independence in 1821,47 In both Santiago
46 All witnesses were required to state their name and vecindad in any case. Sometimes, in addition they would provide their profession and state whether they were also native (natural) to the city they were rooted in. Notarial records as well as court cases provide numerous examples.47 There are no regulations in the Santiago elections books that discuss this alternativa. Its existence came to light in a fight between a Spanish immigrant and the town council in the 1790s. The immigrant, Jose Victoriano de Retes argued that despite the alternativa, which had been in effect since 1700, the council was in the hands o f a small group of families. AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 2. See Appendix N for a list of the mayors and syndics of 1700-1800.
55
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and the villa o f Sonsonate, the self-imposed balance between the two types of Spaniard
extended to eighteenth-century group sales o f aldermen’s seats.48 It also extended to
elections o f biennial aldermen in Guatemala in the eighteenth century.49
Both Santiago and Sonsonate attracted Spanish immigrants and Creole settlers
because o f their commercial importance. Santiago was the political and economic
capital o f the kingdom; Sonsonate coordinated trade between Guatemala and Peru, and,
to a certain extent, Mexico. Other towns that were less flourishing had a smaller group
of vecinos o f purely Spanish heritage, and faced different problems o f integration—
namely incorporating successful mestizos and mulattos, as well as illegitimately bom
Spaniards into full vecindad. Because o f the provisions o f Spanish law, this also proved
possible without deviating from extant legal tradition.
The Spanish system had long-standing legal mechanisms to overcome illegitimacy as
an obstacle to office. Prominent Tegucigalpa miner Manuel Vasquez y Rivera paid a fee
to erase the disqualification o f illegitimacy in order to purchase a seat on the town
council there.50 Other forms o f illegitimacy, namely that o f no-Spanish ancestry, were
more complicated to overcome.
48 See Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” Chapter 2, for the Santiago sales o f 1741 and 1763, and AGI Guatemala 446 for titles issued from a group sale to Sonsonate in 1775 and the last successful group sale in Santiago in 1793.49 AGCA A 1.23 Legajo 2244, Exp. 16170. Libro de elecciones, 1786-1800. After resignation of all but one of the aldermen in 1784, Guatemala City elected 10 regidores for two-year terms between 1784 and 1792. This period coincided with the particularly onerous years o f relocating the city from Santiago to Asuncion. See Appendix O for a list o f the aldermen.50 Manuel Vasquez y Rivera (ca. 1760-1825) proved that his two single Creole parents had not married because his father, a royal official, had died before the wedding could be accomplished. He had to pay an extra fee (dispensa) before the title was issued. AGI Guatemala 437 & 446, Titulo de Confirmacion, 1792.
56
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Jose Antonio Vasconcelos and Manuel Antonio Yraeta succeeded in purchasing
regimientos in late eighteenth-century San Vicente (El Salvador), despite opposition by
rivals in the town who claimed both men were barred from holding office because of
their mestizo and mulatto heritage. The King confirmed both purchases, concluding that
the evidence o f mixed blood wasn’t conclusive—although baptismal certificates showed
that at least Vasconcelos had been registered as a ladino, a person with known African
ancestry, at birth. Details o f the case suggest that the racial purity demanded of council
office-holding was only selectively enforced in towns with limited numbers of what a
San Vicente witness termed “the first class o f Spaniards,” and that the exceptions were
for the most part legal. Although witnesses at first identified both pretendants as
“espaiioles,” or Spaniards, they eventually recanted, narrowing the definition to the
“third class o f Spaniard.” In Spain, this meaning would imply common birth; in Central
America, it meant mixed ancestry. San Vicente apparently adapted a Castilian provision
allowing commoners (la plebe) to serve as one of two annually elected rural constables
(alcaldes de la hermandad) to permit prominent mestizos or mulatos to hold office. Both
Yraeta and Vasconcelos had held this position, and used their service to demonstrate
status and as a stepping stone to a new rank. It seems likely that such promotion was not
unique, when it becomes clear from a close reading of the case that the town council’s
objections originated with an alderman who had a long-standing land dispute with the
two aspirants, and that the race question was likely the most promising way to impede
the confirmation of their titles. Had there been no enmity, there probably would have
57
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
been no objection to the sale o f the offices to the two men.”51 Regardless o f the outcome
of this particular case, if town councils allowed known mestizos and mulatos who made
up the “third class” o f Spaniards to serve as alcaldes de la hermandad, they were simply
demonstrating that incorporation of new groups could happen through the mechanisms
of vecindad.
If vecindad was restricted to a limited category of residents o f the Kingdom of
Guatemala, who made up no more than a twentieth of its inhabitants,52 it nonetheless
operated at a much more open and flexible process than is generally asserted. Not only
could immigrants from Spain and other parts o f the Americas become vecinos within
short order, the emphasis on householder status as a prerequisite for vecindad
encouraged immigrants to become members o f the local community through marriage.
The constant presence and even equitable assignment o f council seats to peninsulares
suggests that renovation of the community was an accepted practice. The existence of
legal provisions that could overcome illegitimacy or offer some elective positions
{alcalde de la hermandad) to mobile members o f the common classes or illegitimate
51 Carta de Domingo Antonio Baraona, apoderado de la villa de San Vicente, 1786, AGI Guatemala 437,Remate de un regimiento sencillo de San Vicente a Jose Antonio Vasconcelos, 1792. Baraona arguedthat the practice was common to all three “provinces” o f San Salvador. Another vecino, Jose de Oyos,said that San Vicente had “three classes o f Spaniards” and that one way to tell if an individual belongedto the first class was to see if he had served as a mayor (alcalde ordinario) or alderman. The law referred to is likely Title 35, Law 1 (1496) o f the Novisima Recopilacion de las Leyes de Espana, which held thatin every “ciudad, villa o lugar”of at least 30 vecinos, there would be an annual election o f two alcaldes de hermandad, one noble (del estado de los Caballeros y escuderos) and one not (el otro de los ciudadanos y
o f 1811 listed 646,666 Indians, 313, 334 “castas,” and 40,000 whites. Manuel Mier y Teran, “Situacion politica del Reino de Guatemala,” in Carlos Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales de la Independencia Centroamericana ([San Jose]: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana, 1971), p. 336.
58
pecheros).2 The census
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
children of the elite also helped the council function in the changing population o f
colonial Central America. As Appendix E shows, by the late eighteenth century, the
urban population that was neither Spaniard nor Indian significantly outnumbered the
other two categories, and mechanisms such as described above permitted this reality to
receive at least limited acknowledgment. As we shall see in Chapter 5, this issue would
surface in the nineteenth century when open elections to the town council were
authorized first under the Spanish Constitution of 1812, and again in the first twenty
years after independence.
Republica de Indios: Having preserved order and government for themselves, the
conquistadors and Spanish Crown decreed the application of an appropriately adjusted
urban model for new vassals—what we now know as the republica de indios, the Indian
Republic. Not just the Spanish cities but the principal Indian towns also owe their
survival and expansion to a Spanish policy of creating separate republicas for the native
inhabitants. Not only could the Spaniards only imagine themselves in cities, they also
believed that for their own administrative ease, as well as for the religious and political
advancement, or “civilization” of the Maya and other Indian communities, that city
living was a requirement. City, civilization and republic (republica) were synonymous.
As we have seen, Spanish communities and individuals took an active role in
creating and preserving their town governments and status. The opposite case obtained
for the other communities of the isthmus, which often had to be persuaded by Spanish
authorities to live in towns. If town status gave Spaniards and Creoles significant power
59
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to defend their own interests against those of their peers, the Crown and its agents,
village life for the rest of colonial society meant greater Spanish control of their
economic, political and religious behavior. The declared Spanish intention in populating
the Americas was, after all, “to teach them [the Indians] to know God and his sacred
Law... to hold friendship with them, and to teach them to live politically
(politicamente).”53
Essentially, what the Spanish meant by Indians ‘living politically’ was living where
the Spaniards could find and control them and, once installed, respecting a system of
governance based on a combination o f Spanish and native political traditions. Thus, the
natives of Central America experienced their own kind of “municipal conquest.” Once
the Spaniards had founded their own towns and cities, many Indian populations were
cajoled or coerced from “mountain freedom” into reducciones, or urban living, by
settlers, priests and governors. Once settled into pueblos de indios, they could not
legally move back to the countryside or even change towns.54
This is not to say that the Indian communities that Alvarado and the other
conquistadors found in Central America had lived without any urban organization or
government. On the contrary, the society was both well-organized and, in the words of
53 Recopilacion, Book 4, Title 7, Law 23 (Ordenanza 136, Felipe II).54 Recopilacion, Book 6, Title 4, Laws 18 and 19 (1604, 1618). For an extensive discussion on theSpanish conquest o f Central America, with particular emphasis on its impact on Indian populations, seeW. Kramer, W.G. Lovell, and C. H. Lutz, “La Conquista Espanola de Centroamerica,” in Julio PintoSoria, ed., Historia General de Centroamerica, v. 2, El Regimen Colonial (1524-1570), (Madrid:FLACSO, 1993), pp. 21-93. Fernand Braudel coined the term “mountain freedom” to describe thesocieties of European highlands who lived apart from the “civilization” and imperial system o f “urban
60
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Fuentes y Guzman, made up of three kingdoms (reinos) with “great cities with
magnificent and decorous buildings... and 8-10,000 houses.”55 When the Spanish set up
a parallel republica for the indigenous communities, they co-opted the existing power
structure in which hereditary leaders (caciques) continued to serve as intermediaries
between Spaniards and the bulk o f the population. However, they also instituted a
system of mayors and councilmen that followed the same structure o f that o f the Spanish
town council, although the responsibilities were limited to keeping order.56
Just as the city government of Spaniards had changed in the New World, so pre
conquest indigenous custom was syncretized with Spanish tradition. As Fuentes y
Guzman commented, the caciques o f the Indian kingdoms began their political service
with lower-level jobs to arrive at their ranking political and military posts. This tradition
survived into the historian’s times, apparently, in the progression by Indian leaders from
service as constables and scribes preceding election to the post of mayor {alcaldes).
Fuentes y Guzman approved of this procedure, claiming that reason would recommend it
to all republicas, for contributing to the flourishing o f the republicas de los indios of
and lowland achievement.” Historian Adriaan Van Oss first applied it to Central America. Van Oss, Catholic Colonialism, pp. 15-1755 Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Book 1, Chapter 3, pp. 701-711.56 Book 6 o f the Recopilacion was dedicated to the laws governing Indians. Title 3 deals with thereducciones and pueblos, of which Law 15(1618) orders each town to have a native Indian mayor(alcalde) from the same place. For towns with more than 80 houses, the pueblo had 2 mayors and 2aldermen, all o f whom had to be Indians. The maximum number of regidores for the Indian village was 4. Annual elections were to be conducted in presence of the parish priest. Law 16 explains the jurisdiction of the mayors as “solamente para inquirir, prender y traer a los delinquentes a la carcel delPueblo de espaiioles,” except in cases of drunkenness or, failure to attend mass, when he could inflict corporal punishment or put the offender in jail for up to one day. Indian mayors were forbidden from participation in the repartimiento.
61
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
former times, whose good councilors had, “filled with experience, benevolently
reconciled happy outcomes for their kings.”57
Sometimes, in fact, the Indian communities proved as adept at using the appeals
system open to town councils as legitimate representatives o f the needs of town residents
as the Spanish. In the early eighteenth century, the Indians of the pueblos of Sutiaba,
Quesalbague, Pozotelga, Pozotelguilla and Teliga joined together to appeal to the King
for a governor, claiming that being under the jurisdiction o f the mayors of Leon laid
them open to interference by “relatives and all the vecinos. .. who treat them poorly, with
this Dominion (Imperio) passing even to their dependents (criados) and slaves, who
occupied all the time they could work to pay their tributes.”58 The Indians, and their
supporter, the Bishop o f Nicaragua, argued that a governor, no matter how rigorous, was
only one man. The “cabildos” of the corregimiento o f Quezalvague (sic) authorized
Cadiz and Madrid vecinos to present the case to the crown, and, like the Spanish cities,
were prepared to offer a substantial donation— 1500 pesos—to attract the king’s ear and
sympathy.59 Even a limited republica was a powerful institution within the Spanish
imperial system.
s' Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Book 1, Chapter 3, pp. 701-711. “colmados de experiencias, conciliaban con benevolencia la felicidad de los sucesos para sus reyes”58 AGI Escribania, 339B. Los Indios de los Pueblos de Sutiaba, Quesalbague, Pozotelga, Pozotelguilla y Telica con el Cavildo justicia y regimiento de la Ciudad de Leon de Nicaragua, sobre petender dchosIndios y Pueblos ser govemados por corregidor Nombrado por SM y no por los Alcaldes Ordinarios de dcha. Ciudad. 1768. The origins o f the case are in a seventeenth century decision allocating the Indianvillages to Leon’s jurisdiction, f. 217.5<> AGI Escribania, 339B. Los Indios de los Pueblos de Sutiaba..., f. 241.
62
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 2
City & Colonial State, 1542-1700
Between 1524 and 1542, the conquistadors established the republic o f cities that
would formally be incorporated into the Spanish “kingdom,” or politico-administrative
district, o f Guatemala in 1542. In those first years, the conquest city council was, like
its model in Spain, an important and respected institution o f royal government, with
both significant privileges and responsibilities. It was also the only institutional secular
authority. By 1542, when the Spanish Crown introduced other, directly appointed
institutions o f secular government to the Americas, it was clear that their function
would (at least in theory) complement and support the work o f the cabildo rather than
supplant it. The real work o f the colonial administrative system— legislative, executive
and judicial—was on a day-to-day basis carried out by the town council, or was not
done at all. City councils represented the interests o f their residents to lowly clerks but
also to the king. They also directly governed vast expanses that to start out with had no
independently assigned governors to question their authority. Spanish imperial officials
sent after the establishment o f the Kingdom of Guatemala supposedly supervised,
mediated and took a direct gubernatorial role in indigenous provinces, but were to leave
administration and justice to the Spanish town and city councils in which they resided,
in the capital of each province.
Historians have treated the imposition o f a formal government structure, with
governors and their lieutenants, as the end of municipal autonomy and the relegation of
63
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the city government to purely local administrative tasks. This relegation is based in part
on the misrepresentation of the city as a purely urban center. It also hinges on
understanding disputes between cabildos and governors as disputes between local
authority and Spanish authority. Certainly, there were numerous clashes between
regally-appointed Spanish officials and local residents over policy differences on
matters as seemingly trivial as ceremonial seating to issues as weighty as
implementation of royal orders or demarcation o f provinces. Yet, although we are led
to believe that the city government, as a purely local authority, could not carry its
weight in battles with the supposedly superior officialdom with royal appointments, the
evidence does not bear this out. Royal treatment o f disputes that arose tended to seek a
balance that gave neither council nor governor a permanent upper hand. For the
Spanish Crown, it was the balance among city, governor and church that made the
imperial system function and secured its position as arbiter o f justice and policy. This
chapter relocates the role of the city government, the cabildo, as an equal partner within
the hierarchy of the Spanish colonial system and demonstrates how it maintained that
position until well into the eighteenth century. For, two hundred years after the
conquest, the imperial perspective never shifted: the cabildo or Indian community, was
the official representative of its people, and of equal status as its governors or district
court judges, who represented the eyes and ears o f the Crown on the ground.
64
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Spanish Town Council
As in Spain, the New World town council (cabildo or ayuntamiento) governed
both rural and urban segments of the republica.1 In this corporation, as the council of
Guatemala City (Santiago) declared, “principally resides the care for the public good
(bien publico), and in its mayors the administration o f justice o f this city and its
Valley."2 The cabildo had two parts, the justicia (justice) and regimiento (government).
Two mayors (alcaldes ordinarios) dispatched civil and criminal justice in the first
instance while between six and twenty regidores (aldermen) handled government and
administration.3 Together, justicia y regimiento carried out most police functions and
oversaw everything from the price o f bread to the ceremonial reception of senior
imperial officials. 4 A full city council included a syndic (procurador sindico), who
prepared policy papers for the council’s consideration and action, and represented it at
' Elections and appointments of council members in Guatemala City’s early years stated explicitly that mayors and aldermen would be in charge o f administration of justice and government of the city and its terminos. See, for example, election of 8 January 1525, Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, ed, and Maria del Carmen Deola de Giron, paleography, Libro Viejo de la Fundacion de Guatemala (Guatemala: Academia de Geografia e Historia de Guatemala, 1991), p. 12.2 AGI Guatemala 534, Cabildo de Santiago de Guatemala, April 1728. Italics are mine.3 Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias.Tomo 2a. 4a Impresion (Madrid, 1791; Madrid 1943) Book 4, Title 10, Law 11 (1523, 1568, 1610), set the number o f regidores between 6 and 12. “Principal” ciudades had twelve; villas and pueblos had six. A separate law, Book 4 Title 7 Law 2 (1596/n.d.), distinguished not between ciudad and villa, but by religious presence: the metropolitana (archbishop in residence) had most 12 alderman; diocesana o sufraganea (bishop), 8; and regular villa y lugar, 4. This last category received only one, rather than two, mayors. For an explanation o f the different responsibilities attached to the regimientos, see Jose M. Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio: el cabildo y los regidores de Santiago de Guatemala, 1713-1787,” (PhD, Univ. o f Salamanca, 1996), Chapter 2.4 Recopilacion, Book 4 Title 7, Law 2, “[el] Juez con ritulo de Adelantado, o Alcalde mayor, o Corregidor, o Alcalde ordinario, que exerza la jurisdiccion insolidum, y juntamente con el Regimiento tenga la administracion de la republica.”
65
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
legal functions,3 two rural constables {alcaldes de la hermandad), and a secretary, or
scribe {escribano). The secretary took minutes at each meeting {sesiori) and produced
the book of actas o f a year’s ordinary and extraordinary sessions; he earned his living
through fees taken in as scribe in the mayors’ courts. Together,justicia y regimiento
met twice weekly (ideally) to treat on matters affecting the republica.
To demonstrate what Spaniards, and their American bom descendants, the
Creoles, knew to be the work o f the justicia y regimiento de la republica, it is necessary
to provide a detailed accounting, although the Spanish did not feel it necessary to set
down a restrictive set of guidelines to either direct city councilors in their work or
unduly restrict them in their endeavors. The oath taken by the first regidores entering
into service in Guatemala City in 1524 provides a general outline both o f the role o f the
council and the councilors’ understanding o f their office:
[A]s good and faithful Christians fearing god...giving their consciences, will follow well and faithfully the charges o f regidores o f this villa entrusted to them: entering the cabildos on the accustomed days and others as necessary, and seeing to and procuring with all diligence and vigilance the good government {buen regimiento) and provision o f this villa', ensuring the order and good harmony that is necessary; and procuring for its advantage and welfare and that o f its householders (vecinos) and plebe (comtin); increasing its holdings and income (propios y rentas); ensuring that they are spent and distributed on necessities both useful and advantageous; helping and providing for the widows and orphans;[and] keeping above all the service of God and their majesties; and doing the rest that concerns and is annexed to their charges.6
5 Helen Nader, Liberty in Absolutist Spain: The Habsburg Sale o f Towns, 1516-1700 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), argues that in 16th century Castile, the syndic held a salaried position.6 This oath is taken from the book of acts of the first cabildo of Santiago de Guatemala, o f which the first page, with the actual description of the founding, is missing. The full text of this book, including a list of vecinos who received lands in 1527 when the city was refounded, has been transcribed and published. Saenz de Santa Maria, ed, Libro Viejo, p. 7.
66
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
This general overview is as specific as contemporary definitions get. The
Recopilacion de Indias, a compilation o f nearly two hundred years’ worth o f legislation
published in 1680, limited its comments to aspects o f city government that were
unlikely to be found in the laws governing Castilian townships, such as authority over
Indian populations, or that differed significantly from the Castilian example.7 And even
the peninsular compilation was silent on many aspects of municipal law, as each town
after founding drafted its own regulations, the ordenanzas de buen gobiemo (ordinances
o f good government), specific to its circumstances and approved individually by the
king.8 As the presentation of the activity and presence of the city councils below
shows, many o f the responsibilities o f city government were understood and taken for
granted by city residents, as they had taken for granted that their government would be
municipal, and cannot be found in any written legal code.
City government had so much to do with the running o f everyday events, crisis
management, and public spectacle, that no visitor or town dweller could ignore it, even
if he or she never set foot in the halls of the casa de cabildo. Who could fail to observe
the alcaldes, who walked with their gold-tipped vara de justicia through the city streets,
or the alguacil mayor or juez de policia conducting his rounds through the city streets,
' Recopilacion, Books 4, 5 & 6. Chapter 1 o f historian John Preston Moore’s The Cabildo in Peru Under the Bourbons: A study in the decline and resurgence o f local governments in the Audiencia o f Lima 1700- 1824 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1966), provides a rich background to the 18th century Spanish cabildo, although Moore does not directly discuss the original Castilian regulations.8 A list of ordinances issued by Santiago de Guatemala between 1S24 and 1S80, as well as the full texts of general ordinances from 1559 and 1580, which remained in use throughout the colonial period can be
67
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
markets, watering holes and agricultural lands? What man, stopped by such a patrol for
drunken brawling or carrying a rock or a dagger did not remember his run-in with the
law as he stood in the courtroom of the alcalde ordinario to explain his behavior? What
trader, who had to present her wares for evaluation to a regidor for proper pricing, and
tavern owner or baker, who had to petition twice a year to renew her license, was not
aware of the city’s power? What vecino, ordered to whitewash his house or contribute
funds or supplies to the paving effort of his street or to kill rabid dogs, had not his own
ideas about the value of city government? Who had not turned to watch the full
cabildo, each man proudly displaying his uniform with gold-braided hat and cape,
sword buckled to his side, gather to welcome a new governor or attend a ceremony at
the governor’s palace or the cathedral?
This overwhelming set o f administrative tasks has led historians to focus their
institutional studies o f the cabildo on detailed accountings o f the practical aspects of
colonial city government that included provision, fiscal and physical health, and
development o f the city.9 And, since “city” has usually been defined as “urban center,”
the most commonly mentioned functions o f the city relate to the urban center.
Regarding judicial functions, histories treat in graphic detail such matters as the
ordinances and “decrees of good government” (ordenanzas and bandas de buen
found in Emesto Chinchilla Aguilar, El Ayuntamiento Colonial de la Ciudad de Guatemala (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1961), pp. 76-79 and 222-239.9 For Central America in particular, the best work is Emesto Chinchilla Aguilar. El ayuntamiento colonial. A useful general study is John Preston Moore, The Cabildo in Peru under the Hapsburgs: A
68
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
gobierno) that established regulations for each profession (blacksmith, shoemaker,
miller, muleteer, baker, etc.) operating within city limits and various general rules of
order.10 Regarding the city’s control o f judicial and police work, they discuss the
faculties of the town constable, who policed the city, enforced imperial and local laws,
turned vagrants into workers, arrested wrongdoers, turned them over to the mayors for
trial, maintained the city jails, and headed patrols that were often composed o f men
assigned by neighborhood Indian justices and mulatto militiamen.11
What gets lost in this kind of treatment is the importance o f the rural component
of the city to its functioning, and the magnitude of the responsibility and its political
import o f the city council. Regulations and policing, however, did not stop at the last
city street but extended into the distant countryside. The ordenanzas dealt with the use
Study in the Origins and Powers o f the Town Council in the Viceroyalty o f Peru, 1530-1700 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1954).10 For example, in 1800 and again 1810, Guatemala City capitulares (councilors) revised the ordenanzas of the city artesans, retaining the authority to confirm new maestros, masters o f each craft For original Guatemalan ordenanzas, see Chinchilla Aguilar, El Ayuntamiento Colonial, pp. 76-79. AGCA A 1.2 Leg 2I89,Exp 15736, f 131, Actas de Cabildo, 1810. On 20 November 1810, the city assigned regidor Antonio Juarros to form the regulations. On 28 June 1811, regidores Jose Aycinena and Manuel Lara reported on Juarros’ work, and on 25 October the ayuntamiento approved the regulations. AGCA A 1.2 Exp 2189, Exp 15736, f f 91v, 135v, Actas de Cabildo, 1811. Regulations from Comayagua (Honduras) from 1560 can be found in Hector M. Leyva, Documentos Coloniales de Honduras (Tegucigalpa: Centro de Publicaciones Obispado de Choluteca, 1991), pp. 51-55.11 Book 7, Title 6, Law I and 23 ordered cities and towns to build jails and provided for a regidor to visit them to ensure proper functioning. Recopilacion. For Guatemala City, see for example a 1790 complaint by Manuel Estanislao Alvares who sought to escape serving his ‘nominated’ term as alcalde in the Indian barrio o f Candelaria by claiming to be a debtor. Being a debtor exempted (or, in contemporary terms, prevented) an individual from holding public office. Alvares also hoped that his wife’s service in the barrio’s cofradia would count toward his service and exempt him. AGCA A1.2 Leg. 42, Exp. 1028. See Christopher H. Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala 1541-1773: City, Caste and the Colonial Experience (Norman: U. o f Oklahoma Press, 1994), p 42-5 for a discussion o f the Spanish alcaldes' use o f Indian justices and mulatto militiamen to patrol the city. That the practice o f using Indian city residents for patrols was extensive to other cities, see Alcaldes Ordinarios, Sonsonate, to Captain General (MYS), 20
69
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of land outside the urban center, including interdiction o f free-pasturing of pigs and
mules in the city’s communal lands (ejidos) because o f the damage they caused.12 The
alcalde de la hermandad was responsible for arresting and trying individuals involved
in banditry, assault, robbery and other violent crimes committed outside the urban limits
(casco) o f the city.13 When the mayors were also governors, these duties were shared.14
The figure o f the alcalde de la hermandad has received very little attention in Latin
American historiography because of the emphasis on the urban side o f city government
rather than on that o f the hinterland. This silence is likely compounded because the
alcalde de hermandad rarely attended council meetings, was not a voting member,
made no official reports on his activities, and so left a limited paper trail. The existence
o f the provincial de la hermandad, a purchased position, which drew a salary but had
no visible activity, may also have confused the question. The role o f this official, who
lived in the countryside and served as the physical and political link between rural and
urban Spaniard and Indian, merits further consideration, especially if sources that can
August 1817, AMS, Caja 1810-21/3, Sobre que el Ale. Mr. intento quartar (sic) la Jurisdiccion q. siempre han exercido los Alcaldes Ordin.s de este N.A. de 4 leguas encontom o...’* Articles 19-20, Ordenanzas de 1580, in Chinchilla Aguilar, El Ayuntamiento colonial, pp. 234-235.13 The responsibilities o f this city official are not described in the Leyes de Indias, but in the Novisima Recopilacion de las Leyes de Espana , from which peninsular law derives. The position was created by Isabella, who ordered the municipalities of Castile to appoint these officials to patrol the countryside during the insecure years when she acceded to the throne. Nader, Liberty in Absolutist Spain, p. 83.14 The same author reports that the Guatemala City mayors, for the first 82 years o f the city’s existance, conducted annual administrative visits through the jurisdiction. When complaints by Indian and Spaniard alike brought an end to the practice, Fuentes y Guzman argues that the fear that led to “good procedures and method of a politic and Christian life” had vanished, because the Juez only arrived to investigate a “atrocious crime,” encouraging them to live a “licentious life.” Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, in Fuentes y Guzman, Obras Histdricas de Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman, ed. Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, Vol. 230, (Madrid, Ediciones Atlas, 1969-1972), Book 5, Chapter 4, pp. 205, 385, 230.
70
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
further detail the experiences of the men who filled this function can be found.
Although the rural constable was not a voting member o f the council, and thus unable to
participate in the selection of mayor and syndic, he did share the authority of the
institution and the unique position of liaison between both city spaces.
Regarding the council’s broad powers to ensure the proper provisioning o f the
republic, studies focus particularly on the urban center in which most administration
was necessary and which received the beneficence of the hinterland. Such studies
demonstrate how each city had aldermen who maintained and ran the markets, licensed
taverns, allocated water supplies,15 rented out booths in the main plaza, checked the
accuracy o f weights and measures, set the price o f bread and licensed bakers,
shoemakers and other artisans, and awarded the monthly contract to the town’s official
meat supplier.
Such studies are useful, for they show the consequences o f policies as well as
the intentions. For example, the merchants and landowners who made up the majority
of council members took obvious advantage o f these privileges: they selected their
relatives to provide the city’s meat (abasto de came), corralled the best goods entering
the city and often forced sales to their own clients at fixed prices, and interfered with
15 The city used its income from water rights to pay to maintain public waterworks, including fountains, aqueducts, and basins. For more on this subject, Stephen Webre, “Water and society in a Spanish American city: Santiago de Guatemala, 1555-1773,” Hispanic American Historical Review 70:1 (Feb. 1990), pp. 57-84; and Chinchilla Aguilar, “El Ramo de Aguas de la Ciudad de Guatemala en la epoca colonial," Revista del Instituto de Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala 5:2 (June 1953), pp. 19-31. Fuentes y Guzman comments that Santiago received this merced on 3 February 1573 and that the annual income from this source should be slightly higher than 2000 pesos a year. Recordacion Florida, p. 209.
71
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
competing merchants.16 The cabildo rented the city’s communal lands (ejidos),
supposedly to poor city dwellers but often to the more affluent and the church, despite
provisions against such abuse.17
Yet if many o f the tasks o f provisioning were undertaken in the city center, it
was the extensive hinterland and numerous villages of the hinterland upon which the
city government depended in order to function as intermediary guarantor o f the city’s
provisions. Without the vast jurisdiction, the council would not have had access to most
of the goods that supplied the urban residents. The regidores, who set prices o f goods,
made sure to set them in such a way that the villages in the district o f a town brought
sufficient comestibles, wood, cloth and other products to the municipal markets.
“One of the most appreciable prerogatives that the cabildo and regimiento of
Goathemala (sic) confers on its mayors,” wrote Fuentes y Guzman, “is the
corregimiento of the Valley, composed of 77 populous pueblos, divided.. .in nine fertile
16 These were the juez de policia and fie l executor, selected annually or monthly from among the regidores. Although Book 4, Title 9, Law 4 o f the Recopilacion (1572) explicitly forbade mayors and aldermen from participating in provisioning, but the evidence of abuse is abundant. Cattle rancher- regidores influenced the monthly assignment o f the licence to sell meat to the city market, a city monopoly. Unsurprisingly, relatives (allegados) usually got the lucrative contract. For egregious behavior of the Guatemalan landowning-aldermen families, see Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” Chapter 3, and the libros de cabildo o f 1792. The latter show that regidor and landowner Pedro de Aycinena was not even allowed to excuse himself from a vote on the meat contract or from serving as the fiel executor despite a request to do so. Guatemala City syndic Sebastian Melon in 1803 blew the whistle on coercion by aldermen o f various rural tradesmen. AHN (Madrid), Consejos 20983, Pieza 20, Testimonio de los escritos (1803). On the question of markets, see a case in which a Guatemalan merchant living in Tegucigalpa protested a tax he thought was designed to keep him from competing with memberes o f the cabildo that assessed it. ANH (Tegucigalpa), Seccion Colonial, Caja 99, Doc. 3200, Domingo Payes a la Audiencia, 18 December 1806.17 Book 4, Title 12, Law 5 o f the Recopilacion (1532, 1563, 1596) provided for preferential treatment for regidores in assignment o f city plots in new cities. However, a series o f recommendations o f the 1803 syndic o f Guatemala City reveals that this council interpreted its privilege as preceding the need to assign
72
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and beneficial valleys.. ,[a]nd that all, for the abundance, diversity and pleasant flavor
of their fruits, provide (hacen y ordenan) the regular supply and prudent granary of
Guatemala” The extensive termino, with over 70,000 Indian inhabitants, was rich in
water, fish, hunting, wood, flowers, and medicinal herbs. From the 28 pueblos in the
outskirts alone, the city was supplied with com, beans, peppers, garbanzos, pork, lard,
poultry, eggs, crockery, roofing tiles, bricks, adobe, stone, and fodder.18 Another town,
San Pedro Martir, provided most of the city’s wheat, and eight haciendas produced
sugar, while Amatitlan provided fruits (including limes, oranges, plantains, pineapples,
and papayas) and the Valle de las Vacas proved a good site to raise cattle.19 The ample
and populous territories of the other cities served the same function, although not all the
districts had as varied an agricultural zone as Guatemala City. Only in emergencies that
threatened the city’s basic supplies did the cabildo turn to other provinces to purchase
and dispense grain at reasonable prices, even if it lost money in the process.20 Without
an extensive hinterland, the cities of Central America would not have controlled either
supplies or prices of incoming products.
communal lands to nearby Indian villages, a situation that outraged the whistleblower. AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 20, Testimonio... del sindico Sebastian Melon, 1803.18 Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Vol. 230, Book 8, Chapter 1, pp. 215-216,219.19 Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Vol. 230, Book 9, Chapter 1, pp. 226-227, 247, 267.20 For example, in 1785, the syndic of the capital asked the captain general to send a cordillera to the Guatemalan highlands to make them bring grain supplies to the capital. Two days later, after receiving approval form the fiscal, the message was sent. In the same shortage, Asuncion used a second tactic to procure grain, commissioning vecino Juan Rubio y Gemmir to import 200fanegas o f com. AGCA A 1.2, Leg. 41, Exp. 1011, Juan Pedro Oyarzabal to Captain General, 3 June 1785. A 1.2.2, Leg. 2177, Exp. 15715, Libro de Actas, 1787, Session, 6 November 1787, ft". 52v-53. The servicios y meritos o f various 18th century councilors of Guatemala (AGCA A 1.2, Leg. 2331) make clear that this was a regular task.
73
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Provisioning did not stop with comestibles. The hinterland also supplied the
city with skilled and unskilled labor. Although cities were strictly forbidden by laws of
the Indies to participate in the assignment of labor o f Crown Indians (repartimiento),
mayors in several o f Central America’s principal cities, including San Salvador and
Guatemala City, were authorized as corregidores to assign them to labor not only on
public works within the cities, but to individual farms.21 The outskirts o f Guatemala
City, for example, sent butchers and others to dress meat, as well as laborers to work on
the water system.22 Even in other cities that did not have Guatemala City’s
gubernatorial status, the alcaldes ordinarios and alcaldes de santa hermandad were
known to do the same.23 Without an extensive and well-populated hinterland, both
legal and illegal access to Indian labor would have been impossible or at the very least
severely restricted.
Through its active presence in the countryside, the colonial cabildo served both
as economic and also political focus for its district, with an extension that we would
more likely characterize today as provincial rather than urban. Institutional studies of
21 For an example from Guatemala, see the complaint o f Da. Maria Josefa Landivar who found her assignment of laborers reduced by half when administration o f the valle de Guatemala became the responsibility not of the alcaldes ordinarios but of an alcalde mayor. AHN Consejos 20953, Pieza 70, f, 1-1 v. Among her arguments, Landivar stated that the mayors had “governed those pueblos since the foundation and conquest” (f. 4). According to Santos Perez, however, the mayors of the capital only received the right to assign labor in 1729, after convincing the Crown that their administration would be more efficient than that o f the three jueces repartidores currently employed, not to mention less costly, saving 900 pesos in salaries granted to those functionaries. Santos Perez,“Politica y comercio,” p. 379.22 Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Vol. 230, Book 8, Chapter 1, pp. 215-216, 219.23 See, for example, the 1725 argument o f the alcalde mayor o f Sonsonate, who argued that the town’s vecinos wanted to reestablish a defunct city council not for reasons of good government but to be able to participate in repartimiento o f Indian labor. AGI Guatemala 507, no cover sheet, ff. 66-72v, Carta de Francisco de Carrandi y Meran, 7 May 1725, Guatemala.
74
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the role of the city that focus merely on cabildo membership and responsibilities within
the city casco are thus missing a large element o f the importance o f the Spanish city in
the political and economic structure of Central America, and likely the Americas. As
we shall see below, even after the establishment o f governors to serve as liaisons
between American territories and the Crown, the responsibilities and powers of the city
council for all o f the residents within its jurisdiction was not reduced, but rather
complemented and, if relations between the two authorities were difficult, challenged.
Yet even when challenged, the basis for any dispute was the overlap o f authority, not
the illegal extension of municipal authority to the countryside.
Finally, a town council was much more than the sum o f its practical
responsibilities. The city government played a very visible, symbolic and ceremonial
political role both on the street and within the empire. The alferez real, or standard
bearer, coordinated the city’s contributions to, and participation in, official processions
for various saints’ days and other celebrations ranging from the arrival of a new
governor or captain general to the birth or marriage o f a king.24 The urban and rural
mayors carried the vara de justicia, a staff with a gold tip, which distinguished their
presence as unmistakably official. To demonstrate the collaborative relationship the
Crown desired for the two branches of secular government, as well as the prestige o f the
capitulares, the cabildo sat next to the highest Spanish official at important ceremonies,
24 A 1.23 Leg. 2195, Exp. 15749, f. 109. This alderman also commanded the city militia, for much o f the colonial period the most extensive form of military presence in the ICingdom of Guatemala. He also
75
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
both in secular places and in cathedrals and churches. To ensure maximum pomp and
visibility, a town council courted the right to wear a uniform. In the close of the
eighteenth century, at least three proud councils of the Kingdom o f Guatemala—
Guatemala City, Ciudad Real de Chiapas and San Salvador—sought and received this
privilege from the King.25
Behind the scenes, the city council also was an effective representative o f local
interests within the imperial system. As representative o f the republica, the city council
officially recommend to the king the military, political and economic services
performed by vecinos in order to increase that individual’s chance for selection for an
honor or salaried position.26 If a royal order or official was perceived as harmful to
local interests, it was the cabildo that challenged the official locally or, when local
remedies failed, wrote to the appropriate authorities in Guatemala City or Spain for
redress. Unlike Spanish cities, the cities of the Americas did not have the right to attend
the Cortes, or Estates General, but they were allowed to send representatives to Spain,
substituted for absent or indisposed alcaldes, through a ceremony known as deposito de vara, or custody of the judicial staff. AGCA, RC, 8 February 1590.:5Guatemala received royal approval in 1787 to wear black uniforms, with cuffs and undercoat o f the dress coat lined in gold for gala events and white for lesser occasions; the hats were decorated in gold braid. AGCA A12.2, Leg. 2177, Exp. 15715, 1787, Libro de Actas, ff. 31-32. In 1798, the king granted the cabildo of San Salvador the right to wear the same uniform. As late as 1818, the city fathers of Ciudad Real de San Cristobal (Chiapas) received equal favor. The latter praised the positive effects a uniform might have on perceptions o f the council, for they thought the distinction would stimulate the town's vecinos to willingly aspire to the dignity of ‘padres de la patria.' AGI Guatemala 414, Intendant of San Salvador, 26 February 1798. AGI Guatemala 417, Cabildo de Ciudad Real de S. Cristobal a SM, 17 August 1818.26 Numerous letters o f the Guatemala City town council detailing the merits and services (meritos y servicios) in favor o f its current and former members can be found in AGCA A 1.22, Legajo 2331. The town council could also recommend the merits of clergymen, as the town o f Granada did on 29 July 1796
76
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
or to hire men in Spain to seek royal intervention. This right, exercised singly and in
alliances, began with the conquest and continued until independence.27 One example,
which we shall examine in further detail below, shows how three town councils of the
alcaldia mayor o f San Salvador arranged in the 1750s for their governor to be stripped
of his post when he insisted on interfering with their custom o f repartimiento o f Indian
labor and markets.* The city's representative faculty was well recognized among
contemporaries, who understood that a cabildo was more than an administrative or
judicial body.
What the accounting o f the extensive physical, political and moral jurisdiction of
the city discovers is simply the enormity o f the job and the presence of the town
council. City government meant not just administration, or executive power, but
legislative and judicial authority. Military and religious functions were included as
well. The city was not just the urban center but a populated, prolific, settled
countryside. The Central American city, when properly running and functioning, was
for Juan Francisco Vilches y Cabrera, whom they hoped the king would choose as the diocese’s next bishop. AGI Guatemala 534.2/ The cabildo of Santiago de Guatemala and other towns in Alvarado’s district sent a representative first to Mexico and later to Spain to plead for privileges and supplies in the years immediately following theconquest. See Libro Viejo, passim.28 This fascinating case, which stretched decades and produced thousands o f pages of evidence, uncovers not only the links between Guatemala City merchants and Salvador indigo hacendados, but also the functioning o f the city council as spokesperson for elite interests. Documents include information on the prices and goods sold to Indians by the alcalde mayor; the relations between the Galvez family of Guatemala and the province o f San Salvador; the practices of repartimiento o f Indian services and of goods to Indians; and the helplessness o f a governor to counter a concerted attack by city and commercial interests. AHN Consejos 20967-20968.
77
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
indeed a model republic, with all the attributes we might comfortably assign a modem
state.
Membership in the City Council
Who qualified to govern these miniature states? Membership in the council was
restricted to vecinos. Outside authorities confirmed elections and ran sales of office, but
only vecinos could elect, be elected, and purchase positions. Although many historians
emphasize the closed nature o f accession to municipal office, election was a permanent,
if restricted, fixture of city politics. The governor, as part o f the act o f foundation,
named the first officials o f the town council, the mayors and aldermen. With the
demise or absence of the conquistadors, all city council positions became elective: the
outgoing council members elected their replacements. In the sixteenth century, while
the positions o f mayor, rural constable, and syndic continued to be elected annually by
council members, the regimientos became salable offices purchased from the Crown for
life and theoretically, available only to those who had the funds and background to
purchase them. By the seventeenth century, the manner of achieving municipal office
was fixed. City mayors and the syndic were elected annually by the outgoing cabildo,
and the aldermen's seats were purchased for life by eligible vecinos. Each January, the
incoming cabildo selected its rural constables.29
29 Chinchilla Aguilar, El ayuntamiento colonial, p. 26. A royal cedula o f 28 March 1640 announced the saleability of the positions o f alcalde mayor and alcalde provincial de sta hdd. AGCA A 3110-161, f 149 The tesorero de papel sellado became saleable in 16S4. Historians have accepted that after this law was passed, purchase was the only way to acquire a regimiento. See for example, two classics, John Horace Parry, The sale o f public office in the Spanish Indies under the Hapsburgs (Berkeley: University of
78
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
If in theory, the seats could pass to any vecino, in practice, the town council was
always in the hands o f local elites— the merchants, farmers and miners who combined
wealth and connections, and who sought to benefit themselves, and their communities,
by taking office. Stephen Webre and Jose Manuel Santos Perez have shown the process
by which new generations replaced old in the council o f the Kingdom capital
Guatemala City, by incorporating different professions and new arrivals at times of key
political decisions, and allowing seats to go unfilled at times o f political quiet.30 It
seems likely that the other towns and cities of the isthmus followed a similar pattern,
although further research o f early cabildo records would need to confirm it. Certainly,
as we shall see in the next chapters, the pattern was confirmed in eighteenth-century
Tegucigalpa and Sonsonate, each the capital of alcaldias mayores?x
Historians have emphasized the limits to the democratic attributes of the council,
noting with particular disfavor the Habsburg conversion of regimientos from elective to
saleable offices. Yet certain freedoms obtained through even limited electoral
processes. First, Spanish officials were repeatedly denied the possibility of holding
municipal office, thus preventing the overlap of the two competing authorities. Second,
California Press, 1953), and Jose Maria Ots Capdequi,."El regimen municipal hispanoamericano del periodo colonial, concejos y ciudades," Tierra Firme III-IV (1936): 353-381.0 For numerous examples o f Spaniards achieving city posts through their fathers-in-law in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries for Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, see Stephen A. Webre, "The Social and Economic Bases o f Cabildo Membership in Seventeenth-Century Santiago de Guatemala," PhD, Tulane University, 1980; and Jose Manuel Santos Perez, "Politica y comercio: el cabildo y los regidores de Santiago de Guatemala, 1713-1787" (PhD, Universidad de Salamanca, 1996). For the late eighteenth century, see Gustavo Palma Murga, “Nucleos de poder local y relaciones familiares en la ciudad de Guatemala a finales del siglo XVIII,” Mesoamerica 12 (1986): 241-308.
79
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
with the right to annually elect five city positions, members of the local elite had a
means to offer temporary political status to newcomers. Given the importance o f the
two mayors as chairs o f the local courts, the town vecinos thus held significant
autonomy within the justice system. Third, through refusal to purchase vacant
regimientos, local elites could also pressure governors to return to elections of
aldermen, which allowed a range o f vecinos to acquire government experience and
access to other offices.32 Fourth, group sales and resignations also proved means to
change the character o f a municipal council, as happened in at least two cities o f Central
America, Guatemala City and Sonsonate, in the eighteenth century.33 Many
regimientos also remained in the hands of one alderman for as long as a decade,
meaning that city governments often outlived any appointed official that might oppose a
local administration. Even if the seat changed hands, it frequently passed to a relative—
son, son-in-law, brother or cousin.34 Thus, even within the limits o f limited access to
31 For a list o f city councilors of Guatemala City, Sonsonate and Tegucigalpa between 1776 and 1850, see Appendices K-M.32 Prices of council seats varied significantly. It would be interesting to chart the rise and fall o f municipal importance through such prices. Data are available in Appendices H & I.',3 Guatemala had three group sales during the eighteenth century, each of which followed a long period of multiple vacancies on the council. Historians have accepted contemporary arguments that individuals were disinterested in the positions because of the work involved or the cost o f remaining in the city when their commercial and agricultural interests required frequent trips into the countryside. It seems more likely, given the circumstances surrounding the sales, that political considerations were more important. When a “faction” could organize the purchase of 14 (1742), 8 (1761) and 11 (1793) regimientos in Guatemala and 4 (1775) in the much smaller council o f Sonsonate, these men could be certain o f controlling the council and its resources. For the sales o f 1742 and 1761, see Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” Chapter 2, Tables II-5 and II-6. For the Guatemala sale of 1793 and Sonsonate sale o f 1775, see AGI Guatemala 446, in which the titles of the regidores explain the circumstances o f the sales.34 See Appendix J for all sales of municipal office in the Kingdom of Guatemala from the eighteenth century and Appendices K-M for data on councilors for three Central American cities—Guatemala City, Sonsonate and Tegucigalpa. In the late eighteenth century, many aldermen spent more than a decade on
80
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
city council seats, city government provided for an important amount o f political
autonomy for Spaniards. Those families with representation on the council or who
sought to obtain it participated actively in the selection o f their judges and
representatives. The influence o f this right, or privilege, should not be underestimated.
Republic and Imperial Power
The city council was the first but did not long remain the only institution of
secular government in the Kingdom of Guatemala. With the audience, the captain
general, provincial governors, and the church, the city council was integrated into a
network of imperial political power. Most o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala’s population
was illiterate, so one way to demonstrate this system was in a consistent and legible
architectural rendering. This presentation was partly accomplished by relying on a
standardized city layout; even today, it is possible to enter a rural Guatemalan town and
‘feel’ one’s way to the center along the straight streets that point directly to the city
center. With astonishingly few exceptions, all official settlements, from the grand
Asuncion de Guatemala to the smallest Indian village, respected the regular gridiron
street pattern decreed for the Spanish Americas. And, like a human cell, each republica
contained within it the elements o f the whole political structure.
the council. For the three cities, these men were: Miguel Ignacio Alvarez de Asturias, Pedro Jose Aycinena y Larayn, Luis Franscico Barrutia y Roma, Jose Antonio Batres y Munoz, Jose Antonio Castanedo, Rafael Ferrer, Pedro Juan de Lara, Nicolas Obregon and Manuel Jose Pavon y Munoz, (Guatemala); Juan Manuel Alcantara, Joaquin Espinoza, Francisco Antonio Gonzalez Cerezo, Juan Jacinto Herrera, Juan Miguel Midence (his brothers, Basilio and Manuel Jose were aldermen for slightly less than a decade) Manuel Antonio Vasquez y Rivera, Jose Vigil, Pedro Martir de Zelaya (Tegucigalpa); and Manuel Carrera,Casimira Jose de Cuellar, Manuel Diez Clemente, Francisco Guevara y Dongo, Eugenio Rascon, Jose Antonio Sicilia y Montoya, Jacinto Villavicencio and Rafael Ypina (Sonsonate).
81
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
At the heart of each city was the central plaza, with the cathedral or parish
church on one side separating the governor’s residence and government offices from the
city hall; palacio and casa de cabildo faced each other across the square.35 At the heart
of Spanish government in the Americas were governor, Catholic church, and cabildo,
each with its physical jurisdictions and official functions, some overlapping and others
starkly separated/6 Secondary government office buildings, such as mints or military
barracks, were located close by, as were the imposing compounds of the principal
religious orders. Important vecinos, the families o f the Creole elites, lived next or close
to the plaza, which also hosted the city’s central market, while the Indian and mestizo
and mulatto inhabitants lived in their own neighborhoods, often beyond the paved
streets and whitewashed houses of the city center.
Notably absent was a visible military presence. Central American towns did not
fund extensive defensive bulwarks, unlike the towns o f medieval Europe on which their
35 Santiago’s original layout, as ordered by Jorge de Alvarado, called for streets to run north-south, and east-west, with a plaza of 4 solares in the center o f the city. The principal church received two solares on one side o f the town square. The city council received another 4, for the town hall, jail, and propios o f the city. Additional solares were set aside for a hospital, a fortress, and a chapel to Nuestra Senora de Remedios, before the rest of the city plots were assigned to the vecinos to build their houses. Acta, 22 November 1528, Libro Viejo, p. 30-40j6 See Lyle McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, pp. 149-50, for a discussion o f Spanish urban planning in the Americas and the possible origins o f this physical plant. The occupant of the fourth side o f the square varied, but the individual or offices that occupied it were close to the local power base. To take one well-known example, Basque merchant Juan Fermin de Aycinena received the fourth side o f the plaza in the new capital city o f Asuncion for his residence and storefronts from a grateful captain general in return for his backing o f the contested move from earthquake-destroyed Santiago. By around 1810, Asuncion's plaza had on the east side the cathedral, flanked by the archbishop’s palace and the Colegio de Infantes; on the west, the Royal Palace, seat o f the Captain General, with the Audience’s courts and offices, the Contaduria General, Caxas Reales, and Mint; on the north side of the square, the City Hall, prison, meat shops, and granary, and on the south, the Royal Customs House (Real Aduana) and Marques de Aycinena. Juarros, Compendio, p. 55.
82
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
political system was based. Rather, as Adriaan Van Oss has observed, they were “open
to the surrounding landscape and favoured level valley sites.”37 The forts of the
Kingdom o f Guatemala were constructed where the pirates and English were, on the
coasts. Thus, British friar Thomas Gage expressed surprise in the seventeenth century
that he could pass directly into the city proper of Kingdom capital Guatemala City
“without entering through walls, or gates or passing over any bridge or finding any
watch or guard to examine who I was...[without] towers, forts or bulwarks to keep out
an aspiring or attempting enemy.” 38 Defensive structures did not emerge even in the
conflictual 1820s when British diplomat George Thompson approved of the property-
dividing “gates and inclosures (sic)” that gave the unwalled outskirts o f the capital “the
appearance o f some considerable degree o f civilization.”39
The tripartite political structure reflected in the layout o f the main square was in place
in Central America within a quarter century of the conquest. Emperor Charles V acted
swiftly to equip the Indies with the same range of civil and religious institutions of
government as those deployed in Spain in order to tie the various kingdoms to the
person and policies o f the monarch. Revoking initial lifetime and hereditary
gubernatorial appointments, the king replaced the first governors who had survived the
brutal conquest campaigns first with senior officials o f both secular and religious
37 Van Oss, “The Autarkic Colonial Cities o f Central America” in eds. Robert J. Ross and Gerard J. Telkamp, Colonial Cities: essays on urbanism in a colonial context (Boston: M Nijoff, 1985),” p. 44.38 Thomas Gage, Travels in the New World, ed. J.E.S. Thompson (Norman: U. o f Oklahoma Press, 1958), p. 176.
83
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
branches o f government. From the 1530s onward, governors received their
appointments and salaries from the king, with the intention that they would represent
the royal will rather than local interests or personal ambition. Central America's
conquerors did not wait long to be replaced.
39 George A. Thompson, Narrative o f an Official Visit to Guatemala from Mexico (London: J. Murray, 1829), p. 131.
84
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 9: Jurisdiction of New Guatemala, ca. 1776
1
Source: AGI, Mapas y Pianos, Guatemala 344 (Courtesy, Archivo General de Indias).
85
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Fuentes y Guzman presents this political revolution as a second conquest,
reminding his readers that the cities founded by loyal Spaniards predated the royal
decision to create a mechanism for direct oversight of the settlers by salaried officials
by almost two decades. The Guatemalan historian, in fact, argued that the new political
system was created because the conquest was complete, cities and villas had been
established, and the number of inhabitants and inhabited places was increasing.40 It
was, after all, “nineteen years from the initiation of the conquest, and seventeen from
the first foundation o f the city of Guatemala City de Guatemala.. .in the year 1542,” that
the king ordered the unification o f the distinct territories subjugated by Alvarado,
Davila and Montejo into one autonomous administrative district, a capitanla general or
audiencia called the Kingdom o f Guatemala.41 This “typical Spanish regional
government” took its functional names from its two chief political figures—a royally
appointed captain general aided by an audience, or territorial court. The place-name
40 Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Book 9, Chapter 19, pp. 131-2.41 Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, Book 9, Chapter 19, p. 131. Taplin, Middle American Governors (Metuchen, NJ, Scarecrow Press, 1972), p. 73. The audiencia was originally established in Gracias a Dios (Honduras), and controlled the Yucatan peninsula through Panama. In 1549, it moved to Santiago de los Caballeros (Guatemala), where it presided until independence in 1821. After a brief extinction (1563-1568), in which Guatemala became a dependency o f the Audiencia o f New Spain and the rest o f the kingdom was assigned to a court in Panama, the Kingdom of Guatemala comprised the territories that would endure throughout the colonial period. These later formed the province o f Chiapas, Mexico, and the national states of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Although revolts in southern New Spain led to a reassignment of Yucatan to the Guatemalan audiencia for the last decade o f Spanish rule, this top-down change had little practical impact. See also Book 2, Title 15, Law 6 o f the Recopilacion for a condensation o f the 6 reales cedulas (1543-1596) of creation and fine-tuning o f the audiencia district.
86
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
eventually settled upon, Guatemala, came from the city chosen as the capital, Santiago
de Guatemala.42
We have seen the extensive gubernatorial powers and responsibilities o f the
cabildos. The responsibilities o f the chief Spanish authorities were more indirect. In
addition to serving as the chief military, financial and political officer o f the kingdom,
the captain general was president o f the audiencia and as such provided for the good
government and administration o f the cities and other settlements in the kingdom and
could issue orders to councils to improve infrastructure.43 Among other responsibilities,
he confirmed clerical appointments, appointed many lower-ranking officials and made
interim appointments when provincial governorships became vacant.44 The judges
(oidores) o f the court, in turn, oversaw implementation of royal orders and advised the
captain general on financial, administrative and political matters, as well as serving as
43 John Preston Moore, The Cabildo in Peru Under the Bourbons, p. 9. Although technically appended to the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the captaincy-general of Guatemala was praetorial, meaning that decisions and appeals went directly to Spain. “Y mandamos que el Gobemador y Capitan General y Presidente de la real Audiencia de ellas, tenga, use y exerza por si solo la gobemacion de aquella tierra, y de todo su distrito, asi como la tiene nuestro Virey de la Nueva Espafia,” Book 2, Title 15, Law 2. The Recopilacion de Indias makes crystal clear in this law and that of Book 5, Title 9, Book 5 (1603-1633) that the president had the government (gobierao) in his charge, while the audience administered justice43 Law 10, Book 2, Title 116, Recopilacion (1535). In Spanish, “buena gobemacion y policia.” The same law ordered the oidores not to interfere with the city council's use of Spaniards and Indians to complete such infrastructure building tasks as waterworks and road building.44 See Book 5, Title 2, Law 4, Recopilacion, for regulations concerning interim nominations. Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion Florida, devotes Book 11, Chapters 1-4 through to the responsibilities of the Captain General (Supermo gobiemo), taken from the Recopilacion. Chapter 4, p. 207, notes that among the posts for which this official names temporary replacements are all the governorships, including the governors and captains genearl of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Comayagua; the alcalde mayor of Tegucigalpa, provinces of San Salvador and San Miguel; Sonsonate; Verapaz, Zapotitlan (Suchitepeques), and Chiapa(s); and governors o f Soconusco. The captain geneal also conferred titles of governors to indios principales who were able, and destined Indian laborers to agricultural or other tasks. He also confirmed elections of mayors.
87
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
appeals court for civil and criminal cases originating throughout the numerous districts
of the audiencia.
Together, president and audiencia settled disputes from each district within the
kingdom, and forwarded reports and recommendations to the Crown for political,
economic, religious or military improvements. When the two authorities could not
agree, or could not enforce a decision, weighty testimonials that sometimes numbered
thousands of pages sailed for Spain for resolution by the king, and his Council o f the
Indies. In either case, both authorities dealt with cases in the second instance, that is,
cases that had been adjudicated by city officials or governors, whose outcome
compelled at least one party to demand a reconsideration o f the original decision. The
imposition o f such authorities on top o f the city councils established at conquest merely
added a cushion between cabildo and king, and did not interfere in the day-to-day work
of the city councils, with the exception o f the capital. The ayuntamiento o f Guatemala
City, as capital o f the kingdom with official and unofficial links to all districts of the
isthmus, found itself in conflict with the captain general and audiencia on the
administration of the territories within its jurisdiction.
88
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 2.1: Government o f the Kingdom of Guatemala (1542-1786)
nn nrmnmMTii it •irTmiinrirT'Ttiir'iirriirrr
Central Authorities Captain General (CG) Royal appointmentAudiencia Royal appointment
State & provincial authorities
Intendant or Governor (Province)
Royal appointment
Alcalde Mayor or Corregidor (County)
Royal appt. from local nomination (CG)
Local authorities Cabildo/Ayuntamiento (Spanish City & Town)
Election/Purchase
Central Authorities Archbishop (Secular) Royal appointmentProvincial (Religious) Royal appointment
State & provincial authorities
Bishop (Secular, Province) Provincial (Religious)
Royal appointment
Parish Priest (County) Friar
Royal appt. from local nomination (Bish.)
Local authorities Election/Purchase
Several convents operated at different points during the colonial period, including: San Juan de Dios, Dominican, Mercedarian, Franciscan, Jesuits.Sources: Wortman,Government & Society, 1982, Table 13.2, p. 239; Van Oss, Catholic Colonialism, 1982.
However, the formal establishment of the Kingdom o f Guatemala led to the creation
of inferior governors of smaller provinces within the kingdom. In addition to the
captain general in Guatemala City, the king named governors o f the provinces of
Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica. These officials were also meant to play an
important military role protecting the coasts o f the isthmus against pirates and British
incursions, and held the additional title of captains general. However, their reach was
merely provincial, whereas the captain general situated in the capital shared
responsibility for all the provinces with the audiencia. Within those provinces, and in
districts to which no governor was appointed—principally Chiapas, San Salvador and
89
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Guatemala—the Crown set up smaller districts as well, alcaldias mayores in the
jurisdictions with Spanish town councils and corregimientos in districts whose principal
settlement was an Indian pueblo. These provinces took their names from the original
Spanish cities and principal Indian pueblos that became their respective capitals, or
cabeceras.AS The governors o f these districts—alcaldes mayores and corregidores—
were appointed by the king and were assigned to collect Indian tribute, assign Indian
labor, and supervise, at least in theory, the activities of the local town councils.46 The
number and type of districts—and governors—within the kingdom o f Guatemala
fluctuated from a high of 32 in 1654 to a low of 20 by the mid-eighteenth century (see
Appendix C), but at no point did a Spanish city find itself stripped o f its position as
capital of at least a district within a greater province. Since the city councils had carried
out these often-profitable tasks without interference until 1542, they did not welcome
the competition. Yet the change was not absolute. In some cases, as we have seen,
including those o f kingdom capital Guatemala City and the city o f San Salvador, the
city mayors held the official titles o f corregidores o f their jurisdiction, and in addition
to their responsibilities in city administration, also carried out the governor’s duties.47
45 Law 1, Title 1, Book 5 o f the Recopilacion assigned alcaldes mayores to cities and their partidos and corregidores to cabeceras o f pueblos principales de Indios. The Spanish part o f the city name (usually a saint) was not used in provincial names.46 Several laws discussed the corregidor's function as tribute collector. See Book 8, Title 9, Laws 9 and 10, Recopilacion.47 See Footnote44.
90
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Over time, the hierarchy that distinguished between alcaldes mayores and
corregidores fell into disuse.48 In the 1700s, the Bourbons acknowledged this elision
by calling all new districts alcaldias mayores, regardless of whether the district had a
Spanish city, or not (e.g. Tuxtla, Chiapas).49 Yet, the gobernaciones, alcaldias mayores
and corregimientos established in the sixteenth century retained their distinctive titles
and local governments. It is useful for historical purposes to recall that most
corregidores did not have to contend directly with a Spanish town council when
exercising their office whereas alcaldes mayores shared or contested much
gubernatorial authority with a cabildo.50
The third arm o f the colonial government, following the secular imperial agents
and the local institution, was the church. The religious provinces coincided with secular
districts, but had their own government. By 1534, Guatemala had its first bishop,
Francisco Marroquin, who had been priest to Alvarado’s conquistadors since 1530. By
1539, Leon (Nicaragua), Ciudad Real (Chiapas) and Trujillo (Honduras) also had
dioceses, responsible for the secular parishes in the kingdom, as well as chapter-houses
48 Book 5, Title 2, Law 3 (1550, 1575, 1580) o f the Recopilacion declared that pueblos de Indios encomendados would be under jurisdiction o f either corregidor or alcalde mayor, opening the way to an eliding of the two offices.49 Guatemala 446, Ereccion de la alcaldia mayor de Tuxtla (Chiapas). In 1760, the Council of the Indies argued to divide the alcaldia mayor o f Chiapas because there were ‘too many pueblos’ for one governor. The king commissioned a report from the audiencia of Guatemala, reviewed it and in 1768 authorized erection o f the alcaldia mayo of Tuxtla, confirming an interim appointment o f Spanish-bom Guatemala city regidor Col. Juan Oliver to a five-year term as governor.50 Most historians emphasize the loss of hierarchical distinction among the type o f district without acknowledging that work conditions differed in a region that had a Spanish cabildo and one that didn't. For a recent example of this argument, see Stephen Webre, “Poder e ideologia: La Consolidacion del sistema colonial (1542-1700),” in Julio Pinto Soria, ed., Historia General de Centroamerica, v. 2, El Regimen Colonial (1524-/570) (Madrid: FLACSO, 1993), p. 157.
91
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of the important Dominican, Mercedarian and Franciscan religious orders. The bishops,
with their ecclesiastic councils (cabildo eclesiastico) resided in provincial capitals, and
dispatched priests to serve in the countryside. Generally, a priest was responsible for a
series o f parishes, and resided in a district capital (cabecera), commuting to distant
settlements at irregular intervals.51 The overlay of religious institutions on top of the
secular municipal network served to consolidate the regional developments o f the
conquest.
Spanish colonial authority congregated in the cabeceras o f each province, with
the priest, the members of the city council or Indian justicia, governor and any treasury
officials cohabitating in much the same way as president, audience, cathedral chapter
and city council shared the capital, Guatemala City. Those who could appoint agents to
help with their work outside the termino o f the city did so. Generally, such
comisionados were limited to a coadjutor for the priest, several lieutenants (tenientes)
for the governor, and the two alcaldes de la santa hermandad, or rural constables, for
the city. If the provincial capital was a Spanish town, the city mayors carried the
additional title of teniente de alcalde mayor in the governor’s absence and served as his
interim replacement.52 It was not unusual, if there were several Spanish towns within a
province, for a governor to name the mayors o f those towns his lieutenants (tenientes)
s> For an insightful and readable analysis of the religious conquest in Central America, see Adriaan Van Oss, Catholic Colonialism, Chapters land 2, “Parochial Origins” and “Parish Structure.”52 B ook 5, Title 3, Laws 7 & 8 o f the Recopilacion called for mayors to replace governors in the case o f the latter’s death in office or permanent departure. The practice in Central America was for city mayors to step in during any absence. For example, in 1802, Sonsonate mayor Jacinto Villavicencio acted as
92
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
as well.5'1 In many ways, every Spanish city and town, and the principal Indian
settlements, behaved as if it were a capital, a situation that would complicate political
development in the nineteenth century.
If the original political system of church, governor and city was adequate to
balance power and influence in the conquest-era Americas in such a way as to favor the
king, by the eighteenth century, as Burkholder and Chandler have clearly demonstrated,
authority was fixed firmly in the overseas territories. The monarchy had a difficult time
enforcing unwelcome orders or extracting resources adequate to the task o f maintaining
its numerous battlefronts.54 The next chapter deals with the systemic reforms of Charles
III, the financial overhaul o f the 1760s and the Intendancy Reforms o f the 1780s. Yet
before engaging in analysis o f the tools and impact of those reforms, it behooves us first
to consider how the system o f city, governor and church functioned in the kingdom of
Guatemala two hundred years into Spanish rule.
By the 1680s, as Miles Wortman has argued, the Hapsburg monarchy, despite its
weakness, recognized the need for reform. In particular, it undertook a series of small
measures designed to increase royal influence and control in its distant kingdoms. One
of the most important achievements of the last Hapsburg king, Charles II, was to
teniente alcalde mayor in the absence of the propietario, Manuel Coton. AMS, Caja 1, Seccion Antigua 1800-9, Alejandro Ramirez al Alcalde Ordinario de Sonsonate, Guatemala, 11 March 1802.53 To take just one example, Asturian Cristobal Santelices, a regidor and alcalde provincial o f the Villa of Choluteca. was also teniente in the alcaldia mayor of Tegucigalpa in the early eighteenth century. AGI Guatemala 437. Remate en D. Manuel Antonio Basques i Ribera...de Rexidor Sencillo de la Villa de Tegucigalpa, 1792, f50.54 Mark A. Burkholder and D.S. Chandler, From Impotence to Authority: The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias, 1687-1808 (Columbia: U. o f Missouri Press, 1977).
93
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
compile and index the diverse rules that governed the acts of Spanish authorities in the
Americas for the first time, in the Recopilacion de leyes de los Reynos de las Indias
(1680; 1791, 4th ed.)- The eight books of the Recopilacion codified the principal laws
affecting Spanish government of the Americas and Philippines that had been issued as
individual royal orders over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
work marked an achievement in government in and o f itself, standardizing knowledge
about the responsibilities o f each branch of government.55
The organization o f the books reveals that as late as 1680, Spanish ministers still
perceived o f the city council as the basic institution o f Spanish government in the Indies
and, equally important, did not distinguish qualitatively between city government and
provincial government.56 Whereas the responsibilities of an audience and a viceroy or
captain general each merited their own book (Books Two and Three respectively),
books Four and Five together contained the regulations for city and provincial
government. Separate sections (titulos) in Book Four provided regulation for discovery,
pacification, population and governance. The clusters on population dealt with
ss Published in 1680, it seems likely that the foundation of the work was the compilation of secretario of the Council o f the Indies Juan Diez de la Calle. This devoted bureaucrat collected, between around 1640 and 1654, from the Council and the various audiencias, statistics and cedulas on each district’s government for use of the Council in its determinations. Only the introduction was printed. A copy of a 1646 and 1659 version of de la Calle’s obra maestra can be found in Madrid’s Biblioteca Nacional, as well as several volumes of drafts. BN Sala Cervantes, MS 1447 and MS 3023.S6 Four books dealt with: the church; the Council o f the Indies and the audiencias;the ‘dominio y jurisdiccion real de las Indias,’ including the responsibilities o f the viceroys and captains general, and the military; the government o f Indians; the control o f anti-social behavior in the form o f gaming, vagrancy and mixed blood. The final two books on financial management o f the Indies occupied one and a half of the three tomes making up the Recopilacion. Indice de los titulos que se contienen en los Libros 4,5,6,7,y 8 de la Recopilacion de Leyes de las Indias, n.p. Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias,Toma 2a. 4a Impresion (Madrid, 1791; Madrid 1943).
94
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
founding cities not provinces. Book Five combined titles on the specific divisions and
obligations o f each type of jurisdiction and official, including the different types o f
governor and mayors. Yet, while each function received a separate section, what is
most striking is that the two types o f political and civil government that directly affected
entire populations were interlaced and treated equivalently within each book. For the
compilers o f the collected wisdom of over two hundred years o f Spanish rule in the
Americas, there was no hierarchical separation of the two institutions o f local
government, town council and governor, just a series of exhortations on how to behave
to each other and to respect each other’s joint and separate responsibilities.57
The individual laws reflected an attempt to build checks and balances into a
system that was supposed to be mutually reinforcing. The aldermen on a city council
had lifetime positions, whereas governorships lasted from five to ten years. Governors
presided over council meetings, but could not interfere in local elections or insist that
the meetings take place in his house. The governor was responsible for ensuring order
the countryside, except where the rural constables (alcaldes de la hermandad) o f the
city exercised their authority. Although enjoined from exercising jurisdiction over
native populations, city mayors could judge cases between Spaniards and Indians. In
the case of death or departure o f a governor, the city mayor could temporarily take his
5' A similar view is clear also in the 1775 compilation of laws for peninsular Spain, Novisima Recopilacion, revised and expanded in 1805-1807. The full title of this work is Novisima recopilacion de las leyes de Espana, dividia en XII libros: en que se reforma la recopilacion...de 1567, reimpresa ultimamente en el de 1775, y incorporan las pragmaticas, cedulas, decretos, ordenes y resoluciones
95
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
place, but the governor could not name interim city councilors. Unexpected vacancies
were filled from within council ranks. Important royal decrees were sent separately to
captain general, audience and the Guatemala City town council to ensure their full
distribution and execution. It would be impossible to separate out the work o f any one
part of the bureaucracy from the rest.
If anything underlined the city’s autonomy from structural forms of
gubernatorial meddling, it was the injunctions that no captain general or governor could
erect a city or town, which would separate a lesser place from its cabecera.59 In other
words, only the king could alter the institutional organization of a territory. The
numerous injunctions to keep governors from attending meetings when they should not
appear to have been poorly respected (why else would they require repeating?). Yet
there seems to be no evidence to suggest that the councils of Central America followed
the order that mayors not attend council meetings if a governor was presiding.60 It
seems likely that the councils of the kingdom of Guatemala took advantage o f the
loophole written into this law: that it was to be invoked only if there was no custom to
reales, y otras providencias no recopiladas, y expedidas hasta el de 1804, mandada formar por el senor don Carlos IV (Madrid: s.n., 1805-1829).58 Recopilacion, Book 4, Title 10, Laws 5, 7-10, 12. Book 4, Title 9, Laws 2-4, 13. Book 4. Title 8, Laws 6, 8, 11. Book 5, Title 3, Law 7, 8, 14.59 Recopilacion, Book 4, Title 8, Law 6.60 Recopilacion, Book 5, Title 3, Law 14. Governors and mayors both attended council meetings in the eighteenth century. See the books of acts for Guatemala City, Sonsonate and Tegucigalpa. For each session, the secretary noted those anending. From the attendance it is clear that mayors not only attended but chaired each council meeting; in their absence, those in whom they had deposited their staff o f office headed the sessions in their place.
96
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the contrary.61 Custom, in fact, was something the Recopilacion emphasized should be
respected if local practice conflicted with official law. Thus, one law stated that in the
case of doubt, mayors would keep the jurisdiction that they had held in the past, with no
novelty (novedad) until the Council o f the Indies had been informed and taken a
decision.62 This permission kept the immense municipal jurisdictions intact in the
Kingdom o f Guatemala. The preponderance of the evidence indicates that the
Hapsburg monarchy, upon whose royal decisions the Recopilacion was based, was
more concerned with limiting pretensions o f externally appointed governors than those
o f perpetual councils.
Bearing in mind this contemporary equivalence o f alcalde ordinario, alcaldes
de la santa hermandad, and alcalde mayor, it is useful to rethink what “local”
government meant in the Spanish imperial context. Rather than separating Spanish
government in the Kingdom of Guatemala into two opposing sides o f local and
imperial, or a straight line of authority, let us consider each as one side o f a two-tiered
pyramid. On the top tier, were the archbishop (church), the chief town council,
Guatemala City (city), and the captain general and audience (appointed officials).
These three institutions had recognized authorities that extended throughout the
kingdom. Guatemala City, as capital o f the kingdom was required by the king to
provide reports on issues outside its jurisdiction and expected, until the 1750s, to take
61 Recopilacion, Book 4, Title 8, Law 6.62 Recopilacion, Book 5, Title 3, Law 19 (1578).
97
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
on administrative tasks, such as tax collection, that required a kingdom-wide presence.63
On the second tier were the provincial and local authorities: the bishops and priests, city
councils, and governors. These figures’ legal jurisdiction was restricted to one province
or district. Although separate and definable, each authority was connected to the others
at its own level, as well as to those on the top and base. From the base of the Spanish
monarchy, all of the political institutions drew their legitimacy and their authority. The
space within the pyramid fell within the jurisdiction o f all the authorities, a situation
that could give rise to conflict as well as cooperation. Regardless, it was only together
that church, city and governors comprised the active arm of Spanish government in the
Americas. Separate, each institution was incomplete. Together, the whole was solid
and difficult to dislocate, unbalance or change. In fact, the political structure based on a
tripartite division of authority between city, governor and church, endured, unchanged,
until the reformist era of Carlos HI in 1759.64
City and state under the early Bourbons
The result of a system designed to balance power between competing interests in
Spain and the Americas was one in which conflict was endemic. Governors and
cabildos constantly sought to increase their local power at the expense of the other
authorities, with city councils emphasizing the corruptibility of the governors—whose
lack of roots encouraged them to wrest as much money from Indian tributaries as
63 In 1777, for example, the fiscal o f the Council o f the Indies asked not only the high court, archbishop and Salvadoran officials to provide recommendations on how to reform San Salvador’s provincial government, it also asked Guatemala City’s cabildo for input. AGI Guatemala 621.
98
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
possible—and governors countering with charges o f equal abuses on the part of cities
that channeled Indian labor to private farms and underpaid Indian workers and traders.65
Often, cases dragged on for up to twenty years, which suggests the inertia that
had built up in a system in which long legal battles were an important tool o f both sides.
Equally, interim decisions which sometimes favored a city and sometimes the governor
or audiencia or captain general that the city was generally opposing, show that city
councils operated as players with equal footing in local and imperial politics as the
governors and judges sent from Spain to complement their authority. The contents o f
individual cases underline that well into the eighteenth century, alcalde ordinario and
alcalde mayor remained equivalent players within the Spanish gubernatorial hierarchy,
even after a new and reformist dynasty occupied the Spanish throne in 1700.
In one case that “scandalized the kingdom,” the captain general and audiencia o f
Guatemala, on their own initiative and supported with instructions from the Crown,
succeeded in the 1750s in separating Guatemala City from the majority o f its 11-league
district and revoked the mayors’ prestigious title of corregidores. From the territory,
they created two corregimientos that would do a better job of collecting Indian tribute
64 See Appendix C for the political divisions of the Kingdom of Guatemala between 1654 and 1800.65 See for example a 1602 case in which the city o f Choluteca wrote to the king to denounce excesses o f jueces de miipas, alcaldes mayores, and corregidores, saying that one Spanish official created more problems than 40 or 50 Spaniards living among the Indians, and suggesting that Indians govern themselves. They called the bureaucrats “official thieves, authorized by the king” and “ravenous lions feeding on the poor.” Cabildo de la Villa de Jerez del Valle de Choluteca... 12 de noviembre 1602, in Leyva, ed., Documentos Coloniales de Honduras, pp. 108-110.
99
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
for the king. The city’s protests, which continued for over a decade, resulted in
decisions to grant various-sized jurisdictions. The cabildo appealed each time.66
At first glance the case appears to be one o f local elites fighting disinterested
Spanish officials to redress the loss o f a fiefdom when, at the time o f the
dismemberment o f the corregimiento, captain general and audience had united to insist
on the reform, the city had been unable to prevent it. The cabildo could not argue with
the evidence that royal officials would be more efficient tribute collectors than the city
mayors had been, and its was interest in increased revenue that had convinced king
Ferdinand VI to institute the reform.67 However, the council could and did petition the
king and take advantage o f a change in captains general to make an ally of Alonso
Fernandez de Heredia in the 1760s. Through the evidence from these changes, it
becomes clear that all parties were acting in self-interest, not just the council. Heredia
likely traded his support for an agreement by the interested parties to purchase eleven
vacant seats on the cabildo that had for years been filled by temporary appointments
and wrote letters in the city’s favor, which clearly gave the municipal position weight
when they were considered in Spain.68 More importantly, Heredia also helped the
66 The entire case can be found in AHN Consejos 20950-20953. The case is made up o f more than 100 pieces and 3000 pages.6' AGI Guatemala 445. Instruccion Reservada a Joseph Vazquez Prego, 25 April 1751. The previous president Joseph de Araujo y Rio had estimated the annual revnue lost due to the mayors’ poor record of tribute collection at 16,000 pesos in 1749. In fact, by 1751 the alcaldes mayores were collecting at least 35,000 pesos annually, more than double the estimate The new alcaldias mayores o f Chimaltenango, and Sacatepequez & Amatitan were slated to bring in 18,075 and 17,092 pesos respectively just for the semiannual tribute collected in December (tercio de navidad).68 In 1764, seats that had been vacant for up to twenty years were sold to eleven prominent men o f the capital. The sale was to both sides' advantage. Heredia received credit for increasing local interest in
100
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
council unmask the duplicity of the judges of the audience, who had personal ties to the
men they had named as corregidores in the city’s place, as well as to local families, in
direct contravention o f royal policy. That some o f the local families were members of
the town council meant that, on some occasions, only half the council members waged
the battle. In other words, what had been presented as a case o f royal reform against
local corruption was in fact a battle between two vested interest groups for control of
the valley of Guatemala.69 After twenty years, the city did not get its territory back, but
had succeded in establishing a precedent for having councilors or their relatives named
to the important new corregimientos and had proved that the city’s interests weighed as
heavily with the Crown as the recommendations of a governor or audience. The judges
of the audience who had established local ties and favored their Guatemalan kin also
received steep punishment from the Crown for their misbehavior.
permanent involvement in government. The new regidores, through election o f the alcaldes ordinarios, could choose the men who would, under Heredia’s complacent eye, serve as interim alcaldes mayores of Chimaltenango. For a discussion o f the mechanics and negotiation of the sale, see Jose Manuel Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” Chapter 2. This discussion, however, does not relate the sale to the ongoing battle to recover the corregimiento.69 AHN Consejos 20952, Pieza 3. Letter o f Ayuntamiento, Guatemala 29 August 1766. Also AHN Consejos 20953, Pieza 55, f 174; and Pieza 94, 1764: Representacion de la ciudad de Guatemala, 29 November 1760. Audiencia judges Manuel Diaz, Juan Gonzalez Bustillo and Basilio de Villarrasa were friends with Creole corregidor Estanislao Croquer. The wife o f court fiscal Phelipe Romana was sister to Croquer’s wife. All four judges were friends o f corregidor Manuel Plazaola and had spent over a week at Croquer’s country house to celebrate his saint’s day. The unconnected city council members were Simon Larrazabal, Manuel Batres, Juan Fermin Aycinena, Pedro Ortiz de Letona, Pedro Ignacio de Loayza, and Ventura Najera, and they claimed that the others had formed a ‘partido’ against the ayuntamiento, and were ‘disunited’ from its body (cuerpo). The other four regidores —Basilio Vicente Roma, Felipe Manrrique, Fernando Palomo and Cayetano Pavon— were related to fiscal Felipe Romana's wife, and by marriage, to Croquer.
101
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 2.2: Alcaldes Mayores, Chimaltenango and Sacateplquez, 1774-1820
Alcaldia Mayor Years Governor Yrs. in cabildoChimaltenango 1776 Simon de Larrazabal 1764-1770Chimaltenango 1772 Ventura de Najera 1774-1793Chimaltenango 1800-1805? Jose del Barrio 1812-1819Chimaltenango 1806-1807 Ignacio Coronado y Ulloa 1790-1791Chimaltenango 1807 Antonio Jose Arrivillaga 1805, 1811-2Chimaltenango 1810-12 Cayetano Jose Pavon 1781-1810Chimaltenango 1812:Into Francisco Martinez Pacheco 1786-1792Chimaltenango 1813-16,
1820Jose del Barrio 1812-1819
Chimaltenango 1814 Ignacio Batres y Munoz (not a member of the cabildo; his three brothers served from:)
(1790-1819)
Sacatepequez 1771-17881775
Nicolas de Obregon (removed for misuse of tribute funds); 1776: Diego del Barco was Tte. Justicia Mayor, Antigua
1770-18021775-1795
Sacatepequez 1811-6 Jose Maria Martinez Zevallos 1801-5 (sec)Sacatepequez 1816: Into. Jose Najera y Batres (son: Ventura Najera) 1827-1840
Years in the cabildo of Guatemala = First and Last years. Sources: See Appendix G.
Also in the 1750s, the three ayuntamientos o f the alcaldia mayor o f San
Salvador—San Salvador, San Miguel, and San Vicente—allied with the powerful
Galvez family in the capital to eject a governor who was not willing to work with local
authorities. The interests of the merchants and landowners were, at the outset, the same.
Guatemala-bom Cristobal Galvez wanted to recover his position as alcalde mayor o f
the province where he had both commercial and land interests. The Galvez family’s
interest in the province went back almost a hundred years. Cristobal’s Spanish father’s
first occupied the same office in 1688.70 The city councils, for their part, wanted to
70 Bartolome Galvez de Corral arrived in Guatemala from Malaga, and married into the family Baron de Barrieza. In 1688, he became Alcalde Mayor o f San Salvador, a post his descendants would hold repeatedly until the erectioin of San Salvador into an intendancy in 1786. At his death in 1715, he left as
102
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
return to a time when alcalde mayor, alcaldes ordinarios, and alcaldes de la
hermandad had shared in the power to govern the countryside, assign Indian laborers to
city works and indigo workshops (obrajes), sell goods to tribute-paying Indian
communities and control the province’s mulatto militiamen. Apparently, during the
Galvez tenure, such cooperation had existed. So, fronting for the Galvez, the city
councils accused recently-arrived governor Bemabe de la Torre of graft and
mistreatment o f the Indian population.
An initially uninterested audiencia in 1757 assigned a San Miguel-bom member
of the Guatemalan elite, Francisco Chamorro, to investigate the cities’ charges o f the
new governor’s misdemeanors. The native son Chamorro unsurprisingly found the
accusatory evidence more convincing than the governor’s defense. When, a decade
later, Torre proved the falseness o f the accusations and vindicated himself, the damage
had already been done. The audience proved incapable o f collecting the fines assessed
against the city councilors who had peijured themselves during the case; many vecinos
o f San Salvador, San Miguel and San Vicente claimed poverty or coercion and others
had simply died.71 The king personally demonstrated that justice and consistency were
a legacy over 400,000 pesos. His sons Cristobal and Manuel Galvez y Corral (regidor in Santiago in 1742), served as alcaldes mayores until the 1780s, naming other relatives when they were unable to preside themselves. Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” Chapter 3.'* AHN Consejos 20967, Pieza 7, 1772. Testimonio del despacho provisional de la Audiencia de Guatemala y demas diligencias para que varios ugetos de la provincia de San Salvador y capitulares de sus tres cavildos de San Vicente, San Miguel y San Salvador exiviesen las cantidades de las multas en que salieron condenados en la sentencia pronunciada en la causa de Pesquisa en contra de D. Bemabe de la Torre de Trassierra, 42 ff. The decision suspended Torre for three years for abuses in repartimiento o f goods, and ordered him to pay one third o f the trial costs. The rest o f the costs were to come from the accusers, who also were assessed hefty fines, per the decision of the audiencia o f 27 November 1767.
103
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
less important than money. During the extended trial, he had named Galvez as
governor in Torre’s place and preferred not to remove him because doing so would
cancel an agreement for the Guatemalan to serve a 10-year term as governor in
exchange o f forgiveness o f a debt the Crown owed to his family. The governor himself
died, destitute, before he heard about his vindication.72 Given the poor example
provided by the king, it is unsurprising then, that in 1774, when ordered to name an
“impartial” interim governor the captain general named Melchor de Baron—the Galvez’
first cousin.73 The best the affronted audiencia could do was to name a disinterested
lieutenant captain general and justicia mayor, Francisco Aldama, to try to impose some
outside control and observation on the local authorities, alcalde mayor included, in
1771. Aldama’s detailed and despairing report on the status of municipal and
gubernatorial complicity made absolutely clear why an overhaul to the system, rather
than makeshift and ad hoc adjustments would be required to change the balance o f
power from local landholders and merchants, with their control o f the town council and
influence over the governors, to the Crown and its directly-appointed, salaried agents.'4
'2 This case in its entirety can be found in AHN Guatemala 20967-20968.3 AHN Consejos 20967, Pieza 2, Testimonio, f. 2v. Melchor was the son of the Galvez’ mother’s sister
(aunt), Maria Antonia Baron de Barrieza and Capt. Bernardo de Mencos. Thanks to Sylvia Casasola of UCLA for the family information. The royal order to name an interim governor was dated 1 April 1774, Madrid, and implemented in the “provisional establishment of la Hermita” (soon to be Asuncion) on 22 September o f the same year.'* AGI Guatemala 621, Informe de la Audiencia de Guatemala, 6 April 1779, f lv.
104
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 10: Alcaldia Mayor, San Salvador, 1778
Wfl*fi
Source: AGI, Mapas y Pianos, Guatemala 298 (Courtesy, Archivo General de Indias).
105
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
When taken together, both cases demonstrate the state o f government in mid
eighteenth century Guatemala. Among points made clear in the Guatemala City case,
the first is that for all its initial resolution to enact change, the early Bourbon rulers
began with no systemic plan with which to restructure local relations, either among the
officials in the Americas or between those of Spain and those overseas. Instead, as
opportunity presented itself, the Crown would support locally promoted initiative. In
this case, a captain general sensitive to the revenue needs o f the Crown had pushed
through the creation o f two corregimientos in what had formerly been the municipal
district o f Guatemala City, winning royal approval because the change would increase
tribute collections at little cost to the Crown. When the local initiative vanished, due to
a change o f personnel or their interests, or a shift to the balance between the different
representatives of Spanish authority in a local environment, or any other reason, the
reform itself would come under attack. Such attack often packaged reform as
undermining precedent, privilege and stability. The Crown, faced with a dilemma, then
would try to reconcile two competing and incompatible goals. In the Guatemala City
case, Charles IE weighed his need for increased revenue against the protection o f a
certain degree o f preeminence for a city whose leaders represented important
commercial ties that Spain also needed to encourage. He also had to judge, sifting
through the pages in which opposing sides proclaimed their own lofty motivations and
disparaged their rivals’ as self-interested and profit-driven, whether reform or status quo
ante was the worse of the two evils. The end result, as in the case o f the battle over the
106
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Valley of Guatemala, was often a Pyrrhic victory. The form o f the reform was
respected: the two corregimientos survived. But its content was voided, as the local
elite individuals and families who had used the council to oppose the dismemberment
received nominations to serve as the new governors, with the same authority they had
enjoyed before.
Second, the attention accorded to the cities’ petitions in both cases reinforces the
deep roots of city government, with its privileges and powers, as an important element
to the Spanish political system, which at times required protection rather than attack in
order to ensure political and economic stability. A cabildo could bring down a
misbehaving audiencia just as a reforming audiencia could undermine a city
government by putting royal needs above local benefits. The Bourbon rulers, and their
officials in the Council o f the Indies, understood very well the importance o f city
government’s position and permanence, and would not consistently support governor
and president and audience against it. The goal was to maintain a balance that made the
system work, not to fortify any one branch so that it might impose its will consistently
on the other sides o f the pyramid. The swift punishment o f the audiencia that followed
the city’s proof of that body’s local interests makes clear that, for policy makers in
Spain, it was not a question o f nurturing an oppositional position against the city as the
‘representative’ of local government. Instead, on a case-by-case basis, the Bourbons
hoped to nourish a mythical equilibrium, in which the forces deployed by the royal hand
worked to achieve the Crown’s ends, whether they saw it or not.
107
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Third, time was generally on the side o f the city. The local kinship and power
networks, and their interest in local land and labor resources, extended further and
changed more slowly than did those of the officials, no matter how well-connected.
That Guatemala City’s council could solicit reports from the primarily local parish
clergy that praised the mayors’ work as corregidores as more effective and better for
their Indian parishioners and buttressed the city’s position is but one example o f the
benefits o f such diffuse networks.75 Compared to an alliance between three city
governments and one extensively connected capitaline family, an individual outsider
like Torre had small chance o f implementing policies against the interests or will o f the
local power networks. Even an upright and dedicated audiencia could not do much to
achieve a new balance o f power when the king himself undermined its achievements.
Finally, royal leadership was essential to any sustained reformist effort. Reform
overseas had to have consistent backing in the peninsula to take root, something the
kings of Spain failed to institutionalize as the wars of the eighteenth century drained the
royal coffers. Short-term economic interests repeatedly undermined long-term politico-
economic goals. In the case o f San Salvador, both Aldama and the audiencia could
point to one source of trouble, the cities’ “monstrous jurisdiction,” that led to
equivalence between governor and local elites in terms o f control o f populations and
land. Yet whereas the judges of the audiencia o f the 1730s and 1750s fought tooth and
'5 AHN Consejos 20952, Pieza 56, 1760. See particularly testimonies of curates Manuel Roche (Comalapa), ff. 13v-21; Jose AntonioAlvarez (San Martin Xilotepeque), ff. 21v-30v; and Manuel Barreir (San Juan Alotenango, Amatitanes), ff. 66-70.
108
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
nail to limit the jurisdiction o f the alcaldes o f the capital, the 1779 audiencia
shamefacedly admitted its incapacity to attempt the same reforms in the provinces.
When the cabildos insisted on their privileges, the audiencia decided against issuing a
challenge “from knowledge o f the inconveniences that any novelty tends to produce,
when not originating directly from Your Majesty.”76 In both o f these cases, such royal
support was not forthcoming.
For effective realignment of power, with both cabildo and governors responding
to the needs of the monarchy, Charles m had to resolve the conundrum o f taxes or
tranquility. Bureaucrats in the Americas seemed unable to conceive of fundamental
change. Both Aldama and the audience recommended breaking the power of the elites
by dividing San Salvador into three separate districts and reducing the city’s
jurisdiction. Since the court had initially assigned the reason for inefficient government
to the province’s “multiplicity o f judges,” it is unclear how adding new judges would
subtract the problem. It seems more likely to have increased the number o f posts
without dealing with the structural problems o f the networks that any new governor
would have had to address and accommodate.77 Redistricting the corregimiento of
Guatemala City had not changed the fundamental operations o f government in that
'6 AGI Guatemala 621, Informe de la Audiencia de Guatemala, 6 April 1779.7 AGI Guatemala 621, Informe de la Audiencia de Guatemala, 6 April 1779, f. lv. The audiencia's
solution, like Aldama's was to divide the province/alcaldia mayor o f San Salvador, although it suggested three new jurisdictions. San Salvador, to be the capital o f one part, with 47 pueblos; San Miguel, with 42, and Santa Ana Grande, with 19. The salary of 827 pesos allocated to the single alcalde mayor would be split, with 327 pesos going to the governor of San Salvador and 250 pesos each to those o f Santa Ana Grande and San Miguel. The only real innovation might have been a governor for Santa Ana, the only Salvadoran town with no cabildo
109
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
district either. Instead, adding two new districts had simply caused the city leadership
to experiment with various forms o f co-option before settling on de facto
reincorporation o f the jurisdiction through assuming the governorships.
The Hapsburg imperial system, as inherited by the Bourbons, worked through
alliances. Although different players had different stakes in, and different commitments
to Guatemala, all had vested local interests. The Crown understood that ‘particular’
motivations could undermine royal efforts to benefit the ‘public good’ or common
cause. Thus, located thousands of leagues away, the monarch counted on a fungible
balance of power to unmask and control individual interests. President and audience,
united, could counter the maneuverings o f local interests as expressed in the cabildo.
President and audience, opposed, could expose and limit abuse o f authority by
externally appointed Spanish officials. Polite, legal opposition in the form o f appeals
provided a valve to express opposition or frustration in which the spleen demonstrated
by the audience had no place and the monarchy continued to serve as arbiter of power.
Unfortunately, this system was not an efficient one for increasing revenue for the
monarch. Set up to ensure that no one institution gained too much authority over any
resource or group, this system still worked to specifications two hundred years after
implementation. The needs of the monarchy, however, had changed. To make reform
take hold, somehow the old relationships of interdependency had to be broken. Charles
Ill’s first attempts to do this, the financial reforms o f the 1760s paved the way for a
110
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
more systematic overhaul o f the entire system in the1780s. The Bourbon reformer’s
two major projects are the subject o f the next two chapters.
Charles III and his advisers had learned, after making the mistake of testing as
he had in Guatemala and Salvador, that a shakeup o f the entire system was the only way
to bring about durable change to meet long-term goals. Historians have characterized
such reforms as centralizing, but the problem facing the Bourbon reformer was
precisely a centralized power in the hands o f an urban elite and its Spanish official
allies. Better government would mean more government and the creation of new
centers o f power, with the goal of altering the fundamental structure o f the symbiosis
between cabildo and alcalde mayor, and cabildo and audiencia and captain general.
The same three agents, with the same responsibilities, would still operate in the Central
American countryside. What would have changed would simply have been the number
of each. City government, however, was not the main target of these reforms: it was the
governor who found himself expendable.
I l l
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 3
The Bourbon Town Council & the Spanish State: Uniformity and Regionalism
Part 1: The First Reforms: Taxation and Real Hacienda, 1760-1785
On the road from “impotence to authority” Charles HI took a measured approach
to recover royal control of the political and financial institutions of the Americas.
Directing his attentions not at the town councils, but at networks that involved local
inhabitants and royal officials, he first, in the early 1760s, enacted a serires of financial
measures that put the majority of colonial finances in the hands of a new type of royal
official with uniquely fiscal responsibilities. With increased revenues assured, the king
then turned his attention to broader governmental reforms, seeking reports from the
different kingdoms of the Americas on ways to redistrict territories and revamp
government. By the 1780s, consolidation of small provinces into intendancies was well
underway throughout the Americas, and, between 1785 and 1787, implemented in the
Kingdom of Guatemala.
Historians often emphasize the “centralization” o f the Bourbon reforms,
presumably because of the territorial consolidations that went along with financial
reorganization. This chapter suggests that, in fact, the underlying program to render
“uniform the government of the great empires” of Spanish monarchy in fact
decentralized state power in the Americas while consolidating royal control.1 The
1 Article 1, Instruction e ordenanza de intendentes de Buenos Ayres (1782) and Instruction e ordenanza de intendentes de Nueva Espana (1786). For early discussion o f the emphasis on retaking control o f the audiencias, see Mark A Burkholder and D.S. Chandler, From impotence to authority: the Spanish Crown and the American audiencias, 1687-1808 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977). The word “centralization” has consistently been applied to Bourbon reforms by historians like John Lynch,
112
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bourbon reformers prized transparency, systematization, efficiency and increased
oversight, or, in a word, more government and the uniform institutions and mechanisms
o f government. Yet for each new financial reform, a new directorate was created, with
its own regional bureaucracy, rather than a unified economic system. The captain
general, once the unquestioned political, military, and economic head of the kingdom
found competition in the four intendants whose similar powers within their territories.2
A similar process threatened the power o f the principal Spanish cities, as the intendancy
reforms finally reduced city government to its urban center and offered the trappings o f
local government to smaller towns that had never achieved a status that would have
supported a full town council. The intendancy reforms, however, did not bring all the
disparate municipal districts of the Kingdom o f Guatemala under new central
governments, preferring to consolidate the conquest provinces which had always
benefitted from regional government, and to leave the independent alcaldias mayores
and corregimientos in the hands o f their governors and town councils. In short, the
period after the 1760s witnessed more creation o f state and city government in Central
America than had been experienced since the conquest. More government meant more
government at the local level, as well as at the center. Thus, while the Bourbons
Bourbon Spain. 1700-1808 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) and Bemabe Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala durante el Gobiemo de Antonio Gonzalez Saravia, 1801-1811 (Guatemala: Comision Universitaria Guatemalteca de Conmemoracion del Quinto Centenario del Descubrimiento de America, 1993), p 60. The latter writes that the goal o f the Bourbons was to “centralizar, uniformar, racionalizar, y mejorar el sistema gubemativo de Espana y sus colonias.” Miles Wortman applied the term more sparingly only to the establishment of intendancies, rather than the entire Bourbon program. Miles Wortman, Government and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 166.' Fernandez Hernandez makes explicit that much of the resistance to the new administration came from viceroys and captains general whose functions were reduced with the establishment of intendancies,
113
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
consolidated and strengthened state power, they also turned over the implementation of
government into more and more dispersed hands.
By looking at the homogenizing, regionalizing tendencies o f the Bourbon
reform program and localized response to it, we can begin to unravel the apparent
paradox o f how sixty years o f “centralization” fostered universal regional instability in
the independence era that grew out of competition between local elites.3 We can also
better understand the common phenomenon o f revived elite interest in local government
that swept through Latin America from Mexico to Peru in the last third o f the eighteenth
century.4 Part of that better understanding includes revisiting the assertion of local
resentment of intendants, also thought to be a universal reaction to a proliferation o f
broadly-powered governors, as perhaps better conceived as a new stage in long-running
or revived local jockeyings for local or regional power.5 In short, greater Bourbon
interest in government led to an unsurprising resurgence in local elite interest in
government in order to benefit from new opportunities or challenge attacks on
privileges and customs.
whereas other authors like Fisher and Moore underline local opposition. Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, p. 59.3 Recent scholarship on the Yucatan has done much to highlight the phenomenon o f “elite fragmentation” in the era o f the Bourbon reforms. See for example Robert W. Patch, “The Bourbon Reforms, City Councils, and the Struggle for Power in Yucatan, 1770-1796,” in Jaime E. Rodriguez O., ed., Mexico in the Age o f Democratic Revolutions, 1750-1850 (Boulder: Lynn Rienner Publishers, 1994)4 See, for example, John Preston Moore, The Cabildo in Peru under the Bourbons: A study in the decline and resurgence o f local government in the Audiencia o f Lima, 1700-1824 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1966), & J.R. Fisher, Government and Society in Colonial Peru: The Intendant System, 1784-1814 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) especially Chapter 8, “Intendants and Cabildos;” and John Lynch., Bourbon Spain, 1700-1808. Patch, “Yucatan, 1770-1796,” p. 65, 70, has also emphasized the deprivation of powers “long held and valued” as a result o f the Bourbon reforms. He has focused on city resentment not of intendants, however, but their deputies, the subdelegados.
114
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Bourbon Reforms
The political theorists o f Bourbon Spain agreed that political power resided in
the king, from whom would emanate the laws which would impose the values of the
Enlightenment—utility, prosperity and happiness—on Spanish society.6 Power was
unique, indivisible, insuperable and could not govern poorly, for good government was
the only option for the ‘coproprietor’ of the land—the king. In the words o f minister
Bernardo Ward, the goal was to achieve “a constitution o f government that leaves the
king absolute power to do all the good he desires.”7 For Campomanes, the rights ofo
citizenship, including the right to establish residence, “all depends on royal authority.”
In other words, the projects of reform did not propose to alter the fundamental
relationship between king as law-giver and people as receiver of monarchical edicts.
Translated into reformist practice, the ministers o f the Bourbon monarchs
Ferdinand V and VI and Charles HI sought to create a system of government that was
an “ordered system” (Campomanes) and “uniform,” in which the king and his ministers
legislated, and other branches of the government simply implemented. As Jose
Antonio de Maravall has written, “in the administrative and theoretical writings o f the
period, “uniform” and “uniformity” are terms repeated ad nauseum (saciedad).”9
Uniformity in the era of the Count of Floridablanca was to make of a motley collection
5 According to Fisher, when cabildos came to demand ‘the restoration o f rights’what they were reallyseeking was the power to control that which the intendants had created. See Moore, The Cabildo in Peruunder the Bourbons, p. 171; and Fisher, Government and Society in Colonial Peru, pp. 186, 188, 195.6 Jose Antonio Maravall, Estudios de !a historia del pensamiento espanol (siglo XVIII) (Madrid: Biblioteca Mondadori, 1991), p. 452.7 Cited in Maravall, Estudios de la historia, p. 456.8 Maravall, Estudios de la historia, p. 453.9 Maravall, Estudios de la historia, p. 455-456.
115
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of kingdoms, audiencias, corregimientos and districts a collection o f provinces that
would become a common territorial basis for political organization. Leon de Arroyal
wrote that “equality in the division of Provinces is the cement of good economic civil,
and military administration; it is the great foundation in the art of calculation, and is the
only [division] that can put us in a state to foment this great body of the monarchy.”
The same author wrote that “provinces equally distributed give rise to uniformity of
operations in their officers and in their employees.”10
This political formula o f unity and, in some cases homogenization in the
military, politico-territorial, administrative and even social spheres supposed an intense
interventionism. In Spain, the first such interventions came with the establishment of
intendancies in the 1710s, a reform which took over 30 years to become
institutionalized due to resistance of threatened interest groups in the kingdoms o f the
Peninsula. Ministerial reorganization also reduced the authority of the Council o f the
Indies to purely judicial affairs, with executive and legislative responsibility to be
returned to the king, and his ministers who would be responsible for sending orders.11
In the Americas, institutional reform began and spread much later, principally under the
leadership of Charles HI between 1759 and 1788. Although both Jose Campillo y Cosio
{Nuevo Sistema de gobierno, 1743 fpub. 1789) and Bernardo Ward {Proyecto
Economico, 1760, pub. 1779) had earlier recommended both a general visitation of the
10 Cited in Maravall, Estudios de la historia, p. 456.11 Herbert Ingram Priestly, Jose de Galvez, Visitor-General o f New Spain (1765-1771) (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1916), p. 16-17. The Council also prepared recommendations for secular and religious appointments in the Indies. Galvez, later minister of the Indies, had the Council divided into three chambers, one for New Spain (Guatemala included), one for Pen), and the other for judicial duties.
116
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Americas followed by institution o f the intendancies, instead a piecemeal project o f
reform ensued. As had occurred earlier in Spain, a series o f fiscal agencies was set up
serially in the Americas.12 While the first intendancy was set up in Cuba in 1764, it was
not until the 1780s that most o f New Spain and Peru were ordered to redistrict their
system to provide for intendancy rule. Both in the Peninsula and in the American
territories, however, the principle o f a law laid down from the center and uniformly
applied in the provinces could not be implemented in reality. Nor could the underlying
principle o f negotiated rule be dispensed with in practice. In the Kingdom of
Guatemala, as elsewhere in the Spanish empire, theoretical political authority in this
period resided in the king alone, and, by appointment, in the functionaries that he
designated, as had been true throughought the Ancien Regime, and political authority in
practice depended on the active cooperation of the local authorities whose task it was, at
the very least, to cooperate in implementation.13
The First Reforms: Taxation and Real Hacienda, 1760-1785
In the 1760s, one o f Charles Hi’s first measures to recast government in the
Americas was to improve its tax base, the system of real hacienda, by introducing new
taxes and professionalizing the system o f tax assignment and collection. The goal o f
such reforms was not altruistic. Charles HI was interested not in improving the lot o f
12 For example, the tesoreria general, or general treasury, had its regulations organized in 1726. Instruccion, y ordenanza, que establezco para el goviemo de la Tesoreria general, sobre cuyo pie ha de continuar desdeprimero de mayo de esle presente ano de mil setecientosy veintey seis (Madrid, 1726). The Royal Lottery received its own regulations in 1768. Instrucciones establecidas para los posteros de la Real Loteria (Spain, 1768). But it was not until 1798 that a monarch demanded centralization for his Real Hacienda. Spain. Con esta fecha ...e l siguiente decreto: La experiencia esta constantemente demostrando la precision de que tengan un centro de unidad todas las operaciones de mi Real Hacienda . . . [Madrid, 1798],
117
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
his American subjects but, as he explained in the instructions he issued to Jose de
Galvez in 1765 on his assignment to institute fiscal reform in Mexico (New Spain), to
“increas[e] as much as possible the income from the revenues [of the royal patrimony/
hacienda] .. .on account o f the large sums needed in attending to the obligations of my
royal crown.” If Galvez was also instructed to improve existing systems so that “the
burden of imposing new contributions may be avoided,” this ideal was both a wishful
attempt to forestall opposition and quickly abandoned in Mexico and elsewhere. 14
In the Kingdom o f Guatemala, the goal o f increasing revenues was met through
what Miles Wortman has called “a series of brilliant measures that we might call a
bureaucratic revolution.”15 New monopolies on liquor (aguardiente) (1758) and
tobacco (1765) were introduced, along with the official administrators who would
supervise the collection o f the tax throughout the kingdom.16 Collection o f the sales tax
(alcabala) was taken out o f the hands of city councils and put in the hands of
professional administrators while monopolies previously administered from Mexico
City, on playing-cards and gunpowder (also used in fireworks), were relocated to
Guatemala City. At the same time, independent branches o f the different departments
of the royal hacienda were opened or expanded in four provincial capitals and several
port towns. While the Crown was centralizing the government for Central America
within the kingdom of Guatemala, it paradoxically assigned significant autonomy to
13 Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, p. 153.14 Instructions to Jose de Galvez, 14 March 1765. Full text of the instructions appears in Priestly, Jose de Galvez, pp. 404-412. I have reversed the order of the clauses in the sentence.15 Miles A. Wortman, Government and Society in Central America, 1680-1840 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 139.
118
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
provincial branches o f the royal treasury in keeping with the philosophy o f equal
distribution o f government.
In financial terms, the reforms were successful. Royal income increased
significantly in the years subsequent to the reforms, as Table 3.1 demonstrates, led by
the astounding growth of the tobacco monopoly.
Table 3.1 Royal Income from different sources, 1723-1725
lies Wortman, Government anc'Society, Tables 7.2 (1723-1761J) and 7.5 (1771- 1819).** Annual Profits from Tobacco, 1766-1771, Table 7.4 Most likely this figure contributes tot he growth of “all other income.”
To achieve this success, however, the Caroline fiscal reforms significantly
changed the relation between government and society. As the tax categories hint, the
Caroline fiscal reform measures—creation of new monopolies, increased collection of
extant sales taxes, and division o f the responsibilities of the royal hacienda into separate
offices—affected all members o f Central American society. How? The implementation
of these measures permanently shifted the principal tax burden from Central America’s
Indian population to that o f the urban Creole and ladino populations. Indian tribute had
provided up to eighty percent o f Central America’s tax base until Charles M ’s reforms.
16 Wortman, Government and Society, p. 143.
119
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The second and third most important sources of funds were the alcabala, or sales tax,
and the quin to real, or tax on mined silver.17 By mid-century, the focus on increasing
taxes on commercial transactions dramatically changed the balance. By the end of the
eighteenth century, the alcabala had grown from only 6% o f all taxes collected to
almost 30%, while Indian tribute sank to less than half o f the official intake, never tof Q
rise again. At the same time, the importance o f the tax on tobacco, in both absolute
and relative terms, increased phenomenally.
In other words, the burden o f the new taxes fell on three groups: the merchants
of the capital, urban residents and those involved in the Spanish economy, and the
provinces. It took a two-part assault on tax collection to achieve the shift, since those
suddenly paying increasing amounts to the Crown unsurprisingly resisted. First, the
Bourbon reformers took on the task o f breaking the merchant elites’ control o f tax
collection. The principal loser in this reorganization was the city council of the capital,
which had collected the kingdom’s taxes and administered several kingdom-wide
1' Jose Manuel Santos Perez, “Poh'tica y comercio: el cabildo y los regidores de Santiago de Guatemala, 1713-1787,” PhD, University of Salamanca, 1996, p. 349.18 Wortman, Government and Society, p. 146. In 1744-8, Indian tribute reached a record 202,968 (80%) pesos, with the quinto amounting to only 12,402 (5%) pesos, and the alcabala 18,500 pesos (7.3%). By 1764-8, tribute amounted to only 140,139 pesos (41.3%), the quinto had risen to 16,003 pesos (4.7%) and the alcabala 98,989 (29%). In the same years, all other income had increased from 18,990 pesos (7. 5%) to 83,789 (24.7%), presumably funded by the new liquor and tobacco taxes. The profit o f the tobacco tax alone was over 200,000 pesos in all but three years between 1771 and 1795, reaching the lofty and astonishing height of 383,730 pesos in 1788. Although in the 1790s, the annual royal profit dropped to around 100,000 pesos, this amount still represented a significant sum used to pay the Spanish payroll of clerical, civil and military employees and to supplement tax payments. Wortman, Government and Society, Appendix C, pp. 286-7 and p. 155.
120
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
monopolies, including the sales tax and taxes on liquor, sealed paper and the mail
system.19
In fact, between 1749 and 1764, the Guatemala City ayuntamiento experienced
the dismemberment o f all its audience-wide responsibilities. In 1749, the
administration o f sealed paper, papel sellado, was separated from an alderman’s
position to become a full-time salaried office o f the real hacienda.20 In 1764, the same
procedure was repeated with the correo mayor, or postmaster for the kingdom.21 The
final loss to the city council was the right to administer the kingdom’s local liquor tax,
or tax on aguardiente de caha. The most important reform, however, came in 1762, the
cabildo lost its contract to collect the kingdom’s sales tax, since the merchant members
o f the council had conflicting interests that made them poor enforcers o f the tax’s
conditions. The city council had traditionally assessed the tax at a rate o f 1%. The
official rate had been triple this amount, but the council made a profit on the lower
percentage because the of favorable terms in the contract it had agreed on with the
19 Priestly, Jose de Galvez, p. 409. Article 20 of Visitador Jose de Galvez 1765 instructions indicated that in New Spain, as well, the revenue of alcabala was leased to villas and partidos, and that the Crown was concerned to increase productivity of the 6% tax. However, Galvez was instructed to get the extant tax collectors to share the costs o f collection rather than to establish a salaried administrator.“° Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” p. 115. The last three post-holders were Fernando Ignacio Colomo, Francisco Antonio Granda, and Diego Arroyave y Beteta. This post was eliminated by captain general Jose de Araujo y Rio when he found that the number o f officials paid to administer the distribution o f sealed paper was extravagant. Araujo named one individual to administer the ramo in Guatemala in return for 5% of intake, and assigned the job to the alcaldes mayores o f the rest of the kingdom. This simple change earned the king over 3400 pesos in 1763 alone, and was a model followed in later reforms.21 Jose Joaquin Pardo, Efemerides para escribir la historia de la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros del Reino de Guatemala (Guatemala: Sociedad de Geografla e Historia de Guatemala, 1944), pp. 226, 235-236.
121
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Crown.22 With the loss o f its extensive economic privileges, the role o f the capital
city’s government was thus reduced to its immediate jurisdiction, a change which, as we
shall see below, did not change its self-proclaimed image as representative of the
kingdom.
If the thrust o f the first wave o f financial reforms required severing city ties with
tax collection, it equally required new tax collectors and administrators. From the
1760s, Carlos HI placed the administration o f new and old taxes in the hands o f a new
breed of salaried fiscal bureaucrats. Neither uniformity nor centralization can be found
in the solution that developed with each new element o f change. The patchwork
approach that had produced separate types o f taxes, each with a contract for collection,
spawned a series o f new administrations, rather than a centralized revenue service. The
Direccion General de Alcabala (1763), Factoria de tabacos (1767), Contaduria Mayor
(1771) and Administracion de Correos (1768) opened their main branches in Guatemala
City and receptorias in the provinces. In addition to offices in the capital, the
administrator o f the alcabala had branch offices in San Salvador, Leon, Ciudad Real,
and Comayagua.23 The tobacco office, too, had administraciones in Granada, San
“ The council had first purchased the privilege of administering the alcabala in the sixteenth century. Only from 1667 to 1728 was the tax administered by royal officials, and a customs house (aduana) created. Between 1728 and 1762, the city council promised to send the Crown between 16,000 and 18,500 pesos annually (up to 29,000 pesos if a trading vessel arrived) as the kingdom’s official tax collector. Although no official accounts were kept to determine the magnitude o f the city’s profits in this endeavor, the relentless fight for return o f the privilege on its loss in 1667 suggests that the benefits, either in terms o f direct profit or patronage, were considerable. For additional discussion of Santiago’s control o f the alcabala, see Emesto Chinchilla Aguilar, El Ayuntamiento colonial de la ciudad de Guatemala (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1961), pp. 107-114. According to this author, in 1762 the city appeared to have a surplus of 30,000 pesos for this branch o f funds.23 Bemabe Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, 1801-1811, Table, “Gastos de personal del Tribunal y Contaduria de Cuentas,’’ p. 227.
122
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Salvador and Ciudad Real. Additional officials, often local residents, served as liaisons
to the regional districts in areas allowed to grow tobacco, like Tegucigalpa and Copan
in Honduras.24 Only the office o f the contaduria mayor, which oversaw the rest o f the
colonial fiscal functions, existed uniquely in the capital, employing up to five officials
and a scribe, as well as the contador.25 Thus, it would appear that the establishment o f
new fiscal authorities did not have as a primary intent reenforcement o f power in district
capitals. On the contrary, by selecting both Leon and Granada, and Tegucigalpa and
Comayagua as locales for different fiscal authorities, the tax reforms merely reinforced
what every Spanish conquest city already believed: it was a capital and a place of
significant political and economic clout. In essence, these new fiscal districts
represented the first official institution that formally gave economic status to the
principal cities and regions of the kingdom that allowed significant autonomy in fiscal
affairs from the kingdom capital.
Each office had its separate staff, originally led by Spanish bureaucrats assigned
from Spain in order to reduce local influence in both assignment and collection of royal
funds, and gradually supplemented with Creole elites. Equally importantly, each of
these offices had its own regulations, collections agents and agencies, and hierarchy,
and if there was uniformity within each directorate, there was not between them. It was
not until 1817 that Ferdinand VH established a “general system” for the royal treasury
24 Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, 1801-1811, p. 280-283. In 1802, there were administraciones of tobacco, all dependent o f the factoria o f Gracias (Honduras) in Gracias, Comayagua, Tegucigalpa, Santa Barbara, Sensenti, and Quimistan, in the intendancy o f Comayagua, and Chiquimula, a corregimiento which became part o f Guatemala after independence.
123
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
{real hacienda).26 At best one can argue that the Crown centralized the control o f taxes
in the hands of royal officials, removing the responsibility from the city councils who
had administered them before. The Crown remained the center o f the system, but the
system itself became diffuse.
In fact, the first branch offices proved unable to improve fiscal administration in
the provinces. For this, a second series of reforms were needed. With new and old
taxes successfully collected in the capital and its dependent districts, the extent to which
the provinces had evaded paying their share to state coffers became apparent. The
receipts from Guatemala City’s exit points (garitas) from 1770-1774 declared that
almost 5 million pesos’ worth o f clothing and merchandise had been sent to the interior.
Yet for this five year period, Guatemala City had annually paid in alcabala an average
of 102,524 pesos and the interior only 37,803 pesos, a striking discrepancy. Merchants
and governors in the interior each had good reason not to enforce tax collection, and the
Crown responded with a redistricting in order to establish sub-administrations of real
hacienda to increase tax collection.27
The Caroline solution was to increase the rank o f the outposts o f fiscal
administration in the provinces in 1776 from receptorias to real financial offices that
not only increased the ease o f depositing taxes into royal coffers but promoted the
25 Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, 1801-1811. Created with five officials in 1769, in 1805 the Captain General reduced the number to four to save costs.' 6 Ferdinand VII, Real decreto para el establecimiento del sistema general de hacienda: instruccion para el repartimiento y cobranza de la contribution del reyno; y bulas dadas por el santisimo padre Pio VII en Roma a 15. 16. 17y 18 de abril de 1817, Madrid, Impr. Real, 1817; and Mexico, Reimpreso en la oficina de J.B. de Arizpe, 1817.27 Wortman, Government and Society, p. 147. The difference is increased when the importance of the cattle trade is taken into account.
124
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
supervision of bureaucratic activity by the alcaldes mayores and corregidores who still
collected the taxes in their jurisdictions. As Miles Wortman has detailed, the lines
drawn for economic districts subject to the new sub-administrations of San Salvador,
Leon, Chiapas and Comayagua foreshadowed the devolution o f significant judicial,
political and military power to consolidated provinces. The districts designated in 1777
for the cajas later served as the foundations for those used in 1786 for the establishment
of intendancies.28
Yet as much as looking forward, the districting also harked back to the initial
territorial divisions established with the conquest, consolidating as economic districts
partidos that had been involved in less formal trading circuits but not bound by
common institutions. The initial districting, for the most part, replicated the
jurisdictions of Central America’s bishoprics, which in turn had formed in the sixteenth
century around the fiefdoms o f the conquistadors. Since the intent was greater fiscal
transparency and efficiency, however, exceptions were made in deference to established
economic patterns. Thus the provinces o f Quezaltenango, Totonicapan, and Solola,
which sent many o f their cotton goods to Chiapas, as well as San Antonio
Suchitepeques, came under Chiapas’ fiscal control rather than Guatemala’s. The
alcaldia mayor of Sonsonate, an indigo- and tobacco-producing region, was added to
the responsibilities o f the office (caja) in San Salvador, as much o f the province
specialized in these crops. In Honduras, the caja was moved from the diocesan and
district capital of Comayagua to the mining center o f Tegucigalpa, and the caja
28 Wortman, Government and Society, p. 147-148.
125
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
assumed responsibility for the corregimiento of Chiquimula, which produced tabacco
alongside its neighbor Copan. In the process of rationalizing commercial ties, the fiscal
reforms thus underlined the weakness o f the political ties that bound each district to its
nominal capital. The smaller alcaldias mayores and corregimientos might look to
different governors for their judicial, political and economic needs, and this division did
not foster particular identification with any outside center, but reinforced the unity of
the smaller unit which dealt independently with several.
One pattern did remain the same between the early and later fiscal reforms,
however: the desire to keep centralized control out o f Guatemala City. The Guatemalan
treasury only retained direct fiscal control over the Caribbean port o f Omoa, the entry
and exit point for most transatlantic trade.29 By the 1780s, the system had proved so
effective that two of the port towns and forts, Omoa and Truxillo, also had their own
financial authorities.30 Guatemala City’s merchants thus faced important and growing
obstacles in the provinces to maintaining a monopoly on trade that led them to propose
a new road to Omoa, that would facilitate the transport o f goods to the capital for
distribution (see Figure 11).
29 Wortman, Government and Society, p. 148.30 Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, 1801-1811, p. 243. All three were functioning in 1788, by which time Guatemala had 8 branches (cajas), including the caja mdtriz in the capital.
126
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 11: Proposed Road to Omoa, 1780s
Source: AGI, Mapas y Pianos, Guatemala 238 (Courtesy, Archivo General de Indias).
127
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In essence, these new fiscal districts allowed each region to develop its own
fiscal program and connections without always requiring recourse to the capital. Taxes
could be paid locally and only contentious issues were referred to the caja matriz for
resolution. Thanks, in large part, to the establishment o f these regional offices, by the
early 1780s, rough parity was achieved between funds sent to the royal coffers by the
Central Administration o f Guatemala and that provided by the interior provinces. By
the 1790s, the interior provinces surpassed the capital in providing revenue, suggesting
that some trade was no longer passing through Guatemala City on its way out to the
provinces. This reverse trend was maintained throughout the rest o f the colonial period,
although significant declines in the amounts paid by both capital and provinces began
around 1800, as seen in Table 3.2. If the institutional ties linking the communities o f a
province coalesced around the new fiscal centers, at the same time they became new
sites o f power away from the colonial capital, fragmenting authority away from the
titular head o f the colony. Guatemala City’s importance as unique capital, undisputed
economic as well as political center o f the kingdom, was further eroded.
128
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
* No data for at least one year in at least one province.Prepared from data provided in Table 7.3, Annual Average of Funds sent to the Royal Coffers (1891-1819), Wortman, Government & Society, p. 150. Interior provinces included the interior of Guatemala, Salvador, Leon (Nicaragua), Tegucigalpa/Comayagua (Honduras), and Tuxtla/Ciudad Real (Chiapas).
Costs of the Fiscal Reforms
The initial financial benefits o f increased taxation can be seen in the numbers,
but the long-term costs o f the program of extending government and taxes must be
assessed separately. For the goals of uniformity and professionalization proved
imposssible to achieve. Resentment of the Crown and its officers for its efforts to pull
all communities into the system o f direct taxation led to immediate expressions of
resentment and some upheaval, and united the Kingdom’s inhabitants against a
common, distant foe, and highlighted the continuing role o f the cabildo as the
representative o f the people able to reduce the impact of some externally imposed
changes. If the first administrators o f the new revenue machinery were officials sent
fresh from Spain, within a decade many of the positions were staffed by native sons and
Spaniards intimately connected with the region, thus undermining the drive that
129
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
separated financial responsibilities from local institutions such as the town council and
providing professional experience for Guatemalan Creoles. Further, over time, the
elites from the capital assumed many of the plum provincial jobs, indirectly reasserting
authority in the provinces, and adding to existing tensions between center and
provinces. Finally, the diffusion and institutionalization o f economic institutions not
only foreshadowed territorial consolidation that would take place in the next twenty
years, but also the fostering of a type of regional autonomy that many authors have
claimed that the Bourbon reforms aimed to excise from the colonies.
Increasing and improving tax collection provoked most o f the Kingdom’s
communities to jointly protest their increased fiscal contributions to Spain. John Lynch
describes the process of “de-privatization of revenues” in 1749-1750 Spain, on which
the American reforms were built, and argues that the elimination of tax farmers and the
state concentration of administration of royal rents “proved to be a popular measure of
reform, advantageous to state and taxpayer alike.”31 Although, as noted above, fiscally
advantageous to the American branch of the Spanish imperial state, the reforms
undoubtedly lacked whatever popularity they had had in the peninsula.
Those most adversely affected by the new financial system, city residents and
those integrated into the Central American market economy, also increased the political
cost of establishing taxes and monopolies through direct and indirect resistance.
Unsurprisingly, given the focus o f the reforms and the communities affected, it was the
city council of Guatemala City that led the opposition to reform, on its on behalf and
31 Lynch, Bourbon Spain, p. 169.
130
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
also on behalf o f its disgruntled residents. Through municipal organization,
implementation o f the reforms to the Crown’s liking proved difficult at first and
impossible to achieve in the terms laid out by the “uniform” instructions emanating
from Spain.
The earliest reform, the 1750s institution of the liquor tax, was initially farmed
out to the Guatemala City town council, whose opposition to its creation had threatened
the ability o f the Spanish government to apply it at all.32 The city had traditionally
licensed the city taverns and grappled with the dilemma o f its responsibility to ensure
good order and reduce drunkenness and disorderliness, with the profitability o f
licensing the brewing o f local liquors and the sale o f wines o f Castile and Peru.33 By
the 1760s, the benefit of controlling this tax was clear. The city had contracted to pay
8,000 pesos a year to administer the aguardiente tax; in the first two years, it declared
gains of 22,669 pesos.34 When the city could not account for its intake and expenses,
32 Wortman, Government and Society, p. 142, cites the beginning o f the monopoly as 1758 but in Joaquin Pardo’s Efemerides, based on the city council's actas, the council receives approval of its management of the estanco on 18 February 1755 and a royal cedula confirmed this o f 31 October 1756, p. 211-213. As Jose Manuel Santos Perez has observed in “Politica y Comercio,” Chapter 2, the awarding o f the right to collect the alcabala to the individual merchant, Pedro Carrillo, motivated the vecinos of Santiago in 1729 to petition for the return o f the tax collecting privilege, which they had held from the conquest to 1667. This petitioning not only reviatlized the city government but also gave the city a diputacion de comercio, which functioned in practice much like a consulado de comercio, although the formal institution was not established until 1793.33 The number o f taverns varied between 4 and 28, at a fee of 50 pesos every six months. A full list of tavern owners for the period 1764-1784 can be found in AGI Guatemala 473, Testimonio, ff. 31-50, attached to letter 513 o f Captain General Jose de Estacheria to Jose de Galvez, 12 February 1786. Archivo Historico Nacional (AHN), Madrid, Consejos 20950, Pieza 48, informs that for 1758 the city gave 12 licenses for the first half of the year, and 9 for the second. See also Pardo, Efemerides, pp. 211 passim, for notes from various city council meetings in the 1760s that discuss the licensing o f taverns and management o f drunkenness.34 Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” pp. 365-6.; AGCA A 1.22 Leg. 1797, Exp. 11793, Actas, 1760.By 1762, the sindic Cayetano Pavon declared that the city had taken in 33,792 pesos the year before. Much of this capital went to finance loans. A meeting in 22 January 1762 apparently authorized some of
131
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the Crown took over the monopoly in 1766, arguing the city’s inability to avoid excess
alcohol consumption. In 1768, the Crown accused the city of using the unaccounted-for
funds “to bribe (obsequiar) the presidents and to send to Spain (estes reynos) grand
sums to sustain [the city’s] designs,” that is, its lawsuits and requests for privileges.35
The accusation was likely true, and perhaps masked equally improper uses o f the funds,
such as profit by the individuals who administered the tax. However, the important
point was that municipal opposition to Crown policies delayed the loss of city authority
over this tax for over a decade.
After the control o f the tax was removed, the city council found another way to
get around it: increase the number o f licenses for taverns selling Spanish and other
imported spirits, for each of which the city received a 50-peso licensing fee each 6
months and thus cut down on the market for the local spirits. Captain General
Estacheria issued decrees against this practice in 1786, for he claimed the city’s
“creation o f new taverns to destroy the estanco” was “capricious, closing [its] eyes to
the benefits that have accrued to this republic in particular regarding the conduct o f its
plebes [pleve], previously most disordered.”36 However, because the city was acting
within its legal rights, and exercising the kind o f local prerogative that had defeated
the funds to purchase houses next to the city council building, which was bought in March for 20,000 pesos. Pardo, Efemerides, pp. 219-220.
Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” citing a cedula “obsequiar a los presidentes y aver remitido a estos reynos crecidas sumas para sobstener vuestros designios y relajacion.. The original source was the actas de cabildo of 1768, AGCA A1 22 Leg. 1799, Exp 11800.36 AGI Guatemala 473. Captain General Estacheria, Letter 513, 12 February 1786. The letter supposedly encloses a series of reports on Estacheria's actions, but these are not in this legajo. Estacheria wrote that the city had established taverns “para destruir el nuevo estanco de cana, al qual se ha opuesto dicho ayuntamiento caprichosamente, y cerrando los ojos a los beneficios que hace ver ha producido en aquella repiiblica con especialidad en la conducta de su pleve antes muy desordenada.”
132
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
unwelcome reform since the conquest, there was little the governor could do except
protest.
The capital’s elites did not represent the only resistance that forced the
government to reconsider and renegotiate the terms o f the new tax system. After the
Santiago cabildo lost the contract to collect the alcabala in 1762, Guatemala’s first
royal administrator, Francisco de Valdes immediately doubled the amount collected
from merchants and customers by the mere expedient of collecting the full amount of
the tax. Valdes also enforced lapsed provisions calling for the tax to be calculated on all
sales and resales, a measure that the tax collector-town council, staffed principally by
merchants and suppliers o f the local markets, had preferred to ignore. Finally, Valdes
began to tax previously tax-free transactions, including all sales o f meat and its
byproducts, as well as to apply the export tax, barlovento, to indigo, the motor of
colonial Central American economy, and the import tax to European cloth.37 The
rigorous application of the sales tax was unpopular with city denizens who found that
they suddenly had to pay taxes on necessary items, like meat, and Indian traders resisted
application o f the higher tax, as well.
The new taxes also proved an opportunity for locals threatened by the new taxes
to organize resistance. As in other parts o f Spanish America, the resistance was not
organized, and began in individual cities and towns that suddenly had to pay in full
37 The cabildo had only needed to collect half to both pay the fixed sum agreed upon with the king and to make a tidy profit. Wortman, Government and Society, pp. 142-143, 148. For a thorough treatment of indigo production and commerce, see Robert S. Smith, “Produccion y Comercio de anil en la Guatemala colonial,” pp. 141-175; and for the fiscal situation of the Kingdom of Guatemala, Miles Wortman,“Rentas Publicas y Tendencias Economicas en Centroamerica, 1787-1819,” pp. 245-284, in Luis Rene
133
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
taxes that had been previously ignored or discounted. However, unlike other instances
where elites apparently vanished from the conflict when city plebes expressed
discontent, in at least one important Guatemalan case, the city council mediated
between masses and Spanish reformer officials and negotiated a compromise which
prevented discontent from advancing to rebellion.38 As in other moments, royal
officials, later supported by the Crown, set aside the fiscal uniformity proposed by the
reforms in the interest o f maintaining local peace.
The city council which demonstrated its negotiating skill was that o f the
Kingdom capital, Asuncion de Guatemala (Guatemala City). Given the council’s
experience in undermining unwelcome local and royal legislation, it would seem likely
that to some extent, it was also involved in stirring up popular unrest, although no
evidence directly indicates that this happened. What did happen was that in 1766, the
city reported “the universal disgust...[with] which the resale tax was received.”39
Yet it took a new tax, announced simultaneously with the revised alcabala
terms, to push the mestizo and mulato populations into protest along with the rest o f the
communities directly impacted by Charles Hi’s drive to increase royal revenues. On
November 4, 1765, the Crown informed the Kingdom of Guatemala o f the
Caceres, ed., Lecturas de Historia de Centroamerica ([San Jose, CR]: Banco Centroamericano de Integracion Economica, 1989).38 For an example of a “vanishing” Creole role, see Anthony MacFarlane’s treatment of the 1765 Quito uprising in which, inexplicably, no visible role is assigned the role of the city’s leading men or the cabildo in the height o f confrontation, which is presented as the plebe against the audiencia and Spanish officials. Anthony Mac Farlane, “The “Rebellion of the Barrios”: Urban Insurrection in Bourbon Quito,1765” in Riots in the Cities: Popular Politics and the Urban Poor in Latin America, 1765-1910, Silvia M. Arrom and S. Ortoll, eds. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Books, 1996), pp. 34-41 passim. This work is reprinted from Hispanic American Historical Review 69:2 (May 1989): 283-330.39 Pardo, Efemerides, pp. 232-234.
134
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
establishment o f the tobacco monopoly. Tobacco had been grown and traded in Central
America since the seventeenth century, and due to the low-maintenance nature o f the
crop, had been farmed extensively in both large and small quantities by diverse
populations. The tobacco monopoly hurt local purchasers, the principal market, as the
Crown lowered purchase prices and raised sales prices after it took control of
production. It also penalized small farmers in areas that had previously grown the crop
but did not receive royal licenses to continue.40 For the first time since the conquest,
not only Indian tributaries but also the Kingdom’s elite merchants, shopkeepers, artisans
and small farmers were united in the role o f taxpayer.41 The city council, in January of
1766, also sent two representatives to plead with the captain general not to implement
the tobacco monopoly. It received the answer that since the item taxed was neither for
food or other common necessities but merely for entertainement, the city should desist
in its protest, because “the public, which always responded to the acceptance or
rejection o f its ayuntamientos, could become disorderly and ask for an uprising.”42
Ten months later, simmering tensions did erupt. Yet in Guatemala City, at least,
the popular classes turned to the ayuntamiento to communicate their discontent to the
Spanish reformers. In November, artisans representing various gremios upset at the
40 AGI Guatemala 621 Testimonio sobre la ereccion y ramificacion de las rentas de tabacos en San Salvador, 1779, indicates that this late establishment was achieved with peace and tranquility — “paz y quietud.”4 Wortman, Government and Society, pp.147-148.42 Oidor Lie. Sebastian Calvo de la Puerta to Manuel de Batres and Juan Fermin de Aycinena, 28 January 1766, Pardo, Efemerides, p. 229. In the original, “podria producir el que el publico, que siempre caminaba a la mira de la acpecion o no aceptacion, de sus ayuntamientos, se desaforase y pidiese un levantamiento...”
135
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
estancos o f tobacco, liquor, powder, and cards elected twenty-five representatives who
presented a petition to the council’s alferez real, Manuel de Batres. The protest read:
[W]e, the poor, ask justice to give to each that which is his, as God orders in his seventh commandment, to neither take nor hold, nor desire that which is not his, against to the will of its owner, as they do the contrary in a skilful manner, taking from each individual what is his, by means o f monopolies, customs duties and taxes.43
As John Leddy Phelan so elegantly observed when dissecting a similar anti-tax
movement in 1781 New Grananda, what was at stake was partly fiscal and partly
political: the taxes levied and the fact that no consultation or negotiation had proceeded
their imposition. The crowd wanted not only a return to the financial status quo ante,
but to an “unwritten constitution” in which local circumstances acceptably influenced
application o f royal orders.44 In Guatemala, however, unlike New Granada, the
situation was not allowed to build to the point o f a revolt. When informed, the
President took the threat seriously, suspending militia activity and collecting arms from
mulatto soldiers, increasing safeguards o f the royal treasure chests and receipts, and
arresting the authors of the artisan petition. After negotiating with the city, the
president and audience agreed to suspend application o f the sales tax to resales in small
stores (menestrales, pulperos y tenderos de maritanes), to reduce the tax charged to
goods sold by Indians to 1% and to lower the tax paid in other sales to the traditional
3%. As a further measure, the president authorized grain distribution to the poor. In
43 Pardo, Efemerides, p. 232-4. The Spanish reads “nosotros los pobres pedimos la justicia de darle a cada uno Io que es suyo, como lo manda Dios en el septuno mandamiento, de no tomar ni tener ni querer lo ajeno contra la voluntad de su duefio, como estan haciendo lo contrario con terminos habiles, quitandole a cada uno lo que es suyo, con estancos, aduanas y alcabalas...” According to an act o f the council o f 18 Novemer, the protesters also presented their complaints to the first mayor and the Franciscan order.
136
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
this case, the “unwritten constitution” returned in full force: a negotiated solution took
precedence over the royal will.
This diffusion of what could have been the start o f a widespread rebellion owed
much to the relationship between the city, the president and the audience. Within a
week of the petition, the city had consulted the acting bishop, Creole priest Juan
Antonio Dighero, and with his advice contacted the President to coordinate conciliatory
measures to calm the “alteration and commotion.” This coordination paid off in a
banda o f 27 November, when the President underlined that he was acting in concert
with the Noble Ayuntamiento and its members. The official notice underlined the
council’s official position of “forming the body of the city, in which are refounded the
rights of the pueblo” and informed city dwellers that the councilors would patrol the
city with the militia to break up unofficial meetings (juntas) and provide against
disorders.45 This alliance between city, audiencia and captain general combined with
the palliative measures undertaken by the high officials restored order. Later reports to
the city suggested that such unrest had manifested itself to some extent in the
countryside, although without setting off the violent rebellions experienced in other
parts of Latin America.46
44 John Leddy Phelan, The People and the King: The Comunero Revolution in Colombia, 1781, (London: Univeresity of Wisconsin Press, 1978), pp. xvii-xviii.45 Pardo, Efemerides, p. 233. The Spanish reads “formando el cuerpo de ciudad, en quien estan refundidos los derechos del pueblo.”46 On 31 December 1766, the Captain General informed the king that he feared a popular uprising against the aguardiente and tabacco monopolies. In the latter case, it was the lowered purchase price because of the government's lack of competition as purchaser, which was the major problem. On December 19*, the Guatemala city council had received a letter from Ometepe, dated in October, indicating that various towns were threatening uprisings in response to the rise in alcabala tax, and the institution of the two monopolies. Pardo, Efemerides, p. 234. After these murmurrings, the revolt did not materialize.
137
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In addition to helping calm popular unrest, the city also acted to address the
underlying problem. Claiming the extreme poverty o f the Kingdom, the cabildo wrote
to the king to request the repeal of the resale tax. Success came after tenacious battle.
In 1781, the tax was entirely repealed and another tax, the alcabala de intemacion, an
import tax which would have fallen primarily on the principal merchants o f the capital,
was declared but never implemented. By the 1773 transfer o f the capital, when the
Crown assigned the city use of the alcabala income towards reconstruction for a ten-
year period, the benefits o f the reform were finally and completely overturned.47
If the fiscal reforms succeeded in removing the control o f finances from direct
city control, they did not, nor apparently did they intend to, change the role o f the
cabildo as mediator between Crown, governor and people. The royal goals o f increased
revenue and more formal regulations o f fiscal offices, officers and responsibilities were
achieved, with the usual caveat that if local communities found a particular tax too high,
and expressed this view with enough vehemence or tenacity, either a captain general or
the Crown would eventually find some way to moderate or suspend the most noxious
provisions until a less threatening way was found to implement them. The city council
remained a key player in bridging the needs of the Crown with those of local elites and
even the pleve.
The fiscal reforms took direct tax responsibilities out o f the hands o f the
Guatemala elite, but soon filled its ranks of junior fiscal officials with the sons o f
Spanish administrators, bom and educated in Guatemala, and o f the Central American
4' Santos Perez, “Politica y comercio,” pp. 363-364.
138
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
elite themselves. Central America was not the richest o f Spain’s American territories,
so it is not surprising that soon after the establishment o f the new bureaucracy, it came
to be staffed principally by those with local ties. Sometimes Spanish bureaucrats found
posts for their sons. As early as 1783, for example the new interventor de alcabala o f
Leon was Juan Martinez Truxillo, first bom son of Alonso Martinez, the Guarda Mayor
of the royal income o f the kingdom.48 In 1805, Nicolas de Rivera, the Spanish
administrator of the alcabala o f the capital, urged the appointment of his Guatemalan-
bom son, Miguel de Rivera y Maestre, to a post as a junior official.49 More often,
however, in the capital and the provinces, local merchants and landholders gained
access to official posts in the towns of their residence. Thus, for the first time in the
kingdom’s history, provincial elites had access to similar employment opportunities in
the royal bureaucracy as those o f the capital. The 1786 appointment o f Cristobal
Cilieza, scion of a well-established indigo-farming and merchant family, to be the
administrador de alcabalas in San Salvador is a fairly typical example.50
Once established, the practice of naming local sons to local positions took deep
root. Examples are numerous, since by 1812, over 90% o f 740 “political and financial”
positions in Central America were filled with Creoles, even if Spaniards continued to
48 AGI Guatemala 428, 14 June 1783, Nombramiento de J. Martinez Truxillo interventor de alcabalas de Leon (oficial mayor lo de aduana).49 AGI Guatemala 430-1, Captain General Gonzalez Saravia Letter 493, 29 November 1805. The 20-year old Rivera y Maestre, a graduate of the Universidad de San Carlos in Asuncion, had already achieved a temporary appointment as a secretary (escrivente). A real cedula o f 20 October 1775 prohibited realtives within the 4 degree o f consanguinuity and 2nd degree o f ‘aflcion’ (marriage) from working in the same office. This prohibition was not absolutely followed, not only in the Rivera case, but also in the appointment of Manuel de Letona (Ortiz de Letona) to the position o f 4th official in 1805. AGI Guatemala 430, Captain General Gonzalez Saravia Letter 493, 29 November 180550 AGI Guatemala 428, 1 February 1786, Nomination by Captain General Jose de Estacheria.
139
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
predominate in the senior posts.51 Because of the multiplicity of administrations and
their increasing presence in the provinces, most o f the posts by the early 1800s were
located outside of the capital. The office of the administrator of the alcabala had one
vista, 4 junior officials, and 3 scribes in Asuncion, as well as at least two employees
each in branch offices in San Salvador, Leon, Ciudad Real, and Comayagua.52 The
tobacco office had only 4 officials and one treasurer in Asuncion as well as employing
officials in Granada, San Salvador and Ciudad Real. Additional officials served as
liaisons to the regional districts in areas allowed to grow tobacco, like Tegucigalpa and
Copan in Honduras.53 In 1802, there were administraciones o f tobacco, all dependent o f
the factoria o f Gracias (Honduras) in Gracias, Comayagua, Tegucigalpa, Santa Barbara,
Sensenti, and Quimistan, in the intendancy of Comayagua, and Chiquimula, a
corregimiento which became part o f Guatemala after independence.
In addition to the numbers, however, it is worth underlining the quality of the
appointments. For the most part, it was sons of the ranking families, o f both main and
associated branches, who became officials, and those o f the upper echelons of the
Spanish and Creole middle classes. Furthermore, as in previous centuries, accession to
51 AGI Guatemala 631, Letters 30 January 1812, via reservada. Captain General Jose de Bustamante to Real Hacienda Bustamante claimed that among the employees in the “carrera politica y hacienda” 671 were “americanos” and 69 “europeos.” The salary breakdown, however, favored the Spaniards, whose jobs produced 83,401 pesos, or over a third o f the total, whereas the aggregate Creole salaries were 162,430 pesos. This number indicates a preponderance o f Spaniards in the highest ranking, highest paying jobs. From 1804-1807 appointments o f principal officers o f the different sections of the real hacienda, it seems that the administrators continued to come from Spain, although these would sometimes be promoted within the Kingdom o f Guatemala and pass from one district to another, establishing ties and remaining, like Nicolas Rivera and Diego Pilona, who despite marrying a Guatemala native, Gertrudis Plazaola, became both an advisor to the intendant o f Nicaragua and a judge on the audiencia. AGI Guatemala 413.52 Bemabe Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, 1801-1811, Table, Gastos de personal del Tribunal y Contaduria de Cuentas, p. 227.
140
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
a post often became a family affair, with sons following fathers into royal service.
Pedro Jose de Najera served at half salary as tesorero general between 1806 and 1812
for his ailing father, Francisco, who had served for 33 years in the financial
bureaucracy. The Najera family, according to the captain general, was among the “most
distinguished families o f the capital;” family members had served for over 100 years in
the cabildo and were important merchants and landowners. On his father’s death,
Najera received his own appointment but in Leon rather than Guatemala City’s
administration because there was a bottleneck in promotions.5-1 So many relatives
served in the various offices, that the king had to issue a royal order in 1775 specifying
allowable degrees of consanguinity, and, for lack of attention, reissue the same order in
1805.55 Such jobs became means to support elite families fallen on hard times. The
young Jose Francisco de Cordova, who would go on to pen Central America’s second
act of independence in July 1823 and earn fame as a liberal politician, received an
appointment to the tobacco administration when the death o f his father left a good
family in straightened financial circumstances.56
53 Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, 1801-1811, pp. 280-283.54 AGI Guatemala 431, Letter 64, Jose de Bustamante, 18 January 1812. The captain general justified his recommendation on the grounds that the promotion would ,4wrong many long-term employees, in a country with few salidas and promotions.”55 AGI Guatemala 430, Approval o f nomination o f escribiente and contador de alcabalas to Agustin Yzaguirre and Jose Mariano Salguero, 29 November 1805.56 Arturo Taracena Flores, “Biografias sinteticas de guatemaltecos distinguidos,” Revista de la Academia Guatemalteca de Estudios Genealogicos, heraldicosy Historicos, pp. 378, 533. AGI Guatemala 624, 3 September 1811, Council of Indias to Audiencia o f Guatemala. Jose Francisco Cordova (1786-1856) was allowed to purchase the secretary’s post in 1811, despite being underage, and was taken into the Renta de Tabaccos in 1809 when the death of his father, the protomedicato o f the kingdom, made it necessary for him to earn his living.
141
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The availability o f posts throughout the territory fostered what Benedict
Anderson might have termed a “Creole functionary pilgrimage,” as many kingdom-born
sons found employment in provinces distant from those o f their birth and primary
networks. Scattered evidence seems to indicate that over time, the sons o f the capital
became more likely to achieve high-ranking appointments in the provinces than the
reverse case, which led to resentment by those who found it difficult to advance within
the colony.57 This rhythm likely accelerated in the stewardship of President Antonio
Gonzalez Saravia (1801-1811), who created the post o f advisor (asesor) to the Captain
General, and appointed Guatemalan lawyer Jose Mariano Jauregui to fill it (1801-1807).
Jatiregui’s subsequent appointment as Director o f the Montepio de Aftil, a fund
established in 1782 to permit indigo planters to borrow funds from sources other than
the merchants of the capital, in fact signals the failure of the new series o f royal
positions to live up to the promise of providing equal access to all.58 If even an
5' AGI Guatemala 431, Sugetos postuladores para el puesto del ministro tesorero de camas de Guatemala, por el muerto de Francisco Naxera. For example, in 1812, Jose Mariano Batres y Asturias, of two important Santiago hacendado and town council families, was named contador in San Salvador after 12 years o f bureaucratic service at a salary of 1500 pesos, while a son o f Pedro Ortiz de Letona, the former correo mayor became treasurer of Trujillo. Ortiz de Letona had 41 years o f service under his belt before achieiving a post that offered both a 1500 peso salary and significant opportunities to engage in contraband smuggling with the English. Batres y Asturias’ brother Manuel Antonio was the secretary (escribiente) o f the treasury in San Salvador. See Valle (1821) in Marta Casaus Arzti, Guatemala: Linaje y Racismo (San Jose, CR: FLACSO, 1992), pp. 319-324. The Amigo de la Patria newspaper of Guatemala City reported the list of employees in the tobacco offices in early 1821. Men who also served on Guatemala City’s town council included the director general, Spaniard Jose Velasco; scribe Domingo Estrada; adviser Vicente Pielago,fie l de alamacenes in San Salvador, Spaniard Rafael Ferrer; and interventor in Leon, Manuel Bolanos. Other Guatemalans included the factor in Quezaltenango, Miguel Palomo; Guatemala treasurer Juan Manuel Cerezo, and treasury official Justo Sorogastoa, Guatemala officials Francisco Santa Cruz and Manuel Cerezo and Gracias factor Manuel Ybarra. El Amigo de la Patria. Guatemala, 5 February 182158 For primary sources on the establishment o f the montepio, see AGI Guatemala 668, 689 and also 416 and 722. For recent studies see Jose Antonio Fernandez Molina, “Colouring the World in Blue: The Indigo Boom and the Central American Market, 1750-1810,” PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 1992; and Troy S. Floyd, “The Guatemalan Merchants, the Government and the Provincianos, 1750-1800" ”
142
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
institution designed specifically to foster economic development outside the capital was
to be headed by a member o f the capitaline elite, what hope could other institutions
have of achieving real separation?
However, Anderson’s allegation that the circuits o f Creole employment
remained solely within the political district o f birth and uniquely in the lower tiers of
royal officialdom are belied by a series o f appointments o f ministers to the audiencia
and governors to the colony from Peru, Santo Domingo and Mexico, as well as
examples o f Guatemalan Creoles’ interest and success in sending children to Spain for
an education and career.59 What can be asserted with certainty is that with new royal
positions opening in the bureaucracy in the Americas and in Spain, Guatemala’s elites
expended no little energy in pursuing and securing both sinecure and working
appointments. The success o f this strategy was such that by 1820 a list prepared by
Honduran-bom Guatemala resident Jose Cecilio del Valle, author o f the region’s first
declaration of independence, exposed how the trans-Atlantically intermarried Aycinena
family and its branches had placed family members in bodies from the Council o f State
in Madrid to intendancies in Mexico and the Kingdom o f Guatemala, to an oidor in
Hispanic American Historical Review 61(1961:1): 90-110. AGI Guatemala 431, 11 August 1807, Nombramiento de Lie. Jose Mariano Jauregui, Director del Montepio del Anil. Jauregui replaced Juan Manuel Truxillo, first director o f this fund to bankroll the kingdom’s indigo planters, on the latter’s death.59 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York, 1983 [1991 rev.]). Among the non- Guatemalan Creole functionaries were: audiencia ministers Jacobo Villaurrutia (Santo Domingo), Francisco Camacho (Mexico); alcalde mayor Thomas Mollinedo y Villavicencio (Chile). Among the scions of the capital who made the pilgrimage to Spain were Jose de Aycinena, who served in the Consejo de Estado and Consejo de Indias from 1811, and Juan Nepomuceno Batres y Najera who served in the Napoleonic wars before becoming intendant of Chiapas. Two brothers Batres y Munoz, Jose Antonio and Salvador, received the posts o f treasurer o f the real hacienda in Mexico and administrator of the alcabala in Guadalajara in the first decades o f the nineteenth century. See note 57 above for source.
143
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Santa Fe de Bogota.60 If Guatemala City’s elite had lost direct control o f the system of
royal taxation through seats on the city council, indirectly it would recuperate authority
by assuming positions in the new institutions.
What the 1820 list also shows, however, is that the availability o f Crown-
appointed positions did not reduce interest in municipal office-holding. Almost half of
the non-ecclesiastical positions were filled by men who served in both types o f position
(19 out of 48). Twelve men were brothers o f members o f the cabildo, indicating that
families opted to keep their positions in city government while expanding into other
positions as they became available.61
In fact, the new positions simply provided new outlets for elite families o f the
Kingdom of Guatemala to participate in politics and government. The city councils o f
Central America experienced an unprecedented revival in the eighteenth century,
despite the intrusion of competing institutions like the royal fiscal authorities and even a
local institute, the Consulado de Comercio, or merchants’ guild. For, despite the
apparent desire o f the Crown to break the control o f municipal economic power with the
creation of an official ministry of finance, there was a simultaneous move to shore up
and increase local government for Spaniards and other communities in the desire to
60 The list originally appeared as an annex to issue No. 3 of Valle’s newspaper, El Amigo de la Patria, in 1820, and has been reprinted several times, most recently in Casaus Arzu, Guatemala: Linajey Racismo pp. 319-324. Among the families in the network are the Batres, Najera, Beltranena, Arrivillaga, Asturias, Palomo, Montufar, Manrrique, Larrazabal, Larrave, and Letona. Although this discussion centers on political and financial jobs, the list also includes military appointments o f the clan, indicating that this relatively new set o f positions also became important. Jose de Aycinena’s second wife was Maria Josefa Amalia de Sajonia, a Spanish noblewoman. See Casaus Arzu, Guatemala: Linajey Racismo, Diag.6., p. 7.61 The nineteen men with both municipal and crown positions were from the Aycinena, Beltranena, Barrutia, Najera, Batres, Saravia, Pavon, Palomo, Montufar, Anivillaga, Micheo, Barrio, Manrrique, Pacheco and Echevem'a families. Casaus Arzu, Guatemala: Linajey Racismo, pp. 319-324.
144
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
ensure that some government penetrated even to the farthest reaches o f the Kingdom.
City Growth in the Era of Reforms
If the seventeenth century had been marked by a “ruralization” in which both
Spaniards and castas took to the countryside in a time o f economic decline, the
eighteenth century marked the return of urbanization, or a second municipal conquest.
Even before the intendancy reforms were implemented, the interest o f the Bourbon
reformers in increasing government and royal influence in the countryside was to
support the creation o f new towns not only for Spaniards but for the other communities
of the Kingdom of Guatemala as well.
Unlike the conquest municipalities, the mature Creole towns that incorporated
required royal approval that came after establishing residence, not before. Such
incorporations generally represented the consolidation o f a Spanish community that
viewed city status as a means to increase political clout to match a growing economic
importance. The goal was no longer to erect a city-province out o f a huge unconquered
territory, but to slice a piece of such a territory so Spaniards living outside the termino
could have access to self-government and the human and territorial resources it provided.
When enough residents o f growing or prosperous settlements wished to increase their
say in political life, they sought villa status through the only available mechanism,
authorization from Spain. Such petitions were rare. Only one such town incorporated in
the eighteenth century. In the 1760s, prominent vecinos o f the real minas of
Tegucigalpa, the thriving Spanish commercial center at the heart o f Central America’s
silver producing zone, wanted to increase political clout in the 40-league alcaldia mayor
145
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to have secure access to Indian and mulatto labor for the mines and to food supplies
produced in the region. To achieve this control, Tegucigalpa’s vecinos hired a
representative in Madrid, who successfully petitioned the Crown for the real minas to
become a villa. Tegucigalpa’s 1000 silver peso donation to the royal treasury surely was
of substantial help to the cause, as well as the vecinos’offer to build the city hall and to
contribute an additional 3000 pesos to the new town’s coffers.62
Although Tegucigalpa was the only Spanish villa to incorporate in the eighteenth
century Kingdom of Guatemala, this town was part o f a process o f municipal revival
that affected the entire isthmus. As the economy recovered in the eighteenth century, in
part due to the increasing external market for the indigo crops of San Salvador, so too
did the Bourbon monarchs encourage a rebirth of city government in conquest-era
towns that had been wholly or partially abandoned, or whose residents had shown little
interest in holding municipal office. Local residents were eager to participate as trade
revived, Spaniards moved back into their cities and once again required authorities to
police and govern urban centers and rural hinterlands. Twice before 1750, Sonsonate
fought to reestablish a cabildo that had quietly ceased to exist in the late 1600s, while
the district governor “terrorized” the town, refusing to let the council meet or hold
elections. From each side’s accusations o f the other, it seems clear that access to a
revived Peruvian trade and Indian labor for indigo obrajes influenced both. After
receiving support from Crown, captain general, and audience, the merchants and
62 AGI Guatemala 628, Real Cedula 17 July 1768, Madrid.
146
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
hacendados leading the effort formed a council briefly in the 1740s, but only managed
to make the revival permanent in \115.63
By the last third o f the eighteenth century, as in the cases of Cartago in Costa Rica
in 1778, Ciudad Real in the 1780s, and Comayagua in 1787, Spanish governors more
frequently nurtured and cajoled residents to revive municipal politics to deal with
pressing sanitary, provisioning and defense issues.64 In a more unusual instance, which
underlines the Spanish association o f Spanish cities with good government, even the
captain general himself coordinated the resurrection o f the strategic port of Truxillo on
the Honduran coast. He repopulated this bulwark of defense against English military
activities and commercial inroads on the Kingdom’s economy with Canary Islanders
and Galician immigrants in 1789.65
The Bourbons also recognized that the cohabitation of the kingdom’s different
populations that characterized post-conquest towns required new solutions. When
Spaniards had ignored royal orders not to live in Indian towns in the sixteenth century,
governors and king indignantly ordered the ouster of these illicit settlers. However, by
the eighteenth century, such cohabitation was accepted in practice, as the censuses taken
63 For the 1723-1733 fight to reestablish the cabildo. including the royal decree o f 22 February1734, see AGI Guatemala 507. For the six titles o f regidores issued between 1740 and 1780, see AGI Guatemala 446. Sonsonate’s cabildo had ceased to exist in 1686 when the town’s vecinos stopped purchasing regimientos. In the 1740s, the council functioned briefly. A second revival began in the 1760s, and the city government became fully functional after a sale of 4 regimientos in 1775 to Manuel Diez Clemente, Manuel Carrera , Francisco Guevara y Dongo, Jose Antonio Cicilia y Montoya.64 For Comayagua, see the 25 May 1807 letter o f the cabildo, confirming that the interim intendant, Norberto Serrano Polo, had been instrumental in reviving the city, whose cabildo had not met for 60 years. AGI Guatemala 534. I have only found one reference to a late Bourbon governor, Domingo Carbello o f Nicaragua, who, resentful of cabildo interference with his running of the finances apparently tried to extinguish all four councils in the province. For a reference to this battle, in the context o f the city of Granada’s protest o f loss of territory in the 1780s, see AGI Guatemala 572.65 AGI Guatemala 453, f. 2. Captain General Gonzalez Saravia to Real Hacienda, 1810.
147
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
in the last third of the eighteenth century demonstrate in village after village (See Table
3.3).66 Furthermore, when enough Spaniards and creoles moved into sufficiently
important Indian economic centers, the Crown was prepared to grant Spanish municipal
status for the town, or at least the part that was Spaniard- and Creole-controlled.
Without eradicating the Indian justices established by earlier laws, the Crown could and
did authorize a full municipal political system to accommodate the Spanish and ladino
communities. This happened at least three times in the Kingdom o f Guatemala. The
66 Bemabe Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala, 1801-1811, p. 259, writes that around 1800 there were no less than 700 poblaciones or aldeas in which the different castes lived together. For the archdiocese o f Guatemala (Guatemala and El Salvador), see population data collected by archbishop Cortes y Larraz in the 1760s, in Jesus Maria Garcia Anoveros, ed., Poblacion y estado sociorreligioso de la diocesis de Guatemala en el ultimo tercio del siglo XVlll (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1991), pp. 193-210. Honduras’ 1801 matricula, by family (AGI Guatemala 501), is published in Hector M. Leyva, Documentos Coloniales de Honduras, Doc. 45, pp. 272-289. See also Adriaan Van Oss, “The Autarkic Colonial Cities of Central America” in Robert J. Ross and Gerard J. Telkamp, eds., Colonial Cities: essays on urbanism in a colonial context (Boston: M Nijoflf, 1985).Table 2, p. 43 and Juarros, Compendio, passim.
148
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 3J: Population & Racial Composition of Selected Cities & Towns
* Denotes use of term “mestizos” instead of “ladinos” or “pardo" rather than “mulato. ** Denotes use of term “negro."
pueblo o f Rivas, in the district o f Nicaragua, achieved the privilege of autonomy when
it became a villa in 1783.67 The process repeated in 1805 in Quezaltenango, a highland
Guatemalan trading and agricultural center, and again in 1807 in indigo-producing
Santa Ana, of the alcaldia mayor of San Salvador.68 All three pueblos received the
right to have Spanish town councils, with several aldermen and two mayors. The
acceptance of a dual system o f governance was the first step in integrating the diverse
communities of each town and city.
67 Ricardo Magdaleno, Titulos de Indias (en el archivo de Simancas) (Valladolid: Archivo General de Simancas, 1954).
149
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Not all cases, however, were successful. In some instances, the problem o f mixed
communities spawned similar requests by Spaniards and Creoles for their own city
governments but failed to achieve approval because o f local resistance to the
encroachment o f non-Indians on what had been founded as Indian settlements. For
example, in 1783 the justicia, principalesy comun del pueblo o f Santa Luia
Sacatecoluca in the alcaldia mayor of San Salvador opposed the plan o f the 49 Spanish
families living in their village to create a villa in their “quatales y platanos y el pueblo
del Lugar,” which consisted of 686 mulatto and 215 Indian families. The threat the
opponents to the villa held out to Spanish authorities was the risk that their children
would “wander dispersed,” that is, no longer live in a city, should the Spanish vecinos’
plan go through. The representative of the Spanish families pointed ought that they
sought not just the title o f villa, but local government— the creation of a city council
with 10 regidores. In return for the honor, the Spaniards would contribute 1000 pesos to
the Crown, construct a new church for a separate ladino and Spanish parish, fund the
construction of a city hall and jail, and pay for any Indian lands that would need to be
purchased to make up the new villa's communal property. Despite these generous
terms, the Crown did not accept the offer. The proposal and opposition, however,
indicate the dividing lines among increasingly ethnically mixed residents o f Central
America's towns, and the growing competition to govern them.69
68 Juarros, Compendio, p. 234.69 AGCA A 1.44, Legajo 3 Expediente 21, ff. 8-9v, 94-v. The Spaniards also pointed out that the town was 18 leagues from San Salvador, whose alcaldes ordinarios extended their jurisdiction to it.
150
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Erection o f new villas located in former pueblos, which carved their new
jurisdictions from the alcaldias mayores or corregimientos they had depended on, did
not reduce the official jurisdictions of pre-existing cities. Their creation, then,
represented an extension o f local government at the expense of externally-appointed
officials. The vecinos o f Sacatecoluca pointed out, for example, that a city council
would end the need for the San Salvador governor to name a subdelegado to work in
Sacatecoluca.70
On balance, the eighteenth century demonstrated the permanency o f the original
conquest towns as sites of Spanish residence and power in the Kingdom o f Guatemala.
Economic and demographic growth spurred a municipal revival which, for the most
part, confined itself to cities that already existed. Most were Spanish cities, like
Sonsonate. Others represented increased Spanish and ladino residence in towns that
had started as Indian villages. If, at the start of the century, towns like Sonsonate had to
struggle to overcome gubernatorial bias against the resurrection o f locally-selected local
authorities, then by the close of the century, the balance sheet tipped in the opposite
direction. Bourbon agents from the captain general to the provincial governors aided,
abbetted and cajoled local residents to take charge once again of the burdens,
responsibilities and honors of municipal government. It was not, it appears, that
difficult to overcome resistance, despite incessant grumbling about the lack of
remuneration. The municipal revival was not unique to Spanish communities. The
press for more municipal organization affected the hundreds of non-Spanish populations
70 AGCA A 1.44, Legajo 3, Expediente 21, ff. 8-9v.
151
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of the Kingdom of Guatemala which could not claim to be ciudadesy villas de
Espanoles.
Indian Republic, Ladino and Mulatto Pueblo
In the seventeenth century, the same process o f “ruralization” that had affected the
Spanish Central Americans in response to economic contraction, compounded the
numbers o f Indians scattered in the countryside or lived in pueblos de Indios that no
longer recognized regional centers.71 This process was not unique to the Kingdom o f
Guatemala. The mayor o f Cartago (New Granada) expressed his exasperation as he
exhorted his district to hacer vecindad, or to keep a residence in the central community,
because “the King was not a King over fields and pastures but over towns.”72 As the
economy revived in the 1700s, producing needs for Indian labor and mulatto soldiers to
fight increasing British incursions into the isthmus, Crown and captain general renewed
the policy of reduccion and sponsored religious and military missions against the
numerous remaining independent Indian communities o f the Guatemalan Peten,
Honduran interior, and Mosquito Coast o f Nicaragua and Honduras.73 Even in well-
controlled areas, the work o f reduccion continued; as late as 1800, the Crown praised
Lyle N. McAlistair, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. 351. As historians revise their understanding of the seventeenth century, the phenomenon o f ‘ruralization’ may also come under reconsideration.2 Cited in McAlistair, Spain and Portugal, p. 349.3 Several reports from the eighteenth century religious and military missions sent to bring these
communities under Spanish rule have been published in the Boleiin del Archivo General de Guatemala. Vol. 1 and 5 (1935-6 and 1939-40).
152
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the intendant of Chiapas’ establishment o f the Indian town San Fernando de
Guadalupe.74
Two centuries after the initial conquest, imperial agents still used the language of
municipal republicanism to justify forcing non-Spanish communities to establish or live
in towns. However, the logic, which first had organized government for Spaniards and
Indians, now applied to new types o f vassals o f Spain, the ladino and mulatto
communities, scattered throughout the Kingdom. Governors like Juan de Rivera y
Perez o f the alcaldia mayor o f Escuintla and Guazacapan received such official
encouragement to persevere as long as necessary to concentrate and relocate dispersed
settlements into formal towns. Governor Rivera y Perez, after repeated efforts,
overcame the objections of the ladino cattle ranchers of the Valle de Jumay, and settled
them into an official pueblo named Santa Rosa.75 He also engineered the move of the
mulatto owners o f the estancia o f San Antonio de los Durasnos from their scattered
fifty-year old settlements into a ‘formal \iWage'(pueblo formal) called Y stapa.76 Royal
officials supporting his efforts wrote thatpoblaciones, such as the governor intended to
create, provided “political and social (civil) life for their inhabitants to live in peace and
77 78justice, ” and in Christian society and policia. Living dispersed was to live “contrary
4 AGI Guatemala 415, Consulta, No. 15, 29 November 1800. Recommendacion de meritos de intendente de las Cuentas Zayas, de Chiapa, por haber establecido un pueblo de indios.'5 AGI, Guatemala 446, Doc. 4, Ereccion de Cabildo en el pueblo de ladinos, de Jumay (Santa Rosa), Verapaz. Dictamen del Fiscal, 15 December 1764, Guatemala.6 AHN Consejos 20953, Pieza 74, Reduccion a poblacion de los mulatos de Ystapa Dictamen del Fiscal
Romana, 5 September 1765, f 12-v.7 AGI, Guatemala 446, Doc. 4, Ereccion de Cabildo en el pueblo de ladinos, de Jumay (1764),
Guatemala. “Que el fin de las poblaciones es la vida politica y civil de sus havitadores en paz y justicia; y no haviendo quien la administre es presiso falte el orden y concierto y que vivan barbaramente”
153
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to all civilization (civilidad')... barbarously, in the wilderness (despoblado) with neither
doctrina nor education.”79 Juan de Ayssa, Intendant of Nicaragua, engaged in 1789 in
negotiations with the Mosquito governor Carlos that included hosting a three-day
reception for the Carib governor’s nuptials, hoped in his reciprocal visit to find means
to build roads into the interior with the goal o f convincing the region’s Carib, Indian
and even Spaniard denizens to move into pueblos.90 If anything, two hundred years of
contact in the Americas had merely reinforced a lesson thoroughly ingrained in
Spaniards with their own reconquista.
Like the Indian pueblos, these ladino and mulato townships could elect their own
local mayor and councilmen. Equally, their local justice served the alcalde mayor's
interests at least as much as those o f the grudging householders who preferred a
dispersed and unaccountable lifestyle. The local mayors were responsible not just to the
inhabitants, but also to the governor, in case o f robbery or conflicts with Indian pueblos
over cattle pasturing. Once accessible, the new urban population also risked imposition
o f taxes and forced sale of goods. City living also facilitated priestly control o f
religious devotions and education, as well as Spanish ability to call up the mulatto
militia company in times of need. That the Crown approved o f such increases in access
to the populations o f its American territories is clear in the serviciosy meritos o f former
78 AHN, Consejos 20953, Pieza 74: Reduccion a poblacion de los mulatos de Ystapa (1764), ff. 5, 12. “sociedad Christiana, y policia.Unidos en republica, se comuniquen "(my italics)79 AHN, Consejos 20953. Pieza 74, Reduccion de los mulatos de Ystapa. Dictamen del Fiscal, 5 September 1765, f. 12-v.80 AGI Guatemala 721, Juan de Ayssa to S.M., No. 8, 23 January 1789. Ayssa and his wife were the godparents (padrinos) o f Governor Carlos Antonio Castillo and his bride, and the wedding was presided over by the bishop of Nicaragua.
154
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
governors who highlighted their successful efforts to form new pueblos because they
understood it would increase their chances to attain new posts.81
The late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century also produced a boom in
new settlements o f blacks displaced from the Caribbean. When Guatemala recaptured
the island of Roatan from the British in 1797, it inherited a colony o f black caribs who
had come there from the island of Saint Vincent. The Guatemala-based merchant Juan
Bautista Irisarry convinced Captain General Antonio Gonzalez Saravia to permit him to
send some of this group to form a new formal population in the Pacific port o f Acajutla,
in the jurisdiction of Sonsonate. Not only did these new inhabitants fish and serve as
sailors, they also provided more adequate help in a port in which Yrisarry, who traded
with Peru, wished to expand. Other black Caribbeans came to Guatemala as a result of
adjustments to the Haitian revolution. In 1796, the captain general o f Havana had sent a
large number of French “negros ” from Santo Domingo (Haiti) to Truxillo (Honduras).
After providing them with a pension for several years, Gonzalez sent some o f this
population to Nicaragua so they could be given land and become self-sufficient. The
town of Matiare, between Grananda and Leon in Nicaragua, was founded with some of
these families; others went to the Pacific port town of Realejo in 1798. The rest o f this
group remained to populate the outskirts o f Saladillo and Chapagua, next to Truxillo, a
81 AGI Guatemala 637, Residencia ofToribio Farrera, subdelegado del Partido de los Llanos, Ciudad Real, Chiapa, 1819. The Council warmly recalled Farrera’s father, Jose, who had successfully created several pueblos with cabildos from groups of dispersed settlers in various parts o f Chiapa in the 1790s, including one group o f Indian cimarrones. The council also welcomed initiatives to create new municipal authorities in towns that had become multiracial over time. Thus, the audience agreed with alcalde mayor Francisco Xavier Aguirre in 1802 and created alcaldes pedaneos ladinos with four regidores de aicxiliares, in the cabeceras of Gueguetenango and Totonicapan. The reform was later extended to all
155
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
port city on the bay o f Honduras, which had recently been repopulated with Spanish
immigrants.82
Revival o f city life and government was an important development o f the Kingdom
of Guatemala under the Bourbons, both for Spaniards and non-Spaniards. Thus, going
into the nineteenth century and the political upheavals introduced by a crisis in the
Spanish political system brought on by war with France, Napoleonic invasion and a
constitutional monarchy, Central America looked increasingly urban. Not urban in the
sense o f physical plant but urban in the sense o f people living in organizable areas. As
the century progressed, a growing part of the increasingly diverse population, lived
organized according to Spanish standards. By the end o f the nineteenth century, more
people accepted and used the Spanish system, with its Creole and Spanish governors
and administrators, than ever before, and the importance for municipal organization for
other communities, particularly the growing number o f ladinos, pardos and mulattos
was clear. How was such growth consonant with the establishment o f the intendancies,
which supposedly hoped to centralize official power in provincial capitals and remove it
from the hands o f both Kingdom capitals and city authorities? This is the subject to be
addressed in the next chapter.
populations that could support such a municipal structure. AGI Guatemala 624. Meritos y servicios, F. X. Aguirre.82 AGI Guatemala 452. Antonio Gonzalez Saravia, 1804, Relacion de las providencias economicas y gubemativas dadas por el actual presidente de Guatemala en virtud del Real Orden de 6 de Mayo de 1792, para. 25-29.
156
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 4
The Bourbon Town Council & the Spanish State: Uniformity and Regionalism:
Part 2: The Intendancy Reforms, 1785-1807
The financial reforms o f the 1760s proved just the first step in the Caroline
decision to unify, simplify and supervise government. By the mid 1780s, the Spanish
Crown decided to consolidate the many different kinds o f jurisdiction which had grown
organically in the Americas into a unique larger unit, the intendancy. A similar reform
had been tried in Spain in 1718, consolidated after 1749, and then initiated piecemeal in
the Americas, beginning with Cuba. Explicitly abandoning a jumbled mix o f alcaldias
mayores, corregimientos, and gobiemos, the intendancy was to be comprised of equal
and uniform sub-delegations, or districts (partidos).* As with other districts of Spanish
America, the Crown had gathered extensive data from Central American governors,
town councils and other leading members o f society in the 1740s and 1760s, before
determining the new districts.2
In essence, the “political” intendancy reforms were just as “economic” as the
overhaul of the tax and financial bureaucracy o f the 1760s and 1770s, and derived from
1 Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art 9, in Gisela Morazzani de Perez Enciso, Las ordenanzas de intendentes de Indias (Cuadro para su estudio) (Caracas, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Facultad de Derecho, 1972), pp. 66, 50. “para que asi se uniforme desde luego el gobiemo de todas las provincias y se evita la confusion q siempre causa la diversidad de jurisdicciones y ministros” and “mi soberana voluntad es.... igualar enteramente la condicion de todos mis vasallos de Nueva Espafia.” Article 1 states that “las [Provincias] que en la actualidad se titulaban Provincias con la denominacion de Partidos y conservando estos el nombre que tienen aquellas.”2 In Central America, several o f the relaciones of 1743 survive, and have been used as the basis for detailed analysis. See for example Maria de los Angeles Chaverri Mora, “La Alcaldia mayor de Tegucigalpa en la Relacion Geografica de Don Baltasar Ortiz de Letona,” III Congreso Centroamericano de Historia, San Jose, Costa Rica, July 1996. Chaverri uses the 1743 report o f alcalde mayor Pedro Ortiz
157
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
them. The intendancies were established around the areas of the cajas reales, and the
intendant would live in the capital that had been designated the fiscal center. Within
each territory, however, the intendant’s authority was extensive, to such a point that it
paralleled that of the viceroy or captain general’s role in each ‘reino.’ As had been the
case in 1718 Spain, the intendant exercised ultimate responsibility in four areas: justice,
security (policia), finance, and defense. On paper, the intendant often exercised the
vice-patronato, or authority over the church, approving ecclesiastical appointments.3 In
other words, the authority of the intendente was equivalent to that o f a captain general
but extended not to an autonomous district but to a fairly extensive province. Generally
a military man, the intendant had an advisor schooled in the law, the asesor letrado, to
help him in his administrative and judicial functions. In theory, the only regions that
might escape integration within an intendancy were key military frontier outposts. As in
the case of the earlier Bourbon expansion of the bureaucracy, these new posts provided
new opportunities for local elites. Although the first asesores letrados were Spanish
lawyers, within a decade many came from the ranks o f the Kingdom of Guatemala’s
growing number of lawyers.4
de Letona. Ortiz de Letona was also an important regidor in Guatemala City. The reports in BAGG for1760s.3 Surprisingly, Spain’s 1749 recognition that this plethora of powers limitd the intendant’s efficacy and subsequent reduction o f the authority, was not implemented in the Americas. For a discussion, see John Lynch, Bourbon Spain, / 700-/808 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989),pp. 103-106, 168-170. Lynch also notes the parallel reduction o f viceroys and creation of captaincies general throughout Spain, again diffusing and uniforming political power and territorialization.4 The first asesores were all Spanish: Pedro Luque (Chiapas); Diego Pilona (Nicaragua); Antonio Maria Aguilar (San Salvador), and Jose Mariano Valero (Comayagua). AGI Guatemala 690. Central American asesores included Juan Miguel Bustamante (Guatemala), o f Nicaragua in 1798 and of San Salvador in 1814; Antonio Isidro Palomo (Guatemala) o f San Salvador (1799-), and Manuel Beltranena y Llano (Guatemala) o f Nicaragua (1816-21). AGN, Caja 3, Seccion Antigua, Correspondencia Oficial, 1813- 1818, No. 11.; AGI Indiferente 109, KOG Emn 528-9.
158
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Many o f the modem republics o f Latin America take their names and
jurisdictions from these consolidated regions. In Central America, in the course o f
1785-1787, three royal orders mandated establishment o f four intendancies.5 Acting on
royal orders which represented the culmination of a decade of political deliberation,
Captain General Jose de Estacheria agglomerated many o f the 25 corregimientos,
alcaldias mayores and gobemaciones into four intendancies: Chiapas, Comayagua
(Honduras), San Salvador (El Salvador) and Nicaragua. Costa Rica continued as a
governorship (see Table 4.1).
5 AGCA A1.40, Leg 4797, fT6-12. Letter of 15 August 1784, Archbishop to Charles III. The letter requested the establishment o f the “regime” o f intendancies in Guatemala. Also, Hector H. Samayoa Guevara, Implantation del Regimen de Intendentias en el Reino de Guatemala (Guatemala: Ministerio de Educacion Piiblica, 1960), p. 57.
159
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 4.1: Kingdom of Guatemala in the 8* C.: Before & After Intendancies of 1787Provinces City Villa Pueblo Provinces Ayuntamientos
1778 1796 1805Ciudad Real (P) (AM) 1 1 56 Intendencia de Ciudad Real,
Totonicapan (P) (AM) 0 0 48 AM TotonicapanVerapaz (P) (AM) 1 0 14 AM VerapazS Salvador (P) (AM) 2 4 121 Intendencia de San Salvador San Salvador, San
Vicente, San MiguelPeten (Presidio) (Castellano)
0 0 9 Castillo del Peten
Golfo (presidio) (Cabo Principal)
Fueite de S Carlos
San Juan (Castillo) 0 0 0 Rio Tinto (?same)Nueva Guatemala 0 0 0 (Nueva Guatemala**) GuatemalaAntigua Guatemala 0 0 0 (part o f AM Sacatepequez) AntiguaOmoa (Gobemador) 0 0 0 Omoa
TruxilloCabo de GraciasRoatan
Gbr - Gobierao C = Corregimiento AM - Alcaldia Mayor P = Provincia* Suchitepequez not included here; in Juarros, 1800. Believe oversight ** Guatemala City not included because it was the point o f departure for the mails.
Sources: 1778: Anonymous, “Noticias del Reyno de Guatemala en \778;”Anales de la Acadmia de Geografia e Historia de Guatemala XLIV (1990), pp. 251-252; 1796: AGCA A1.25 Leg. 2603, Exp. 21389; 1805: Juarros, Compendio, pp. 56, 233.
The first intendancy, that o f San Salvador, covered the jurisdiction o f the alcaldia
mayor o f San Salvador over the municipal districts o f San Salvador, San Miguel, and
San Vicente while raising the political status o f this important indigo-producing region
from one of 12 alcaldias mayores to one o f four intendancies. San Salvador’s elevation
without any alteration of the political jurisdiction was unique in Central America.6
6 The decision to increase San Salvador's political status rather than to annex it to nearby provinces might well have had its roots in a 1774 report by ihea-alcalde mayor Francisco Antonio de Aldama y Guevara, who suggested dividing the district in two. Aldama reported on his inability to enforce his jurisdiction in the extended region. On the one hand, the ayuntamiento o f San Miguel claimed jurisdiction over its
161
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The other three intendancies, whose establishment followed directly on the heels of
that of San Salvador, consolidated several smaller provinces into one larger unit.
Before the recommendation o f San Salvador’s intendant, Josef Ortiz, to establish an
intendancy in the neighboring jurisdiction o f Comayagua to address a drastic mining
crisis could reach Spain,7 two more cedulas had already defined the intendancies of
Ciudad Real (20 September 1786), as well as of Comayagua and Leon (23 December
1786). These new provinces named the intendancies after their capital cities, as
provided for in article I of the new Ordenanza de Intendentes for use in New Spain
which the king separately ordered to be applied in Guatemala.8 The territories o f all
three of these jurisdictions derived from already-established bishoprics and their circuits
o f parishes, but represented a new secular consolidation with important political and
fiscal consequences. Chiapas incorporated the two alcaldias mayores o f Tuxtla and
entire partido, of over 40 leagues, and not the S leagues adjudicated to it by the Laws o f the Indies. On the other, the alcalde mayor did not believe he could appropriately govern the densely populated territory of 80 leagues by 40 leagues, and suggested putting “five meritorious subjects to administer Royal Justice,” one each in San Salvador, San Miguel, San Vicente, Santa Ana, and the Parish o f Osicalca. AGI Guatemala 621. Carta Francisco Aldama a la Audiencia de Guatemala, June 24, 1774. The fiscal of the Council of the Indies in 1776 asked for a report from the audience, Guatemala City and the archbishop.In 1779, the audience seconded Aldama's recommendation, proposing a tri-patite division o f the alcaldia mayor. They found that the current governor, Manuel Fadrique y Goyena, son-in-law o f the previous governor Cristobal de Galvez, and the three city councils of the region opposed the division for particularist reasons, that is, the fear o f loss of their extensive control o f justice and repartimiento. This intendancy operated in its first year under the Instruction written for Buenos Aires (1782).7 AGI Guatemala 690. Transcription of letter o f Intendant Josef Ortiz to Jose de Galvez, Marques de Sonora, CG, 28 July 1786, ff. 9-v, 13v-5. In 1787, the marginal note comments that Comayagua already had an intendancy,under the government of Don Juan Nepomuceno de Quesada. (28 Dec 1786).8 Ordenanzas 1786, Art.. Text in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, p. 50. For Comayagua and Leon, the king instructed Captain General Galvez to apply the new Ordenanza de Intendentes written for New Spain (Mexico). The following year, the Council of the Indies expanded this instruction to include all four Central American intendancies.
162
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Soconusco. Leon assumed control over four corregimientos.9 And Comayagua, on the
recommendation of the first intendant, was allowed to assume authority over the
alcaldia mayor of Tegucigalpa.10
In 1788, the 25 political jurisdictions had indeed been reduced. Unfortunately
for those who would find in the result the outlines o f five national states, the reduction
was not to four intendances and two govemorates but something more diffuse: fifteen
political jurisdictions. In addition to the intendancies of Comayagua, Chiapas,
Nicaragua and San Salvador and the govemorate o f Costa Rica, the Kingdom o f
Guatemala continued to have the uncentralized region of what would mostly become
the state o f Guatemala. This region included, in addition to the jurisdiction o f the
capital city, the important alcaldias mayores and corregimientos o f Totonicapan,
Sonsonate, Suchitepequez and Verapaz.11 O f these jurisdictions, one (Sonsonate)
would dissociate from the country o f Guatemala established in 1823, to join that of El
Salvador. Also not included in the intendancies were the military commandancies of
Omoa and Trujillo, on the Caribbean coast, and o f the Peten, in Guatemala’s northern
reaches. Since most o f the official trade of the colony was conducted through the
Caribbean ports, the non-inclusion o f the garrisons protecting those ports was an
important omission. Although by 1821 Ferdinand VII had decided to erect an
9 AGI Guatemala 690. Letter No. 7, President and Junta Superior de Hacineda o f Guatemala to Marques of Sonora, 14 August 1787. The royal order naming the first intendant o f Nicaragua, Juan de Ayssa, told him to incorporate the corregimientos o f Subtiava, Matagalpa and Nicoya.
163
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
intendancy for the Guatemalan districts, and was evaluating nominees for the position
o f intendant, independence cut short the official consolidation.12 In the meantime, these
ten provinces continued to report directly to the colony’s supreme judicial, military,
economic and political authority, the captain general, who served as a super-intendant,
and the audiencia. In 1803, a revised Ordenanza, never implemented, reaffirmed the
existence o f the four intendancies, as well as the direct administration by the audiencia
o f the district surrounding Asuncion.13
10 AGI 423. RC, 24 July 1791. San Pedro Sula was also added to the intendancy at this time. The order explicitly included all territory within the bishopric o f Comayagua in the intendancy, with the exception o f the fortress o f Omoa which remained under military rule and reported directly to the kingdom capital.11 Samayoa Guevara, Implantation del Regimen de Intendencias, p. 61.12 AGI Guatemala 690. Among those under consideration for the post were Jose Cecilio del Valle, a Honduran bureaucrat who edited a newspaper, El Amigo de la Patria (1820-1821) and authored the September 15 1821 declaration of indpendence and was one of Central America’s most respected thinkers. The nomination o f November 1820 went to Jose Alexo Alegria, a financial officer in Mexico, but independence kept the decision from being implemented. Most o f the other applicants had had long and distinguished careers as civil servants and lawyers in Guatemala. Native-born applicants included lawyers Antonio Isidro Palomo y Manrrique, Manuel Jose Pavon y Munoz, and Maria Antonio Rivas. There were also peninsulares lawyer Bartolome Vicente Pielago (of Santander), Miguel Gonzalez Saravia, intendant of Nicaragua and son o f a former Captain General (Antonio Gonzalez Saravia, 1801- 1811), and civil servant Jose Velasco, who had spent 43 years as a royal official in Guatemala, including as director o f the tobacco monopoly. The final applicant, Dr. Manuel Talavera was a native o f Coro (Venezuela) who had come to Guatemala when his uncle Sebastian Talavera had been named to the audiencia there (1786-1792).13 Ordenanzas Generales de Intendentes, 1803, Art. 6, Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes de Indias, p. 54.
164
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 12: Map of the Kingdom of Guatemala, ca. 1786
8 0 /
VJ
<
Source: Mario Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experiment in Central America, pp. 72-3 (Courtesy of Mario Rodriguez).
165
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Figure 13: Chains of Political Authority (Secular), Kingdom of Guatemala
Preside nUCO Atadaencre
S q b d ib p l t f o r T tn it id e t . da Obr.
While the establishment o f intendancies reduced the number of provinces within
the Kingdom of Guatemala by slightly less than half, the result was decentralization of
government rather than centralization. Instead o f one head, the captain general, the
kingdom in effect had five. Or, to use the metaphor o f Chapter I , instead o f a two-
tiered pyramid of political and economic authority, there were five pyramids, four of
equal size and one “central” pyramid with the authority to channel irresolvable disputes
to Spain for resolution. Within each intendancy, the intendant named subdelegates
(confirmed by the king) in the principal Spanish and Indian cabeceras o f what had
formerly been corregimientos and alcaldes mayores. For these officials, the intendant
served as distant arbiter of justice and administration in the same way that the audiencia
and captain general had previously done for the first type o f governor. As in the case of
the financial officials, the position o f subdelegado quickly became a sinecure for local
elites.14 While the most delicate or complicated cases would still be referred by the
14 For a series o f royal appointments o f subdelegados of Central America, see AGI Guatemala 428-431. Among the confirmations was that of Mariano Prado (1805) as subdelegado o f Sensuntepeque (El Salvador). Prado was then a young man and recent law graduate o f the universities of Leon, Nicaragua and Guatemala who later would serve on the town council of San Vicente, and after independence
166
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
intendant and his advisors to the kingdom capital for resolution, for the most part the
new intendancies were gubematorially self-sufficient, with their own financial offices
and (cajas), their own military organizations, their own court and appeals systems, and
their own religious and local administrations. The fact that all the Central American
intendancies had access, on either Atlantic or Pacific coasts, to important ports revived
by 1770s legislation that opened trade among the Americas as well as o f foreign
imports, meant that the center could often conveniently be ignored if local interests
found such to be to their benefit.
If, in theory, the old viceregal and captaincy general capitals were meant to find
themselves relieved of the burdens o f low-level administration to concentrate on
weightier matters more appropriate to their station, becoming central authority to a
series o f mid-level districts, in fact, absolute decentralization quickly materialized. In
the early years of intendancies in the Americas, the king apparently felt pressure from
his highest officials to reassure them o f their continuing importance. From 1783, the
king had revised the Ordenanzas o f Buenos Aires to have viceroys confirm the
appointments of Intendants. A royal decree o f 1788 in essence acknowledged the
Ordenanzas ’ sidelining of the captain general and reconfirmed the utility o f the
position, by assigning to him the role o f superintendente, or supervisor o f the entire
kingdom’s fiscal system.15
become a statesman and president. Among the other pretendants to the job were Gabriel Fuentes, a hacendado of the same district, recommended by the asesor, and Jose Munoz, the secretary o f the San Vicente town council, whose conduct apparently left much to be desired.15 RO 5 August 1783 and RO 9 May 1788, Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes de Indias, p. 54.
167
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In this sense, the intendancies did serve as the precursors to Central America’s
post-independence states, because residents learned to address concerns first to the local
intendant, and not the audiencia or captain general in the kingdom capital. However,
just as the intendancies consolidated a regional unity against a distant capital, they also
created or nourished internal divisions through an important yet unheralded innovation
of the intendancy: to group multiple Spanish cities and towns under one governor. This
experience tended to confirm local rivalries rather than to foster alliances against the
center.
Thus, there are two ways to interpret the ceremonial implications o f San
Salvador’s recpetion o f their first intendant, Jose Ortiz, in 1786. The ayuntamiento of
San Salvador on 29 May heard Ortiz’ oath and gave him official possession o f his
jurisdiction.16 On the one hand, regional capitals now had access to the kind o f official
who could demand for them favors and services that in the past Guatemala City’s
unique relationship with the president had preserved as its particular bailiwick. On the
other hand, the other cities in the district—in this case San Vicente and San Miguel—
thus took over the role of provincial second string, viewing the capital where the
intendant resided, exchanged favors and interacted with residents as a source of
competition. The competition was closer to home, perhaps, but this did not reduce the
complications that such competition would create.
16 AGI Guatemala 690, Letter o f Ayuntamiento o f San Salvador, 29 May 1787.
168
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
City Government and the Intendancy
The intendancy reforms had a significant impact on city government, although
not the reduction o f municipal importance and authority commonly asserted. Nor were
the titanic clashes and rivalries among the dozen significant Spanish towns the only
change in city influence. Certainly, with the establishment of the intendancies, the
cities and towns participated as only one element in a more elaborate government. Yet
this had always been the case, as we saw in the previous chapter. If the posts of many
traditional governors were abolished, the responsibilities o f city government were not
directly compromised by the Ordenanza o f 1786, nor its more thorough revision in
1803.17 None o f Central America’s Spanish town councils was suppressed nor its
personnel changed. Later legislation, such as a 1789 cedula on cemetery management,
indicated that the king still considered city government an important branch of his
overseas state.18 Oversight o f municipal money management and judicial authority
passed from the province’s governor to the intendant, with demands for stricter and
more regular bookkeeping. However, no functions or tasks were assigned away from
existing local authorities. In fact, in certain aspects municipal influence was enhanced.
1' See Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes de Indias for side-by-side comparison of the Buenos Aires (1782), Nueva Espana (Mexico) (1786) and general (1803) Ordenanzas de Intendentes. This legal work has linle analysis of the content of each instruction, but includes an exhaustive and invaluable reference to complementary royal decrees and orders issued to supplement, correct or abrogate specific articles in the Ordenanzas. The full names of what I call the Ordenanzas de Intendentes are: Real Ordenanza para el establecimiento e instruccion de Intendentes de Ejercito y Provincia en el Virreynato del Rio de la Plata, de 28 de enero de 1782; Real Ordenanza para el establecimiento e instruccion de Intendentes de Ejercito y Provincia en el Reino de Nueva Espana, de 4 de diciembre de 1786; and Ordenanza general para el gobierao e instruccion de Intendentes de Ejercito y Provincia, de 23 de septiembre de 1803.18 AGCA 1.2.4 Real Cedula, 1789. Legajo 2245, Expediente 16218.
169
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Certainly, in the last half of the eighteenth century, the number of town councils that
were active—and the evidence o f their activity and energy—demonstrably increased.
What was novel with the creation o f the intendancies, however, was that one
intendant stood more directly between several cabildos and the captain general or
audience. For the first time in colonial Central America, more than one town and its
elites had to vie for the favor of a single governor, and one who might not reside
locally. Such reduction in influence was not well received, particularly in the case of
silver-mining town Tegucigalpa, which had only achieved its official status in 1764 and
ran a successful legal battle from 1799 to 1812 to recover the independence o f its
alcaldia mayor}9 An alternate reality might have had local alliances form to combat
the supposed inimical influence o f the distant capital city but such alliances did not
form - or if they did, as we saw with the Salvadoran cities in the previous chapter—the
alliances were specific to a particular issue and did not forge enduring relationships.
While abolishing alcaldias mayores and corregimientos, the Ordenanzas de
Intendentes applied in the Kingdom of Guatemala between 1786 and 1821 had exactly
the opposite intent with regard to local government. Instead o f disbanding city
councils, it ordered the proliferation of municipal government. Under the new
regulation, existing alcaldes ordinarios of Spanish cities, towns and places (lugares)
would keep their traditional authority in matters o f justice. In addition, the new law
called for Spanish settlements without ayuntamientos to elect two alcaldes annually.
19 This fascinating struggle is well documented in AGI Guatemala 417, 496, 623, 649, and 845. See also Marvin Barahona, La alcaldia mayor de Tegucigalpa bajo el regimen de intendencias (Tegucigalpa: Institute Hondurefio de Antropologia e Historia, 1996).
170
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Ordenanza specifically stated that the new alcaldes would replace the lieutenants
whom provincial governors had previously named to those towns formerly deprived o f
a local government.20 Indian pueblos as well had their municipal organization
reinforced, although Spanish authorities would still be represented by a judge (juez
espanol) who would apparently serve the same functions as the former corregidor.21 In
other words, there would be more local government rather than less.
This approach, consonant with the earlier policies to extend official presence
into the far reaches of the countryside, once again promoted decentralization rather than
unified districts. The problem with the municipal proliferation was that those who lost
territorial control through the creation o f new autonomous districts—the mayors o f the
principal Spanish cities—could be expected to resist a diffusion of their authority. In
theory, this increase of town government did not directly reduce the influence of former
cabeceras o f provinces, such as Tegucigalpa. Yet, as we shall see below, the Crown’s
desire for more government at the local level met some villages’ aspirations for
autonomy from their district capitals and quietly (and not so quietly) put an end to the
“monstrous jurisdictions” that had so exasperated the audiencia in the first half o f the
eighteenth century.
20 Ordenanza de Nueva Espafia, 1786, Art 1 1 in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, pp. 68-69.21 Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art 12-13., in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes. pp. 74-77. Article 12 held that Indian towns that were cabeceras de partido would have a subdelegado and confirmed a 1782 decision that there would be no further repartimiento o f labor. Article 13 held that those pueblos that had, by “law and ancient custom” elected governors or mayors and the “rest of the officers of republica as laws and ordinances permitted for their purely economic order, and to demand from the same naturales their tribute paid to mi soberania" would continue to do so; other towns would have their subdelegates name govemors-tax collectors (gobemadores cobradores). In all judicial cases, to avoid “disturbances, appeals and uprisings” a Spanish judge would preside.
171
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The reduction o f city authority from 30-league districts to the casco o f their
cities through municipal reproduction was consolidated through the extension of
subdelegados to a degree not foreseen by the Ordenanzas. As clarified in Article 41 of
the Ordenanza General of 1803, the cabecera of a former alcaldia mayor or
corregimiento would receive a subdelegate (subdelegado de intendente), and thus retain
its centrality to regional finance and justice in its traditional hinterland.22 In practice,
however, subdelegates named by the new intendants proliferated in towns which had
previously had lieutenant governors, reducing the status of those in the former
provincial capitals to equivalency with the rest of the cabecerasP These establishment
of these new justices, combined with that o f the mayors in the smaller towns o f each
district, led to reduced sway by the previous provincial capital, and sometimes friction
over jurisdiction. Certainly, by supporting the proliferation of local governments and
subdelegates beyond the traditional large town, the Ordenanza de Intendentes put one
22 “En Iugar de los corregidores y alcaldes mayores que en todas partes han de extinguirse y en los propios pueblos que antes eran cabeceras de la provincia y lo deben ahora ser de partido, se pondran subdelegados, que corao aquellos jueces administren justicia y cumplan las mismas obligaciones y cargas que en su distrito les eran peculiares y les estaban anexas, observando la instruccion particular que de ellas se les da y va unida a esta Ordenanza, para facilitarles mas el desempeno de su ministerio y precaver dudas y disputas con motivo de su subordinacion y dependencia de los intendentes.” See Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art. 41, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, pp. 69-70.23 Sketchy information indicates that subdelegados nominees were drawn both from local elites but also from Spaniards, many o f whom presumably came to the Americas for other reasons and hoped to stay.For example, in 1808 the President’s nomination of Manuel Mantillas as subdelegate in Segovia, Nicaragua was approved. Mantillas was a retired captain o f militias, former syndic, mayor o f Leon, and consular deputy. He had replaced Antonio de Arce, a military man who had been a member of Nicaragua’s militas, but o f Spanish provenance. AGI Guatemala 431, Aprobacion de 18 November 1808, of recommendation of 18 April 1808, Letter 326, Captain General Antonio Gonzalez Saravia. It would take a rigorous study of nominations in different regions over the course of the intendancies (1786-1821) to confirm which type o f vassal was preferred for the different types of district. My hunch would be that locals filled the less militarily important posts, and those most important to city economies.
172
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
more nail in the coffin of the bigger towns’ pretensions to exercise jurisdiction in their
old ten-, twenty- or thirty-league districts.
Perhaps the lack o f direct intention to reduce the municipal hinterlands to
circumscribed areas contiguous to city centers promoted the success o f this aspect of
the intendancy reforms.24 A full-frontal assault on individual city jurisdictions—the
monstrous jurisdictions bewailed by the audiencia in the 1770s in the alcaldia mayor of
San Salvador—would have mobilized the major towns and cities o f the isthmus to
respond directly. This indirect assault on “customary” privilege and jurisdiction,
following on the heels of the 1785-1788 stripping of the Granada (Nicaragua) of its
traditional hinterland, apparently met with little concerted resistance.25
If the unexpected dividends of the provisions of the intendancy were so effective
in Central America, how did the official provisions to improve city government fare?
The Ordenanza demanded greater transparency and oversight in municipal finances in
line with Bourbon interest in efficiency and uniformity. However, the city council was
expected to enact its own reforms, and then report regularly to higher officials. One
regulation created the junta municipal, to be made up of the first alcalde ordinario, two
aldermen (regidores), and the sindico, to oversee the collection and spending o f town
finances and to provide a new series of annual reports to the intendant on the sources
24 Robert W. Patch, “The Bourbon Reforms, City Councils, and the Struggle for Power in Yucatan, 1770- 1796,” in Jaime E. Rodriguez O., ed., Mexico in the Age o f Democratic Revolutions, 1750-1850. Boulder Lynn Rienner Publishers, 1994,” p. 65. Patch has argued for Yucatan that this loss o f jurisdiction over territories and their Indian populations was “the crucial change” o f municipal authority in terms o f the intendancy reforms.25 AGI Guatemala 572 contains the causa of the city of Granada, which lost 27 leagues o f jurisdiction between 1785 and 1788.
173
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and amounts o f income and expenses o f each settlement.26 Each junta was to name a
new collector o f municipal debts annually, to be paid 1 lA% from the collected monies.27
This junta was also charged with ensuring that prices for foodstuffs were both
fairly and reasonably set, and that auctions of city lands or buildings (propios) were
made public for thirty days prior to a sale or lease. The procedure was the same as that
followed traditionally for sales o f council seats and of city licenses such as that of
running the local cockfighting franchise (patio de gallos). It was inserted in article 37
with the specific intent to avoid “leagues and monopolies that happen within and
outside o f ayuntamientos” in which regidores, their relatives and dependents
(paniaguados) paid less than minimum value, and to replace such practices inimical to
the royal treasury with disinterested administration o f justice.28 It is worth noting here
that the council was not singled out for this type o f attempt to put an end to patronage
and influence in local commerce. The new Spanish subdelegate in the pueblos
cabeceras de meros indios received a similar abjuration in Article 44.29
When the theory translated into practice, the cities of Central America learned to
turn this, as well as all other attempts at persistent government oversight, to their favor.
After all, the junta municipal was made up of city council members; the reports would
reflect local circumstances more than disinterested accounting. Furthermore, if a city
did not voluntarily implement the measures of the Ordenanzas, Crown and intendant
' 6 Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Arts. 34-36, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, pp. 90- 91. Although a RC of 16 May 1573 ordered annual reports on municipal propios to be sent to the Council o f Indies, this regulation was not in effect in the 18lh century. See Recopilacion, Law 6, Book 4, Title 13.*' Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art 40, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, p. 92.
174
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
faced an uphill battle enforcing them. Guatemala City successfully resisted changing its
system of fiscal administration until 1801, when a royal decree insisted that it establish
an ordinance o f propios y arbitrios (holdings and taxes), which would end abuses like
aldermen receiving reimbursement from municipal funds for up to 100 pesos spent on
“festivities” without being obliged to prepare or present a receipt. Three aldermen,
including the second Marques of Aycinena, who had been a fixture o f municipal
government since the 1780s, and who as standard-bearer (alferez real) most frequently
had occasion to seek reimbursement for ceremonial expenses, resigned rather than
submit to strict accounting.30
In fact, with the death of Charles HI in 1788, a mere three years after
implementation o f the intendancy reforms, a notable reduction of innovative zeal led to
appointment o f less active and less confrontational officials to Central America, and a
consequent reduction in actual interference in local finances. In that year, a royal
decree abrogated one o f the articles o f the 1786 Ordenanzas, which required that the
town council receive approval from the audience for investing small amounts o f its
monies.31 Such official watering down of unwelcome provisions was matched by local
28 Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art 37, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, pp. 91-92.29 Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art 44, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, p. 94.30 AGI Guatemala 624, Francisco Camacho, Instruccion Reservada, pp. 2-5; Fiscal Yanez to Minister of Gracia y Justicia, 21 June 1809.. The other two resignees were Manuel Pavon and Jose Antonio Batres, who “immediately” renounced their offices. The Tribunal de Real Hacineda, in face o f the city’s obstinacy, commissioned a member o f the audience, Antonio Cardenas, to come up with a regulation.The recommended reduction in costs to meet fees, rather than the city’s preffered method of raising taxes, was not popular. Camacho, the oidor behind this control and an investigation to the city’s long-term debt to the real hacienda o f half a million pesos, found himself run out of town by order o f the captain general a year later. The fiscal of the audiencia, Jose Yanez, in a report to the Crown on 21 June 1809 confirmed that Camacho’s strict fiscal regimen had been the start of the city’s enmity towards Camacho.31 AGCA Al.2.4 Leg. 4779, Exp. 41279, f. 10, RO 14 September 1788, Derogacion, Art. 6, 28 Ordenanza de Intendencia (Buenos Aires)
175
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
resistance to implementation. In 1808, the oidor in the capital responsible for
coordinating the reports of the accounts of propios and arbitrios o f the kingdom
informed his successor that initial rigor had had the laudable effect of getting the
region’s cities to prepare and its intendants to submit the reports. However, the single
official in the accounting office in the capital had not reviewed these reports since
1794.32 This same official, Francisco Camacho, found himself railroaded out o f town in
1808, in large part because o f his efforts to get the Guatemala City cabildo to
“economize its funds and holdings.”33
If the fiscal system under the intendancy increased supervision o f municipal
spending more in theory than in practice, it did, however, foster a shift o f municipal
funding. Under the Ordenanzas, city councilors learned to increase the municipal
balance sheet, as they turned from reliance on propios alone to propios and arbitrios.
Traditionally, Central American cities had collected most of their income from rent on
the city propios, or holdings, which included stalls in the central market;buildings
leased to individuals and other government institutions; and ejidos, or common lands
rented to city residents. A less frequently used income generator was the arbitrio, a
royally approved local tax on goods bought and sold in the city. Rarely invoked in the
Hapsburg years of the colonial period, Central America’s town councils turned
increasingly to the arbitrio as a source o f income after the intendancy reforms, with the
32 AGI Guatemala 624. Instruccion reservada, Francisco Camacho, pp. 9-10.33 AGI Guatemala 624. Fiscal Yaiiez to Minister of Gracia y Justicia, 21 June 1809. “Si el cavildo (sic) de Guatemala le aborrese es porque le di’p reglamentos para...economisar (sic) sus fondos y propios.” Yanez also pointed out that for “over a half century” the council owed the royal treasury around a half
176
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
encouragement o f the intendants and their staff, who planned to use the funds to
improve city administration and pay some officials.34
This new form of taxation revived several failing treasuries, including those of
the capital, Ciudad Real in Chiapas, Comayagua in Honduras, and Sonsonate. The
particular taxes approved by the Spanish Crown were often on items used by the general
populace, such as panela (block sugar) and soap, and charged to small traders within a
fifty-league radius. Although taxpayers often lived in the countryside, the taxes usually
paid for services and buildings located in a district capital like the hospital in Guatemala
City and the town halls and prisons in Comayagua and Sonsonate. The fiscal reach of
each city, then, continued to reach into and affect the countryside. Whatever the rural
population’s response to the new arbitrios, to which their produce constituted the
principal contribution, it could not have been either ignorance or indifference.
Although no tax could be imposed without the elaborate process o f approval first in
Guatemala and subsequent ratification in Spain, the fact that the Crown was willing to
countenance up to a fifty-league radius for collection in certain cases clearly allowed
the principal cities of the isthmus to maintain an extensive fiscal, if not a judicial,
presence in the countryside.
The new taxes proved an easy and long-standing innovation. Guatemala City
received permission in 1795 to establish a four-year tax on panela and sugar, two
important ingredients in local liquor manufacture, which in some way made up for the
million pesos. If Camacho had raised this point, it is not surprising that the council sought to rid themselves of such a reformer.
177
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
lost right to collect the official liquor tax. The proceeds o f this tax, as well as a tax on
pool halls, went to fund short-term needs: the purchase o f uniforms for the local militia
and construction and repairs o f the city’s hospital, town hall, women’s jail and grain
warehouse. Yet the city found a way to extend the tax well beyond its initial period.
After a four-year extension, the city recommended that rather than abolish the tax, the
crown authorize the use of its income to support the city hospital run by the religious
order o f San Juan de Dios. The hospital had lost its principal source of income with the
abolishment o f the tax on chicha, a local grain liquor. The audiencia, and then the king,
approved the change in 1804, with the proviso that only towns within a fifty-league
radius pay the taxes, rather than the 100 leagues suggested by the audience, because it
was unlikely that the principally poor inhabitants o f such an immense territory would
really seek help from the hospital if sick.35 This ‘temporary’ tax still existed in 1816,
when, despite a denunciation o f the Consulado de Comercio, the king recommended
continuation o f its support for uniforms, construction and hospital because of the benefit
to commerce and public utility.36 While the hospital and militia costs were ongoing, the
willingness o f the Crown to pay for public buildings that were taking more than twenty
years to erect and fund suggests that a contented and well-funded city council was more
important to Ferdinand VO than the fiscal austerity o f his grandfather.
34 Chinchilla Aguilar, El ayuntamiento colonial, pp. 106-107, confirms that the colonial council rarely had recourse to imposition of arbitrios and lists a handful o f exceptions.35 AGI Guatemala 415, Consulta 16, 20 September 1804, Council o f the Indies. The royal order confirming the decision was issued 20 October 1804. See also Chinchilla Aguilar, El ayuntamiento colonial,p . 107.36 AGI Guatemala 416, Consulta, 3 March 1816.
178
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In the provinces, intendants promoted use of the arbitrio as a way to fund new
positions created by the Ordenanza de Intendentes and to improve rundown provincial
capitals without assigning costs to the local elites whom they wanted to convince to
purchase council seats and take over the burden of city administration. Chiapas’ first
intendant immediately proposed a series o f low taxes on products from panela and local
soap to imported goods and sales o f mules to increase Ciudad Real’s revenues so that
the city councilors would not pay deficits from their pockets, and to increase the city
revenue enough to pay the thousand-peso salary of the new adviser.37 The intendant of
Honduras proposed a similar tax on the intendancy in 1799 in order to increase revenues
for the capital city, Comayagua. When other towns in the jurisdiction protested this
practice, the Council o f the Indies allowed the tax, but only on goods bought and sold
within the city limits, because the principal improvements—construction o f a town hall
and militia barracks—would benefit the city more than the province.38 The Council
also insisted that future taxes not be levied without express permission o f the audience
and the Council.39 In 1801, the intendant of Leon, Jose Salvador, also proposed a series
of taxes in his districts, but this proposal was disapproved because it did not take into
37 AGI Guatemala 413, Consulta 9, 1791. El Intendente de Chiapas propone un impuesto para mejorar los propios y arbitrios de Ciudad Real. In this case, the Council recommended application of a general royal circular on taxation of 14 September 1788.38 AGI Guatemala 415, Consulta 13, 31 July 1804 fora summary of the actions from 1799-1804. There was some confusion in Madrid in 1804 on whether Comayagua was charging the taxes, approved in 1802, since the Consulado de Comercio claimed that the intendant was respecting a royal order o f 7 September 1800, which rejected the audiencia's approval o f new arbitrios for Comayaga on four important local products: cattle, cacao, sugar and anil. For text of the royal order, see AGCA A 1.23 1651-10286, f. 290, 7 September 1800.39 AGI Guatemala 525, Consulta 8 April 180. This consultation resulted in a Council decision that the Audience, not the Tribunal de Real Hacienda, would approve any new ordenanzas about arbitrios in the kingdom. A 23 February 1798 royal order had chastised the audience for implementing new arbitrios
179
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
account variations in the population and riches o f the different towns in the
intendancy.40 Even districts that remained independent of the intendancies participated
in the revival of this form o f income. Sonsonate received permission to tax cattle
providers and urban property owners in 1808 to fund construction o f a new prison, town
hall and militia barracks. Interestingly, the town was not allowed to tax landowners two
reales for each caballeria o f land.41
Although city councils and intendants might clash over questions o f oversight or
direction of civic projects, the collaboration made to increase local taxation for local
benefit forged a solid alliance between intendancy capitals and their governors that
makes it difficult to understand the historical literature’s emphasis on American
resistance to the intendants. Such alliances were consolidated when intendants, like
Luis Martinez Navarrete o f San Salvador, supported city petitions that sought to
increase provincial economic or political autonomy from the kingdom capital. San
Salvador’s syndic in 1803 found an ally for the city in its request for reinstatement o f an
annual indigo fair, which had met in the intendancy’s town o f San Vicente, that had
allowed the indigo growers of the province to increase their bargaining power with
Guatemala City’s merchants. “The council, the pueblo it reperesents, and the
without first seeking royal approval. For a discussion o f this order, see AGI Guatemala 415, Consulta 13, 31 July 1804.40 AGCA A 1.2 Legajo 4573, Expediente 39489, RC, 10 June 1801.41 AGI Guatemala 628. Draft RC (ND) and report o f Contador General, Pedro Aparici, Madrid, 8 November 1808.
180
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
intendant,” joined to urge the revival o f the fair as advantageous not only to themselves
but also the royal coffers.42
The alliances were consolidated when intendants used their authority to appoint
local elites, often members of the town councils that had lost direct jurisdiction over the
countryside, as their subdelegates. Numerous Crown confirmations indicate that this
practice was perfectly acceptable, even when the choice fell on members the local elite
who lived in the principal cities and towns o f an intendancy and had commercial or
farming interests in the district to which they were named. Such was the case in the
selections of miners, merchants and landowners like Pedro Martir de Zelaya, Estevan
Rivera, Mariano Prado, Joaquin Vigil, Josef Echeverria, and Phelipe Mariano Vidaurre,
members of the Tegucigalpa, San Salvador, Leon, Granada, Comayagua and San
Vicente town councils, to serve as subdelegates in their districts 43 Much rarer were
cases like that o f the appointment by intendant of Nicaragua o f Santiago Garcia as the
new subdelegate for Masaya in 1807, because Garcia was a lawyer from Guatemala and
42 AGI Guatemala 722, Interim Intendant Luis Martinez Navarrate to S.M., San Salvador, 13 October1803.43 This is only a fragment o f the nominations but serves to show both the connections between municipal office and other office holding under the Bourbon reforms, as well as the universality o f the practice. ANH, Seccion Colonial, Caja 197, Miner, merchant and hacendado Pedro Martir de Zelaya was one o f the first subdelegados named to mining village Yuscaran (1789-1795), within the former district o f Tegucigalpa, on whose town council he held a permanent seat. AGI Guatemala 430, Confirmation of Mariano Prado as subdelegado o f Sensuntepeque, where the captain general noted he was a hacendado yet still the most idoneo for the job (Letter 180, 3 December 1804, Captain General Gonzalez Saravia); AGI Guatemala 430, 16 February 1803, Confirmation of the appointment of Joachin Vigil, regidor of Leon, as subdelegado of Masaya; 17 February 1804, Confirmation o f Joseph Echeverria, regidor of Granada, as subdelegado o f Matagalpa; Confirmation o f Phelipe Mariano Vidaunre, receptor o f sales tax, regidor and alcalde ordinario o f San Vicente, as subdelegado o f Cojutepeque, San Salvador, 18 August 1807; Confirmation o f Estevan de Rivera, subdelegado of Tegucigalpa, Province o f Comayagua, 20 January 1803. At the time of his nomination in 1802, Rivera was a mayor of Comayagua.
181
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
local “merchants, vecinos and cattle ranchers” wanted the post because o f the “real
monopoly” on the meat market (abastos) the job provided.44
The kind of conflict that did emerge—and that has received comment by
scholars like John Preston Moore and Maria Teresa Zubiri Marin—tends to fall into the
category o f conflict that had beset imperial government since time immemorial: specific
complaints about the specific actions o f specific officials, couched, in fact, in these
terms. Conflicts also included resentment o f places that lost privileges and status as a
result o f the reform. As the work of these scholars shows, some capital cities resisted
the efforts of an intendant, whose energy, rather than broader authority, either
demanded more municipal activity from those disinclined to meet the needs for new
bridges, roads and other civic projects. Most capitals, however, praised their intendants,
and praised them sincerely, leaving the institutional critiques to come from those whose
authority was truly threatened by the powerful new governors: the captains general and
viceroys;45 and the cities and towns which became peripheral municipalities when
incorporated into a many-city intendancy. As no intendant was established in
Guatemala (or Mexico), perhaps because of the Peruvian experience, the Central
American capital did not produce the same kind of global document that Lima, in Peru,
presented to the Crown in the 1790s.46
44 AGI Guatemala 430, Letter 304, Captain General Gonzalez Saravia to S.M., 3 December 1807.45 See Moore, The Cabildo in Peru, pp. 155-170 - in which Moore shows how Lima resisted intendant interference and regional cities welcomed and lauded the efforts o f their new officials. This myth, based on studies o f colonial capitals rather than a consideration of the differing impact in capitals and provinces, persists in recent scholarship. See, for example, Maria Teresa Zubiri Marin, "El cabildo de Caracas y la intendencia: un enfrentamiento significativo,” in Coloquio Intemacional Carlos I I Iy su Siglo. Actas, Vol. 2, (Madrid: Universidad Complutense: Departamento de Historia Moderna, 1987), pp. 467-477.46 Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art. 34, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, p. 90.
182
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The most likely institutions to protest the intendancies were the cities that lost
political authority with the abolition of the provinces (alcaldias mayores) o f which they
had been capital. Such was the case with the town of Tegucigalpa, which lost its status
as a regional capital when it was adopted into the intendancy o f Comayagua in 1788.
This loss of status had two serious consequences for the town: reduced access to the
products and services o f the former hinterland, and fiscal independence. Tegucigalpa
native and cabildantes, Pedro Martin de Zelaya, the subdelegado assigned to
Tegucigalpa in place of the alcalde mayor, recommended the establishment of various
lieutenants in additional towns, to reduce the distance rural populations had to travel for
economic and political justice.47 Intendant Juan Nepomuceno Quesada agreed, naming
lieutenants in Choluteca, Nacaome, Aguanqueterique, Cedros and Danli. The principal
subdelegation o f Tegucigalpa was thus reduced to a jurisdiction, in the first instance, o f
This article stated that cities in which a viceroy or audiencia was located remained dependent on these authorities, according to regulations o f the Recopilacion de Indias, with no alteration in their jurisdictions.47 The fate of the former districts addressed in Art. 9 o f the 1786 Ordenanzas de Nueva Espafia, which stated that unless otherwise specified “los demas corregimientos y alcaldias mayores de toda la comprension... conforme vayan vacando, o cumpliendo su tiempo, los provistos por mi en unas y otros, y entro tanto estaran inmediatamente sujetos y subordinados a los respectivos intendentes de su distrito, y estos les subdelegaran sus encargos para que asi se uniforme desde Iuego , el gobiemo de todas las provincias, y se evita la confusion que siempre causa la diversidad de jurisdiccionesy ministros.” (p 66) Article 11 continues that as the districts are suppressed, royal jurisdiction would fall to the intendant. The alcaldes ordinarios o f Spanish cities towns and places (lugares) would keep their traditional authority, and even towns without ayuntamientos were under the new laws allowed to have elected alcaldes (p. 68). Per article 41 of the Ordenanza General o f 1803, the cabecera o f a former alcaldia mayor or corregimiento would receive a subdelegado de intendente. “En lugar de los corregidores y alcaldes mayores que en todas partes han de extinguirse y en los propios pueblos que antes eran cabeceras de la provincia y lo deben ahora ser de partido, se pondran sudelegados, que como aquellos jueces administren justicia y cumplan las mismas obligaciones y cargas que en su distrito les eran peculiares y les estaban anexas, observando la instruccion particular que de ellas se les da y va unida a esta Ordenanza, para facilitarles mas el desempeno de su ministerio y precaver dudas y disputas con motivo de su subordinacion y dependencia de los intendnetes.” Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes. pp. 68-70.
183
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the mines of Yuscaran, San Antonio, and Santa Lucia.48 This did not sit well with other
Tegucigalpa elites, who quickly marshaled arguments to convince the Crown to restore
its previous district and status. Even though elites were named to serve as the new
subdelegados, the powerful men o f the city used their positions on the town council to
initiate passive resistance to instructions from Comayagua to implement the new
district, by refusing to answer any correspondence on this point.49
A related concern o f Tegucigalpa’s elites was the growth of competing sources
of local political power within the territory of what had always been the alcaldia mayor.
For example, the two new mayors o f the town o f Danli, a mining and cattle ranching
area, immediately sought to establish their authority not just within a 4-league
jurisdiction, but in the entire parish o f Danli, a wider territory. Then -subdelegado in
Tegucigalpa, alderman Manuel Jose Midence, resisted these pretensions, which would
further shrink the capital’s authority. In 1799, he wrote that his predecessor (also a
Tegucigalpa alderman), Manuel Antonio Vasquez y Rivera, had commissioned an agent
to determine Danli’s jurisdiction, who had set the territory at five leagues. The
48 Although the published document indicates that Pedro Martin de Zelaya was the subdelegado, it is highly likely that the individual was in fact Pedro Martir de Zelaya, Tegucigalpa's wealthiest bachelor and an important political figure who had been active in creating the town council. Pedro Martin de Zelaya, Copia del Ynforme del Subdelgado de Thegucigalpa, August 8, 1793, Boletin del Archivo General de Guatemala 7:4 (1941-2), pp. 242-244. Taken from AGCA A l . l Leg. 1796, Exp. 13455.49 By 1803, Intendant Ramon Anguiano was so fed up with the subdelegado's refusal to answer repeated requests (since 1798) for information on the value of the council's regimientos, that he imposed a fine for recalcitrance. His letter o f reprimand clarified that “since you do not want to comply with any providencia o f this government, from this day forward you are assessed a fine commensurate with the fault.'' AGI Guatemala 629, Testimonio del expediente sobre...graduar el legitimo valor que deva fijarse a los oficios de Regidores (1804), f. 60. Anguiano al Subdelegado de Tegucigalpa, 16 April 1803.Among the city councilors o f Tegucigalpa who served as subdelegados between 1787 and 1800 were Zelaya, Antonio Tranquilino de la Rosa, Geronimo Zelaya, Estevan Rivera, Manuel Jose Midence, and Francisco Antonio Gonzalez Travieso. Mario Felipe Martinez Castillo, Apuntamientos para una historia colonial de Tegucigalpa y su alcaldia mayor (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Universitaria, 1982), pp. 146-147.
184
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
intendant himself had named yet a third Tegucigalpa alderman, Francisco Hariza, on a
similar mission. Midence in 1799 protested in the name of the council o f Tegucigalpa,
which believed even 4 leagues to be “excessive in territory for the mayors o f the pueblo
o f Danli, which lacks the privilege o f an ayuntamiento, erection and confirmation as a
Villa.” 50 By stripping Tegucigalpa o f its role as provincial capital, and elevating
additional settlements to the status o f self-governance, the implementation o f the
Intendancy act created a source o f tension which would spill over in the independence
era, as each subdelegation chose sides in the various decisions to be made on the
region’s political internal and external constitution.
It was not only the former capitals of alcaldias mayores that found fault with the
system. Another issue for towns that had no intendant was the unpopularity o f levying
taxes in all towns and all communities to benefit the capital. When the Intendant of San
Salvador wanted to raise funds to build a bigger women’s prison, he recommended
extending a tax on cattle levied in San Salvador, San Miguel and San Vicente to the rest
of the province’s cabeceras. Although the “powerful” householders of San Salvador
had already contributed 3100 pesos to the work, the intendant, Ignacio Santiago y Ulloa
(who would be ousted ten years later) expected the cost to be double this amount. To
make up the difference, he asked the town councils o f all three towns to contribute
another 500 pesos each from their funds, and also suggested that several small taxes be
50 A GCA A3.3 Legajo 44, Exp 5344, transcribed in Martinez Castillo, Apuntamientos, p. 146-147. “que aun las mismas cuatro leguas son exesivas de territorio a los Alcaldes del pueblo de Danli, por carecer del privilegio de ayuntamiento, ereccion y confirmacion en Villa, y como a tal pueblo, spulicad Vuestra Senoria mande senalarles su territorio , para que no se entrometan al de la subdelegacion, pues de este modo se obviaran diferencias que perturb an la paz y buena armonia.”
185
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
charged in the markets and collected from Indians and ladinos from neighboring towns,
on the grounds that the prison would serve women from the whole province. San
Vicente’s town council argued that not only did the town funds not suffice to pay for
local public works, but that collecting o f taxes from the poor artisans would cost more
than they would produce. Defending the district’s poor, San Vicente’s ayuntamiento
also said that collecting such a tax was not only not particularly useful to the
jurisdiction, but would also deprive the public of goods it needed funds to purchase.
San Miguel similarly claimed the funds would be put to better use in rebuilding the
decrepit city hall and the hospice that the city maintained for travelers. Although San
Salvador itself was less than enthusiastic about a new jail, at least it would directly
benefit as both the location o f the building and the provisioner o f those building i t 51
Such efforts by intendants to improve the capitals, thus could contribute to resentment
of more visible and concentrated government.
In replicating the former relationships o f the provinces to the capital within the
intendancies, however, the new “centralized” province symbolically, as well as
institutionally, slighted former districts by erasing their geographic salience. A sore
point for important towns like Tegucigalpa was that Article I o f the 1786 Ordenanza
declared that the intendancy would take its name from its respective capital city or
town.52 While Tegucigalpa lost its status as capital o f an alcaldia mayor with its own
name, to add insult to injury, annexation further meant incorporation into a polity
named after Comayagua, a town with a failing agricultural economy whose own town
51 AGI Guatemala 534, RC, 22 March 1803.
186
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
council had been in disarray until the intendant galvanized its revival. Comayagua’s
profile would rise, in part due to Tegucigalpa’s silver and its former districts’ tobacco
production. An alternate name for the province of Comayagua, dating back to the
conquest, had been Honduras. Instead, throughout the closing years o f Spanish imperial
rule, both colonial and Spanish officials alternated in referring to the intendancy as both
Comayagua and Honduras. Similarly, the intendancy o f Leon was often referred to as
Nicaragua, a conquest-era provincial name, presumably to defuse tension between
intendancy capital Leon and its internal rival, Granada. Leon, the seat o f the diocese,
could not consider itself to be the capital as clearly as the cities o f Comayagua or San
Salvador. For, since the 1740s, the officials o f the royal treasury had alternated their
seat between the two cities, claiming an inability to pay, to have a lieutenant in Granada
to collect its share o f tribute payments and other sources o f income. Matias de Galvez,
in 1785, saw the need to extend this alternation, which continued at least until 1817,
when the Council o f the Indies revisited the issue.53 When the intendancies became
states after independence, this apparently minor point was permanently resolved. With
no evident discussion, Comayagua and Leon were discarded as possible names for the
new polities, to be replaced by the equally traditional yet less municipally associative
names of Honduras and Nicaragua.
52 Ordenanza de Nueva Espafta, 1786, Art. 1, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, p. 50.53 AGI Guatemala 690, Consulta, 1785-1817. In a letter o f 15 May 1817, the captain general of Guatemala queried the Council o f the Indies whether with the “new establishment of Indias, and having given that of Nicaragua to its governor” it might be better for the treasury to remain in either Leon or Granada, “como que las cajas deven estar en la capital de la Intendencia.” No decision is included with the case, which has collected the original case from 1785.
187
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
As a result o f complaints, as had happened with the fiscal reforms two decades
earlier, the intendancy reforms became subject to the same negotiation-upon-
implementation that had characterized Spanish-American policy since the conquest. If
the king refused to modify many o f the Ordenanza’s articles regarding municipal
finance, uniformity was sacrificed in other areas that generated significant criticism. In
the intendancy reforms, as in all other Bourbon projects, uniformity and the principle of
regal inflexibility, were rapidly sacrificed when either common sense or significant
resistance dictated. Tegucigalpa, after almost fifteen years o f bureaucratic appeals,
succeeded in resuming its status as an alcaldia mayor in 1812. Opposition to Article
1 lo f the Ordenanzas, which called for a mayor to serve the first year as the second
alcalde and the second year as the first alcalde, led to first a partial and then full
revocation o f the article.^
Perhaps the only city that found its relationship to power unchanged with the
intendancies was that o f Guatemala City. As capital o f the Kingdom of Guatemala
waxed rather than waned in the move to more government that characterized the
policies of Charles m and his heirs. By deciding not to establish an intendancy in the
region closest to the audiencia and Asuncion, Spain’s politicians spared this region the
change that induced town councils to quarrel. When Antigua Guatemala (Santiago)
54 Ordenanza de Nueva Espana, 1786, Art. 44, in Morazzani, Las ordenanzas de intendentes, p. 68. For the protests o f Asuncion, San Salvador and Leon, see AGI Guatemala 414. Discussion o f opposition to the same article by the towns o f Peru is discussed in Moore, The cabildo in Peru, pp. 181, 184. Moore cites the general cedula as being issued in 1800.
188
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
finally achieved cabildo status in 1799, Asuncion responded generously by returning
ejido lands to the old capital.55
The consolidation by the Bourbons o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala as an
autonomous jurisdiction, fiscally, politically, ecclesiastically and culturally separate
from the distant viceroyalty o f New Spain, had a predictable consequence: the
concentration o f new centers of power in the city. As the long time home o f the bishop
of Guatemala, Santiago’s religious importance had increased dramatically when in 1744
the diocese became an archdiocese responsible for the religious well-being of the entire
kingdom. This promotion heralded the district’s religious as well as secular autonomy
from the powerful but distant Viceroyalty of New Spain. As noted above, the fiscal
reforms of the 1760s led to the proliferation o f offices and officers o f the real hacienda
as well. The Direction General de Alcabala (1763), Factoria de tabacos (1767),
Contaduria Mayor (1771) and Administration de Correos (1768) all had their main
branches in Santiago and then Asuncion.
As provincial elites flocked to the capital to study and seek work, further
opportunities opened up. In 1793, a Consulado de Comercio (Merchant’s Guild) was
established to improve commerce and commercial justice in the kingdom. Its
headquarters was naturally in Guatemala City, and its principal officers elected annually
from among the merchants o f the capital—the same men who controlled the
ayuntamiento56 Guatemala City received royal permission to establish a Sociedad de
55 Pardo, Efemerides.56 For the most complete discussion of the consulado, as well as a list o f its officers, see Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., “The Consulado de Comercio o f Guatemala, 1793-1871,” PhD, Tulane University, 1962.
189
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Amantes de la Patria in 1795. Although extinguished for arbitrary reasons in 1799, in
its brief hedyay the Sociedad—with over 150 members from the highest ranks o f
church, government and society—had fostered agriculture, industry, education and the
arts, and had also contributed to the founding of the territory’s first newspaper, the
Gazeta de Guatemala.. The paper was published from 1797 to 1816 and demonstrated
the capital’s intellectual and cultural hegemony.57 Finally, as testimony to the growing
class of letrados graduating from a flourishing University, the kingdom opened its first
Colegio de Abogados in 1810 to vet the lawyers allowed to practice and present cases to
the audience.55 Both the merchants’ guild and economic society had representatives in
the isthmus’ other cities, and the Gazeta had correspondents and readers in the
provinces, but the center was clearly Guatemala City.
Intendancy and City Council
Another myth o f the intendancy reforms—that they discouraged eligible men
from seeking appointment to town councils—falls as we examine the municipal revival
of Central America. Intendants’ interest and care in reviving city councils was
discussed above. The same officials took equal, if not greater care, to staff the cabildos
of the Kingdom. Over ninety seats on 14 town councils—two o f them new, at least two
of them revived—were sold between 1794 and 1807 (see Table 4.2) Sales o f council
seats, however, do not tell the whole story of local interest in municipal service.
For a list of 41 men who in the 1790s served in both ayuntamiento and consulado , see AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 10, Lists 1 and 2.57 John Carter Brown Library (JCBL, Providence, RI), 62-645. Catalogo de los individuos q u e componen la real sociedad de amantes d e la patria de Guatemala en el ano de 1799, Guatemala.
190
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Guatemala City, after the transfer o f the capital, established 2-year aldermen’s positions
(regidores biennales), and successfully elected ten aldermen (five each year) for a
decade (1784-1793). There was no apparent problem in finding eligible men to serve
in the positions, which later were filled in a group sale o f eleven positions by the same
individuals, and primarily to their brothers and sons. Nor was Guatemala City the only
municipality to use this strategy to fill vacant posts.59 Sonsonate, a port town with a
smaller, and perhaps less stable population o f merchants and landowners, sold four
regimientos in 1794, but in previous years had elected four biennial aldermen.60 This is
not to say that local rhetoric bemoaning the loss of prestige o f municipal service in any
way diminished. After all, if the privilege of membership were acknowledged,
competition for seats in the council, and a corresponding rise in their cost would ensue.
Instead, the cost of a council seat was kept quite low. The cost o f a double
regimiento in the 16th and 17th centuries could rise as high as several thousand pesos,
with seats in important trading and agricultural centers costing significantly more than
seats in smaller, more remote or poorer towns. At the close o f the eighteenth century,
however, a report on the prices offered for regimientos in Central America’s fourteen
aynoitamientos for the period o f 1796-1807 led the audiencia to recommend setting the
values for every regimiento doble in the kingdom at 500 pesos, and 300 pesos for every
58 For a list of colegio members of 1813, see JCBL, 70-228, Lista de los individuos d e l ilustre colegio de abogados de este reyno de Guatemala. O f the 39 men listed, at least 16 served on the Guatemala City town council.59 See Chapter 2.60 AGI Guatemala 446, Titles, 9 June 1780, Four regimientos sold in 1775 to Manuel Diez Clemente (regidor & alcalde Provincial Sta Hermandad, 250 pesos); Manuel Carrera (regidor & depositario general, 250 pesos); Francisco Guevara y Dongo (regidor & alferez real, 200 pesos); and Jose Antonio Cicilia y Montoya (regidor sencillo, 100 pesos).
191
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
regimiento sencillo. As the table below shows, this number seems a compromise as
well as an adoption of the rates actually in effect for the capital, Asuncion (Guatemala
City). In larger towns like Leon in which purchase of a regimiento remained either a
lucrative or prestige decision, some positions still drew upwards o f 1000 pesos. In
others, like Cartago, Costa Rica and Comayagua, Honduras, bids o f 100 or 150 pesos
for regimientos sencillos were the rule, not the exception.
Table 4.2 Prices paid for Regimientos, Kingdom of Guatemala, 1790-1807(in pesos)
* N ew town councils created in the years o f the sales.RD = Regim iento Doble, RS = Regimiento SencilloSource: AGI Guatem ala 629, Letter No. 37, Captain General A ntonio Gonzalez, 3 April 1804.
192
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In the report that accompanied the analysis o f council seat values, the general
lament, from Costa Rica to Guatemala, was o f a loss o f prestige and interest in
municipal service. Intendants and residents alike bemoaned the dearth o f involved and
capable men to take on the role o f administrators and justice-givers for their cities.
Certainly, the repeated professions o f distaste for purchase of regimientos kept the price
low and favored group purchase of seats—and thus control of the city government by
specific interest groups. In some places, the intendants often seemed to devote
significant attention to reviving moribund corporations in the towns o f their residence,
as, for example, in Comayagua and Cartago, Costa Rica. Yet, in other places such as
Sonsonate, which had no intendant, the struggle had gone the other way since the early
decades of the eighteenth century, when prominent city residents were repeatedly
stymied by a jealous governor, who prevented them from reestablishing the city council.
Such tribulations were long gone by the intendancy period. Men who would
influence local and regional politics in rural Guatemala, continued to evince interest in
membership on the town council as their corporations received official support. In
Sonsonate, leading families o f Sicilia, Villavicencio, Ypifia, and Carrera contributed to
a renaissance o f the town council there in the 1770s, purchasing regimientos. In this
small place, over 40 men served the city between 1775 and 1800, and the most
influential bought permanent seats. In Tegucigalpa, over 25 men served between 1787
and 1800 alone, from the influential Zelaya, Midence, Rosa and Vasquez families.
Guatemala City’s council welcomed several generations o f Aycinenas, the most
193
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
powerful family in the kingdom, as well as Beltranenas, Arrivillagas, Batres, and
Barrutia, Najeras. These men represented both new and old blood. The Aycinena
presence, as has been well documented, began with the arrival of Basque merchant Juan
Fermin de Aycinena, who married in quick succession into three of the wealthiest
Guatemalan families and took his first position in the cabildo in the 1750s. Several
other Spanish merchants, among them Gregorio Urruela, Martin Bammdia and Pedro
Jose Beltranena, took their seats in this period. So, too, did first generation sons of
Spaniards who had come earlier in the century like Juan Jose Barrutia, Manuel Jose
Juarros y Montufar, Manuel Jose Lara, Juan Manrrique y Guzman, Manuel Jose and
Tadeo Pavon y Munoz, and Cristobal Galvez y Corral (The fathers o f each of these
cabildantes had also held municipal office).61 (See Appendices K-M for complete lists
of members of the Guatemala Tegucigalpa and Sonsonate town councils for the period
1787-1850).
Regardless of whether local interest or good administrators originated the
municipal revival, what is demonstrated repeatedly is that once revived, the city
councils proved dedicated to attending to long-neglected civic projects from the repair
of public buildings to the erection o f much-needed bridges or the clearing of long-
untended roads. Certainly the emphasis on new taxes would have made such projects
less costly to the ranking community members who would previously have been called
61 See Richmond F. Brown, “Profits, Prestige, and Persistence: Juan Fermin de Aycinena and the Spirit of Enterprise in the Kingdom of Guatemala,” Hispanic American Historical Review 75:3 (August 1995), pp. 405-440. For much of the biographical information, see Gustavo Palma Murga, “Nucleos de poder local y relaciones familiares en la ciudad de Guatemala a finales del siglo XVIII,” Mesoamerica (USA)
194
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
on to contribute a more substantial proportion to public works. Yet, the willingness o f
Tegucigalpa’s merchants, miners and landowners to donate their expertise and building
materials to the bridge that would take its name, the Puente Mallol, from the alcalde
mayor who initiated it, demonstrates that civic affairs could indeed inspire civic action.
From the 1790s to 1808, when Napoleon’s invasion o f Spain permanently
changed the function that city government would play in Central America, only
corporations like Guatemala City really resisted the administrative oversight demanded
by the Ordenanzas. And even this corporation continued to function with the
participation o f the most respected families and individuals the city could offer. To
name just two distinguished statesmen o f this period, Dr. Jose Acyinena y Carrillo, later
a member o f the Council o f State in Spain, served as mayor, syndic and alderman in
Guatemala City between 1793 and 1803. Jose Maria Peynado took his place as regidor
perpetuo in 1794, whence he would draft the instructions for the city’s representative to
the Cortes o f Cadiz in 1811. These men, and their brothers, sons, cousins, and nephews
would play distinguished roles in the independence period— and many o f them would
get their start as slndicos and regidores and alcaldes.
Order and Reform, Alcaldes de Barrio
As Guatemala City’s authority grew, so too did the number o f inhabitants and
the need to maintain order in the streets. The close o f the eighteenth century witnessed
the birth o f a new clash between the city council and audiencia over the control o f the
growing and multi-ethnic capital through an increase in the number o f police officials,
7:12 (Dec 1986), pp. 241 -308; and Marta Casaus Arzu,Guatemala: Linaje y Racismo (San Jose, CR:
195
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the neighborhood watchmen {alcaldes de barrio). This clash revealed many of the
same elements as the fight over the new alcaldias mayores o f half a century earlier. It
additionally highlighted new tensions in the kingdom’s capital between the first- and
second-generation Creoles who controlled the town council, and a growing number o f
Spanish immigrants, some o f whom failed to find posts in either the cabildo or other
corporations. Evidence from the case further reveals that there was a willingness on the
part o f the city elite to find a means to grant some power to the growing number of
native-born residents o f the capital with questionable family backgrounds who had
nonetheless achieved some education and position. Such support came at the expense
o f those Spaniards who might or might not be willing to put down the kind of roots
required to be accepted into the local power networks.
The issue at stake—control of the apparatus o f policing—recalls once again that
Spain’s reforms in the Americas derived from experience at home. The refining and
then overhaul o f the city’s police authorities had their origin not only in disorder in the
Central American capital, but the fear that Spanish officials had o f urban mobilization
in the wake o f the Esquilache Riots in Madrid in 1766. This popular uprising had
spurred Charles HI and his ministers to establish alcaldes de quartel and alcaldes de
barrio, in the imperial capital.62 Unsurprisingly then, officials sent overseas soon
turned to the same mechanisms to increase order and control on an even less-understood
FLACSO, 1992), passim.62 For a brief discussion of the history of policing in Madrid, see Concepcidn de Castro. Campomanes: Estadoy reformismo ilustrado (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1996), pp. 122-126. Madrid had had as many as 12 alcaldes de corte living and conducting rounds in the quarters o f the city in the eighteenth century.In the 16th century, there had been only 6, who had required 7 scribes and 60 constablesto help them.
196
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
plebe in the Americas. This reform, however, depended on local initiative, as the king
in Spain did not conceive o f a uniform means to achieve order.
Soon after the king established alcaldes de barrio in Madrid, to supplement city
responsibilities for the policia o f the imperial capital, governors in the Indies began to
propose similar reforms in the major cities under their jurisdiction, usually alleging that
increased urban populations, mostly of non-Spanish heritage, required ever greater
supervision and control. In eighteenth century Guatemala, the jobs o f patrolling,
arresting and trying individuals fell under municipal jurisdiction in both pueblos de
Indios and Spanish cities and towns. Thus, reform to police work meant changes to city
government. Unlike the financial reforms o f the 1760s and the intendancy reforms o f
the 1780s, the creation of alcaldes de barrio in Central America started as a local
response to a local problem. The audiencia o f the 1760s wished to address a
(perceived) increase in crime, vagrancy and idleness in the capital. These early reforms,
which introduced the division o f the city into four barrios for which the different
alcaldes de barrio, or alguaciles mayores, would be responsible, apparently met with
local approval, but were resisted by the captain general as a reduction o f his authority.63
The new positions appear not to have made the move to the new capital.
Later reform efforts met with the captain general’s approval but stirred up the
Guatemala City town council. As with the president’s earlier objections, the council
After the Esquilache uprising revealed the deficiencies o f the system, the city was redistricted in 1768 into 8 cuarteles with 8 barrios each. Each cuartel would have one alcalde; and each barrio another 8.63 AGCAA1.23 Leg. 1528, p. 411. A Royal order o f 12 February 1764 reestablished the division o f Santiago into barrios made by the audiencia and president. In this first incarnation, the alcaldes ordinarios. with the support o f the local military companies, were charged with controlling delinquency.
197
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
objected not to the ends of the project, but to the means used to achieve them.
Guatemala City’s council complained that the project, as drafted in 1791, would cripple
municipal prestige and reduce both the value and honor o f a council seat. Not only
were there to be alcaldes de quarteles, mostly members o f the audiencia, but 21
alcaldes de barrio, whom the President rather than the city would select, and who
would be drawn from the same group o f Spaniards and Creoles of the highest
distinction as those serving in the ayuntamiento. The city’s exclusivity as the
instrument of justice in the first instance would be broken. Another monopoly, this one
part o f its rightful constitution, would be extinguished. That is, this is what would have
happened had the reformers been able to push their measures through unchanged. But,
through a series o f astute tactics and its usual tenacity, the city once again triumphed in
the end and Bourbon rectitude was sacrificed on the altar of local expediency.
Policing in the new capital of Asuncion was conducted, at the outset, much as it
had been in Santiago. Guatemala City’s council, as before, selected one alderman
annually to serve as juez de policia, a position which in theory combined three jobs:
coordinator of the city’s programs for maintenance o f the physical plant (streets, houses,
public buildings), inspector o f taverns and other public houses, and enforcer o f the
social order. What we consider to be police work, patrols (rondos) and prison
administration, was the job o f the alderman who was town constable (alguacil mayor).
Less than two years after the capital’s official transfer to the Valle de la Hermita, at
around the time that the bulk o f the population moved from the ruined to the new
capital, the audiencia divided Asuncion into 4 districts (quarteles). Each district
198
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
received its own captain who was to patrol and help in administration o f justice. This
transplanted the system instituted in the 1760s in Santiago.64 Apparently, however,
considerable insecurity and crime in the new capital rendered this measure, adopted to
reinforce the traditional system of patrols in the hands o f Indian justices and pardo
militiamen, insufficient to control illicit activities on the unlit streets o f nighttime
Guatemala.65 In 1788, audience and president sent Spain a proposal for a more
sweeping change. With no reply forthcoming, in 1790, a new captain general, Bernardo
Troncoso (1789-1794), commissioned oidor Francisco Robledo to draft a new plan.
Robledo obliged in March 1791 with the Description de Quarteles y Barrios e
Instrucciones de sus alcaldes ... para la Capital de Guatemala.66 The rules, approved
on the 9th o f April, were printed and circulated a month later. At no point did Robledo,
the captain general or the audiencia consult the Guatemala town council directly,
although the responsibilities o f the new alcaldes de quartel and de barrio were
strikingly similar to those o f the city’s juez de policia.
Robledo’s goal was improvement o f policing o f the city’s multiracial
communities by increasing the number o f leading vecinos who organized and
coordinated the policia o f the city’s neighborhoods. The regulation divided the city into
seven quarteles, each supervised by an alcalde. These seven would have overall
responsibility for the security, calm and order of each quartel (Arts. 3, 7, Instm. de los
Sres Alcaldes de Quartel), and would take turns heading daily patrols (rondos) of the
64 AGCA A 1.2 Legajo 41, Expediente 995. 1778. Real Acuerdo de la Audiencia65 Christopher H. Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala 1541-1773: City. Caste and the Colonial Experience (Norman: University o f Oklahoma Press, 1994), p. 44.
199
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
city (Art. 5). Five alcaldes de quartel would be the oidores o f the audiencia; the city’s
two mayors would round out the complement (Arts. 1, 2). As judges, the alcaldes de
quartel were responsible for initial handling o f all cases regarding policia. The
instructions did not specify how to implement the provision that there would be no
change to the civil and criminal jurisdictions o f the alcaldes ordinarios and the oydores
who were also alcaldes de crimen (Art. 1).
Each quartel would have three alcaldes de barrio drawn from the vecinos o f that
barrio, twenty-one in total. Robledo proposed that the alcalde de barrio be Spanish and
of “known distinction.” If a neighborhood did not possess such a householder, one
from a nearby barrio would be selected instead. There was no provision for allowing
castas or less exalted inhabitants to assume this role (Art. 1, Instm. de Alcaldes de
Barrio). On the recommendations of the alcaldes de quartel, the president would select
the alcaldes de barrio at the beginning o f each year. The city council would then swear
them in (Art 2). This new office would have no salary, for it was conceived o f as an
honor and municipal charge (Art. 5, 7), a “positive act” in service to the king which
would add luster to requests for salaried offices in the Crown’s gift.67
Technically a jurisdiccion pedanea (Art. 7), in fact the breadth o f the officers’
specific responsibilities suggests why Robledo considered that only the most
distinguished householders qualified. Robledo’s instructions regulated every aspect o f
66 AGI Impresos Americanos 45/16. See also AGCA Al.38.3.16 Leg. 2645, Exp 22141.6/ The alcalde de quartel was authorized to provide a letter attesting to the alcalde de barrio's service, a parralel attribute to the town council’s provision o f testimonials for its own members and others o f the community who had provided services. See Castro, Campomanes, passim., for comparison with the Madrid organism.
200
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
city life, taking on tasks of “good government” that had traditionally been municipal
and even church responsibilities. First among the new official’s functions was to keep
track of his district’s residents, by keeping a census (padron) of the inhabitants (Art. 12)
and registering their changes o f domicile (Art. 13); previously, only the priest had kept
such records through his tracking of birth, death and marriage sacraments. Next, the
alcalde de barrio would see to the practical side of morality. He was to ensure that
artisans did not shirk their work or gamble on workdays (Art. 15,19); that “idlers and
vagrants” were put to work (Art. 42); that parents sent their children to school (Art. 17);
and that unemployed children were placed in households (Art. 16). He could also
intervene in domestic arguments between a married couple, parents and children, or
masters and servants (Art. 29). He was to prevent illicit games playing in inns, taverns,
plazas and private households (Arts. 14, 18, 28); to close the city’s taverns at 9 p.m.
(Art. 18) and shut illicit drinking houses and factories for good (Art. 27). Through the
diligence of the alcalde de barrio, streets and fountains would be maintained (Arts. 19,
20-21, 25); residents sick with contagious disease transferred to hospitals (Arts. 33-35),
crowds controlled (Art. 36), and fires put out (Art. 37). On questions o f crime, the
alcalde de barrio had the faculty to arrest anyone—regardless of rank or fuero—either
on a judge’s orders or on his own authority if the person was caught in flagrante delicto
(robbery, illicit sex, gambling, drunkenness). Almost a third o f the articles (Arts. 40-
56) provided instruction on the manner in which the alcalde de barrio was to carry out
rondas, or patrols, and investigate any serious crime in his district (robbery, murder)
with the help o f the militia, alguaciles and vecinos. Autonomous for most of his
201
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
actions, the alcalde de barrio did require clearance from the alcalde de quartel to
intervene in delicate cases.
Asuncion’s city fathers clearly perceived the combination o f a new judicial
authority put in the hands o f the audiencia and their peers as both a criticism o f the
work of the city’s juez de policia and ju ez de aguas, elected annually from among the
regidores, and a threat to the town council’s traditional status and responsibilities. To
measure the level o f the city council’s anxiety, we have only to note the speed with
which the city prepared a counterproposal and sent it to Spain. Francisco Gomez de
Cos, the city’s representative in Madrid, submitted his case to the king on 11 January
1792, a full seven months before the Council of the Indies knew of President
Troncoso’s initiative or received his request for approval o f Robledo’s plan, and only
six months after the city first received a copy of Robledo’s proposal.68
Equally clear from the counterproposal was that the city perceived opportunity
as well as danger in the creation of the alcaldes de barrio. If the new officials were
fewer, selected by and drawn from all o f the city’s vecinos, and clearly subordinate to
the city councilors who supervised the same areas, the council would welcome the new
institution as helpmeet rather than competition. Asuncion couched its plan in terms o f
support for the laudable project to improve civic life, and rejection only o f specific
ways in which the current plan reduced Asuncion’s prestige and increased audiencia
control of city administration. The city’s four-part proposal sought to reinforce the
city’s primacy by first reducing the number of alcaldes de barrio from 21 to 14.
202
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Second, the city proposed to remove the selection process from the hands o f the
president and audience (Article 1) and have vecinos elect their alcaldes de barrio from
among all the city’s householders, not just Spaniards o f distinction. This was the
procedure followed in Madrid.69 Third, to make clear the division between city
government and the new alcaldes de barrio, the city argued that the swearing in
ceremony should not take place in the city hall (Art. 2). Instead, giving the oath should
be a function o f the alcaldes de quartel, on the grounds that since the new officers
would not be ministros de republica, they should neither take their oath nor receive a
seat in the cabildo. As a final point, the city sought to ensure that authority o f the
alcaldes de barrio on matters o fpolicia such as street and fountain repair and
cleanliness remained, as in the case of Mexico City, a responsibility o f daily upkeep,
while the juez de policia and juez de aguas addressed the broader issues o f planning and
problem solving.70 More government and more social control would be welcome,
implied the city’s proposal, if the tools o f control remained in local hands, rather than
the transient hold o f the members of the audiencia and the loosely-connected Spanish
community.
The city’s proposal provides insight into elite Creole patrol o f the borders of
membership in Guatemala City society. First, there was absolute resistance to having
individuals who were not permanent members of colonial society, in this case the
68 AGI Guatemala 579, Carta del Capitan General B. Troncoso a SM, 2 May 1792. The Council of the Indies marked this letter ‘received’ on 16 August 1792.69 Castro. Campomanes, p. 124. Annually elected by the vecinos o f the barrio in which each o f 64 alcaldes de barrio lived and patrolled, the responsibilities as described were similar: registration of
203
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
judges o f the audience, making decisions about the criteria and individuals who would
be selected as “honored” and apt for the highest form o f local political service, a seat on
the town council. Second, by creating positions o f authority for members of the city’s
other castes, Guatemala City’s proposal explicitly hoped to foster a system of
advancement through merits that, without increasing competition for their own
positions, could perhaps dispel growing tensions among capable men who were
disenfranchised due to their racial heritage.71 In this instance, the colonial elites were
more accommodating than the Spanish Crown and bureaucracy in seeking ways to
integrate and advance the interests of a visible body of a minority growing in numbers
and, presumably, resources and influence.
There was some practical justification for the first two proposals, as the city
pointed out. If 21 men of pure Spanish origin served each year, and were allowed the
two year respite from council service granted in Article 6, then sixty-three people at any
one time would be ineligible to serve on the permanent and elective seats of the council.
O f householders o f the first rank, Guatemala could boast perhaps 80, and this new type
o f service would seriously cut into availability for other types o f municipal and
government service.72 Already the number o f men eligible had been reduced with the
creation o f the Consulado de Comercio (1793), whose consul and priors were drawn
inhabitants, patrols, arrest o f delinquents, sending beggars to a hospice or the army, etc. For specific duties, see the Novisima Recopilacion, Laws 9 and 10, Title 21, Book 3.70 AGI Guatemala 579, Francisco Gomez de Cos a S.M., 11 January 1792.
AGI Guatemala 579, Francisco Gomez de Cos a S.M., 11 January 1792.72 AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 10, Lista 3, ff 4-5. In 1789, former town councillor Gregorio Urruela presented a list o f 83 men available for council service to justify his request to be considered ineligible.
204
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
from the same elite population and were ineligible for simultaneous service on the
aynmtamiento.
An appeal to the Council of the Indies was not the city’s only tool to prevent
establishment of the new police force until its amendments could be included. To
prevent implementation o f the ordenanzas until the Crown considered its
counterproposals, the town council mobilized the 54 officers o f the city’s militia to
refuse to serve, on the grounds that service as alcaldes de barrio was incompatible with
their military fuero, or privileges.73 When the army’s judge advocate, oidor Joaquin
Basa, upheld the officers’ position, an exasperated Troncoso had no recourse. On 4
February 1792, he suspended execution o f the project until a royal decision could be
made and in May dispatched a 100-page testimony to Spain.74 In addition to
denouncing the city’s tactics, the testimony exposed their hypocrisy with evidence that
militiamen served regularly in the ayuntamiento. Troncoso also included articles from
the ordenanzas de milicias refuting the claim that military duties were incompatible
with municipal service.75
The royal order o f 23 April 1793 that decided the dispute achieved something of
a compromise. It reduced the number o f quarteles to 6 from 7 (because o f the abolition
73 AGI Guatemala 579, Carta del Capitan General B. Troncoso a SM, 2 May 1792. Troncoso observed that the city held a junta in the house of Col. Miguel Eguizabal, which resulted in the militia's opposition.74 AGI Guatemala 579, Testimonio de los Autos sobre creacion de alcaldes de barrio, i de quarteles en la ciudad de Guatemala. The testimonio includes a list of the 40 officers o f the Regiment of Provincial Dragoons of Guatemala (ff. 94-95v), the 14 officers from the Batallon o f Infantry o f Sacatepeques living in the capital (ff. 96-96v), and the city’s list o f the 49 men it considered “apt” for service in oficios concejiles, o f whom the first 20 were ineligible'for immediate service because they were either currently on the council, or less than the 2 year hiatus had passed since recent service (ff 96v-99v).75 AGI Guatemala 579, Testimonio de los Autos sobre creacion de alcaldes de barrio, i de quarteles en la ciudad de Guatemala. Decreto de presidente Troncoso, 4 February 1792, ff. 99v-100.
205
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
o f one seat in the audiencia) and the number o f alcaldes from 3 to 2 per barrio, for a
total o f 12 rather than 21. This dozen would take the oath o f office before the alcalde
de quartel, rather than in the sessions changer o f the cabildo. On matters in which they
city had previous authority, such as the cleanliness o f fountains and the pavement of
city streets, the order declared that the faculties o f the regidores in charge o f these areas
was to be understood as uncompromised. The Council also agreed that it was “quite
normal” for there to be a distinction between the two types o f alcalde, because at least
two were subordinate to the alcaldes de quartel who were also alcaldes ordinarios. In
other words, the royal order acknowledged various realities o f Guatemalan society,
including the relatively small number o f high-ranking vecinos who could fill the
burdensome new posts and the importance for those of that society to salvage municipal
prestige. However, the bottom line was that the king did not accept the proposal to turn
the alcaldes de barrio into a branch o f city government. Selection o f the alcaldes de
barrio remained the prerogative o f the alcaldes de quartel, not the city’s vecinos.
Furthermore, the council denied the request to open service to non-Spaniards and
granted only that the Spanish men eligible to serve could be o f “known honor” rather
than “known distinction.” Finally, the king ruled that no secular Spaniard was exempt
from service, including militiamen except when specifically occupied “on military
duty.”76
Troncoso put the new system into effect in October 1793, and claimed victory in
a letter of January, 1794. The positive results, he wrote, could already be felt in terms
6 AGI Guatemala 579, Fiscal’s Report, 12 February 1794. This report contains a summary o f the articles
206
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of a drastic reduction o f drunkenness and in the number o f wounded admitted to the city
hospitals. The captain general could also report that the eleven regimientos o f the
capital, which had been unsellable and filled by biannual election since 1782, had been
auctioned to a group o f distinguished men, most of whom had already served on the
council. By their purchase, these eleven men clearly took themselves out o f the pool of
honorables eligible for the more arduous and less rewarding service o f alcaldes de
barrio. From the exultant Troncoso’s perspective, however, the sale benefitted the
royal treasury and, paradoxically, increased the number o f men from whom he could
select the alcaldes de barrio, as the town council would in future elect three rather than
fourteen members each year.77
Troncoso’s letter of triumph was perhaps a trifle premature, for it accompanied a
new complaint from the city. Asuncion’s attempt to reopen the issue did move the king
to send a new royal order in 1794, but only to confirm the previous decision and
reiterate to the frustrated city council that the new officials were not an affront to their
honor.78 Despite the official rebuff, it did not take long for proof that in ceding to the
council on the question of ceremony and reducing the threat o f the alcaldes de barrio to
the city’s status, the king and his council had rewarded the reformist governors of
Guatemala a rather Pyrrhic victory. The Crown was interested in better government,
but did not wish the new alcaldes de barrio to truly become a parallel government, and
of the 1793 royal cedula. The original cedula can be found at AGCA A 1.2 Leg. 2246 Exp. 16221.77 AGI Guatemala 579, CapL Gral. Troncoso a SM, 4 January 1794, Guatemala.,SAGCA Al.2.4, Leg 2246, RC, February 1794, Expedientes 16221 and 16224.
207
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
in 1794 again sided with the town council rather than the new officials on a question
regarding the local theater to make the point.79
By 1798, a disgruntled Spanish alcalde de barrio had prepared a complaint of
his own against the ayuntamiento. Jose Victoriano Retes and “consortes,” four other
alcaldes de barrio who wished to be elected to the Guatemala City town council but
found themselves repeatedly shunned, denounced the policy o f capitulares and their
relatives who refused the lesser posts o f alcaldes de barrio, leaving these to Spaniards.
This behavior both kept the more vaunted positions for themselves and their allies and
ensured their continued local prestige at the expense o f those who served in the
80positions. As well as impressive evidence of the interrelatedness o f the capitulares,
Retes showed that 44 of the 60 alcaldes de barrio who had actually served between
1793 and 1798 had been Spaniards.81
The town council quickly showed that in terms o f municipal service, amicable
divisions between Creoles and Spaniards o f the tasks and positions in the council had
been apportioned evenly since 1700, with the two groups alternating as mayors and
syndics in a semi-official rotation called the altemativa.82 Among the arguments the
city marshaled to discount Retes’ denunciation was that even he, like they, recognized
'9 AGI Guatemala 636, 1794. When the cabildo opposed the captain general’s plan to open a theater in Asuncion, the Council of the Indies supported the city government over the governor and his allies, thealcaldes de barrio.80 The four other alcaldes de barrio are Lorenzo Menendez, Juan Antonio Araujo, Francisco Eceta and Mauro de Castro. AHN, Consejos 20983, Pieza 7, ff. 7-v. This document is also in AGCA, A 1.2 Leg. 43 Exp 1082. Another sympathetic to their cause is Sebastian Melon, picked by the city as 1803 syndic.81 AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 2. 9 May 1798. Certificacion de los alcaldes de barrio que ha avido desde la ereccion asta la presente, con distincion de los Espafioles Europeos y Americanos. See also AGCA A 1.2 Leg. 43, Exp. 1082.
208
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
that the post of alcalde ordinario demanded greater representation and authority, and
that not all were apt to serve it.83 They did not explain why such eminently-qualified
souls could not also take on the task o f policing the city, but the extensive list of
resignations by the city’s capitulares o f nominations to serve as alcaldes de barrio
makes explicit the implication that such service was not honorable enough for them.84
Furthermore, the city fathers pointed out that Retes, like many other Spaniards resident
in Guatemala, were only there temporarily and did not meet two of the more important
qualities o f a vecino, a permanent household and a bride.
In the end, a cedula o f 1805 ordered the city to observe traditional laws which
would increase the availability o f posts, most particularly by forbidding regidores to
serve as alcaldes and enforcing the two year hiatus in between stints as alcalde.
However, no further effort was expended to build up the attraction of the alcalde de
barrio. In practice, the city had turned defeat into victory. The council’s prestige
remained unimpaired while the city’s policia had nonetheless been augmented
considerably.
82 A list of the mayors and syndics and their geographical origins between 1700-1802 can be found in AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 2, ff. 273v-29483 AHN Consejos 20983, Pieza 11, f. 7v. Ayuntamiento de Guatemala a SM, 29 August 1803.84 In 1796, President Domas y Valle wrote to oidor Jacobo Villaurrutia to congratulate him on the colaboration ofJuan Jose Bamida and Antonio Tejada. AGCA A 1.50, Leg. 5344, Exp. 45054. Many more men who had served or who would serve on the council steadfastly refused to serve. In 1791, Miguel Ignacio Alvarez de Asturias, Ambrosio Taboada, and Pedro Aycinena resigned. In 1793, Mariano Najera refused a nomination, as did Jose Maria Pihol in 1796. Mariano Arrivillaga simply did not do his job. The resignations continued with Lorenzo Moreno (1799), Luis Vega and Pedro Jose Valenzuela (father)(1800), Benito Cividanes and Manuel de Jesus Vasquez (1802) and finally Felix Antonio Poggio (1806). AGCA A1.50 Leg. 42, Exp. 1028, 1038; Leg. 43, Exp. 1057, 1063, 1064, 1072; Leg. 44, Exp. 1098; Leg. 155 Exp. 3099; Leg. 5544, Exp. 45389, Leg. 5344, Exp. 45055, 45057.
209
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
It was another fifteen years before the city achieved final victory. During the
supportive term o f Captain General Antonio Gonzalez Saravia, who more than shared
the city’s disgust with the audiencia o f the period, city and supremo gobiemo agreed in
1810 on the impossibility o f filling all the posts of alcalde de barrio with Espaftoles.
With the audiencia down to two ministers, the time could not have been better to
propose a change. In 1811, after consulting the priests o f the city’s four parishes,
Asuncion proposed a new plan authored by Father Dr Mariano Garcia (1762-1824), the
priest o f Remedios parish. This plan redistricted the city into twelve barrios, which the
twelve regidores o f the city would patrol and supervise as alcaldes de barrio, with the
help of auxiliares.85 Yet another change o f presidents , this time to the less
accomodating Jose Bustamante (1811-1817), delayed implementation. So it was not
until 1820 that the regidores o f Asuncion became its alcaldes de barrio, naming their
own alcaldes auxiliares much as the alcaldes de quartel had previously selected their
lieutenants.86
Restored to constitutional government, under a weakening Ferdinand VII, the
city council of Asuncion achieved its goal o f taking the increased responsibility for
keeping order in the capital under its mantle. More about the impact o f the second
Spanish constitutional period and subsequent independence o f Central America from
Spain is discussed in the following chapters. What is important to know here is that this
final innovation, which expanded considerably the council’s ability to exercise real
85 AGCA A 1.2 Legajo 2189, Expediente 15737, f. 85. Libro de Cabildo, 1811. Session o f 17 June.86 AGCA A1.50, Leg. 44, Exp. 1125; Leg. 219, Exp. 157. Libro de Cabildo, 1820. Session 29, 14 April, f. 29.
210
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
authority over its populations, took deep root and received no modification after
independence, in civil war, under federation or Guatemalan government. The members
of Asuncion’s regimiento and justicia continued to assign in the first meeting o f each
year the alcaldes de barrio o f the city, up to 16 in number by 1821, at least until 1850.
They further took over in 1821 the approval o f the selection o f the auxiliares who
would serve under each one. The reform conceived by a well-meaning audiencia to
increase order and incorporate additional members of the city’s second-tier residents in
the end simply concentrated power in the hands o f those who had controlled the
institution that had always husbanded and exercised that power, the city council.
After twenty years of direct and indirect resistance, the city council triumphed.
The audiencia's initial attempt to combine administrative reform with an expansion of
the elite power base was long forgotten, and the city had recuperated the powers lost
with the initial reform, and through its auxiliares incorporated appropriate castas into
the police system. Furthermore, if the Bourbon attempt to increase order and control in
fact did succeed in the long run, the uniformity suggested by Robledo’s initial project,
based on the alcaldes de barrio o f Madrid and Mexico became yet another example of
localized adjustment, when implementation could only be affected after local concerns
about prestige had been at least partially met, and met in terms o f traditional concerns
over prestige and privilege.
If not universally copied in Central America, nonetheless the benefits o f an
extended body of ranking vecinos involved in policing the cities appealed to governors
and cities outside the capital. In 1802, the alcalde mayor o f Quezaltenango suggested
211
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
establishing the institution in this Indian village.87 By 1805 alcaldes de barrio were
being elected in the old capital, Antigua Guatemala and after independence the
institution of alcaldes auxiliares chosen by the city councils was formally adopted into
the state government.88 There were alcaldes de barrio in San Salvador by 181489, and
in 1817, the mayors o f Sonsonate lamented that the alcalde mayor had not followed
instructions of the captain general to name alcaldes de barrio in this town, a measure
they claimed was o f most urgent necessity to control the mostly Indian and ladino
residents.90
Conclusion
The intendancy as a unique form o f provincial government was intended to
consolidate and rationalize the institutions of local and regional government in Spain’s
peninsular and overseas kingdoms. In terms of fiscal policy, this reform succeeded in
professionalizing and rendering more transparent the collection of Crown revenues. In
terms of political change, however, the results were less clear. On the one hand, some
intendancies, like that of San Salvador, which renamed provinces already under the
administration o f one Spanish governor, found little to oppose in the new system.
87 AGCA A 1.50, Leg 197, Exp 3988.88 See, for example, AGCA B119.4, Leg 2558, Exp 60140, f 3, 29 March 1831, in which the government o f Guatemala determined that the municipality o f San Miguel Petapa, not hacienda owners of Rosario and Fraijanes would name the alcaldes auxiliares of Santa Ines Petapa. Apparently establishmnet o f such positions was not nationally enforced, because it was not until 1836 that the town of Escuintla established its own alcaldes auxiliares (B119.4 Leg 2540, Exp 58611, f 13, 26 August 1836). The Guatemalan government did confirm, however, in on 11 January 1837 that these assistants still had no v o zy voto in the city council and were not members o f the ayuntam iento. (B119.2, Leg 2122, Exp 57029).89 Archivo General de la Nacion (AGN, San Salvador), Caja 3, Seccion Antigua, Corresp Oflcial, 1813- 1818, #s790 Alcaldes Ordinarios, Sonsonate, to Captain General (MYS), 20 August 1817, AMS, Caja 1810-21/3, Sobre que el Ale. Mr. Intento quartar la Jurisdiccion q. siempre hart exercido los A lcaldes Ordirt.s de este N.A. de 4 leguas...
212
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Consolidated intendancies, like those of Chiapas, Nicaragua and Honduras, however,
served as proving ground for increasing localization of politics. Pretensions by newly
important capitals, like Comayagua, to establish taxes on residents o f the entire
province, were not well received. Even if the audiencia was determined to reject such
impositions, usually promoted by the intendants who generally wanted to improve their
capitals and their cash flow even if at the expense of the rest o f the province, the effect
was to increase hostility to provincial capitals. The province o f San Salvador was used
to having three city councils work in tandem and had a long-standing history of
intermarriage and common interests. By 1786, it was too late to impose such unity on
other areas. The tensions between Comayagua and Tegucigalpa provide one vivid
example o f the error o f such forced political marriages, with the landowners and
merchants of the former competing with the miners of the latter to extract the largest
profit from the province. But the tensions were present elsewhere and would continue
to surface throughout the last years of Spanish rule and the first decades o f
independence in the nineteenth century.
The balance sheet of a century of Bourbon management of the apparatus of
government was, then, in Central America one of increasing interest in local
government and insistence on regional autonomy. Despite opportunities provided in the
ranks of the tax collectors, governors and militias o f this economically declining
backwater of the Spanish Empire, local landowners and merchants continued to seek
out a place in the city councils reviving and creating on the coasts and in the interiors o f
the mountainous provinces that made up the Kingdom of Guatemala.
213
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Intendancies as a reform, if their intent had been to reduce the role o f city
government in the government o f Central America, failed. If, however, as I believe, the
goal was to increase the number of local governments to break the influence of central
authorities, both municipal and royal, then the failure was less in evidence. The
Bourbons did not quite dare to dispense with the authority o f the captain general (or
viceroy) and through other institutions, like the brand-new Consulado de Comercio
(1793) undermined their decentralization by putting the merchants and hacendados o f
Central America once again under the authority of the merchants o f Asuncion.
Nonetheless, the result o f the implementation of the Bourbon reforms, from the 1750s
onwards, was a steady revival o f the city council as a means o f governance and
administration both for Spanish and non-Spanish communities alike. Indians, mestizos
and mulattos were alternately bribed or coerced to take up city living. Abandoned
Spanish cities like Truxillo and indifferent communities like Cartago and Comayagua
found themselves repopulated with immigrant blood or incited to renew their interest in
an active and effective cabildo by the efforts of energetic Spanish officials. Even small
towns with a Spanish population received authorization, or, more accurately, an order to
establish their own alcaldes and justice. Some, like Danli in Honduras quickly
demonstrated that the tool was welcome and challenged the former municipal center to
cede it substantial territory.
The relationship between city and state, as well, retained familiar outlines as
Spaniards and Americans faced the challenges of the nineteenth century remained in the
same relationship as in prior centuries. When interests between municipal elites and
214
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Crown-appointed governors coincided, there was little conflict. When interests
collided, a series o f appeals, delays and other tactics delayed or impeded action. As in
the cases o f establishing alcaldes de barrio in Asuncion or changing the Ordenanzas de
Intendentes rules on mayoral elections, the city could still count on the Crown to weigh
desired innovations and their purported benefits to royal government or finances against
a history of precedents, traditions and customs whose dividend was loyalty and
continued interest in service to the Crown and participation in local, regional and
imperial government.
Yet the litigious and uncertain years o f Bourbon reforms implemented and
withdrawn had taken their toll. In Asuncion, at least, the tensions that could arise when
Spanish immigrants were either too numerous or too importunate to be taken into the
best families became visible as part o f a political battle over government positions. In
other areas, other population pressures of economically advancing Spaniards of
questionable ancestry could divide over the timing and level o f the advance, as in the
Yraeta case in San Vicente.
The important point to remember, in all of this is that the jousting ground was
the city council. Who would control it, what responsibilities it would take on willingly
or unwillingly, and who would fund it. Both for Bourbon kings drafting legislation in
Spain and Creole and Spanish elites adjusting their political lives to accommodate or
resist, the city was a key institution whose importance grew and revived parallel to and
urged on by a revived interest in government. As the Spanish empire shivered in the
wake of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808, is it any wonder that in Spain and in the
215
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Americas, Ferdinand VTTs loyal subjects came together to face the crisis in their
cabildos and drafted a constitution that in 1812 created a new form of municipal body
hoped to be adequate to meet the changing requirements of the times?
Figure 14: Map, Kingdom of Guatemala, 1811
Source: L. Hebert, “Spanish Dom inions in North Am erica, Southern Part,” in Modem Geography (London: J. Pinkerton, 1811). Courtesy o f Geography and M ap Division, Library o fCongress.
216
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 5
“We ought only to obey our Mayors”:
City and State under a Constitutional Monarchy, 1809-1821
On the morning o f November 5, 1811, independence agitator Manuel Jose Arce
climbed onto a stool at the comer o f the city hall o f San Salvador to cry, “There is no
king, nor Intendant, nor Captain General: we ought only to obey our Mayors.”1 Three
years had passed since Napoleon Bonaparte had claimed Spain as part o f his empire and
both Peninsular Spain and its loyal American colonies, including Guatemala, were
engaged in a military and political battle to restore the empire’s sovereignty. Yet, the
political opening provided by an endangered empire also encouraged those with
regional axes to grind to make their cases public. From 1811 to 1814, Central America
experienced several rebellions, each centered around and involving a particular city.
Over the course o f these four years, conspiracies surfaced in the capital, San Salvador,
as well as in Tegucigalpa and Granada (Nicaragua) and demanded everything from
greater political autonomy or participation within a Spanish framework, to
independence from both Spain and Guatemala. But more was going on than local
uprisings. At the same time, Spain’s new parliament was remaking the empire into a
constitutional monarchy. And once again, reformers—this time drawn from both sides
of the Atlantic—resolved to strengthen both provincial and municipal authority. The
Constitution of Cadiz (1812) authorized adult Spanish and Indian males resident in any
1 This cry is reported in Francisco J. Monterey, ed., Historia de El Salvador. Anotaciones Cronologicas, 1810-1842 Volume 1 (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, 1996), p. 15.
217
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
town with 1000 residents or more to elect not just deputies to far-away parliaments, but
also to their own town council, which was endowed with the same extensive powers
and responsibilities previously reserved for Spanish cities. These same men would also
elect deputies to “provincial deputations,” advisory bodies with members from each
district o f a province or intendancy who were to provide advice and council to royally-
appointed governors.
Central Americans participated actively both in the drafting of and implementation
o f the Spanish Constitution, as Mario Rodriguez explored in his book, The Cadiz
Experiment in Central America, 1808-1826? This chapter explores how the political
openings of the interregnum o f 1808-1814 demonstrated the continuing reliance by
Central American inhabitants on the city as a forum for political decision-making, both
before and after the changes to the political system brought about by the Constitution of
1812. It also shows how the Spanish refusal to recognize each province as a separate
political entity until 1820 diminished the possibility for merged political interests within
provinces. Combined with programs to extend municipal government to remote
districts, this failure once again favored the continuance o f political action through the
city.
The political changes unleashed in Spain in 1808 began to impact the Kingdom of
Guatemala well before Manuel Jose Arce’s declaration, and equally long before the
famous Cortes convened in 1810 in the Spanish port city o f Cadiz, one o f the few areas
not then under French control. As leaders in peninsular Spain struggled to establish a
218
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
recognized interim government, they called, for the first time, for the overseas
territories o f Spain—rebaptized not “the Indies” but “Ultramar,” or overseas colonies to
indicate their relation to the madre patria—to participate in the new government. The
first authority, the Suprema Junta Central, established in 1808, invited the Kingdom o f
Guatemala as well as the rest of the American territories, to elect a representative to sit
on the council alongside representatives from the Spanish kingdoms. Since the only
extant body representing local interests was the ayuntamiento, the regulations for
elections for the Kingdom’s deputy called for each incorporated city council to propose
three names. A small boy would then draw one name from an urn, and that name would
be sent on to the kingdom capital, Guatemala City, where the three men with the most
votes would be submitted to an identical random selection. The individual selected
would serve as the entire kingdom’s representative to the Junta Central. 3 This
precedent, depending both upon selection and chance, and involving a hierarchy of
cities, would color future elections procedures throughout the interregnum as well as
into independence. It also underlined how leaders in Spain presumed that with the
sovereignty o f the king in question, the sovereignty o f the Spanish people would return
to the body politic of the empire—its pueblos, or municipalities.4
2 Mario Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experiment in C entral America. 1808-1826 (Berkeley: U. California Press, 1978).3 See AGI Guatemala 847 for the report on the election of the Kingdom of Guatemala’s representative to the Junta Central. The report was prepared by audiencia judge Alejandro Ramirez.4 See Jose Carlos Chiaramonte, Ciudades Provincias, Eslados: O rigenes de la Nacion Argentina ([Buenos Aires]: Editora Espasa Calpe, 1997), p. 121, for a discussion o f the same process in argentian.In this case, an Argentine Junta Conservadora explained in October 1811 that because o f the political orphanage o f Spain due to Ferdinand VII’s captivity, “the pueb los resumed the sovereign power,” and a regulation was required to determine the manner in which to hear the cities as a “political body.”
219
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
News o f the innovation reached Guatemala City informally in early 1809 and
immediately provoked a skirmish among leading families vying to fill three vacant seats
on the council. When Francisco Batres, Miguel Ignacio Zepeda and Eusebio Arrivillaga
sought to purchase the seats, the council opposed the sale. In the words of the fiscal o f
the audience, the opposition derived from “intrigues and particular resentments between
the applicants and some individuals in the ayuntamiento.” Despite the “exotic” or
illegal nature o f the council’s protests—only the king could deny the sale o f an office—
the imbroglio became a political scandal as the captain general sided with the council,
and the audience rallied to support their regent, a young Mexican named Francisco
Camacho, who insisted the sale should go through. In the end, Camacho was hustled
out o f town and expelled from Guatemala by the captain general, and only one of the
three men took his seat.5 The divisive scuffle showing the lack of unity among the
leading Guatemalan families was not the only result o f the affair. Five o f seven men
who held permanent seats on the council resigned. Their motivation was partly to
protest and partly to force a return to the system o f biennial elections of aldermen that
had worked extremely well in the 1780s and 1790s, both in terms o f circulating seats
among the municipal elite and integrating Spanish immigrant and Creole resident into
city politics (see Chapter 3). As a result, the Captain General called for the remaining
council members to hold an election for the 10 vacant aldermen’s seats {regimientos).
5 AGI Guatemala 624, Letter offiscal Yafiez to Secretario de Estado, Gracia y Justicia, Benito Ramon de Hermida, Guatemala, 21 June 1809. See also AGCA A1 Leg 2244, Exp 16176. On April 29, Captain General Gonzalez Saravia issued a provision ordering the eelections o f men of “good qualities , and o f both classes of Spanish vecinos, europeans and americans, as per custom and following the royal dispositions o f 17 December 1787.” Gonzalez Saravia characterized the election o f a deputy as “the most
220
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Three o f the four voting members left on the council voted unanimously to elect three
o f the men who had resigned their permanent seats and seven new aldermen (the fourth
was not present). As in the earlier elections, the 1809 Guatemala City municipal
election respected the altemativa that had for over a hundred years balanced the number
of Spaniards and Creoles on the council. Five of the ten new regidores were Spaniards
and five Creoles.6
The skirmish that developed in Guatemala City in early 1809 over control of the
city council underlines how quickly and completely contemporaries realized the
importance o f the city council, not just for local administration, but as an important
political player in the Spanish monarchy. In short order, fourteen cities around the
kingdom o f Guatemala also organized to participate in the selection o f Guatemala’s
representative to the Suprema Junta Central, Manuel Jose Pavon y Mufioz. Nor did
these cities believe their responsibility stopped with an election. When the delegate did
not leave for Spain because the Junta was dissolved, five of the most important councils
joined to petition for his acceptance into the Consejo Supremo that replaced it.7
serious and important act ever offered or that could be offered to these illustrious bodies (cuerpos), i.e. the city councils.”6 AGCA A1 Leg 2244, Exp 16176. Creoles Antonio Juarros, Manuel Jose de Lara, and Miguel Ignacio Alvarez de Asturias and Spaniards Jose Antonio Castanedo and Miguel Jacinto Marticorena resigned their seats. On May 2, new elections were held by the remaining members o f the town council for the ten of 12 regimiento vacancies. Mayor Gregorio Urruela (Spanish) and regidores Jose Maria Peinado and Antonio Isidro Palomo (Creoles) selected the following ten men to serve—Creoles Vicente Aycinena y Carrillo, 2nd Marques o f Aycinena, Antonio Juarros, Luis Francisco Banutia, Miguel Ygnacio de Asturias, and Manuel Jose Pavon, and Spaniards Miguel Jacinto Marticorena, Jose Ysasi, Miguel Gonzalez, Sebastian Melon and Juan Antonio Aqueche. The city’s second mayor, Pedro Jose Arrivillaga (Creole) was not present.7 Xiomara Avendano Rojas, “Procesos Electoralesy Close Politico en la Federacion de Centroamerica, 1810-1840.," PhD thesis, Colegio de Mexico, 1994, pp. 39-42; and Archivo Municipal de Tegucigalpa (AMT), Libro de Actas Municipales, 1801-1832, 22 May 1809. Tegucigalpa elected lawyer Jose Cecilio del Valle, who resided in Guatemala City and drafted the 1821 declaration o f independence o f the
221
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In this initial political upheaval, three important precedents had been set that would
color the political developments o f the next decade and beyond. First, Spain had
accepted the principle o f including American representation in national government.
Second, leaders in Spain and in the overseas territories took for granted that the
innovations of an unprecedented kingless era would achieve legitimacy through
involving the town council. Third, city councils would take the lead in responding to
political developments, working alone, in concert, and with Spanish officials to respond
to change. Thus, even before official notification o f the assignment o f new
responsibilities of the kingdom’s ayuntamientos could cross the Atlantic, residents
assumed—correctly as it turned out—that the body that would be called upon to
represent local interests in a changing political environment was that o f the traditional
representative o f the republica, the town council, and they moved rapidly to participate.
In the case o f Guatemala City, the move to ensure the fullest possible participation—the
filling o f empty positions—further indicated that elite council members found the idea
o f at least a limited democratic city council a welcome way to meet the needs of
competing groups to participate in important political decisions. It also showed that
such political experimentation that they believed was appropriate, was centered on the
city council. Whatever form change would take, it would be approached through the
body recognized as the representative of the people: the republic.
Kingdom of Guatemala. Valle was a native of Choluteca, a Spanish town within the alcaldia mayor o f Tegucigalpa. The other two candidates were Tegucigalpa natives, cabildante Francisco San Martin and lawyer Mnuel Lorenzo Rosa. Sonsonate, Comayagua, Granada and Guatemala had chosen Alejandro Ramirez, a Spaniard and founder and member of the Real Sociedad Economica. The man elected in the lottery, however, was Manuel Jose Pavon y Munoz, a lawyer and landowner of the capitaline elite who
222
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The atmosphere of possibility unleashed by the new forms o f government in Spain
led to unprecedented levels of municipal activity, some of it directed at supporting the
Spanish war effort and demonstrating loyalty to the Spanish empire, and some of it
taking advantage of the political confusion to advance local agendas through agitation
and even uprising. In the period between 1809 and 1812, when political practices began
to change but there was not yet a new political system to replace the one shattered by
Napoleon’s invasion, authorities in Spain paid close attention to political developments
in the Americas, and helped where they could to keep traditional tensions between
Spanish officials and local residents from escalating at a time when there was little
capability of using the threat of force as a deterrent. When ceremonies celebrated the
swearing of loyalty to each new type of political authority, the cabildos took center
stage along with royal officials, clerics and military officers to represent the
community’s acquiescence.8 Thus when the enthusiastic city council of Guatemala
volunteered to print and distribute, to all the cities and villas o f its district, one of the
Junta Suprema's decrees, only to be prevented by a censor (juez de imprenta)
concerned that his own authority was being undermined, the Regency, in 1810,
determined to champion the city council.9 Such support both reaffirmed the legitimacy
had long served in the Guatemala City town council. In 1811, Guatemala, Comayagua, Sonsonate, Granada and Leon sought to have Pavon y Munoz accepted as a member o f the Consejo Supremo.8 In some cases, the decision to swear an oath was hotly debated. In Guatemala City, for example, the shift from a Junta Central to a Consejo Supremo, which initially had no American representatives, unleashed a fierce discussion in the cabildo on the legitimacy of the new authority. See Avendano, “Procesos Electorales y Clase Politica,” pp. 41-42.
AGI Guatemala 625, Consulta, 20 June 1810. The Spanish authorites chastised the juez de imprenta for seeking to stop the ayuntamiento from circulating one o f its decrees, stating that no one was prevented from cummunicating its enlightened and patriotic thoughts to benefit the public (causa publica).
223
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of the council as a political body, with responsibilities far beyond those o f local
administration, and signaled that acts o f loyalty would be supported in the metropolis.
In addition to serving as the core o f local politics that accepted and adapted to
change, city politics proved an ideal center for the series of revolts that gently rocked,
but never developed significantly enough to threaten the integrity of, the Kingdom o f
Guatemala. Between 1811 and 1814, uprisings occurred in several principal city
centers, and an independence-planning conspiracy was forestalled in Guatemala City
after the captain general’s agent infiltrated the plotters’ group. The town council was
either the instigator or the object in each o f these revolts.
Each case reflected local grievances. In San Salvador, prominent clerics and
cabildantes agitated for political and ecclesiastical autonomy from kingdom capital
Guatemala, set off in part by poor relations with their intendant, in part by poor
relations with resident Spaniards, and in part by the arrest of their associate and relative,
the priest Manuel Aguilar. In November 1811, the council, supported by the alcaldes
de barrio, stoned the houses o f Spaniards. Then, a new council, selected by the
traditional one but then approved by the Spanish vecinos and honorable mulatos o f the
city, named a new intendant, a Guatemala City Creole working as royal treasurer, Jose
Mariano Batres, and a new military commander, the San Salvadoran Jose Aguilar.10 In
10 COI Resumen, 1817?, AGI Guatemala S02 informed on the origins o f the 1811 San Salvador uprising in the arrest of priest D Manuel Aguilar and the 1814 upset was set off by misunderstanding o f some Cortes documents by the San Salvador city council. See also Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, pp. 15- 19, for a detailed accounting o f the revolt, including San Salvador's convocation o f the rest of the town councils of the province and to that o f Leon, Nicaragua, demanding the return o f “natural and civil rights usurped 300 years ago.” In this text, attributed to Manuel Jose Arce, it is the pueblo, upset at the arrest of their priest, that rises up, and the city council that mediates, naming Bernardo de Arce, a regidor, mayor,
224
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Granada and its neighboring villas, Masaya and Rivas, cabildantes summoned open
town meetings (cabildos abiertos) and called for the replacement o f all Spanish
officials. In Leon, city councilors overthrew the Spanish intendant (December 1811-
April 1812). In Tegucigalpa, mulatto artisans spearheaded a local movement that
insisted on recognizing the December 1811 municipal elections as valid and sought a
greater role in local government in cooperation with Creole but not Spanish-born elites
(January-March 1812).11 Although making political claims relevant to the 1810s, most
o f these uprisings shared more characteristics with the issue-specific revolts that broke
out throughout Spanish America during the Bourbon Reform period than with
independence movements.12 As Captain General Jose de Bustamante reported in 1820,
the uprisings in San Salvador, Leon and Granada shared the same characteristics o f
deposing their intendants, setting up their own gubernatorial councils, and seeking the
abolition of the import tax monopoly (estanco de aduanas). 13 They also shared the
assumption that in times o f political change, sovereignty, or the right to determine
and convoking the “alcaldes principales” to settle things. During the process, an entirely new town council was elected, and put to the vecinos E spanoles y m ulatos honrados to approve.11 Luis Pedro Taracena, Ilusion m iner a y poder po litico : la alcaldia m ayor de Tegucigalpa, Siglo X V III, (Tegucigalpa: Ediciones Guaymuras, 1998); and MA thesis, pp. 296-304 treats the 1812 uprising o f Tegucigalpa. Taracena reports that subdelegado de hacienda Antonio Tranquilino Rosa convinced outgoing mayors, inlcuding his nephew-in-law Jose Serra, not to turn over the council to the 1812 mayors to prevent uprisings. The m ulatos and Indians o f the annexed town of Comayaguela both demanded the switch, and were appeased after priests Juan Franco Pineda and Juan Afrancisco Marquez negotiated the installation o f the elected council. Captain General Bustamante, adviced by Tegucigalpa native Jose Cecilio del Valle, determined that the locally suppressed revolt had been resolved, and to ensure future tranquility named the priest Marquez temporary a lca lde mayor. Sargent Major Pedro Gutierrez, sent with troops to repress the revolt, remained as the military chief o f the reestablished alcaldia m ayor, so that the hint o f repression accompanied the political gift o f autonomy.12 See Chapters 3 and 4 for a discussion of revolt during the late eighteenth century.13 AGI Guatemala 502. Bustamante 18 September 1814, per Resumen of the Council o f Indies.
225
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
political future, devolved to the pueblos that had given their sovereignty to the king.14
However, there was no attempt to coordinate these uprisings into a regional movement.
Each city appealed to its smaller neighbors within its province to unite with it, but did
not perceive o f or represent their movement as national. At most, one city like San
Salvador might appeal to another city, like Leon, but without reaching out to all the
districts of the Kingdom of Guatemala. Each movement relied upon the loss o f agreed
central authority and a moment o f political opportunity to advance local agendas, but in
a time when greatly increased opportunities existed for political representation and
advancement within the Spanish political system abounded, the maneuvering seemed to
demand greater autonomy within the system rather than withdrawal from it.
The means o f dealing with these conflicts reflected the bedrock role o f the city
council as arbiter o f local political developments. In the San Salvador case, the city
councils o f San Vicente and Santa Ana signed statements protesting the movements
against Spanish officials in San Salvador; San Miguel’s cabildo had the hangman bum
the invitation to join the movement in the city plaza. Smaller towns without full
councils contented themselves with notes signed by prominent residents repudiating the
movement (Metapan) or by serving as informants o f the captain general (Zacatecoluca).
Repression of the affair was also municipal. Within two weeks, the military squadrons
14 See Jose Carlos Chiaramonte, Ciudades Provincias, Estados: Origenes de la Nacion Argentina ([Buenos Aires]: Editora Espasa Calpe, 1997), p. 121, for a discussion of the same process in argentian. In this case, an Argentine Junta Conservadora explained in October 1811 that because o f the political orphanage of Spain due to Ferdinand VTI’s captivity, “the pueblos resumed the sovereign power,” and a regulation was required to determine the manner in which to hear the cities as a “political body.”
226
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of the towns of San Vicente, San Miguel and Sonsonate were en route to suppress the
revolt.15
Guatemala City, as capital o f the kingdom, demonstrated significant interest in
taking a hand in peacefully resolving the issues at hand. In 1811, the capital’s
ayuntamiento sent its own negotiator, regidor Jose Maria Peynado, along with former
regidor Col. Jose de Aycinena, named by Captain General Jose de Bustamante to serve
as interim governor o f San Salvador, to bring the city back into the kingdom’s political
fold through negotiation with the erring municipality. When Aycinena left to serve in
the Council o f State in Spain, Peynado took his place and won the local elites over to
the point that in 1812 he was elected mayor o f San Salvador.16 In 1813, the
ayuntamiento o f Guatemala City also asked the Spanish government to pardon the
rebels o f Granada, although in this instance, their influence was not enough to achieve
their goal.17
Other cities, too, could demonstrate that in the Kingdom of Guatemala, loyalty (or,
at a minimum, the belief that there was slim chance of a successful revolt) was stronger
than dissatisfaction. In 1814, no town rose in support o f provincial capital San
Salvador’s second attempt to achieve political independence and a bishopric. Instead,
ayuntamientos from district capitals San Miguel, Santa Ana and San Vicente, and even
15 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, p. 19. Among the signers o f the various declarations were: Metapan: Juan de Dios Mayorga, Pbro. Manuel Jose Escobar, Lie. Mariano Francisco Gomez, Florencio Arbizu; Santa Ana: Pbro. Jose Mariano Mendez, Bartolome Jose Tellez, Padre Cura Manuel Ignacio Carcamo, Francisco Diaz Castillo; San Vicente: Jose Maria de Hoyo and Manuel Jimenez Basurto.16 For Peynado’s explanation o f why he accepted the nomination as mayor, see his letter of 7 January 1812, AGCA A l. Leg. 2244, Exp. 16179. TTus story is fully detailed in Mario Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experiment. Much of Peynado’s correspondence regarding the intricacies of the political situation in San Salvador can be found in AGN, Seccion Antigua, Caja 1.
227
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the neighboring but politically separate town o f Sonsonate, wrote to the captain general
reiterating their loyalty to the government and offering to help any troops the capitalt 0
might dispatch to put down the revolt. In Nicaragua, Rivas and Potosi rallied to
Leon’s movement, but the other towns o f the province did not.19 Furthermore, while
Bustamante sent troops to bring order back to Nicaragua, it was a brokered negotiation
that agreed to return the deposed town council to office and selected an acceptable
intendant that brought about a peaceful end to the standoff.20
As Comayagua’s deputy to the Spanish Cortes wrote in 1813, asking the authorities
to reward that city council for its decision in an October 1810 meeting not to support a
call to revolution. “There were dispositions on the part o f the pueblos [of Guatemala] to
shelter the suggestions of the revolutionaries,” he wrote, “ .. .but once the ayuntamiento
had signaled the steps that anticipated those o f the revolution, the anxiety o f the
government dissipated.”21 In other words, without the support of the provincial capital,
royal officials’ fear o f an important uprising vanished. The intendant, Juan Antonio
Tomos agreed with this analysis o f the ayunatmiento's symbolic power, when he
informed the Regency in August 1813 that, with only 24 soldiers in the province, he had
managed to keep the peace by maintaining a strong working relationship with
17 AGI Guatemala 533.18 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, pp. 21-22.19 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, p. 23.20 Xiomara Avendano, “Procesos Electorales y Clase Politica,” p. 44.21 AGI Guatemala 533, Jose Francisco Morejon, Diputado por la provincia de Honduras en el Reyno de Guathemala (sic) las Cortes, 16 January 1813, Cadiz. The Overseas Ministry responded by instructing the Captain General to inform the council o f the Regency’s appreciation on 8 February.
228
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Comayagua’s ayuntamiento.22 The tranquility of the Kingdom o f Guatemala depended
on the willingness of the cities of the isthmus to remain loyal and commit their local
militias to ensure that their peers did as well.
The elites were not the only members o f Central American society who believed
that uncertain times called for change, including more participation in municipal
government. Excluded sections of the population began to demand inclusion in city
politics, and acted as did the elite: through negotiation and revolt. By 1811,
communities o f Spaniards and ladinos without a city government, like that of Tuxtla, in
the province o f Chiapas, began to clamor for official status.23 In November of 1811, in
the town of Metapan (San Salvador), the Indian mayor Andres Flores, a “negro” Jose
Agustin Alvarado and several others demanded the end o f various taxes and monopolies
{alcabala, tabacos, aguardiente), stoned the liquor factory and house of the Spanish
mayor, Jorge Guillen de Ubico, and replaced Ubico with a new mayor, Jose Antonio
Hernandez. Several other Indian towns, including Sensuntepeque, also rose to support
San Salvador.24 In Tegucigalpa, in January o f 1812, for example, a mulatto nicknamed
“Toto Longo” led an uprising o f that town’s pleve. In addition to demanding the
resignation of Spanish-bom officials from municipal and royal offices and the
immediate installation o f the duly elected city council for that year, the organizers also
engineered the selection o f five mulattos, one from each o f the city’s neighborhoods
“ AGI Guatemala 533, Juan Antonio Tomos to regency, 11 August 1813. Tomos wrote o f his relations with “two ayun tam ien tosmeaning the original cabildo in office upon his arrival, and its constitutional successor, as we shall see below.24 AGI Guatemala 62, Vecinos de Tuxtla, 1811.24 Monterey, Historia de El Savador, pp. 21-2.
229
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
{barrios) to serve on the cabildo with vozy voto—voice and vote—like the council’s
traditional elite members. From existing reports it is unclear whether “Toto Longo”
was working for certain members o f the local Creole elite or whether the populace acted
on its own and later allied with a few Creole families to stave off military reprisals. It is
however likely that the three elected council members who had been denied their seats
were in some way involved.25 Whether la plebe demanded its own representatives or
the right to influence the selection of local authorities, it nonetheless coalesced its
demands around the one institution that had local, regional and imperial political
authority: the town council.
Just as the communities of Central America reacted in a variety o f ways to the
political uncertainty of the times, so too did those in the rest o f the Americas and also
Spain. Authorities in the metropolis responded by seeking to unify and coordinate a
united response to Bonaparte, both in terms o f military resistance and establishment o f a
new basis for government.
The Kingdom of Guatemala & the Cortes of Cidiz
The interregnum of 1808-1814 brought about the first comprehensive overhaul o f
Spanish government since the medieval Reconquest. If the Bourbon reformers had
proposed to establish a universal and uniform system o f provinces governed by
25 Francisco Gardela, “Diario de lo ocurrido en Tegucigalpa el 6 de En.o y siguiente hta. 7 de Febrero con motivo qe. no admitio la Plebe a D. Josef Rosa de comisionado, y pensar qe. venian tropas," 7 February 1812, Tegucigalpa. AGN, Seccion Antigua, Caja 1, Folder 2. The mulato’s full name was Josef Antonio Davila. After 3 meetings on January 29 and 30, the p leb e despite internal dissensions, chose alcaldes m ulatos con v o z y voto en el cabildo : Rafael Estrada (la Plazuela); Manuel Lagos (la Joya), Josef Antonio Davila (la Merced), Antonio Catalan (los Dolores), and Luis Carias (la Ronda). According to Luis Pedro Taracena, Ilusion m ineray poder politico , pp. 297-298, the three new members of the town council were
230
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
intendants, they had not envisaged a rupture in the traditional role o f the king and his
ministers as lawmakers and the rest of the Spanish public as implementers o f those
laws, with varying scope to appeal specific provisions. In a more uncertain age, with
the French and Haitian Revolutions and insurgency in Mexico and South America to
serve as example and warning, a new generation o f Spanish politicians succeeded in
redefining the Spanish political system, from the abstract relationship o f king to people
to the very concrete organization of city government. A new set o f legislators and
representatives took the Bourbon goal o f uniformity and began to apply it through a
new mechanism, a constitutional assembly (Cortes), with both constructive and
disruptive results.
After Ferdinand VTI’s forced resignation in 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte named his
brother Joseph the new King of Spain. Although Joseph made alliances with elements
o f the Spanish elite and promulgated a fairly liberal constitution (Bayonne, 1808), most
o f the Spanish peninsula rose to fight a king perceived o f as a usurper. Those loyal to
the “beloved” Ferdinand VH faced, as a key challenge, the need to establish a
government that would be recognized by the numerous independent juntas set up
locally to stave off the French. After it became clear that the Suprema Junta Central
(1808-1809) was not adequate to the task a regency convened, and determined to call a
meeting of the Spanish Cortes, or parliament. Traditionally, the Cortes had been made
up of representatives o f the estates, cities and kingdoms o f Peninsular Spain, but in the
early 1800s it was clear that to exclude the overseas territories o f the empire would
mayors Jose Manuel Marquez, the twin o f the priest who negotiated the peace, and Joaquin Espinoza and
231
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
flame separatist sentiments that Spain was in no position to extinguish. The new Cortes
thus included representatives from both the Peninsula and its overseas territories.
This Cortes was convoked with the express purpose of establishing a new and
explicit constitution for the management o f Spanish politics in answer to that o f
Bayonne. In the absence o f the king and in the context of a full-fledged civil war, in an
era when the concept o f national rather than monarchical sovereignty was fast taking
root, such a convocation could only produce revolutionary results. Between 1810 and
1812, deputies from all parts o f the Spanish empire wrangled and debated, and despite
disagreements over the scope o f change, in March 1812, produced a constitution—
Constitution politico de la monarquia espanola—that vested sovereignty “principally”
in the nation and enshrined democratic processes in everything from election o f Cortes
deputies to elected city and provincial councils.26 The Constitution was in effect from
1812 to 1814, when Ferdinand VII abrogated it after reclaiming his throne. It took
effect once again when in 1820 turmoil within Spain convinced the same king that
reviving the constitutional monarchy could help save his throne and overseas territories
that had not yet achieved independence.
syndic Miguel Eusebio Bustamante. All three were Creoles, and Espinoza and Marquez were cousins.26 For an extensive discussion o f the Cortes o f Cadiz, particularly the divisions between Spanish and American deputies, see Marie Laure Rieu-Millan, Los D iputados Am ericanos en las Cortes d e Cadiz (Madrid: CSIC 1990); Manuel Chust, La cuestion nacional am ericana en las C ortes de Cadiz (Valencia: Centro F.T. y Valiente UNED, 1999); and Mario Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experim ent. For a discussion of the men who supported Joseph Bonaparte, see Miguel Artola, Los A francesados (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1953). For a discussion o f politics throughout the reign o f Ferdinand VII, see again Miguel Artola, La Espana de Fernando V ll (Madrid: Espasa, 2nd ed., 1999). For a good English introduction to the period, see Timothy Anna, Spain and the Loss o f America (Lincoln: U. o f Nebraska Press, 1983).
232
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Central American Constitutional Approaches
In 1810, town councils across the Kingdom of Guatemala elected the first group of
Cortes deputies. Thus, it was through the town council that political agendas o f the
interregnum were developed, as each town prepared instructions and guidelines for its
representative. The most well-known set o f instructions from this era are those written
by Jose Maria Peynado, a permanent member of the Guatemala City town council, as
the primary author of this city’s instructions to its representative at Cadiz, Father
Antonio Larrazabal. Peynado’s Instrucciones para la constitution fundamental de la
Monarquia Espanola y su gobiemo (1811) were in fact a draft constitution, written even
as the deputies in Cadiz were beginning deliberations on their own document. Working
with regidor and former mayor Antonio Juarros, Peynado composed the instructions in
the house of regidor and lawyer Manuel Jose Pavon. The drafters drew from their own
experience, and also benefited from the insights of Nicaraguan attorney Miguel
Larreynaga and cleric Bernardo Pavon, Manuel Jose’s brother.27 As a collaborative
effort of Guatemala’s educated and liberal elite, the instructions provide a clear example
of the Guatemalan elite’s initial vision o f a constitutional society.
Much like the Spanish constitution eventually adopted in 1812, Peynado’s
Instrucciones envisioned a monarchical system with an active Cortes whose
membership derived from Spanish communities from all the territories o f the Spanish
empire. Peynado’s instructions were also clearly influenced by the French Declaration
27 Cesar Braiias, “Larrazabal y Peinado: Las “Instrucciones”, brujula en el tumultuoso mar de las Cortes de Cadiz,”p. xi, in Jose Maria Peynado, Instrucciones para la constitution fundamental.
233
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of the Rights o f Man.28 However, Peynado’s approach to a new constitutional order
presumed the continuation o f the political organization in which only those o f pure
Spanish descent controlled political office. Peynado did not suggest that the town
council become a democratic body in his own work, assuming that the traditional
system of office-holding would not be tampered with. However, he continued to
conceive of the council as the representative of the political will of the people in a
constitutional monarchy. In his articles 34-36, Peynado suggested that elections of
members of the national government, specifically a member of a Supreme Central
Junta, would be done through an indirect election in which each ayuntamiento o f a
province would send electors to the provincial capital to vote.29 When the Cortes had
formed a political catechism, the ayuntamiento would share responsibility along with
provincial councils (juntas) to ensure that children learned its maxims.30 These
provincial councils would be made up of members elected for five-year terms by the
ayuntamientos o f each province. O f the two members named by each council, one
28 Captain General Jose de Bustamante in 1814 sent an annotated copy of the Instrucciones to Spain, pointing out article by article the French inspiration for many of Peynado’s articles. Bustamante made these annotations in a successful attempt to get the Instrucciones banned by the returned sovereign, but found himelf three years later removed from his position as the Spanish government reconsidered the decision and returned honors to Peynado and the other members o f Guatemala’s town council who had been stripped o f their positions in the wake o f Bustamante’s charges. Mario Rodriguez comments on this battle appear in Chapter 5, The Cadiz Experim ent in Central America.29 Jose Maria Peynado, Instrucciones para la constitucidn fundam enta l de la M onarquia Espanola y su gob iem o (1811). Originally printed in Cadiz at the request of Larrazabal, the Instrucciones were later collected and burned by Captain General Jose Bustamante y Guerra, who convinced the returned king Ferdinand VII o f their treasonous content. The copy commented in Bustamante’s original hand, which correlates articles o f Peynado’s text with those of the French Declaration of the Rights o f Man and Constitutions, was the basis o f an edition printed in Guatemala in 1953 with the title, Instrucciones para la constitucidn fundam en ta l de la M onarquia Espanola y su G obiem o. de que ha d e tratarse en las proxim as Cortes Generales de la nacion dadas p o r e l M.I. Ayuntamiento de la M. N.. y L. C iudad de Guatemala a su diputado el Sr. Dr. D. Antonio de Larrazabal, Candnigo penitenciario de esta Sta. Iglesia M etropolitana (Guatemala: Editorial del Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 19S3).
234
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
would be a capitular while the other could be another member o f the council or simply
a vecino.3I When a governor or captain general died or needed to be replaced, it would
be this junta that would name a temporary successor because it united “the voice o f all
the ayuntamientos. ”32 An individual opposing a decision of the junta was required to
register a complaint through his or her town council.33 Although provincial councils
would exist, their work would depend on the cooperation of the traditional centers o f
power: the city councils.
Three years later, when attempting to convince the restored monarch o f the
seditious nature of these instructions, Captain General Jose de Bustamante convinced
the Spanish authorities that the instructions “exalt the ayuntamientos, giving them
privileged and extensive faculties and depriving the king of his royal prerogatives
{regalias) in provision o f employment and even the right to convoke and close the
Cortes.”34 Cooler heads reasoned in 1817 that the intent was not to “upset the state
(trastomar el estado)” but to give the ayuntamientos more extensive faculties,
particularly in economic and administrative affairs.j5 Certainly, deputy Larrazabal had
been true to his instructions, arguing for perpetuation o f the traditional system o f
30 Peynado, Instrucciones p a ra la constitucion fundam ental. Article 62.31 Peynado, Instrucciones p a ra la constitucion fundam ental. Article 68-71.32 Peynado, Instrucciones p a ra la constitucion fundam ental. Article 74. “En el caso del fallecimiento delvirrey, presidente o gobemador, o de faita de estos jefes por alguna otra causa, tendra la junta que reuneen si la voz de todos los ayuntamientos, facultad de nombrarlo interinamente...”33 Jose Maria Peynado, Instrucciones p a ra la constitucion fundam ental, Article 88. “ ... y en caso de algun individuo las reclame ocurrira primero a su Ayuntamiento, ya preresentacion de este se reveran por la misma junta que en estos casos debera ser plena, y quedara sancionada la resolucion.”34 AGI Guatemala 502, Resumen.35 AGI Guatemala 502, Resumen.
235
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
purchase o f council seats and closed elections in the face o f arguments by other
American deputies for a more representative body.36
Peynado’s Instrucciones was also the first document in Central America to refer to
cities as “municipalidades,” a term that implied a new uniformity to be applied to all
towns in the kingdom.37 The term was not picked up by the Cortes, and it was only in
1825, when the first National Assembly met, that the hierarchy of city, town and
“place” was formally replaced with the egalitarian “municipality,” while at the same
time the other terminology o f the French revolution was applied to provinces, renamed
departments.38
It is interesting to note that Peynado conceived of the regional juntas as
gubernatorial bodies which, because they represented the ayuntamientos o f each
province, had the authority to act within their jurisdiction in every administrative
responsibility. These responsibilities included: finance, administration (policia), war,
promotion of agriculture, industry, the arts, and commerce; education and all
concerning the progress, happiness and tranquility o f the inhabitants (moradores) of
which it was the head {de que es cabeza).39 If Peynado was not innovative in reshaping
the organization of city life, he anticipated a federal system that devolved all political
36 Roger L. CunnifF, “Mexican Municipal Electoral Reform, 1810-1822,” in Nettie Lee Benson, ed., M exico a n d the Spanish Cortes. 1810-1822, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), p. 66. Larrazabal argued that “elected councilmen would be unable to remain in office long enough to gain the experience necessary for efficient service.”37 Peynado, Instrucciones para la constitucion fundam en ta l de la M onarquia Espanola y su g obiem o (1811), Article 90.38 Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: the making o f F rance and Spain in the Pyrenees, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 168. In 1789, France organized its former quilt o f provinces into departments.39 Peynado, Instrucciones para la constitucion fundam ental. Article 81.
236
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
decision-making to a locally elected body, rather than an executively-appointed
individual.
The Diputacion Provincial
The Constitution did, in fact, establish a body called the diputacion provincial.
which was to be made up of seven elected representatives from designated regions
within a political district (Constitucion Politico, Title 6, Chapter 2, Arts. 325-337).
Spanish historian Manuel Chust has called the diputacion provincial “the genesis of
federalism,” arguing that the establishment o f several o f these bodies in each
viceroyalty fragmented the power of the viceroy.41 In effect, however, they were no
more atomizing than the establishment of intendancies decades previously, and in fact
consolidated several. At the Cortes, the definition of “province,” that is, the territory
that would have its own diputacion, was a matter o f heated debate. Guatemala’s
representative, Antonio Larrazabal, pointed out that although it was one o f the least
extensive American kingdoms, Guatemala encompassed a territory greater than that of
Spain, and that assigning Spain 16 diputaciones provinciales and only two or three to
Guatemala was unfair. It would also entail significant, difficult, costly and time-
consuming travel for electors and deputies. Larrazabal, as well as other American
deputies, also argued that fixing the number o f deputies for each diputacion at seven
was too constrictive, especially when the provinces involved had a greater number o f
counties (partidos) than deputies. When Spanish deputies recommended establishing
40 Peynado, Instrucciones para la constitucion fundamental. Article 81.
237
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
an extremely reduced number o f diputaciones in the Americas (15 compared to the 42
for the Peninsula), representatives from Guatemala’s slighted districts—Florencio
Castillo for Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Francisco Morejon for Honduras (Comayagua),
and Mariano Robles for Chiapas—demanded a diputacion provincial for each o f their
provinces. 42
Initially allocated only one diputacion provincial (DP), the Kingdom o f Guatemala
was allotted two after the American interventions in Cadiz. The first was located in
Guatemala City, and responsible for Chiapas, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras,
and the second in Leon, with responsibility for Nicaragua and Costa Rica. After
repeated petitions, the Americas and Philippines were finally authorized a separate
diputacion for each intendancy in May 1821. The news reached the kingdom of
Guatemala in August of the same year—too late—at the moment o f independence.
Although the Amigo de la Patria printed the news “with pleasure as a gift to America in
general, and to Comayagua, San Salvador and Chiapas in specific,” the consequences of
denying provincial representation to the intendancies had already been made clear.43
41 Chust, La cuestion nacional am ericana en las Cortes de Cadiz, p. 218-244. Chust bases his position on work by Nettie Lee Benson on the diputacion provincia l in Mexico, where the 6 diputaciones provinciates created by the Cortes were expanded by the Mexicans in independence to 22.42 Diario de Sesiones de Cortes, 13 January 1812, p. 2607. See Manuel Chust, L a cuestion nacional americana, p. 221 -231, for discussion o f these debates. Florencio Castillo in fact argued for a diputacion provincial that would include Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Comayagua (Honduras), which is very close to the decision taken by the Cortes.43 El Am igo de la Patria, 7 August 1821, No 14 in Escritos del Licenciado Jose C ecilio de l Valle, vol. 2 (Guatemala: Ministerio de la Educacion Publica, 1969), p. 13S.
238
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Constitution provided that the same system of parish voting used to elect
Cortes deputies was used for the deputies of the diputacion.44 This institution was, on
paper, meant to be an advisory board that could represent local and regional interests to
the captain general and intendants. However, Central America’s two diputaciones acted
to increase the scope o f their powers and chafed at restrictions enforced by imperial
agents. Friction was particularly strong during the first constitutional period, when
Captain General Bustamante not only delayed the 1813 installation o f the Guatemala
diputacion on grounds that seemed specious to that city’s leading residents, but also
blocked that body’s attempts to take certain decisions.45 Under the more lenient
Captains General Carlos Urrutia and Gabino Gainza, the 1820 diputacion, initially
staffed by its original 1814 members, a more fruitful relationship developed.
According to Chust’s argument that the establishment o f the diputacion provincial
represented a step towards federalism, that is, an interest in limiting the authority of the
center, Central America clearly had proto-federalist leanings. Leon in Nicaragua used
the diputacion to further an agenda o f decreasing the influence and power o f the distant
44 See Constitucion Politico de la m onarquia espanola, Title 3, Chapters 2 and 3 for voting procedures based on a sytsem of ju n ta s electorates held at the parish (parroquia), district (partido ) and provincial (provincia) level. The junta electoral de parroquia was comprised of all a parish’s vecinos; each junta parroquial would elect 11 com prom isarios who would name the electora parroqu iaI who would represent that parish at the ju n ta de partido. which met in the cabeza, or district capital (Articles 35,41). This body elected the electoifs) who would represent the district in the election in the capital o f the province (Article 59). In the case of deputies to the Cortes, each district would elect three tunes as many electors as the district had deputies to name (Article 63). The ju n ta p ro v in c ia l would have a minimum of 5 electors (Article 83) who would vote individually for the deputy or deputies to be elected. An absolute majority was required for an election to be valid; if no one met this minimum in the first balloting, the two candidates with the greatest number o f votes would be put forward for a runoff (Articles 88-89).45 See Rodriguez, The C adiz Experiment. Chapter 5, for discussion & AGI Guatemala 502, 530 & 638 for primary source documents. For example, among the requests o f the DP were to the right to receive mail directly from Havana, by boat, rather than waiting the several months the Mexico-Guatemala-Nicaragua
239
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
kingdom capital over local political and economic development. Coordination with the
intendants, Juan Bautista Gual (1812-1817) and Miguel Gonzalez Saravia (1817-1821,
son of a former captain general of Guatemala), made this body particularly effective, as
a series of correspondence between Nicaragua and Spain demonstrates in the 1812-1814
and again in the 1820-1821 period. Nicaragua’s agenda to achieve full political
autonomy within the existing political order was further promoted by the province’s
representative to the Cortes.46
Yet this federalism already hinted at the very local form that regionalism would
take after independence. Instead of consolidating provinces, the diputaciones
provinciales earned in them the seeds for further fragmentation. In 1813, Comayagua,
the capital of Honduras, demanded its own diputacion. Although at this time, the city’s
attempts to establish an independent diputacion did not prosper, in 1820, with the
revival o f the constitution, the efforts of intendant Tomos and the city council o f
Comayagua achieved recognition from Guatemala of their breakaway organization,
even while a petition to the authorities in Spain was pending.4' Yet, the move o f Tomos
and Comayagua, while couched in terms of regional interests, reflected those o f the
overland took, and to protest the Guatemalan districting commission's reassignment o f the district o f Nicoya to Costa Rica to bolster that province’s population so that it could elect a Cortes deputy.46 Several letters and testimonials from the DP of Nicaragua can be found in AGI Guatemala 530 and 531. AGI 530 includes Nicaragua’s protest at the inclusion o f the district of Nicoya into Costa Rica by the junta in Guatemala that divided the provinces for electoral matters, and an 1820 letter informing that it had resumed its functions based on news from Madrid newspapers since a six month delay would have been required to get instructions from Guatemala City. AGI 531 includes in 1821 a joint complaint of the governor and DP against representatives of the Consulado, based in Guatemala, and 1820 demonstrations of this body’s efficacy in setting up new administrative divisions to facilitate the work of the jueces de primeras letras. The same legajo also includes a 7 March 1821 representation o f the province’s Cortes deputy requesting complete separation from the administration o f Guatemala.47 AGI Guatemala 533, Pending: Petition: 15 February 1821.
240
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
capital and not the entire province. The mining region o f Tegucigalpa, appended to the
intendancy o f Comayagua in 1791, was released in the wake o f the 1812 uprising to
resume its former status as a politically independent alcaldia mayor. Unsurprisingly,
the same men who had spent two decades securing the district’s political autonomy
refused to participate in Comayagua’s appeal, preferring to renew traditional ties with
Guatemala City.48
Had the Cortes authorized a diputacion for Comayagua, perhaps Tegucigalpa
would have used the time to achieve some form o f workable relationship with its
would-be capital instead of continuing to insist on its political independence. On the
other hand, Leon and Granada apparently cooperated in the Nicaraguan diputacion, but
engaged in one of the isthmus’ most bitter civil wars after independence.
Regardless of the imperfections perceived in the distribution o f diputaciones
provinciates in Central America, the institution rapidly became the authority appealed
to when new political practices led to friction. Through its work, it is in fact possible to
see the beginnings of the kinds o f relationships that would later characterize those of
national congresses with the panoply o f local and district officials who mediated
between state and people. It is also possible to see that the perception o f all authorities
in Central America was that the diputacion would act much as the audiencia had
throughout the colonial period, channeling disputes and applying legal reasoning and
common sense to resolve local and district problems. The diputacion in no way
compromised the role or the power of the city, nor challenged the ayuntamiento as the
48 For the decision to reverse Tegucigalpa’s incorporation into Comayagua, as well as the town’s
241
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
representative o f a community. Instead, balancing the law, general interest and
community needs, the highly educated members o f the diputacion,49 through their
decision-making, helped inform Central American cities, towns and villages o f the
means to implement new legal and political provisions, such as elections. They also, in
time, came to interpret the Spanish legal code in ways that best suited Central American
circumstances.
The Ayuntamiento Constitutional
The diputacion provincial was not the only innovation o f the Cortes in terms of
fostering a greater local say in local government. As in the past, the new Spanish
authorities determined to bolster the role of city government at the same time they
favored new provincial forms of organization. One o f the most significant legislative
ideas of the Cortes was the institution of democratic or representative political
institutions, including that o f the city council. According to the Constitution, all
members o f this council would be elected, permanent seats would be abolished, and the
election would be conducted not by an outgoing council, but by all adult male citizens
of the city or town.50 Furthermore, this new town council, referred to as the
ayuntamiento constitucional, would be established in any town with 1000 residents
{almas, or souls), and would govern over a territory {termino), as had previous
economic, family and political ties to Guatemala, see Luis Pedro Taracena, Ilusion politico, pp. 300-304.49 See Appendix Q for names o f members o f the diputaciones provinciates o f Guatemala and Nicaragua.50 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 6, Chapter 1, Articles 312-315, 320. These articles explained the indirect system of voting that would have electors select by plurality (not unanimity) their mayors, regidores, sindicos, and secretaries.
242
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
councils.51 Apparently, American deputies hesitated to require ayuntamientos in
smaller towns for fear that the costs of supporting local administration would be
crippling to a small, and likely poor, community.52 A later decree did expand the
number o f communities with local self-government, allotting a minimum o f one mayor,
two aldermen and a syndic for towns with less than 200 in population.53 Absolute
criteria, based on population density, defined a community deemed significant enough
to merit self-government, rather than relative merits based on the type of population, the
services rendered by the population to the Crown, or connections at court. In the
Americas, this democratization o f the town council meant that for the first time since
the conquest, Indian and Spaniard living in a reasonably extensive community would be
governed by an identical city council. The effects o f such a change are examined
below.
Central America’s deputies did not object, but welcomed, this change to the form
of city government. However, they resisted the definition o f citizenship proposed by
the Spanish deputies that restricted the new form o f political participation to men of
European and American descent. According to the Constitution, all free men bom and
resident, or freed within, Spanish territories— Spain and its overseas provinces—held
the title and civil rights of a Spaniard.54
51 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 6, Chapter 1, Article 310.52 CufTin, “Mexican Municipal Electoral Reform,” pp. 64-65.53 Spain, Laws and Statutes, 1810-1822, Coleccion de los decretos y ordenes que han expedido las Cortes generates y extraordinarias, II, Decreto CLXII, 23 May 1812, “Formacion de los ayuntamientos constitucionales,” pp. 221-225.54 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 1, Chapter 2, Article 5, Paras. 1 and 4.
243
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
With this one decision, the tradition o f considering only men o f European origin,
and in fact those bom in Spain, as Spaniards, was ended—or almost. The Central
American deputies had no objection to this inclusive definition, as they and their peers
had been arguing since the turn of the century that inclusion and education of the Indian
population o f the isthmus would contribute to its advancement.55 Larrazabal even left a
proposal with the Cortes on the merits o f educating Central America’s indigenous that
proposed to use funds accrued from the Constitution’s abolition o f personal service to
priests in order to establish schools and pay schoolmasters.56 The problem came in the
distinctions made by the Constitution between Spaniard and citizen. Spaniards’ civil
rights required them to bear arms, pay taxes, love the patria, and observe the
Constitution, its laws and authorities.57 However, only citizens could vote for national
authorities (Deputies to Cortes),58 obtain municipal posts, and elect municipal
officials.59 Nor did non-Spaniards count in the population counts that would determine
the number o f deputies each territory would send to the Cortes.60
If all free men could be Spaniards, not all qualified for citizenship.61 Those of
African origin were specifically excluded. Spaniards o f African origin could receive
political citizenship only through individual application. The qualification process was
particularly rigorous, significantly more so than for the naturalization of a “foreigner”
55 Jordana Dym, “Conceiving Central America: Public, Patria and Nation in the Gazeta de Guatemala (1797-1807),” NYU Graduate History Student Association Seminar, May 1997, MS.56 AGI Guatemala 530, Memoria a las Cortes en Favor de los Indios.57 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 1, Chapter 2, Articles 6-9.58 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola , 1812, Title 3, Chapter 2, Article 35,59 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 2, Chapter 4, Article 23.60 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 2, Chapter 3, Articles 27-33.61 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 2, Chapter 4, Articles 18-26.
244
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
who was presumed to be European-bom. A man with African heritage could petition
for citizenship when he could demonstrate “services to the patria, or distinguished
talent, application and conduct.” He also had to be a legitimate son o f married parents
(ingenuo), and was married to a woman o f similar background, resided in the Spanish
dominions, and exercised a “useful” profession, office or industry, with his own capital.
In other words, Spaniards of African descent were excluded from the body politic,
although they were incorporated into a new civil society.62
The American deputies protested repeatedly as each article o f the Constitution that
dealt with the exclusion o f men o f African origin as citizens, although they were
ultimately unsuccessful in convincing their peninsular peers to change the text. Central
America’s statesmen were among the most vocal opponents o f the disenfranchisement.
Florencio Castillo, the Costa Rican deputy, argued that the term “origin” meant place o f
birth so the exclusion of citizenship should not apply to sons o f Africans bom in
America, but the Cortes denied his logic.63 Guatemalan deputy Larrazabal proposed that
the castas at least be allowed to vote (voz activa) if not run for office (voz pasiva).64
After the publication o f the Constitution, Central American politicians did not let the
matter rest. In 1820, the Guatemala City representative to the next Cortes carried as part
o f his instructions the order to “purify the wise code” of its ban on the castas’
62 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola , 1812 , Title 2, Chapter 4, Article 22 & 321.63 Diario de las D iscusiones y actas de las Cortes (23 volumes, Cadiz, 1811-1813), Sessions o f 3, 4, 10 and 11 September 1811. See also Rodriguez, The C adiz Experiment, pp. 60-63.64 Diario de lps ... Cortes, 6 September 1811.
245
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
citizenship.65 The exclusion of the castas was absolutely unacceptable for the Kingdom
o f Guatemala.
Historians generally have accepted the argument o f the Peninsular deputies o f the
time, namely, that the position expressed by the American deputies was a grandstanding
move designed to give them a majority o f deputies in the Cortes (the number of deputies
each region could elect was based on population) as well as a controllable and primarily
unfree citizen body.66 The question, however, had practical reverberations in the
Kingdom o f Guatemala. The exclusion o f men o f African origin meant, in Central
America, the exclusion not o f slaves, but o f the mixed-race descendants o f the Africans
who had come to the isthmus in varying categories since the sixteenth century.
According to contemporary statistics, the casta population—called varyingly ladino,
mulato and pardo—made up a third o f the Kingdom of Guatemala’s population. This
population was mostly free. Furthermore, despite an assessment by the Consulado de
Comercio that this group was “the least useful caste for its innate weakness and
abandon,” a significant number of men o f African origin were militiamen, ecclesiastics,
(tratantes) and other professionals. The disenfranchisement of this important economic
and social class would contribute to this group’s willingness to support movements for
65 AGCA A1.44 Leg. 2193, Exp. 15746, fF. 138-146, Instruccion al diputado a Cortes, D. Julian Urruela. The instructions appear to have been drafted by future Guatemalan president Jose Francisco de Cordova, and are a dramatic call to arms that argues that the castes should not be deprived o f their natural rights because o f their color.66 See, for example, La cuestion nacional americana en las Cortes de Cadiz, p. 221-231.
246
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
independence from Spain.67 It would also, as Guatemala City representative Antonio
Larrazabal pointed out, deprive 30 to 40 communities of local government that they had
enjoyed under colonial rule, since their entire populations were made up o f ladinos or
mulatos. These communities existed throughout the isthmus, in Guatemala, Honduras,
San Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Most towns, in fact, had a significant ladino
or mulato population.68 What would replace the ayuntamiento constitucional in these
communities? The Constitution made no provisions.69 Larrazabal did not point out, but
it seems likely, that the ladinos living and trading in Indian communities were also the
residents most apt to have connections to elites in the larger towns and serve as the
defender o f Spanish interests in the new city governments.
The matter of who was eligible to elect and serve on the ayuntamiento
constitucional was more innovative and confrontational than the redefinition of the
council’s tasks. The Constitution succeeded, at ieast on paper, in providing a uniform
set of responsibilities for the new councils. The nine responsibilities listed for the
ayuntamiento constitucional were health, security, local funds, tax collection, schools,
hospital, roads and other public works, drafting local municipal ordinances (which the
67 For a breakdown of the population and professions of the castas, see Antonio Larrazabal, “Apuntamientos sobre la agricultura y comercio del reyno de Guatemala...Real Consulado en Junta de Gobiemo de 20 de octubre de 1810” (Nueva Guatemala: Manuel Arevalo, 1811), and Manuel Vela,Letter, Madrid, 11 March 1824, reprinted in Menendez, ed. Textos Fundamentales, pp. 70-82 and pp. 150-170. Vela points out that the educated castas supported independence movements.68 For a sampling o f Central American city populations around 1800, see Appendix E3. For more information, see Juarros, Compendio de la historia , passim. Juarros characterizes the residents of most of the Kingdom of Guatemala’s towns in the early nineteenth century. Most have some “Spaniards” resident, but are primarily Indian or mulato. p ardo or ladino. The casta majority towns include Masagua (Escuintla), San Luis Salcaja (Totonicapan), Quezaltenanago (Quezaltenango), Villa Nueva de Petapa (Sacatepequez), Amatitan (Sacatepequez), San Miguel (San Salvador), Las Estanzuelas (San Salvador), Truxillo (Honduras), Sonaguera (Honduras), San Fernando Omoa (fort, Honduras), Nueva Segovia (Nicaragua), Granada (Nicaragua), Realejo (Nicaragua), Cartago (Costa Rica) & Villa Vieja (Costa Rica).
247
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Diputacion Provincial and then the Cortes would approve), and the promotion o f
agriculture, industry and commerce.70 These were responsibilities the colonial cabildo
already possessed. The Cortes also continued to draw on city councils as a source for
members of other new bodies, like censorship boards authorized to police the
regulations o f the 1820 law on freedom of the press.71 Even the council’s relationship
with a district’s governor was unchanged. While some American deputies, including
Costa Rica’s Castillo, argued that the new ayuntamientos constitucionales should no
longer be presided by governors, Spaniards, including the ardent liberal the Count of
Toreno, prevailed in putting the governors, renamed jefes politicos, at the head o f
council meetings.
If the responsibilities of the ayuntamientos constitucionales did not represent a
marked break from those o f the traditional ayuntamiento, their codification,
standardization and application to all towns regardless o f the type of resident therein
marked a significant theoretical change to the fundaments o f Spanish government in the
peninsula and, more particularly, in the overseas territories. The innovation in this case
was in permitting not just the principal Spanish communities o f the New World to
exercise such local administrative control, but to ask that other communities take on
similar burdens, regardless of whether the majority o f residents were indigenous,
mestizo or mulato.
69 Chust, La cuestion nacional americana en las Cortes de Cadiz, p. 221-231.70 Constitucion Politico de la M onarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 6, Chapter 1, Article 321.71 Ley de Libertad de imprenta (22 October 1820), El Editor Constitucional, No. 41, p 503: Articles 36- 39 of the law of freedom of the press not only made the mayors o f district capitals responsible for reviewing complaints of infringement of the law, but had town councils annually select the ju n ta s de
248
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The other area o f municipal government directly affected by the Constitution and
subsequent legislation was that o f administration o f justice. Under the new system,
mayors would no longer serve as judges o f the first instance. Instead, this task would
fall to judges o f the first instance (jueces de primera instancia), who were to be named
by the political chief (/e/e politico superior),—a new name for the governor equivalent
to the former captain general.72 In 1813, all o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala’s deputies to
Cortes jointly petitioned to implement the provision establishing the judges, at least in
the provincial capitals, and urged that the other related provisions of the law, including
increasing the number o f judges in the audience, be swiftly put in place.73 They saw the
separation o f powers as beneficial for the public, removing the administration o f justice
to disinterested judges. Not surprisingly, however, resistance to implementation posed
problems on the ground. The Guatemala City town council in particular put significant
energy into opposing the establishment of the jueces de letras. However, resistance was
not a universal response. San Salvador’s council actively sought two.74 Guatemala
City’s mayors were more likely to be lawyers and college graduates (bachilleres) than
those anywhere else in Central America and perhaps believed in their ability to do the
job well.
censura de hecho to judge the merits of the case. Each junta was supposed to have three times as many members as the ayuntamiento.12 Cortes, Decree of 23 May 1812.73 AGI Guatemala 446, Letter o f Florencio Castillo, Jose Ignacio Avila, Manuel Lopez de la Plata, Mariano Robles, Antonio Larrazabal, and Francisco Morejon to Regency, 9 July 1813.,4 DP, Minutes, 7 March 1821, Paras 1, 2. The San Salvador letter to the Captain General appeared in the Editor Constitutional o f 27 February 1821 (p. 475). Guatemala City’s resistance and capitulation after a request by the captain general can be found in its minutes for meetings o f 6, 13, 16, and February, 19 June and 27 July 1821, AGCA A l. 44 Legajo 2194, Expediente 15748, Actas de Cabildo.
249
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 5.1: Mayors o f Guatemala City, 1808-1821, with college degreesYear-Mayor Name Education1808-A1, 1814b(Al) Antonio Jose Juarros y Lacunza Lawyer1809-A2 Pedro Jose Arrivillaga y Coronado Bachiller1811-A2, 1816 Al Domingo Jose Pavon Bachiller1812-A2(1), Al(2) Jose del Barrio Lawyer1814a-Al Bernardino Lemus Lawyer1814-A2(l) Mariano Jose Galvez y Corral Lawyer1815-A2 Manuel Jose Lara y Areze Lawyer1817-A2, 1820, Al Vicente Pavon y Mufioz Bachiller1819-A1(2) Antonio Batres y Asturias Bachiller1820a-A2(2) Vicente Pielago y Fernandez Lawyer1821-A10) Jose Cecilio del Valle Lawyer1821-A1(2) Mariano Larrave MD
Al- Alcalde Primero; A2-Alcalde Segundo Sources: AGCA A1 Leg. 2756, Exp. 23814, Abogados examinados en la Real Aud. Del Reino de Guatemala (1801-1861); & Indice de los grados de Bachiller conferidos, 1750-1821, AGCA Al Leg. 6940, Exp. 57773-57779.
Since the Constitution stipulated that implementation would follow the redistricting
o f the Spanish empire into provinces and districts, an act that the Cortes never
completed, no juices de letras took office in the Kingdom of Guatemala during the first
constitutional period of 1812-1814. The je fe politico superior named the first three
judges for the capital in July 1821, choosing three lawyers, two o f whom had already
served in that city council— Santiago Moreno and Alejandro Diaz Cabeza de Vaca.75 It
is not clear if these first constitutional judges took office before Guatemala City
declared its independence from Spain in September o f the same year.76 Thus, it would
be after independence, when republican governments set up separate judicial systems,
that the advantages or disadvantages, as well as difficulties of this innovation would be
75 AGCA A 1.44 Leg. 2194 Exp. 15748, Actas de Cabildo. 27 July 1821, Session, No. 63, Par. 9. The third was Jose Mariano Jauregui. His son, Manuel Jose, also a lawyer, was mayor o f Guatemala City in 1832.76AGCA A 1.44 Leg. 2194, Exp. 15748, Actas de Cabildo, 31 August 1821. On this date, 15 days before independence, the DP and governor suggested that the ayuntamiento o f Guatemala fund its judges
250
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
felt in Central America. In the interim, however, the resistance of Guatemala City
demonstrated that no matter what the regime, a city council could continue to oppose
unwelcome policy changes.
The Constitutional of C&diz in the Kingdom of Guatemala
The Constitution o f 1812 reached Central America months after its promulgation.
Upon its arrival, and upon its reinstatement in the fall o f 1820, Central American
leaders implemented the new magtia carta with evident enthusiasm. The testimonies of
the ceremonies in which all officials and then residents o f the isthmus swore loyalty to
the new authorities detail the coming together o f secular, religious and military
authorities to throw impressive local fiestas, hold masses, set off military salutes, make
speeches and otherwise accompany their oaths with all the joy, pomp and circumstance
possible.77
Nor was the joy a theoretical one in which the ideas o f the constitution were feted
while its provisions were not enacted. Elections took place regularly in communities
large and small to elect the diputaciones provinciates, Cortes deputies and
ayuntamientos constitucionales decreed by the Constitution.78 Both diputaciones
through a disused tax. The council also discussed a request for notaries for the judges. It is not clear that their courts had yet convened.77 See the Gazeta de Guatemala, T.XVI, No. 280, f. 297, 2 October 1812 for an account of Guatemala City’s celebration over the oath o f the Constitution in 1812. See AGI Guatemala 530 for the Kingdom of Guatemalan's numerous oaths o f loyalty to the constitution undertaken by the large and small towns of Central America in 1820. Churchmen, governors, military men and city councilors authored the papers, as each type of official and authority swore its oath.78 For details on the elections o f the period, see Avendano, “Procesos Electorates y Clase Politica.” Examples of the elections of the various kinds o f electors can be found for Tegucigalpa in ANH Fondo Colonial, Caja 112, No 3583, Libro de Actas, Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa (1813-1814) and Caja 114, No 3665 (1814). For activities o f the Guatemala City council to implement voting instructions and
251
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
provinciates were in operation by 1813, with representatives from their multiple
districts, and quickly resumed operations in 1820 when the constitutional system was
restored.79 While it is unclear just how many towns instituted constitutional city
councils in this period, indirect evidence suggests that the number the number of towns
with full councils grew exponentially. Certainly, the number of eligible towns, with
populations o f 200 or greater, was significant. In the parish o f Tegucigalpa alone, o f the
15 communities listed in 1815, all but four had at least 250 residents. By January 1814,
seven had ayuntamientos constitucionales.80 Although one cannot make a
generalization based on one district, it would appear that, in addition to the dozen
Spanish town councils that immediately and competently changed their organization,
dozens o f new town councils organized or were organized throughout Central America.
Based on correspondence by governors and newly-installed city councils with the
Guatemala diputacion provincial in 1820, most districts succeeded in installing at least
a few councils. In 1820, the diputacion corresponded with the mining town o f Corpus,
in the alcaldia mayor (Tegucigalpa), Quaguiniquilapa (Escuintla), San Martin
(Chimaltenango), San Antonio (Suchitepequez ).81 In addition, the governor o f Cartago
(Costa Rica) informed that all but two towns (Alajuela, and the Indian reduccion of
supervise votes in the capital, see AGCA A1.44, Leg 2190, Exp. 15738, Libro de Actas, 1813 and Leg. 2193, Exp 15746, Libro de Actas, 1820; AMS, Caja 1800-1809, Libro de Elecciones, 1809-1820.,9 See Appendix Q and Table 6.280 See Appendix F, T3 for populations. ANH Fondo Colonial, Caja 112, No. 3585, 20 January 1814. The note informs that in addition to the five councils reported on 5 January, the towns o f Nacaome and Orica had reported the installation of their ayuntamientos constitucionales.81 Carlos Urrutia to N. Ayuntamiento del Mineral del Corpus, 6 December 1820; Same to Alcalde Mayor de Escuintla, 18 December 1820. Same to Corregidor de Chimaltenango, 20 December 1820; Minutes DP, 20 September 1820. Corpus' ayuntamiento constitutional took office on 20 September; San Martin’s
252
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Escen y Paenca), had conducted elections. San Salvador’s list o f installed councils was
approved in November, and Quezaltenango’s was informed that constitutional cabildos
in the capital (cabecera), Barrio de San Marcos, and pueblo o f Texutla were
insufficient.82 By the middle of 1821, the government in Guatemala City believed thereo - j
were over 200 constitutional councils located throughout the territory. Such
correspondence suggests a significant interest in the countryside to organize the official
political institution of their municipalities
The provisions of Article 312 o f the Constitution, instituting the popular election of
all city councilors, with the immediate cessation o f all perpetual office holding,
provoked little resistance. For the most part, the conquest towns and cities reacted with
enthusiasm and rapidity to the establishment of democratic councils, with Comayagua
in the province o f Honduras writing jubilantly to Spain in November o f 1812 that it had
seated the first o f the Kingdom’s new ayuntamientos constitucionales after holding
parish elections.84 In Guatemala City, where the 1809 return to a system of bi-annually
elected aldermen (regidores biennales) had anticipated one principal provision o f
Article 312, the change provoked no difficulty. Nor, apparently, did the shift from a
restricted number of voters (the outgoing town councilors) to popular election. In other
towns like Sonsonate, which had relied on regidores bienales to fill vacant council
& Quaginiquilapa's had doubts on election procedures. San Antonio's council sought to establish primary schools. Documentos Historicos, V. 2 (Guatemala:Diario de Centroamerica, 1930), pp. 21, 28, 79.82 Minutes o f DP meeting, 15 September, 7 October and 6 November, 1820, Documentos Historicos, Vol. 2, p. 69-70,81.83 See Chapter 5.84 AGI Guatemala 533, 5 November 1812, Ayuntamiento Constitucional de Comayagua a la Regencia.
253
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
seats, there is no record that the shift to a constitutional council met with substantive
opposition.
This is not to say that individual aldermen found their loss of office welcome. In at
least one city, a permanent alderman attempted to pressure local and Spanish authorities
to keep his position, driving the intendant to establish military guards during the
election and swearing-in ceremony for the new council. The electors o f Comayagua
reported that one o f their number, Pablo Nieto, a former regidor propietario, was
someone whose efforts would lead to tragedy in the election o f the 1813 ayuntamiento
constitucional if the intendant did not act. Nieto was apparently prepared to use the
threat of force to have the electors select one o f the city’s two mayors from the
regidores propietarios who had lost their municipal posts with the switch to the
constitutional system.85 Perhaps to appease those whose service had apparently been
discarded, the Cortes authorized the former cabildantes the honors, treatment and
uniform they had used when in office.86
Nor is it to say that those who had formerly purchased their way onto the principal
city councils o f Central America were prepared to compete equally with all others for
seats on the new councils. By 1820, the diputacion provincial o f Guatemala issued
regulations regarding the freedom o f each elector to choose his own candidate.
Apparently, powerful men in Antigua and Guatemala City were providing lists of
85 AGI Guatemala 722, Letters o f Intendant Juan Antonio Tomos, 9 November 1812 and 26 September 1813, Comayagua. Responding to Tomos’ first letter, the Regency objected in a letter o f 18 April 1813 to the militarization o f the elections as contrary to the “freedom that should reign in the election of ayuntamientos.” Tomos responded, arguing that he had acted for the freedom of the electors because “a terrible and rebellious man” (Nieto) was trying to impede the formation o f the new ayuntamiento.
254
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
candidates to electors, and in one case, a priest apparently used commissioners to
• 87provide such a list in a poor neighborhood to drum up votes.
For those places either uninterested or incapable, the 1820 diputacion and captain
general urged governors and other judges to accelerate the establishment and
installation o f these new councils, and asked the archbishop to mobilize his priests to
help with the organization.88 In specific cases, the diputacion event threatened to fine
corregidores who did not seem interested in installing the constitutional councils in
Indian villages.89 In general, the varying levels enthusiasm and zeal on the part of the
governor o f a particular province to learn about the new regulations and to implement
the new political system, led to an uneven introduction o f constitutional councils.
While the governors of San Salvador and Costa Rica reported success in establishing
many ayuntamientos constitucionales, governors in Indian-majority provinces like
84 AGI Guatemala 533, Order, 4 April 1813. Received by the Ayuntamiento of Nicaragua, 1 Oct. 1813.87 In 1820, a resident o f the Candelaria barrio, Nazario Evora, reported that he and other residents o f theLas Vacas district had had their electoral rights violated through the circulation of a list o f individuals tovote for by the priest Enrique Loma and various commissioners who had staffs o f justice. In this case, the diputacion forwarded the complaint to the town council, telling that body to call witnesses, and reprimand them, and demand that in future it take preventive measures. In addition, the diputacion also wrote to the archbishop, so that he takes the appropriate action regarding the cleric, who could not be judged by the secular system. A similar case from Antigua Guatemala, in which the governor reported that influential residents were providing electors with lists of individuals to vote for, met with identical treatment. E l Editor Constitucional, No. 44, 23 April 1821, v. 2, p. 534. Diputacion Provincial de Guatemala, Session 13,9 December 1820. Pagination refers to the republication o f the entire run of the Editor in two volumes 1969. E l Editor Constitucional (1820-1821) (Guatemala: Ministerio de Educacion, 1969).88 Carlos Urrutia to Intendants and Alcaldes Mayores, 18 December 1820; Same to Archbishop,December 1820, Documentos Historicos, Vol. 2, p. 21. 26.89 D ocum entos Historicos, Vol. 2, p. 34, Carlos Urrutia to Corregidor de Chiquimula, 5 January 1821.The Syndic o f the constitutional council of Jalapa informed on the corregidor, stating he had told the indians o f the pueblos o f Pimirala, Casaguastlan, Sumatan and Chiquimula not to obey the alcaldse constitucionales, but had not installed ayuntam ientos in these pueblos either. The diputacion responded with a threat o f a 200 peso fine to the Corregidor if he did not immediately establish the councils.
255
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Quezaltenango and Chiquimula preferred to establish fewer councils in Indian villages,
ostensibly because o f difficulties this would cause with tribute collection.90
The most contentious part o f the establishment of the ayuntamientos
constitucionales had to do with the heterogeneous nature o f Central America’s
population and the exclusion o f the castas from both active and passive citizenship.
Since technically the mulatos and pardos o f Central America were excluded from
participating in the new democratic processes, leaders in Central America found a way
to include many castas among citizens in practice. In 1812, a junta preparatoria
convened in Guatemala City to prepare the instructions for the Kingdom’s first
constitutional elections. Captain General Jose Bustamante, archbishop Ramon Casaus,
the captain general’s Tegucigalpa-born advisor Jose Cecilio del Valle, and regidores
from the Guatemala City town council took it upon themselves to elaborate on the
meaning of “citizenship” defined by Cadiz to meet the needs o f the Kingdom. For
Guatemala, “Spaniards” would include the following groups: “Indian; the Spanish or
American White; the mestizo, or son of an Indian and white; the mulato, or son o f a
black and white; the sambo, son of Indian and black[. They] are Spanish in the third
meaning (acepcion).”91 This was in line with the Cortes definition, for it had
distinguished between “Spaniards,” who were all bom in Spanish territory, and
“citizens,” who were a more restricted group. However, the commission’s Instruccion
90 See note 82. Minutes o f DP meeting, 15 September, 7 October and 6 November, 1820, D ocum entos H istoricos, Vol. 2, p. 69-70, 81.1 Instruccion fo rm a d a de orden de la Junta Preparatoria para fa c ilita r las elecciones de diputados y
oficios consejiles, 1812, Part 2, Article 1, Number 3. The text of the Spanish reads, “indio: el Blanco Europeo, o Americano; el mestizo, o hijo de Indio y bianco: el mulato, o hijo de negro y bianco: el
256
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
began to take liberties with the definition o f citizenship to reflect local reality.
Specifically, the junta defined a citizen as a man, 25 years o f age or older, who was
solvent, not a servant or dependent, and “white, either American or European, Indian or
mestizo, or their natural or legitimate sons.” Except for the last part, the commission
followed the Spanish code, but in explicitly including natural sons, it took a step not
contemplated by the Constitution of 1812. In fact, the Instruccion argued for their
inclusion on the basis o f silence in the official code.92
The Instruccion then went further with regard to the castas. If, in theory, the Junta
repeated the injunctions of the Cortes that excluded the numerous men of partial
African origin from citizenship, the notes to the text suggest the local preference for
inclusion o f the castas as citizens. In a footnote, the Junta speculated that the Cortes
would pay attention to those who had shown conclusive evidence o f loyalty to Spain
and the “just cause.” 93 This note broadly hinted to men who had supported Ferdinand
VII to petition the Cortes for citizenship on those grounds. With Central America’s
militia largely made up o fpardo and mulato soldiers, numerous men were eligible to
seek citizenship through this mechanism. The Instruccion also held that small towns
that did not have the requisite number of residents to make up a parish for voting
purposes should aggregate themselves to the nearest town that had previously had an
ayuntamiento. It further argued, that “even if its vecinos cannot exercise rights as
sambo, o hijo de Indio y negro, son espanoles en la tercera acepcion, la misma en que se tomara esta voz siempre que se use de ella.”9~ Instruccion fo rm a d a de orden de la Junta Preparatoria para fa c il i ta r las elecciones de d iputados y oficios consejiles, 1812, Part 1, Article 2, Number 3, and Footnote.
257
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
citizens, they will conduct the elections.”94 The majority o f vecinos disqualified from
citizenship under the constitution were those with some African origin, so the
implication was that even ladinos, pardos and mulatos might participate in local
electoral processes even if formally excluded from doing so.
Certainly in practice, the castas received the message that they could participate
extensively in local politics. In some cases, the integration of ladinos or mulatos into
the body politic seems to have happened with little or no friction. The constitutional
council o f Masaya (Nicaragua) wrote on behalf o f the vecinos Espanoles y ladinos in
1814, indicating that in some provinces, the purpose of the instruction had been
understood.95 Both groups were participating in the new political system, even if one
(the ladinos) was technically excluded. In another case, the Sonsonate city council,
which previously had restricted office holding to the Spanish and Creole elite, elected
mulatos to municipal positions, including that o f mayor.96 Since all the new cabildantes
were by definition citizens, it is hard to document other cases of natural inclusion. Yet
occasionally, the documents refer to “Spaniards previously called mulattos” in relation
93 Instruccion fo rm a d a de orden de la Junta Preparatoria para fa c ilita r las elecciones de diputados y oficios consejiles, 1812, Part 1, Article 2, Number 1; and Footnote J.94 Instruccion fo rm a d a de orden de la Junta Preparatoria para fa c ilita r las elecciones de diputados y oficios consejiles, 1812, Part 2, Article 2 Number 12.95 AGI Guatemala 533, Carta del ayuntamiento de Masaya, 18 November 1814. The letter praised the behavior o f the priest Policarpo Irigoyen during the “political convulsions” affecting the province.96 Archivo Municipal de Sonsonate, Caja 3, 1800-1809, Libro de Elecciones, 1809-1817, ff. 40v-51v. Juan Santos Gutierrez, elected alcalde segundo in 1814 by the alcalde mayor, was a mulatto. Documents from his time in office make no reference to his race/ethnicity. In 1817, however, when the alcalde m ayor named Gutierrez mayor after disqualifying mayor-elect Eugenio Rascon on legal grounds, the town council objected to Gutieirez’ heritage as well as the governor’s authority to make the appointment. The audiencia sustained both Rascon’s ouster and the city’s right to elect its own mayor, so Gutierrez did not serve in 1817. However, he did go on to serve as town councilor and mayor four more times after independence. See Appendix M.
258
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to local politics, indicating both the acceptance of new terminology and rules, without
the absolute eradication of underlying distinctions.97
In others cases, however, the diputacion provincial had to intervene to ensure that
ladinos could vote, and in these cases we see the both Guatemala City elite’s active
support o f casta citizenship and the problems that the principle of one law for all had in
practice. The Guatemala City diputacion was particularly clear on the point. When the
artisans o f San Miguel (San Salvador) protested their exclusion from municipal
elections in 1820, the DP responded with a note to the provincial governor that those
"called" Pardos or Mulatos" should not be excluded as “originarios de Africa" without
a previous declaration (declaratoria)."9% When vecinos o f Comayagua and Choluteca,
both in Honduras, made similar complaints, the diputacion once again instructed the
governor to prevent exclusion for unfounded attributions o f mulato or pardo origins.99
In other words, the attitude it promoted was to assume non-African heritage and accept
someone’s citizenship unless previous proof had been laid. If the castas could not be
included in the citizenry of the new' order, then there would be no castas to exclude.
The Central American leadership also attempted to include the Indian population
in elections, both as electors and as officials. However, the DP refused to make
97 AGI Guatemala 722, Letter of Intendant Juan Antonio Tomos, 26 September 1813, Comayagua. In the Comayagua dispute during the election of the first constitutional ayuntamiento, the sympathetic intendant Tomos had to threaten the disruptive former councilor Nieto when the newly-elected mayor reported that Nieto was working with “Spaniards formerly known as mulatos" to destabilize the council. Perhaps the reason Tomos was able to achieve ascendancy because the 16 electors had elected men who weren’t “nobles” to the new ayuntamiento98 Minutes o f DP meeting, 17 November, 1820. Documentos Historicos, Vol. 2 (Guatemala: Diario de Centroamerica, 1930), p. 120. The DP did not, however, call for a new election.99 El Editor Constitucional, Issue 19, 19 March 1821, pp. 486-487. DP Session 5, 17 November 1820. The individuals were Jacinto Rubi o f Comayagua and Jose Flamencos o f Choluteca.
259
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
concessions that would guarantee that towns with majority indigenous populations
would have at least a significant representation in the new ayuntamientos
constitucionales. Comayagua intendant Tomos made a special effort in 1813 to find
shoes and clothes for an Indian elector in Comayagua, and to escort him to the polling
site, apparently because the man was too intimidated to go alone.100 Juan Jose
Echeverria, governor o f Quezaltenango, received particular praise for the “zeal and
vigilance" with which he established constitutional councils in that primarily indigenous
province.101 When the governor o f Verapaz reported to the diputacion provincial of
1820 that the Indians o f San Cristobal and Santa Elena did not wish to serve as
aldermen for two full years, because o f the need to support their parish priest and pay
for local festivities, the diputacion emphasized the importance o f municipal service. It
urged the governor not only to convince the aldermen to remain in their positions, but to
remind them of the abrogation of service to priests.102
The Verapaz case may well have represented the initial (and reasonable)
indigenous reaction to the invasion o f a new form o f self-government that demanded
significantly more work of council members than had their limited colonial institution.
However, from the records o f the DP, it would appear that many o f the problems in
establishing ayuntamientos constitucionales in indigenous regions seems to have
originated with a significant and active presence o f ladinos in the villages, and the need
100 AGI Guatemala 722, Letter of Intendant Juan Antonio Tomos, 26 September 1813, Comayagua.'“‘Diputacion de Guatemala to Cortes, No. 21, reprinted in Documentos Historicos, Vol. 2 (Guatemala: Diario de Centroamerica, 1930), pp. 57-58. The governor was Juan Jose Echeverria.102 Carlos Urrutia to Alcalde Mayor, Verapaz, 3 December 1820. Reprinted in Documentos Historicos, Volume 2 (Guatemala: Diario de Centroamerica, 1930), p. 18.
260
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to reduce multiple governments, one for each group, to one ayuntamiento
constitucional. The Chimaltenango governor received numerous orders from the
diputacion provincial in 1820 and 1821 to install the district’s constitutional councils,
which “various Indians” demanded. The councils were, according to instruction
to be elected without distinction or any difference between Indians and ladinos. [T]here should not be two classes o f Ayuntamiento; the old cabildos should cease, with only constitutional councils remaining. The Mayors in these councils are ordinary, and with authority over all countrymen (paisanos), Indians and Ladinos. And there should be no governors, commissioners nor judges (jueces preventivas).103
Although the reasons for the Indians’ request is not stipulated, the implication in
the DP’s response is that local Indian groups had lost control o f their local government
to ladino residents and wanted the DP to support the establishment of ayuntamientos
constitucionales for their communities alone. If the response to such a request seems
unsympathetic, it was nonetheless consistent with an attempt by elites to put into
practice the theory that a homogeneous government would produce a homogeneous
people and the advancement of the region. The insistence that indigenous and ladino
village residents share in city government was also consistent with answers to similar
requests. In Quezaltenango, in 1820, the governor sought permission to reserve one
third of council seats for the city’s indigenous, but found this proposal rejected on legal
grounds. The Indians themselves did not wish to have a constitutional cabildo at all,
103 DP Minutes, 29 December 1820; Carlos Urrutia to Corregidor o f Chiquimula, 24 January 1821; Urrutia to Cortes, 3 July 1821, in Documentos Historicos, Vol. 2 (Guatemala: Diario de Centroamerica, 1930), pp. 42, 54, 141. By July 1821, the DP reported the governor, Mariano Bujons, to the Spanish Cortes for repeated failure to install constitutional councils in Indian villages. Bujons insisted on the old- style Indian council in which residents remained subject to the governor and not the mayor in ordinary judicial cases.
261
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
preferring the traditional separation of councils, one for each community.104
Essentially, this decision meant that the Constitution ended a centuries-old tradition of
Indian government in Quezaltenango, abolishing the Indian authorities and forcing them
to compete with Spaniards, Creoles and ladinos for a limited number o f seats on the
town council established in the early 1800s for the Spaniards and still mostly under that
community’s control.
As these cases hint, the establishment o f a constitutional government, which
eliminated separate political spheres for Indians and other members of Guatemalan
society, provided a new outlet for expression o f old frictions. Elections became a
means to express conflict in communities in which different ethnic groups resided and
had hostile relations. Such was the case when the Indian mayor of Chinameca (El
Salvador) wrote to the captain general in early 1814 to request that the Indians of that
town not be subjected to government by local ladinos. The mayor, Narciso Peres,
argued that since the Indians, loyal vassals of a well-loved monarch, had cooperated
with the whites (blancos) o f the district to end the ladinos ’ clandestine tobacco farming,
the ladinos “hate our group (parcialidad) to death.” Mayoral elections for 1814 had led
to the nomination o f one of the principal smugglers, and the Indians feared the
implications of his tenure in office. The letter ended with an implicit threat, urging
action “so our spirit remains calm.”105 Joint government in Chinameca had led not to an
104 Minutes, DP Meeting, 30 October and 29 November 1820, in Documentos Historicos, Vol. 2 (Guatemala: Diario de Centroamerica, 1930), pp. 100, 131.105 AGN (San Salvador), Seccion Antigua, Caja 1, Folder 2. Letter of the Aicaide de Chinameca to Captain General Jose de Bustamante, 22 January 1814, Chinameca (San Salvador). The letter is signed
262
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
agreement between two bitterly-opposed communities, treated differently by colonial
authorities, but to competition between them.
Mayor Peres’ request was supported in a letter by one o f Chinameca’s blancos,
Jose Maria Palencia, who provided further details o f how the ladinos had succeeded in
taking over the town’s government. According to Palencia, after the ladinos’ hatred o f
the whites and Indians grew with the undercutting o f their illegal trade, the six electors
who were chosen to elect the new town council, who numbered among the “most
principal la d in o s met before the election and agreed to elect no whites or Indians, so
that they could control the town. Palencia’s request to the intendant of the province not
to confirm the elections had borne no fruit, so he determined to write to the captain
general.
Palencia’s letter is interesting on several grounds. First, it is clear that this
provincial understood the regulations governing the new electoral system well enough
to suggest a legal means to invalidate the election. Because o f the newly-elected
mayor’s past record as a contrabandist, Palencia suggested that he be stripped o f his
rights of citizenship (derechos de ciudadano) and thus become ineligible to elect or be
elected.106 His knowledge undercuts arguments that the fine points of political policies
were beyond the reach of the countryside. If a majority of residents in small towns did
not read or understand new laws, literate residents were generally aware o f their new
governments, and capable of acting within changing political parameters. Second,
by the city scribe, Manuel Trinidad Flores. This case was brought to my attention Prof. Aldo Lauria Santiago (College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA).
263
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Palencia informed the captain general that he had received a warning from a San Miguel
alderman that his own life might be threatened if he continued to meddle. Why?
Because the individual who had been elected to Chinameca’s mayoralty was being
encouraged in his “pride” by residents o f that city.107 In other words, the purely local
election had been influenced by the powerful elites of the district cabecera. Creoles in
the countryside were not isolated, from each other or from their political capital, and
used the new system to change the ground rules for their local relations o f power.
By mechanisms that are not clear from the case, one group had managed to use the
new system to gain absolute control of election of, and membership in, the
constitutional city council o f Chinameca and its administrative and symbolic authority,
and the other group feared the consequences. The group in control was the ladino—
hispanized, Spanish-speaking and integrated into the legal and illegal commercial
circuits o f Central America. Without overemphasizing the implications o f one case, this
example, when examined alongside the decisions o f the DP in similar cases, does hint
how the elite’s push to include castas as citizens had as a deliberate or accidental
consequence to further disenfranchise Indian communities. The Indians found that a
majority-population did not necessarily lead to control o f the new elective forms o f
government. Active and organized participation did. The problems o f a single legal
system and equal citizenship rights, touted by liberals like Pedro Molina as a solution to
106 Constitucion politico de la monarquia espanola. Title 2, Chapter 4, Article 25. This article included among the reasons for suspension o f citizenship rights that o f recent sentencing for a crime.107 AGN (San Salvador), Seccion Antigua, Caja 1, Folder 2. Letter o f Jose Maria Palencia to Captain General Jose de Bustamante, 8 January 1814, Chinameca (San Salvador).
264
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
centuries o f inequity, would haunt the new Central American federation after
independence.108
If individuals had citizenship rights that allowed them to vote for city councilors,
the new ayuntamientos constitucionales also had citizenship rights and duties. Beyond
its technical responsibilities, city government also proved an important institution by
which the Kingdom o f Guatemala’s Creoles and Spaniards could demonstrate their
continued allegiance to Spain. Kingdom capital Guatemala City assumed the role o f
distributor of decrees to other cities and towns of its district, directly and indirectly
supporting the Spanish connection. The proactive stance of the council dismayed the
captain general, who felt his own role was slighted, but was approved by the Regency in
Spain, which recognized the sign of loyalty that the act represented.109 Both Guatemala
City and San Salvador cast medals honoring the kidnapped king, Ferdinand VII, that
were to be worn by the councilors, and in the case of Guatemala City, by their wives.
In Comayagua, regidor Juan Fernandez Lindo and his son Joaquin, also a council
member, not only made patriotic speeches which they dispatched to Spain in hope o f
attracting official notice. They also designed and paid for the erection o f a monument
to the constitution in Comayagua’s town square, once all such squares were renamed
Plaza de la Constitucion by a decree o f the Cortes in August o f 1812. Guatemala City’s
town council went one step further, seeking permission to have their constitutional
plaza declared a place o f asylum, arguing that such a concession would allow the
108 See, for example, his essays in El Editor Constitucional (2nd volume).109 AGI Guatemala 624.
265
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
“m uchedum breor multitudes, to appreciate the new circumstances afforded by the
constitutional system. This request was denied.110
In addition to respecting and promulgating the new laws issuing from Cadiz, the
most direct way that a council could demonstrate loyalty to the deposed monarch and
Spanish imperial system was through a declaration. Such a declaration, while issued by
many councils, was not necessarily an automatic response to the news o f turmoil on the
Peninsula. In Tegucigalpa, the council session o f 22 September 1808 recorded a
decision to declare the French pressure on Ferdinand VH to abdicate as “violent, nul,
and with no effect, which we swear and declare as faithful vassals of our king and
natural Lord Don Fernando VII.. .and for whose acclaimed name we sacrifice our lives
and haciendas in defense of him and our patria, without recognizing any foreign
sovereignty.” Yet the same session also noted that the council had received newspapers
informing of the abdication on 30 August, suggesting that the members o f the council
had spent the three weeks between notification and action considering options and
consulting the temperament of their hinterland and the other Spanish towns in the
district.111 Thus by the time that the council met on 8 October, to acknowledge receipt
of Guatemala City’s letter announcing that capital’s adhesion to the monarchy,
Tegucigalpa could decide to answer that they had already completed their act of fealty
to the king. The intendant of Honduras’ notice to Tegucigalpa arrived even later, with
110 AGI 533, Tomos, Comayagua, 10 January 1513; AGCA A1.44, Leg. 2190, Exp. 15739, Guatemala City, Actas de Cabildo, 1813. 16 July 1813.111 AMT, Libro de Actas Municipales, 1801-1832, 22 September 1808. The session's act was signed by Francisco Hariza, Francisco San Martin, Juan Jacinto de Herrera, Manuel Antonio Vasquez and Domingo San Martin.
266
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the council acknowledging receipt o f the official notification on 15 November. After
this second set o f notifications, the town decided on 16 December to repeat the oath of
loyalty on 26 December.112
Such loyalty received the kind o f reward that had long been awarded by the
Spanish authorities, promotions o f towns to cities, and honorifics for capitals that
already had such titles. The pueblo o f Santa Ana received the title o f villa under the
Cortes and Regency for acts o f patriotism that included putting down independence
movements in San Salvador province. For similar reasons, San Jose (Costa Rica) and
San Vicente (El Salvador) received the title of city and three other Costa Rican pueblos
were elevated to villa status: Heredia, Alajuela, and Ujarras. Province capital Cartago
received the title o f “most noble and most loyal.113 Guatemala City, already a kingdom
capital with special privileges earned a coveted honor for its unswerving loyalty—the
right to be addressed as “excellency” (tratamiento de excelencia) that put it on the same
honorific level as the audiencia. ll4 Deputy Francisco Morejon actively sought similar
honors for Comayagua’s council and its individuals, while the Nicaraguan towns of
Managua and Masaya received confirmation of titles as villas in 1819 for their efforts in
1811-1812 for suppressing a revolt in Granada.115 Spanish authorities generally
approved such measures. Both the governor and bishop o f Nicaragua supported the
112 AMT, Libro de Actas Municipales, 1801-1832, 8 October and 15 November 1808. The October meeting included the additional signature o f Jose Vigil.113 AGI Guatemala 530, Cortes, 16 October 1813,Isla de Leon for the Costa Rican cities; AGI Guatemala534 for San Vicente.114 AGI Guatemala 533 and 534. Carta del Cabildo de Guatemala, 24 June 1815. The council asked for the privilege in 1815.IISAGI Guatemala 533, Morejon to Regency, 16 January 1813. See note 21.
267
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
request, which originated in Masaya’s town council.116 When one considers that before
the constitutional period, there were only around a dozen operating town councils with
the title o f city or villa, and that in this period, the number almost doubled, it is clear
that at least in terms o f hierarchical and honorific benefits, patriotism and loyalty could
pay off. It is also clear that communities sought rewards and acknowledgment o f
exceptional merit for the institution with which the community and its members were
associated and identified in the Kingdom o f Guatemala and the Spanish empire.
Elevation o f municipal rank communicated to near neighbors and distant capitals the
importance o f the favored town. Had community members not identified politically
with their towns, such promotions would have had little value.
Other ways in which the city remained a key institution was as the collector of
funds for the Spanish war effort. The donativos o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala were
significant and the continuation of a long-standing tradition of active support o f the
Crown in times o f war.117 Encouraged by Spanish governors, towns across Central
America made significant donations to the “just cause.” Jose Maria Peynado, as
intendant o f San Salvador, was able to report a significant collection o f 24,000 pesos
from that district’s indigo producers in 1812, after the Cortes had issued a decree (31
December 1811) that favored the political participation o f the region’s castas, who in
116 AGI Guatemala 533, 18 November 1814, Ayuntamiento de Masaya al Gobiemo Espanol; AGI Guatemala 534, 18 March 1816, Consejo de Indias.1,7 See AGI Guatemala 533. Solola gave an important donation in 1813. See also the Gazeta del Gobiemo de Guatemaala, No. 47, p. 443, 12 May 1814. In 1784, for example, Sonsonate gave 5247 pesos as donativo from the mayors and alcalde mayor for war, AGI 813-814; Real Hacienda for 1784.
268
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
that province were often mulattos.118 In 1813, the Indians o f the Solola district
contributed through their communities the sum of 3844 pesos.119 Although there is no
fully itemized list o f contributions, a careful examination o f the reports o f the real
hacienda and the articles of the Gazeta de Guatemala will likely turn up significant
additional donations. When the constitution was reinstated in 1820, this tradition was
resumed. In 1820, Indian, Spanish and Creole residents continued to contribute funds to
Spain and also to the support o f local militias. Chiapas’ list o f donors was published in
the Guatemalan newspaper, El Editor Constitucional.12° Solola once again gave funds
and in Quezaltenango, the “faithful inhabitants... and loyal vassals” o f the cabecera and
the pueblos o f the district (partido) donated funds to the war being waged to secure the
Metropolis.121
O f course, the city council was not the only means that the kingdom had to
demonstrate its loyalty. Literary acts held to honor the deposed king could be
sponsored by other institutions, like the University o f San Carlos, to which Juan Fermin
de Aycinena, son o f the first marquis of the Kingdom of Guatemala, his namesake
father, gave an elaborate speech to Ferdinand VII. Yet, when Aycinena wanted the
authorities in Spain to know of his patriotism, he asked the Guatemala City town
council to vouchsafe both his political loyalty and his act.122 At the instigation of the
118 AGI Guatemala 446, Jose Maria Peynado, Corregidor & Intendant, San Salvador, 17 August 1812.119 AGI Guatemala 446. Gabriel Garcia Ballecillos, alcalde mayor, Solola, Letter o f 15 Dec. 1813.120 El Editor Constitucional, 13 November 1820. Supplement to No. 20, pp. 285-293,121 E l Editor Constitucional,', AGI Guatemala 533, Letter o f 20 September 1814, Quezaltenango.122 AGCA, A1 Leg. 1907, Expediente 12681, ff. 406. While still a student, Aycinena, on 13 February 1809, declaimed an “exaltation of the throne of Ferdinand VII and the installation o f the Junta Central, and the progress made by the Spanish arms.” His speech was later printed, on the instigation o f the rector of the University o f San Carlos, Dr. Bernardo Pavon. Aycinena was Pavon’s brother-in-law. His half-
269
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
captain general, many towns formed volunteer militia corps called the “Volunteers o f
Ferdinand VII.” Often, however, it was the city council that took on the task o f
recruitment, and many cabildantes became officers and soldiers in these new corps.
Among the members of the Volunteers in the capital who also served various roles in
the ayuntamiento were lawyer Jose Antonio Larrave y Velasco, later a member o f the
city council (1820-1838) and a distinguished jurist in both federal and state
governments; Gregorio Urruela, a wealthy Spanish merchant whose long municipal
career was continued by his sons; and Marcial Zebadua, a prominent Chiapas-bom
lawyer and later legislator who represented Central America in the Court o f St. James
(London) in 1826 before returning to serve as minister of foreign affairs in several
Central American governments. The four companies of Quezaltenango, organized by
the town council, were funded by their own officers and troops, and served with honor
in four actions against the Morelos insurgents in Oaxaca and Tehuantepec in 1813, as
was reported in the Gazeta de Mexico o f 1 June 1813.123
City and State on the Eve of Independence
While the new city councils were taking office and changing the relationship
between individual and government forever, the diputacion provincial was also
fulfilling its mandate. Responding to numerous requests for guidance on how to hold
elections, determine who was eligible for citizenship, and other fine points regarding
sister, Maria Micaela Aycinena y Najera, was married to Pavon’s brother, Manuel Jose Pavon y Muiioz. For family information, thanks to Christophe Belaubre and the census o f 1829, located at the AHAG to which he pointed me. Padron de la Paroquia Rectoral del Sagrario de la parte del poniente, formado pr el Cura encargado Jose Mariano Dominguez en el afio del Sr de 1829.
270
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
how to implement the Constitution kept the sessions occupied.124 However, questions
of greater instance also crossed its threshold. For example, the ecclesiastic council of
San Salvador sought the DP’s intervention to promote its demand for a bishopric for
that province in 1820.125 It was the diputacion provincial that in 1820 convinced the
captain general to order reprints o f Cortes laws for the local courts (juzgados)—2000
copies each—putting Guatemala lawyer and cabildante Alejandro Diaz Cabeza de Vaca
in charge. It was also the diputacion that drew the governor’s attention to Article 17,
Chapter 3 of the regulation that the DP should receive copies of all laws and decrees of
the government, leading to a gubernatorial order for his secretary to forward them.126 In
November 1820, with election season approaching, the diputacion prepared a circular to
all the governors and judges to ensure the creation and functioning o f constitutional
councils where required; it also asked the archbishop to distribute the circular to priests
and urge them to help accomplish this task.127 It also determined that Guatemala City
could at least provisionally elect a deputy to Cortes even though it was not a capital of a
province, the criterion demanded by the Constitution. This politically delicate point
was brought to the DP’s attention by one o f its members, Jose Matias Delgado, a San
123 AGI Guatemala S33, Letter o f 20 September 1814, Ayuntamiento de Quezaltenango. The names and information about the four companies can be found in the Gazeta deG uatem ala nos. 226, 241 and 265.124 E l Editor Constitucional, No. 44; 23 April 1821, V. 2, p. 533, DP, Session o f 6 Decmeber 1820, Pt. 2.125 E l Editor Constitucional, No. 43 and 44, 16 and 23 April 1821, V. 2, pp. 529 and 534. Sessions 10 and 11, 29 November and 6 December 1820. After receiving the case in session 10, the diputacion determined to send the dossier for an opinion to the archbishop of Guatemala.126 E l E ditor Constit., No 44, 23 April 1821, p.534-535. DP, Sessions 12& 13, 6 and 9 December 1820.127 E l Editor Constit., No. 42, 9 April 1821, V. 2, p. 517. DP Session, 27 November 1820. Point 2.
271
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Salvador cleric who had long-resisted centralized authority in Guatemala, and was
resolved using an article of a decree dated subsequent to the constitution.
The indexes o f the sessions o f the 1820 diputacion provincial o f Guatemala are
published in El Editor Constitucional. From the consultation (consultas) initiated by
Spanish authorities, individuals seeking payment for services rendered the state, and the
new constitutional mayors and councils, it was clear that the body had established itself
as the legitimate arbiter o f the constitutional laws applied to the kingdom’s
communities, and specifically to those laws relating to the behavior, activity and
responsibilities o f the ayuntamientos constitucionales. As before, the DP also appeared
to have the respect and interest o f the multi-province district it served, and not just the
capital city it worked in. Although many of the consultas came from the areas
immediately surrounding Guatemala, others originated in Choluteca, Corpus, Omoa and
Trujillo (Honduras) and even in San Miguel (El Salvador). Thus, for all the agitation by
provincial capitals to establish their independent diputaciones, the organized
countryside—priests, governors, and town councils—worked constructively with the
extant bodies to resolve disputes with constitutional overtones.
By 1820, the return o f the Constitutional system found many o f the same
individuals throwing themselves wholeheartedly, for a second time, into the more
representative form o f government. However, with the experience of the early years of
128 El Editor Constitucional. p 496. Diputacion Provincial de Guatemala, Session 7, 23 Nov. 1820, Pt. 2.A tied vote on the matter considered article 2 o f a 23 may 1812 Cortes decree that allowed for capitals without their own diputacion to elect representatives until provincial redistricting was complete. The captain general broke the tie, and the diputacion agreed to continue to use the voting schema prepared by the kingdom’s preparatory junta until the new “provincial distribution” was completed.
272
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
partial implementation and challenges of innovation, the politically active elite were
now in a position to detail the areas that remained for improvement within the Spanish
constitutional order. The diputacion provincial o f Guatemala by 1820-1821 was acting
much as an independent legislative body, although its limited membership - only 4
deputies and the captain general—was not intended to function in this way. By March
1821, the diputacion felt it necessary to issue a determination on how the tasks of
governors and town councils were related. The motivation came in order to answer
numerous requests by town councils across its jurisdiction (Solola, San Salvador,
Comitan, Tuxtla) to distinguish between the old and new officials, and between the new
type of division of powers not by territory but by the type o f power exercised - judicial,
economic or political. In its lengthy and reasoned analysis, the diputacion drew from
the Constitution and several decrees to chart a path through the minefield of a political
system that still combined elements of both old government and new. The outline o f
the hurdles that remained to be crossed accurately depicted the systemic flaws and the
challenges that would face independent Central America a mere six months later.
In its analysis, the diputacion observed that the territories under its jurisdiction
were composed of three gobiernos subaltemos, the intendancies of San Salvador,
Ciudad Real (Chiapas) and Comayagua, and 11 alcaldias mayores and corregimientos.
In the intendancies, the regulation of intendants had divided territory into districts
(partidos) governed by subdelegates (subdelegados) with powers injustice,
administration (policia), finance, and war; their immediate chiefs on all matters but
justice—which went to the audiencia—were the intendants. Under the Constitution, the
273
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
diputacion continued, the system adopted was “entirely distinct, as it depended on the
division o f powers; the desired separation could not be achieved if governors continued
to have a role in the execution o f justice, and if judges continued to have a role in the
administration of government.”
According to the diputacion, government remained concentrated in the hands o f the
city councils. The constitution and the Instruction of 23 June 1813 both were specific in
laying out how to divide political and economic administration, and that o f 9 October
1812 limited justice to a function o f constitutional councils, governors (jefes politicos
subaltemos), diputaciones and captains general (jefes politicos superiores). The
diputacion also emphasized that the section o f the Constitution devoted to the “internal
government o f the Provinces and pueblos” (Title 6) emphasized that government would
be in the control o f ayuntamientos made up of mayors, aldermen and other officials. In
other words, the Constitution did not reduce the responsibility o f the city within
government. To back up this argument, the diputacion pointed out that city government
answered only to the top governor (jefe politico superior) and that the first mayor of
district centers (cabezas de partidos) without the subaltern jefe politico, were
responsible for circulation all government orders throughout the district, and that it was
the ayuntamientos that would in fact publish such orders129 Furthermore, the mayor of
a district capital would preside the electoral councils (juntas electorales) in the absence
o f the governor. The diputacion concluded as follows:
129Documentos Historicos, pp. 50-51, 18 May 1820. Oficio a los Intendentes y Alcaldes Constitucionales. This note informed that the subaltern governor, and in his absence, the first mayor o f cabezas de partido
274
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
[T]he government, therefore, o f each pueblo is clearly confided to its mayors and ayuntamiento constitucional.. .(T]t would be an error of the greatest transcendence to maintain that ...they do not have competence in the exercise of the faculties designated by a law made and published expressly to serve as a norm.
It also cited Article 5 of the law o f 9 October, which reads as follows, “The
mayors, with absolute inhibition of the jueces de letras and subdelegados o f Ultramar,
will undertake (conocerdn) the government, economy and administration o f their
respective pueblos."130 The diputacion used this article, and a decision based on a royal
order of 1805, to argue that once the ayuntamientos constitucionales took office, that all
subdelegados, corregidores, and alcaldes mayores should divest themselves of all
responsibilities mentioned in the decree and limit themselves in the future to the
administration o f justice in contested cases as that law established.131
In other words, less than a year before Central America’s independence was to be
decided in a referendum held in over 200 ayuntamientos constitucionales located the
length and breadth o f the isthmus, the commitment to centering political authority in
city councils remained firmly embedded in the minds and actions of the kingdom’s elite
lawmakers. Politics and government remained and was expected to remain firmly in the
hands o f city councils and not the governors who supervised their work. This
commitment to the city derived in part from tradition, as the Instructions drafted in 1810
were to circulate orders, including copies o f impresos, in timely fashion “to the rest o f their territory,” for immediate circulation to the other town councils in their district (p artido ).130 “Los alcaldes, con absoluta inhibicion de los jueces de letras, y subdelegados de Ultramar, conoceran de lo gubemativo, economico y de policia de los pueblos respectivos.” Article 5, Law o f 9 October 1813.131 The diputacion quoted a providencia of the Supremo Gobiemo of 1 March 1806, based on a royal order of 25 June 1805. The sources determined that Article 12 o f the provisions regarding subdelegados applied to the corregidores and alcaldes m ayores, and that these territories belonged to the intendancy o f the capital (Guatemala City), in the sense that they had the same relation with the captain general that the subdelgados had with the intendants in the other territories.
275
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
for by Guatemala City’s Creole aldermen show. Yet, it also stemmed from
interpretation of the developing bodies o f law emerging from the Cortes in Spain, as
seen in the Instruction prepared by the Junta Preparativa in 1812. If, on the one hand, a
new body such as the diputacion provincial was set up to work on regional issues, its
deputies were still selected by the principal towns and cities of their region, and city
councils remained the well from which city councilors would select new authorities,
such as the judges on freedom of the press issues. More members o f society on both
sides of the Atlantic engaged regularly in the selection o f local authorities, and more
members of society could serve in official capacity in city councils, whose numbers had
multiplied at least tenfold under the Constitution. During the Constitutional years in
Central America, elites had experienced government in the Cortes, in the diputaciones
provinciales, and in the ayuntamientos constitucionales, as well as in the administrative
and gubernatorial positions they had often filled. The castas and some Indians had also
had the chance to work in government in these years. Citizenship was still bound to
cities, but the familiar tension between provincial districts and cities, and the form of
government that would work for both, was still present. When the siren call o f
independence finally received a positive answer from the Kingdom o f Guatemala in the
fall of 1821, it was thus the muscular cities that responded definitively in almost all
instances, with provincial organization inadequate to the task. And when, a few years
later, when it came time to develop a blueprint for independent government, then, it
would be impossible to ignore the cities that had been set at the center of the Spanish
constitutional system.
276
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 6
Anarchic Dogma, Natural Liberty, New Societies:
The Central American Municipality in Independence, 1821-1823
The hotheads (exaltados) [of Guatemala] founded the anarchic dogma that the pueblos, on becoming independent from Spain, recovered their natural liberty and were free to form new societies according to their convenience in the new order of things.
Manuel Montufar y Coronado, Memorias para la historia de la Revolucion de Centro-america (1832).
During the period o f the Mexican Empire, there was no kingdom in Guatemala, nor dependence of the provinces on their former capital, and with the fall of [the empire], our pueblos did not present the aspect of a kingdom ruled by a unitary government, but many fractions dislocated with no center o f unity, for the colonial ties had been entirely broken, and no legitimate power had caused them to be reborn.
Mariano Aycinena, Otras Reflexiones sobre Reforma Politico en Centro-America (1833)
In September 1821, news of Mexico’s declaration o f independence from Spain
reached the Kingdom o f Guatemala, precipitating that colony’s independence and
unleashing a crisis of government. In the two-year interregnum that followed, Central
America’s towns and cities governed in the countryside, debated the political future of
the former kingdom, and voted with words and guns to support regional capitals in their
quests to remain with or separate from colonial capital Guatemala City and the new
Mexican empire. This interregnum was city government’s finest and worst moment.
Elite urban city councils and small poor town councils demonstrated their ability to act
independently to protect local and advance or skewer state and national interests. In
this brief, chaotic two-year period alliances were made and broken which would
277
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
determine the effective political boundaries between the states that emerged to join the
Central American Federation that existed, tenuously, between 1825 and 1839. This
chapter chronicles the process by which municipalities from Chiapas to San Jose
became the focal points of the consolidation and disintegration o f independent Central
America.
Declarations of Independence
Independence in Central America was a matter o f municipal pronouncement and
coordination among extant authorities on a case-by-case basis rather than a concerted
decision made in one place by one person or group o f persons. As news o f Mexico’s
decision reached city and village, open and closed sessions o f city councils discussed
options available. With the other authorities present in each town—ranging from
diputaciones provinciates, bishops and governors to low-level Spanish bureaucrats,
local clerics and military men—city councils deliberated and decided their future.
Whichever groups were represented in the discussions, the city council issued the
declaration, either on its own or jointly with a diputacion provincial.
In what at first glance appears to be a domino effect, one by one, provincial and
intendancy capitals declared independence as news moved from north to south in
September and October 1821 (See Table 6.1). Yet by examining the terms o f those
declarations— including whether the independence sought was from Spain, Mexico or
Guatemala—it becomes clear that while the elites o f each community favored political
change, the nature o f that desired change varied from place to place. Each provincial
capital, and its satellite villas took decisions not simply about the terms of independence
278
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
from Spain, but also attempted to influence the organization o f a post-independent
polity that did not duplicate lines o f power o f the colonial period that had concentrated
church, government and commerce in Guatemala City. Although there was agreement
that independence from Spain was an appropriate step to take—there is no record that
any of the important town councils seriously considered insisting on official union with
the Spanish government—there was discord on what the next step would be. Thus,
while Central American governments have celebrated the 15th o f September as their
date of independence since 1821, this date does not represent the date when a united
group of deputies representing all o f the former Kingdom o f Guatemala’s provinces
officially opted for independence. In fact, it does not even represent the first such
declaration.
279
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 6.1: Selected Declarations of Independence, Central America, 1821-1822
City | Province Date I Actors Decision1821 Indep.
FromJoins:
Comitan Chiapas August 28 CC-City Council Spain MexicoCiudad Real Chiapas September 3,8 CC,Gvr, Ch-Church Spain MexicoSan Salvador El Salvador Sept 14,21 CC, Gvr, Ch, M SpainGuatemala Guatemala September IS CC, Gvr, Ch, M, DP SpainMetapan El Salvador September 25 CC, vecinos SpainComayagua Honduras September 28 CC, Gvr-Govemor,
DP, Ch, Hac, PuebloSpainGuate.
Leon Nicaragua September 28 CC, DP, Ch, Gvr Guate. *p Spain *tTegucigalpa Honduras September 28 CC Spain, Mx GuatemalaGracias, Los Llanos, Cueyagua — Honduras
September? CC Spain, Mx Guatemala
Granada Nicaragua October 4 CC, M-Military Spain GuatemalaMasaya Nicaragua October 4 CC Spain GuatemalaLeon Nicaragua October 11,21 DP (Acta Leon) Spain *p MexicoHeredia Costa Rica October Spain *p Acta LeonCartago Costa Rica October 13 Gvr, CC, Ch, M, B Spain *p Acta LeonCiudad Real Chiapas October 22 MexicoCartago, San Jose, Alajuela & Heredia — Costa Rica
October 29 CC Cartago; reps, of other towns
Acta Leon (Nic)
Comayagua Honduras October 30 CC, Junta Gbno MexicoAlajuela Costa Rica Late October CC CRJuticalpa Honduras November 1 CC-Cabildo abierto Spain Gu; Com.San Jose Costa Rica November 1 CC-Cabildo abierto Spain,
MexicoSan Jose Costa Rica November 4 CC Abs. Ind.Quezai-tenango
Guatemala November 13 CC Guate. Mexico
Huehue-tenango
Guatemala November 29 CC Guate;Tot. Mexico
Omoa Honduras December CC Spain, Mx GuatemalaSan Vicente El Salvador December 7 CC MexicoUsulutan El Salvador December 8 CC Mx. w.CARetahuleu Guatemala December 9 CC MexicoCartago Costa Rica December 18 CC MexicoSan Salvador El Salvador December 18 CC, Gvr, public Mex, GuTegucigalpa Honduras December 23 CC-Cabildo abierto Let Junta decideGuatemalaCity
Guatemala December 29 CC-poll Mexico
280
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 6.1: Selected Declarations of Independence, Central America, 1821-1822 (cont.)
1822Trujillo Honduras January CC Spain, Mx GuatemalaCartago Costa Rica January 22 CC MexicoSan Salvador El Salvador January 11 CC, Jta Cslt,Gvr Guate.Santa Ana, San Miguel, Sonsonate — El Salvador
January CC, Gvr? Mexico
San Jose Costa Rica February 18 Ind. .Rep.Abbreviations: Un-Union, Indep-Independence; DP-Diputacion Provincial, Hac-Hacienda Sources: Monterey, Historia de E l Salvador-, Filisola, La Cooperacion d e Mexico-, Rodriguez, The Cadiz E xperim ent in C entral America, Ch. 7; Melendez, Independencia d e Centroam erica, Ch. 4, pp. 186-199; Taracena, Invencion Criolla, p.92; Juan & Gamboa, La Independencia de Chiapas, Ch. 4.
The first cities on the mail circuit to receive and react to news o f Mexico’s final
independence from Spain and an invitation to join the new Mexican Empire were the
three municipalities of Chiapas: Ciudad Real, Tuxtla and Comitan, which declared their
independence from Spain in late August and early September. Setting a precedent for
municipal reaction, the first official declaration came not from the province capital,
Ciudad Real, but from one o f its smaller towns, Comitan. On 28 September, Comitan’s
syndics, noting the advance of the Mexican army and fearing its immediate arrival,
proposed a cabildo abierto to discuss how to respond. In a defensive reaction, twenty-
eight residents voted to put the town “and its district (comprehension)” under the
protection of “the new government, declaring, if [the Mexican government] wills,
independence, so that the superior force, when it arrives, as it indubitably will, shall do
no violence or harm, leaving the rest of the appropriate steps for the Jefe Superior o f
this Kingdom.” The city council signed the declaration.1 Decision in hand, the council
wrote to announce their admittedly limited decision to the Mexican general leading the
independence movement, Agustin de Iturbide; the intendant o f Chiapas, Juan
281
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Nepomuceno Batres, of Guatemalan origin; and the other ayuntamientos o f the
intendancy. In short order, a small town had opened the floodgates that unleashed the
process of independence in Central America.
A week later, Ciudad Real, drew from mechanisms o f the colonial period and
the Spanish constitutional monarchy to respond to the momentous political news. The
governor, town council and bishop of Ciudad Real, the capital o f Chiapas—
representatives o f the traditional institutions—met in a cabildo abierto to determine the
community’s official reaction. In this case, as in most of those that followed, only
representatives of elite institutions officially deliberated the political possibilities, with
artisans’ groups and other popular groups kept at the margins o f debate. The Ciudad
Real authorities, considering their shared border and commercial ties with Veracruz,
Mexico, rapidly determined to adhere to the Mexican decision.2 The city councils o f
Tuxtla and Comitan followed suit with official declarations o f independence days later.
Having reached a decision, the Ciudad Real authorities took an oath (juramento) o f
independence on 8 Sepetember, much as they had taken an oath o f loyalty to kings and
to the Spanish constitution in earlier periods, only now, they declared their “Capital and
1 “Acta de independencia de Comitan" in Jesus Aquino Juan and Arturo Corzo Gamboa, La independencia de Chiapas y sus anexiones a M exico (1821-1824) (Tuxtla Gutierrez (Chiapas, Mexico): Universidad Autonoma, 1994), Appendix 1, pp. 283-284.2 See General Manuel Mier y Teran to Agustin de Iturbide, 24 October 1821, Ciudad Real Chiapas, for a discusion of Chiapas' economic and political ties to Mexico. This letter is reprinted in Jorge Lujan Munoz, La Independencia y la Anexion Centroamericana a Mexico (Guatemala: Serviprensa, 1982), pp. 163-166.
282
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
its great province o f las Chiapas" independent.3 These procedures would repeat in
town after town in the Central American isthmus over the next two months.
Although the ceremonies followed by Chiapas were traditional in nature, their
content was nonetheless remarkable. The duly-constituted authorities o f Chiapas felt
they had the authority to make a momentous decision on their own, for their
communities alone, without feeling constrained to wait for guidance or approval either
from the colony capital or from a preponderance of the colony’s town and provincial
governments. Although a province within a kingdom, Chiapas and its local governors
were not technically empowered to take political decisions o f this magnitude.
Furthermore, the royally-appointed governor and bureaucrats assigned to Chiapas ought
to have opposed rather than facilitated the declaration of independence, even in the face
of the decision of the new viceroy o f Mexico to accept his territory’s secession from the
Spanish Empire. Yet at no point did any of the other cities, governors, provincial
authorities or royal officials o f Central America draw attention to these facts. Instead,
Chiapas’ declaration, as we shall see below, served as the match that set off a
conflagration o f similar declarations from municipalities big and small down the
isthmus.
Historians have agreed that Scholastic thought provides the political foundations
for this type of extremely local political judgment. By breaking the “social compact”
with the Spanish king, the people could reassume popular sovereignty and the right to
3 See Juan and Gamboa, La independencia de Chiapas y sus anexiones a Mexico, Chapter 4, for discusion of Ciudad Real’s independence. They claim that the official date of the declaration, 8 September, was in fact the date o f the oath taken to protect independence, and that the city council’s act was on 3 Sept 1821.
283
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
make political decisions because they had resumed their “natural liberty.”
Contemporaries certainly used this language. Yet the implications o f the particular and
narrow interpretations of the compact are still worth underlining. Firstly, each town to
withdraw from the Spanish empire reflected a specific form of understanding o f the
“people” involved. Arturo Taracena suggests that each “pueblo” meant, in fact, the
larger municipal district familiar from earlier periods, “each principal city with its
territory and dependent pueblos." Chiapas’ coordination of the declarations of each
important town certainly support such a thesis. Nonetheless, histories o f this period
have analyzed only the decisions of the cabeceras, implying that the smaller towns had
no voice in the decision. Furthermore, independence-minded Central American elites
included in this community not just the native-born and immigrants who had taken up
permanent residence, but also the Spanish officials they kept in government posts.
Secondly, by limiting the “people” in each instance to those o f one town, the actors
rejected not only officials in Spain but the political system that had functioned to unite
towns in the Kingdom of Guatemala since 1542 and the intendancy system which
refined it in the 1780s.4 Popular sovereignty implied local, municipal authority; all
other compacts were voluntary alliances.
4 Manuel Montufar y Coronado, one of the earliest chroniclers o f independent Central America, wrote that the most enthusiastic proponents of independence in Guatemala “founded the anarchic dogma that the pueblos, on becoming independent from Spain, had recovered their natural liberty, and were free to form new socities according to their convenience in the new order o f things.” Montufar, M emorias para la historia de la Revolucion de Centro-america. (Guatemala: Tipografia Sanchez y De Guise, 1934), p. 50. Modem scholars reiterating this analysis for Latin America and Central America, respectively, include O. Carlos Stoetzer, The Scholastic Roots o f the Spanish Am erican Revolutions (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979) and Xiomara Avendafio Rojas, “Procesos Electorates y Clase Politica en la Federacion de Centroamerica, 1810-1840 ,” unpublished doctoral dissertation. Mexico (DF), Colegio de Mexico, 1994, Chapter 2. Stoetzer argues that the “pactum translatic.iis” o f medieval Spanish thought, that
284
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reflecting the remarkable nature o f Chiapas’ decision was the role reversal by
which Chiapas became the instigator o f change within the Kingdom of Guatemala,
rather than the recipient of news from the capital. After swearing independence, the
cabildos o f Ciudad Real and Tuxtla wrote to Guatemala City and to other city councils
in the isthmus to communicate the news o f their adhesion to Mexico’s independence,
and enclosed a certification from the town o f Comitan to demonstrate the unity o f the
province’s three cabildos. The letters stated that due to a “general accord” o f all the
vecinos, they had sworn independence from Spain, and would preserve their religions,
civil and ecclesiastic laws and defend property o f their new citizens with just laws that
did not distinguish between classes and place o f origin. Ciudad Real further hoped to
“stimulate” the inhabitants of the other cities to participate in the same “liberty and
happiness o f which the province of Chiapas is in possession.”5 While correspondence
between town councils had long served as a means o f exchange o f information, Ciudad
Real’s exhortation of other cabildos, in particular the kingdom capital Guatemala City,
represents the first example of a provincial capital taking the lead not to seek the
capital’s advice on a political matter but to attempt to influence through example.
Traditionally, provincial towns sought guidance from the capital on the implementation
is, the return of political power to the people when the contract with the king has been broken, was what shaped nineteenth-century Spanish American political decision-making. Others who have picked up the pactist argument include Franijois-Xavier Guerra, M o d em id a d e Independencia. Ensayos sobre las revoluciones hispanoamericanos. (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1992), Chapter 9; and Arturo Taracena Arriola, Invencidn Criolla, Sueno Ladino. Pesadilla Indigena: Los A ltos de Guatemala, d e region a Estado, 1740-1850 (Antigua, Guatemala: CIRMA, 1997), p. 67.
5 AGCA A 1.44 Leg. 2194, Exp. 15748, Book 2, ff. 23v-24, Actas de Cabildo, 1821, September 14 1821.Guatemala City received and considered these letters on 14 September 1821.
285
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of regulations or other administrative matters.6 Here Chiapas had not only informed its
neighbors o f its independence, but demonstrated the means used to achieve it and
explained the legal and social bases on which that independence was meant to rest.
Thus, by the time the mail reached Guatemala City, on September 13, the capital
was required to react rather than lead. A quick decision had to be reached. Would the
colonial capital endorse Chiapas’ precipitous decision or reject it? Rumors of the
Mexican break with Spain had run rife in the city since August, and the city council had
already attempted to convince the captain general to support independence on
September 4.7 Popular attention to the issue was also increasing. The city council
recorded an increase in political broadsides and petty crime associated with Mexico’s
upheaval since August.8 In a session of September 14, 1821, the Guatemala City
council opened and considered the Ciudad Real and Tuxtla city council letters.9 Before
the city council could act in response to this extraordinary news, Captain General
Gabino Gainza, in receipt o f the same letters, saw that independence was likely at this
point, with or without his participation. He thus convoked the same kind of cabildo
6 AGCA A 1.44 Legajo 2194, Expediente 15748, ff. 119v-120, Actas de Cabildo, 1821, 21 May 1821, pa 5. A more traditional letter is that o f Santa Ana to Guatemala City in May 1821, asking for news o f events in Mexico and guidance on preparing instructions to the Santa Ana deputy to Spain’s Cortes o f 1822-1823.7 AGCA A 1.44, Legajo 2194, Expediente 15748, f. 72. Actas de Cabildo, 1821, September 4, 1821, Sess. 72, para. 2. Captain General Gavino Gainza attended the meeting to discuss rumors that a petition for independence circulated in the capital and to seek to end it. The syndic, Mariano Aycinena, informed Gainza that "general opinion of this capital” favored independence, and that the petition sought Gainza’s support for the decision to avoid a “popular commotion." After a discussion characterized as “attentive and mature,” the council decided simply to act to preserve public order, one of its “principal attributions."8 AGCA A 1.44, Legajo 2194, Expediente 15748, Actas de Cabildo, 1821, Book 2, f. 17, pa. 6. September 31. Mayor Mariano Larrave noted the increase of rumors (habiillas) and broadsheets (pasquines) attacking both European and American Spaniards and attributed them to the lower orders (el pueblo bajoi). The council determined in future to take action to fulfill its obligation to assure order and security.9 AGCA A 1.44 Legajo 2194, Exp. 15748, Book 2, ff. 23v-24, Actas de Cabildo, 1821, 14 Sept. 1821.
286
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
abierto that had already taken place in Chiapas for the following day in hopes o f
achieving a similar consensual decision. Clearly, in Guatemala City as in Chiapas,
elites did not evince an appetite to take on Spanish authorities to achieve independence,
and once again, Spanish authorities failed to present stiff resistance to inclusion in the
organization and implementation of independence. Only a negotiated and joint solution
appealed, and the timing was propitious to achieve one.
Although the overall strategy of the Guatemala City leadership paralleled that of
Chiapas, there were certain distinctions both in form and content o f the meeting that
reflected this particular city’s role as kingdom capital. The number o f colonial
corporations, or official institutions, was significantly greater in the capital. Thus,
Gainza could not include each individual member o f each institution in the
deliberations. On September 15, he instead called together two representatives each for
the principal authorities o f the kingdom—the archbishop and ecclesiastical council, the
diputacion provincial, the audiencia, merchants’ guild, lawyer’s college, and ranking
military and finance officials—to ponder the question o f how to respond to the news.
Only one exception was made, in order to seat a greater number o f members o f the city
council, which at first insisted on sending the entire body, as all members were duly-
elected representatives o f the city. After consultation with Gainza, the cabildo agreed,
in the end, to send a delegation composed o f one mayor, two aldermen and the two
syndics, on the same partial footing as the other institutions, although with five rather
than two members in attendance.10
10 AGCA A 1.44 Legajo 2184, Exp. 15748, Book 2, ff. 23v. Actas de Cabildo, 1821, 14 September 1821.
287
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Also distinct from Chiapas’ proceeding was the coordination o f the declaration
of independence with an attempt to create an interim junta that could claim to represent
not just one town, or the united towns o f one province, but the entire collection o f
provinces that had made up the Kingdom of Guatemala. Gainza and the cabildo abierto
determined to make the Diputacion Provincial (DP) a governing body, the Junta
Provisional Consultiva (JPC). Under the Spanish system, this DP had represented only
Guatemala and El Salvador, so the JPC immediately inducted representatives for
Guatemala’s interior provinces, and for Nicaragua, Chiapas, and Honduras, to indicate
not only the willingness of the capital to share political power with provincial
representatives, but to underline Guatemala’s intent to hold together the territory of the
Kingdom o f Guatemala, and to anchor whatever polity should emerge. Named in the
declaration of independence, the distinguished provincianos selected for the JPC were
men who had made their careers in the kingdom capital, rather than elected
representatives of the provinces.11 Although only Chiapas official repudiated its new
representative, preferring to send a delegate directly to Mexico, the legitimacy of the
11 The six men added to the Jun ta Provisional Consultiva were among the most distinguished and well- educated men the colony had to offer. Three clerics—the Marques of Aycinena, Jose Valdes, and Angel Maria Candina—represented Quezaltenango, Solola and Chimaltenango, and Sonsonate, respectively. Lawyers Jose Cecilio del Valle, o f Tegucigalpa, represented Honduras and Miguel de Larreinaga, an oidor of the audiencia bom in Nicaragua, represented that province. Lawyer Antonio Robles, a Chiapas- bom mayor of the Guatemala City municipal council, represented his native province. The g o b iem o of Costa Rica, notably, did not merit a representative. Guatemala City, Declaration o f Independence, 15 September 1821, Art.8, reprinted in Carlos Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales de la Independencia Centroamericana (San Jose: Editorial Universitaria, 1971), pp. 242-245.
288
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
junta was called into question by the other DPs operating in the Kingdom o f Guatemala
in 1821, as we shall see below.12
As in Chiapas, no other change in political organization followed. Captain
General Gainza retained his position as interim political and military leader, using the
title o f jefepolitico superior accorded to him under the Spanish Constitution, and the
Spanish colonial bureaucracy remained in place. All laws, ordinances and orders
formerly in effect would remain so and any that could not be reformed would be
abrogated by the new “national congress” summoned by the declaration of
independence. Similarly, independence did not mean elections of new city councils,
and those in authority retained their central role as guarantor of public order. Gainza
underlined the continuity and the mutual support o f the two branches o f government
when he called on inhabitants to show “due respect for constitutional mayors, and other
authorities, as well as to the Aldermen, who help them in their patrols to keep quiet and
public tranquility.”13 As city council books from Guatemala City, Antigua, and
Sonsonate show, the council in fact carried out this role. For the balance of 1821, city
councils continued to manage the minutiae of municipal administration, staffed by the
same mayors, aldermen, and agents that they had elected or named at the beginning o f
the year.14
12 Avendano, Procesos Electorates, p. 60. By 29 September, the cabildo of Chiapas had issued instructions to its deputy to Mexico, Pedro Solorzano.13 Full text o f the Bando of 17 September 1821 can be found in Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales, pp. 252-254. The relative points are treated in Articles 2 and 10.14 AGCA A1.44 Legajo 2194, Expediente 15748. Guatemala City, Actas de Cabildo, 1821. Archivo Municipal (Antigua, Guatemala), Antigua, Libro de Actas, 1821. AGN, Seccion Colonial, Caja 1,Carpeta 4. Sonsonate, Libro de Actas, 1820-1821.
289
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Guatemalan decision in favor of independence also required dissemination.
Within 24 hours, Jose Cecilio del Valle—a native of Honduras, former mayor of
Guatemala City, long-time official in Guatemala’s Spanish bureaucracy, newspaper
editor, and statesman15—composed Central America’s second declaration o f
independence. Although all o f the colonial institutions were represented in the debate
on the political future o f Guatemala and Central America, this declaration was signed
only by the political authorities recognized as representative o f the people: Gainza, the
members o f the JPC, and the individuals of the city council.
Just as the junta set up in Guatemala City pretended to kingdom-wide authority,
the Guatemala City declaration o f independence differed from that o f Chiapas in that it
claimed to represent the “general will o f the people of Guatemala,” meaning the
Kingdom of Guatemala. Whereas Ciudad Real o f Chiapas had written to Guatemala,
and “certainly.. .to other town councils, urging the capital to proclaim and swear its
independence,” this city had spoken only for its district and presented no program to
coordinate what would follow. In contrast, the Guatemala City declaration of
independence had been agreed “by this Provincial Deputation and the individuals o f the
excellent Ayuntamiento," and thus could claim broader representation. Further, the
undertone of the arguments reflected the participants’ sense that the decision being
made by the two legitimate native political institutions—capital city and provincial
deputation—would set the ground rules for the rest of the cities in the colony for their
15 Jose Cecilio del Valle had been mayor o f Guatemala City from January to mid-May, 1821, when he resigned to accept a royal appointment as war auditor (auditor de guerra). Royal officials could not sit on the city council (see Chapter 2). AGCA, A 1.2.2, Legajo 2194, Exp. 15748, Actas de Cabildo, 1821.
290
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
subsequent political decisions. These ground rules ranged from presuming a united
political future for the territory, selecting the electoral system to be used and even
which ethnic groups to include as part o f the citizenry. Rather than seconding the
Chiapas exhortation to each city to meet and act individually, the Guatemalan
declaration, in its second article, proposed a plan that would ensure a properly-
organized independence. This article called for the rest o f the provinces to elect
deputies and representatives to form a Congress in the capital to “decide the point of
independence and to fix, in the case that it is agreed upon, the form o f government and
fundamental law that should rule.” The meeting was set for March 1, 1822, a date that
would permit ample time for both elections o f representatives and travel to the capital
for even the most distant districts. The third article indicated that Guatemala City
expected the current legal system, that is, the Spanish Constitution o f 1812 and
subsequent legislation of the Spanish Cortes, to continue in effect in the interim period.
This article called for application of the Spanish constitutional electoral rules to the
election o f representatives to the Guatemalan assembly. Only one change was made.
The long-desired inclusion of the castas within the electoral body was authorized. The
fourth article modified the electoral rules to call for one deputy for each 15,000
individuals “without excluding from citizenship those o f African origin."16
16 Act o f Independence, Guatemala City, 15 September 1821. Full text o f the Declaration of Independence can be found in Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales, pp. 242-245. The act was signed by [captain general] Gabino Gainza, Mariano de Beltranena, Jose Mariano Calderon, Jose Matias Delgado, Antonio de Rivera, Manuel Antonio de Molina, Ysidoro del Valle y Castriciones, Mariano de Aycinena, Jose Domingo Dieguez, Jose Antonio de Larrave, Pedro de Arroyave, and city council secretary Lorenzo de Romaha.
291
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Guatemala City declaration o f independence appears, from the distance of
almost two hundred years, to be a moderate document, for it neither specified a political
future for the entire colony nor suggested a form o f government. The declaration of
September 15 simply informed of Chiapas’ and Guatemala City’s votes for
independence, and called on the rest o f the kingdom to participate in a congress to
determine if, in fact, the whole would become independent from Spain and, if
independence was determined, to fix the form of government and fundamental laws that
would replace the former Spanish system. Until such a congress could convene, the
only measure the “national ayuntamiento” took in addition to holding the individual
oaths of loyalty to the new government, was to begin a new book o f acts using common
paper, rather than the sealed paper that reflected “dependency on Spanish domination.”17
The moderation won a favorable response from some of the nearer cities and
provinces. The ayuntamiento o f Antigua Guatemala, the city council established in
1799 in the former colonial capital, met on September 19 to discuss the separate receipt
o f the declaration from Gainza and the Guatemala City council. In four brief
paragraphs, Antigua’s councilmen allocated 200 pesos to celebrate independence, with
50 going to the capital and 150 to pay for festivities in Antigua. They then agreed to
preside over the proceedings in their blue and white uniforms, and agreed to send a
letter to “the excellent ayuntamiento that this [council] always proposes to unite its
17 Full text of the Treaties of Cordoba (Tratados de Cordoba) can be found in Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales. pp. 226-230.
292
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 fivotes with theirs.” In its next meeting, the Antigua council resumed administration o f
the items that usually appeared on the municipal agenda—running the meat and city
markets, repairing a failing water system, improving care o f prisoners, acknowledging
receipt of new legislation—as if no further consideration of independence was
necessary. Loyal and apparently unperturbed by such a momentous decision, the
cabildantes o f Antigua represented for the Guatemala City elites an ideal collaborator.
Even more troublesome districts seemed to accept the conditions suggested by
the capital. At 9 p.m. on 21 September, San Salvador received the news o f “our
independence and liberty.” As in Guatemala and Chiapas, and befitting a provincial
capital, intendant Pedro Barriere and alcalde primero Casimiro Garcia Valdeavellano,
convoked the ayuntamiento, military leaders, vicar and parish priests, and “all classes of
vecinos principales" to a general ceremony o f rejoicing and a te deum celebrated in the
parish church. This public act was followed immediately, at the intendant’s insistence,
that the mayor receive his oath of loyalty to “guard and protect independence, be
faithful to the American monarchy, and to observe the government it establishes and the
laws that are sanctioned.” The city council took its oath the following day, alongside
officials of the Spanish and colonial bureaucracy; the pueblo was to make its official
oath a week later.19 Although by January o f 1822, San Salvador had erected a
18 Archivo Municipal (Antigua, Guatemala). Libro de Actas, 1821, f. 53. 19 September 1821, Para. 4.The councilors present on this occasion were: Mayors Tomas Arroyave and Juan de Dios Menendez; aldermen Joaquin Ferrer, Manuel Mendoza, Marcos Morales, Francisco Ximenez and Romero; and Syndics Miguel Galvez and Mariano Fernandez.19 Act o f Independence, San Salvador, 21 September 1821. Full text in found in Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales, pp. 266-268. Signed: Barriere, and the cabildo: Casimiro Garcia Valdeavellano and Jose Ignacio Zaldana, Jose Rosi, Millan Bustos, Geronimo Ajuria, Francisco Del Duque, Santiago Rosi, Trinidad Estupinian, Juan Bautista Otondo, Francisco Ignacio de Urrutia, and Narciso Ortega.
293
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
breakaway diputacion provincial and had “totally separated” from the government in
Guatemala City in opposition to that city’s decision to declare for Mexico as well as to
promote its own ardently-desired bishopric, the initial declaration of independence did
not test the ties that bound San Salvador to Guatemala.20
Equally encouraging for the capital must have been the receipt o f over 30 letters
from ayuntamientos constitucionales small and large, from as far away as Nicaragua,
supporting independence. Not just the five capitals of Leon, Comayagua, San Salvador,
Chiapas and Cartago were taking active part in this decision making; the provincial and
district cabeceras o f the provinces o f Quezaltenango, Chimaltenango, Sonsonate, San
Salvador, Tegucigalpa, Comayagua, and Nicaragua did so as well. In most cases, the
respondents offered their support for Guatemala City. Only in one instance did a city
council find the need to discuss a rejection o f its position. A trend that emerged in the
pattern o f responses, however, foreshadowed the process in which smaller towns would
commit to one side or another in a political, economic or military conflict based on
either adhesion or opposition to the local cabecera.21 Since the Guatemala City council
had no official role to play, rather than respond to each letter, it simply added them to a
20 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 323, 22 January 1822, Gabino Gainza al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa; and Monterey, Historia de E l Salvador, p. 75. The DP o f San Salvador had written to Gainza on the 14th of January informing o f the decision taken on January 11 by the city council, intendant and ju n ta consultiva. In this decision, San Salvador argued that the ju n ta of Guatemala had thus ceased to exist, erected itself in a ju n ta provisional gubem ativa , and declared itself politically and economically independent of Guatemala.21 For example, Honduran capital Comayagua's letters accompanied cabildo letters from Llanos de Santa Rosa, Gracias and Danli. Tegucigalpa, capital o f a breakaway Honduran province, remitted letters with Danli, Gotera, Olocuilta, and Santa Catarina Mita. Similarly, on 23 October, letters arrived from Metapan, Gotera, Mixco, and Chalatenango, and on 3 November letters from Gotera, Olocuilta, and Santa Catarina Mita. AGCA, Actas de Cabildo, 1821. Sessions 89, 23 October, p. 38 and 99, 3 November, p. 44.
294
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
file it was organizing. Only an offer of arms made by the villa o f San Vicente in San
Salvador province received a letter of thanks.22
In the first few weeks of independence, then, it seemed as if the cities and towns
of Central America not only had the official responsibility to make momentous
decisions, but also the maturity and strength to do so without provoking disintegration
of political authority and disruption o f the social order. This initial impression,
unfortunately, was not slated to last much beyond the six to eight weeks it took the
news to reach the more distant settlements of the isthmus. Further south, the first
declaration of independence from Spain proved to be also the first official notification
o f a break with the government in Guatemala City, and a foreshadowing of divisions to
come as principal cities within each province sought to change their political affiliations
or status.
One aspect o f the seemingly moderate Guatemalan declaration was particularly
ill-received. As Table 6.2 shows, by August 1821, diputaciones provinciates (DP’s)
already operated in the provinces o f Leon, and Chiapas and Comayagua, approved by
the Spanish Cortes o f 1812 and 1820 respectively. The move in Guatemala City to
“ Between 27 September, the first meeting held by the Guatemala City ayuntamiento after the declaration o f independence, and 4 November, 30 cities and towns wrote indicating their favorable reaction to independence and divergent views on whether to continue as a Central American unit and whether to join Mexico or not. Quezaltenango (Session 77, 27 September, para. 4, p. 24v) initially sought to determine whether or not Guatemala had declared independence, and later sought to separate from its political dependence on the capital city. By early October, San Salvador, San Vicente, San Miguel, Zacatecoluca, and Santa Ana in the province o f San Salvador, and Sonsonate, Quaginiquilapa, Chimaltenango, Huehuetenango, and Antigua Guatemala in that o f Guatemala, had informed o f their proclamations of independence (Session 82 and 84, 5 and 8? October, pa 2 and 7, p. 30v, 32). By the middle o f the month, Leon (Nicaragua), Pueblo de la Concepcion, San Antonio, San Andres, San Marcos de Mazatenango, Mataquesquinta, and San Vicente had all sworn independence, and, with the exception o f Leon, union with Guatemala City (Session 82, 16 October, pa 4, 35v-6) San Vicente offered arms to the capital,
295
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
expand the representation o f its own DP, however inclusive it might have appeared in
the capital, seemed in the provinces to be an effort to recapture political ascendancy. It
thus met with resistance for it would mean not greater autonomy and representation, but
less for residents of the three intendancies immediately affected.23 No group of elites in
any o f the seats o f the DPs expressed willingness to abandon the status so recently and
determinedly achieved through the Spanish constitutional system over the equally
recent and determined opposition of Guatemala.24
indicating loyalty to Guatemala City over its local cabecera, San Salvador, and merited in return a letter of thanks.23 Avendaiio, “Procesos Electorales”, p. 58. The Cortes on 14 May 1821 authorized, in response to petitions initiated by the Central American deputies o f 1810-1814 and renewed by their successors of 1820-1821, a DP for each o f the provinces o f the Kingdom of Guatemala.24 See Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experiment, p. 141-142, for discussion o f the provincianos' lobbying of the Cortes and Guatemala's opposition.
296
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 6.2: Juntas Gubernativas, Central America, 1821-1823City Province Junta Date establishedGuatemalaCity
Comayagua Honduras •Diputacion Provincial•Junta Provincial•Junta de Gobiemo Independiente
November 1820-Mar 1821 1-28 September 1821 28 September 1821-
Leon Nicaragua •Diputacion Provincial Junta Gubernativa
25 Oct. 1820-March 1823 17 April 1823-
Granada Nicaragua Junta Gubernativa Subaltema 4 October (auth. in G.C.); Jan. 1822-1823 (operated)
San Salvador El Salvador Junta Consultiva del Gobiemo de la Provincia de S. Salvador;Congreso Provincial
9/30/1821: arrested; 11/28, new el’n; 1/11/ 1822-11/1/ 1822-2/21/1823
Cartago(rotate)
Costa Rica Junta de Legados;Junta Superior Gubernativa
12 November 1821;13 January 1822
Quezaltenango Guatemala Junta (authorized by JPC) 16 November 1821-* Originated as a diputacion provincial under the Spanish Constitution, in operation, 1820-1821 Sources: See Table 5.1, Avendafio, “Procesos Electorales,” pp. 58, 67, & Molina, El EditorConstitucional.
Copies of the Guatemala and Chiapas declarations o f independence arrived in
Comayagua early in the morning of 28 September. Having read them, the ayuntamiento
o f Comayagua agreed upon independence and convinced the Comayagua intendant,
Jose Tinoco, to agree as well. After the council’s decision, Tinoco convoked the
familiar complement o f local authorities—the city council, the provincial deputation,
and other religious and royal officials—to affirm the decision, which was then made
public as they all took an oath o f loyalty to the new government. Underlining the
ayuntamiento's official role as representative political institution, the city mayor
administered Tinoco’s oath. Whereas in Chiapas, Guatemala and El Salvador only
political ties with Spain were severed, Tinoco and the Comayagua elites put Guatemala
on notice that its ties to the Spanish choice for kingdom capital were also under siege.
297
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The declaration stated that Comayagua would become subject only to the Superior
Government established in its place for “America Septentrional”—a territory defined by
the Spanish Constitution of 1812 as Mexico, Guatemala and Spain’s Caribbean
islands.25 In other words, in the interim, Comayagua would not consider itself tied to
Guatemala as its capital. The declaration did, however, call for Comayagua to
participate in the assembly convoked for March 1822. In all other ways, Comayagua’s
reaction mirrored those of the rest of the cities of Central America. The diputacion
provincial would become a de facto council of state in the new system, while the
ayuntamiento and the “jefe politico" (Tinoco) maintained responsibility for keeping
“tranquility.”26
Leon, capital of Nicaragua, produced the only act o f independence signed by a
diputacion provincial, rather than a city council and additional authorities. Leon was
also the first to declare explicit and absolute independence from Guatemala “which it
appears has erected itself as sovereign” (Article 1). In fact, Leon’s separation from
Spanish governance was not only secondary to independence from Guatemala, but
couched as temporary independence, “until the clouds pass” (Article 2), earning this
proclamation the nickname of the “Cloudy Act” (Acta de los Nublados). Like the other
separatist acts, Leon’s kept the extant authorities in their positions (Article 3). This DP
argued in later manifestos designed to convince its interior towns and districts o f the
25 Constitution Politico de la Monarquia Espanola, 1812, Title 2, Ch. 1, Art. 10. Mexico (New Spain) was broken into its constituent parts : New Spain, New Galicia, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Provincias Intemas. The Caribbean islands were Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico and adjacent islands.26Acta de Independencia de al Provincia de Comayagua, 28 September 1821. Full text in found in Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales, pp. 270-272.
298
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
legality of this independence, that it was using faculties granted by the laws o f Spain but
had not passed these limits.27 Guatemala’s declaration of independence had arrived, the
DP pointed out, after its own 28 September decision, with its own independent
government already in operation. Furthermore, Leon stated specifically that
Guatemala’s independence from Spain had destroyed the “social compact” that had
united it with the rest o f the provinces o f the former kingdom o f Guatemala, and refused
to undertake the new contract that would have been required to reform the broken ties.
Leon rejected the Congress called by the Guatemalans on the grounds that first, the
governor in Guatemala looked after Guatemala City’s interests at the expense of the
provinces; and second, that the former Kingdom of Guatemala could not aspire to be an
“independent power,” for lack of education (ilustracion), riches and power;
backwardness in the sciences, arts, commerce and agriculture, and for possessing a
populace dispersed in small and remote locations.28
Leon’s DP, also, was the first to circulate its agreement throughout the province
with language indicating its intent not just to inform but also to ensure obedience
11 Melendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales, p. 242."8 Manifiesto de la Diputacion Provincial de Leon a Sus Provincias de Nicaragua y Costa Rica, 7 February 1822, in Filisola, La Cooperacion de M exico, pp. 231, 233 [227-248]. The DP stated more explicitly (p. 236), “The rest o f the pueblos and provinces o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala became, because o f this development [Guatemala’s declaration o f independence from Spain], separated from the superior authorities resident there [in Guatemala], and their officials reassumed the power that the laws granted them for their respective jurisdictions. The Je fe Politico o f Leon commanded (mandaba) in politics, economics, and government, under the Spanish Constitutional system, in the entirety o f [Leon’s] territory, and the changes (novedades) in [Guatemala City] in no way altered, nor could alter, nor reduce his functions. Thus, considering himself possessed o f the authority, he found no inconvenience in resolving, first, that the Province was absolutely separated from dependency on Guatemala, and provisionally from the peninsula, with which communication was obstructed due to political circumstances.”
299
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
(Article 5).29 Such obedience would not be forthcoming. With three declarations o f
independence in hand—the first, from Chiapas; the second, from kingdom capital,
Guatemala City, and the third, from a provincial capital—the cabildos o f the secondary
towns of both Honduras and Nicaragua considered their options and reached their
independent conclusions, as had the rest of the isthmus. Only with so many options to
consider, the possibilities for further fracturing o f authority increased significantly. In
Honduras, Tegucigalpa’s city council opted to remain united with Guatemala City and
to reject any political association with Comayagua, while the two port towns of Omoa
and Trujillo, the principal ports for the Guatemala City elite, joined breakaway
Comayagua. In Nicaragua, Granada and Masaya followed the same path as
Tegucigalpa, voting for absolute independence from Spain and continued union with
Guatemala. These political rebuffs o f provincial capitals were the first step toward civil
war, as the provincial capitals determined that they had the right to change their
recalcitrant districts’ decisions by force. They were also the first signals that secondary
towns might prefer to retain their direct relationship with the distant kingdom capital o f
Guatemala City rather than participate in the elevation of their district capitals
(icabeceras) to greater authority.
Further south, Costa Rica, which as a gobiemo had belonged to the Nicaraguan
intendancy, took a different route.30 San Salvador, Comayagua and Leon had weighed
29 Acta de la Diputacion Provincial de Leon, 28 September 1821. Full text is in Melendez, ed., Textos Fundam entales., p. 274.30 For a contemporary description of independence, see Alejandro Marure, Bosquejo H istorico de las Revoluciones de Centroamerica, desde 1811 hasta 1834 (Guatemala: Editorial del Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 1960), Chapter 2.
300
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the Guatemalan and Chiapas decisions; the four principal towns o f Costa Rica
addressed the split simmering between Guatemala and Leon. Provincial capital
Cartago’s cabildo abierto supported the path o f least resistance: maintaining unity with
Nicaragua. Mayor Santiago Bonilla had suggested that both should be supported, “as
long as both continue united in government,” but a majority moved to follow Leon, its
traditional regional authority, agreed to annexation to Mexico. To ensure that the rest of
the province followed suit, Cartago’s municipality took a unique path and assigned the
governor to preside over discussions in the other three municipalities.31 Not only did
this municipal consultation lead to an immediate provincial unity. In a negotiated
agreement unique to Central America, on December I, Costa Rica established its own
junta gubernativa superior under a joint pact, the Pacto de la Concordia. This junta,
made up o f seven popularly-elected members and a president whose term o f office was
to be 3 months, rotated its seat among each o f the four Costa Rican cabeceras—San
Jose, Cartago, Heredia and Alajuela—each year.32 This preference for negotiation and
willingness to share power was a hallmark that would help keep this one district on the
sidelines o f the civil wars that would engulf its northern neighbors for the next twenty
years.
31 Acta de los Ayuntamientos proclamando la independencia del gobierno espanol, Cartago, 29 October 1821, in Melendez, ed., Text os Fundamentales, pp. 282-283. Cartago’s municipal act o f independence declared the province's adhesion to the Mexican empire, acceptance o f Leon's terms o f independence, and the continuation o f all officials in their posts until further notice. The meeting then solicited the governor to personally attend the meetings of the ayuntamientos o f the rest of the “places, cities, towns of this Province, to preside the acts, which in the present case should be celebrated, and to communicate their results to this ayuntamiento."32 Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experiment, p. 160.
301
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
With the rest o f the provinces rejecting Guatemala’s lead, the fracturing so
evident in the rest of Central America sent its tremors through the most populous
district. The cabecera o f the Guatemalan highlands, the town o f Quezaltenango also
declared its separation from the kingdom capital and its separate annexation to Mexico.
An offer of the JPC to the Quezaltenango elite to authorize a diputacion provincial for
the highlands arrived two days too late. For the next six months, Guatemala would
dispute Quezaltenango’s pretensions to annex various highland districts in order to form
a territory large enough to merit its own district in the new Mexican empire. An actual
invasion was forestalled by the arrival of Mexican brigadier Vicente Filisola with a
policy designed to reconcile the two sides.33
Thus, by late November 1821, it was clear that each municipality considered
itself empowered to make political alliances in the name o f its community with
whichever local or distant capital appealed the most. Whether the fundamental
consideration was fear o f Spain, or of a closer authority with designs on the authority,
trade, resources or strategic location o f a particular town, the common response o f each
and every town that declared independence was to do so in terms that seemed most
propitious for protection from retaliation. Equally clear was that once the pact that
united each town and province to Spain was declared ended, the choice about whether
to act alone, as one town council, or in unison, through a junta representing several or
many town councils, was felt to be within the purview of each community. For all of
33 Taracena, Invencion Criolla, pp. 88-93.
302
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the juntas, governors and other institutions operating in the fall o f 1821, independence
was a municipal affair.
After Independence: The Mexican Dilemma
The municipal reaction to the news of independence was merely the first
indication that decision-making would take place at the local level as Central Americans
soon faced the next stage in the independence process. In September and October, the
key decision seemed to be whether to continue in independence as a political unit that
would be the successor state to the Kingdom o f Guatemala, with Guatemala City as its
capital. By November, direct pressure from Iturbide changed the equation. The
question became not would Central America become or remain independent from
Spain, but would the former Kingdom o f Guatemala accept the invitation o f Iturbide to
join the Mexican empire, and if so, how?
In Guatemala City, Gabino Gainza received a letter from the Mexican Emperor
indicating that he was prepared to use force to ensure the union o f Guatemala to Mexico
and assumed that the region could not afford to wait for the March 1822 constituent
assembly to decide on the district’s fate. Certainly, the numerous variations o f the
declarations of independence from Spain indicated that waiting was unlikely to produce
the unanimity desired, and, in particular, a unanimity that restored the status quo of
Guatemala as center o f a united territory. So, after consulting with the junta provisional
consultiva, the je fe politico o f Guatemala determined on a unique course that in many
ways was true to the initial program. Since they felt there was no time for each town to
participate in local and then provincial indirect elections o f deputies, the Guatemala
303
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
authorities opted on November 28 to request each constituted ayuntamiento
constitutional to hold a cabildo abierto to “hear the feeling o f the pueblos” on whether
or not it favored union with Mexico.34 Notably, the referendum included all of the
ayuntamientos constitucionales, and not simply the two-dozen colonial ciudadesy
villas. This referendum marked the first case o f Central America’s leadership extending
the inclusive principles o f Cadiz to the realities o f post-independence decision-making.
It also codified that which had been happening in fact: each town, upon receipt of
multiple declarations o f independence from a variety of towns and provinces, was
making its own conditional declaration, indicating a preference not only for
independence from Spain but also for a local cabecera that seemed to provide
maximum advantage. In the meantime, elections o f deputies to the national constitutent
assembly were to continue.
Guatemalan historian Alejandro Marure, a contemporary of these events, argued
in his history of the period that this referendum was an illegal idea originating with the
Marquis of Aycinena, who favored union with Mexico.35 Certainly, the decision to
consult each city subverted the constitutional procedure o f having deputies debate the
political future o f Central America that had been suggested by Guatemala City’s
authorities at independence. However, rejected by Leon, Chiapas and Costa Rica, the
congress seemed unlikely to occur. Furthermore, the referendum also recognized the
34 Monterey, H istoria de E l Salvador, p. 71. On November 30, 1821, Gainza, informed by Iturbide of Mexico’s plan to annex Central America, agreed with the JPC to convoke an “open meeting” (cabildo abierto) of the ayuntam ientos of Central America, to hear their opinion on whether or not to join Mexico. The circular directed to the councils of the isthmus was drafted by Jose Cecilio del Valle.35 Marure, Bosquejo H istorico, pp. 80-81.
304
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
political reality that had been established by municipal independence: it was not only
provincial capitals that would have a say in the political future of the region, but each
community large and active enough to have established ayuntamientos constitucionales.
Certainly, the jurists of the Guatemalan DP, after lengthy discussions, had opined in
November that the DP did not possess the authority to make the decision for the
kingdom. It would not be “the people” (el pueblo), but the pueblos in which they lived
and voted, that would determine the political fate o f Central America. With the old pact
with Spain broken, a new pact o f union between Mexico and Guatemala would also find
its basis in the municipality and would be between “Iturbide and our ayuntamientos.”36
Despite the possible legal flaws expressed by Marure and other contemporaries,
the referendum was at least a qualified success that gave each city and town a chance to
register official acceptance or rejection o f Mexico, and an absolute majority responded.
Of the 244 town councils believed operating in Central America in the fall of 1821, 115
towns voted to join Mexico, 32 expressed their preference for independence from
Guatemala, 23 left the decision to a future congress. Only 77 cabildos did not
participate at all.37 38
That more than half o f the respondents but less than half of the eligible councils
opted for union with Mexico suggested a poor start for an alliance that would require,
36 Actas de la Diputacion Provisional (1821), 1971, p. 365.37 Wortman, G overnment and Society, p. 230. Wortman cites as his source for these figures a letter written from Aycinena to Iturbide, dated 3 January 1822. The letter can be found in Rafael H. Valle, ed. La anexion de Centro America a M exico (Mexico: Secretaria dc Relaciones Exteriores, 1924-1949), Volume 3, p. 112.38 For an outline o f Iturbide’s correspondence, see Monterey, H istoria de E l Salvador, pp. 60-79.Filisola. Mexico's enforcer of the decision, arrived in Chiapas in late February 1822 and issued a
305
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
much as the recently-severed relationship with Spain had required by the early 1800s,
voluntary participation and loyalty rather than forced adhesion. However, the calculus
in the capital differed significantly. Aycinena concluded, in fact, that since Leon,
Comayagua and Ciudad Real had already joined the Empire, “in a certain fashion, one
could say that Guatemala has wholly united [uniformado] with Mexico.” The only
outstanding problem, he added, was that “now it appears that these other Provinces are
going there [to Mexico] with their puerile grievances, with each wishing to erect itself
into a capital.”39 Unfortunately, such “puerile grievances” would make o f the following
year a period o f civil war and disharmony in which Guatemala City, the provincial
capitals and the small municipalidades all contributed to instability. Even if some
significant cities that had initially rejected Mexican union, like Guatemala City and
Tegucigalpa, acknowledged the impossibility o f holding out when Mexico insisted on
annexation by the summer o f 1822, the precedent of each city acting on its own behalf
had already been set, seemed difficult and in fact became impossible to overcome in the
short term.40
A more concrete outcome o f the referendum was the surfacing o f opposing
political tendencies in the province of El Salvador that divided this district into
combative cabildos in the same way that the initial declaration o f independence had
split Leon and Comayagua. Staunch republican strongholds San Salvador and San
directive to the provinces o f Leon, Solola, Totonicapan, Comayagua, Chiquimula, Mazatenango and San Salvador informing o f his arrival “ to protect” the annexation.39 Mariano de Aycinena to Agustin Iturbide, 18 December 1821, in Lujan Munoz, La Independencia y la anexion, p. 174
306
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Vicente were among the 23 towns that, in a cabildo abierto, held out for the National
Congress, promised in September, as the only means to resolve the question o f Central
America’s political future. Previously willing to follow Guatemala’s lead, this
perceived capitulation to Mexican threats and interests caused San Salvador to align
with Comayagua and Nicaragua, rejecting the authority of the Captain General to
discard the second article of the Guatemalan act of independence that had called for
such a congress.41 However, this province also boasted converts to the Empire who, in
essence followed Tegucigalpa and Granada in choosing Guatemala City over their own
capitals. Mariano Aycinena reported that the city o f San Miguel and villa o f Santa Ana,
and the districts of Sonsonate, which would join San Salvador in 1825, had held their
cabildos abiertos and had also chosen Mexico. An unfortunate result of the vote was
the division o f the province o f El Salvador in the same way that the declaration o f
independence had revealed exploitable splits in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras.
One o f the most strongly held tenets of historians is that alienation from
Guatemala City was the principal cause o f the disunion that fragmented Central
America, beginning in the fall of 1821.42 Yet if we consider the amount o f attention
that has been focused on anti-Guatemala City sentiment, it is interesting to note that
only about 15% o f city councils participating in the referendum actively and specifically
40 Tegucigalpa wrote to Mexican commander Vicente Filisola on 24 July 1824 to intimate its oath o f loyalty to the Mexican Empire. ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No 373, 7 Aug. 1822, Filisola a; Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa.41 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, pp. 71. 74. The Ayuntamiento of San Salvador held its cabildo abierto, presided by the governor, intendant Jose Matias Delgado, on 18 December. On December 25th, the Salvadoran Junta de Gobiemo initiated its appeal to the diputaciones o f Comayagua and Leon to seek solidarity in resistance to Guatemala and Mexico
307
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
sought separation from their long-time capital. Furthermore, as we have seen above, for
each provincial capital that, in the end, opted for alliance with Mexico over continued
government from Guatemala—San Salvador, Comayagua, Leon de Nicaragua—there
was at least one competing city within the same province— San Miguel and Santa Ana,
Tegucigalpa, Granada—that used ties with Guatemala to defend from that provincial
capital’s encroachments. Even if we consider all 77 non-respondents as expressing a
default option rejecting Guatemala, they still amount to less than half o f all towns, and
fewer than those which were interested in joining Mexico. Thus, in following the
further disintegration of Central America into a collection o f polities at the level of
“sovereign states of every village,” in early 1822 and through June 1823, it behooves us
not to simplify the chaos in terms o f a capital-versus-provinces model so prevalent in
previous histories, but to examine the internal workings o f the provinces that
fragmented within the already fragmenting former Kingdom o f Guatemala.
City and State
The case of Honduras, split by political antipathy between Tegucigalpa and
Comayagua, when examined in detail, shows how the complex relationship between
colonial district capitals (cabeceras) and their dependent towns (anexos) determined the
political and territorial organization that would follow separation from Mexico in 1823.
In the Honduran case, as with the schisms in El Salvador and Nicaragua, outside
intervention and alliances proved decisive both in deepening and in resolving the
conflict.
42 See for example Wortman, Government and Society; Mario Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experiment; Thomas
308
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Comayagua’s overt dissatisfaction with Guatemala began in November 1820,
when the restoration o f the Spanish constitutional monarchy encouraged a decision by
intendant Jose Tinoco to establish a provincial deputation for the two districts of
Comayagua and Tegucigalpa. The move met with opposition in the colonial capital,
since Tinoco’s initiatives included choosing Havana rather than Guatemala City as the
destination for his government’s reports. Comayagua’s ayuntamiento and leading
families supported, and likely instigated, this move. In the official request to the Cortes
to approve the new DP, the council emphasized long-standing grievances with the
colonial capital. “Now is the time,” they wTote, “for this ayuntamiento to reveal the
pitiful picture o f miseries to which we have been reduced by the merchants o f cattle and
silver in Guatemala.”43 The grievances o f the Comayagua city council were serious:
failure of the capital to provide protection from the British and unconquered Caribbean
peoples living on the North Coast, to reinvigorate abandoned mines, and undercutting of
Honduran cattle production through programs designed, instead, to breed cattle closer to
Guatemala City. The council also believed that taxes collected in Honduras funded
government and programs in Guatemala City, for which they perceived no immediate
benefits. The breakaway diputacion provincial o f Honduras wrote that the colonial
administration in the capital “ran and runs all o f its offices with the lucrative taxes from
Kames, The Failure o f Union, Central America (1824-1960) (Chapel Hill: U. o f N. Carolina Press, 1961).43 Ayuntamiento de Comayagua, 1820. Cited in Wortman, Government and Society, p. 225.
309
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the provinces of Honduras.”44 By mid-1820, the Cortes in Spain had approved the new
DP but the breach with Guatemala had deepened in the process.
Tegucigalpa’s grievances against Comayagua, presented repeatedly to the
Spanish government, sounded suspiciously like those Comayagua felt towards
Guatemala. Not only had Tegucigalpa’s flourishing mines and cattle industries suffered
since integration into Comayagua in 1791, the villa claimed, but Comayagua also
illegally dipped into the funds (propios) o f the villa and its partidos to finance its own
projects.45 If Comayagua’s prosperity suffered from dealing with Guatemalan
“merchants o f cattle and silver,” Tegucigalpa’s prospered, for these were the products
she had to trade. Having achieved political independence from Comayagua in 1812,
Tegucigalpa resented the 1820 Comayagua diputacion provincial's efforts to convince
the Spanish Crown to reverse this decision by default, through integration of the
alcaldia mayor into the district of the DP.46 After independence, it was not prepared to
respond favorably to Comayagua’s orders to preparations for election to Guatemala’s
“imaginary congress” since the province of Honduras had joined the Mexican Empire
on September 28.47
44 Wortman, G overnm ent and Society, p. 225. The original letters can be found in AGCA B 1.10 Legajo 79, Expediente 2301, flf. 12-13; A l.l Legajo 6930, Expediente 57114.45 See Chapter 2 and also Marvin Barahona, La A lcaldia m ayor d e Tegucigalpa bajo e l regimen de intendencias (1 788-1812) (Tegucigalpa: Instituto Hondureno de Antropologia e Historia, 1996). For original documents relating Tegucigalpa’s specific fiscal and political grievances against its incorporation into the Intendancy o f Comayagua/Honduras, see also A G I623, Letter of Santiago Martinez Rincon, representative o f Tegucigalpa in Madrid, 1804.46 Carta del gobemador Intendente de Comayagua Coronel Don Jose Gregorio Tinoco de Contreras Informando Al Rey sobre Su provincia, 28 August 1820. AGI 531. Letter reprinted in Mario Felipe Martinez Castillo, Apuntam ientos pa ra una historia colonial de Tegucigalpa y su Alcaldia M ayor (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Universitaria, 1982), pp. 168-170.47 ANH (Tegucigalpa), Fondo DP, Caja 164, No 300, 9 December 1821, Juan Lindo, Comayagua, al Ayuntamiento de la Villa de Tegucigalpa.
310
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Both district capitals sought to make the most o f their resources—mining in
Tegucigalpa’s case, government and location closer to the port towns through which
trade was conducted for Comayagua—to increase their political autonomy and control
of land, labor and trade. Unfortunately, the local goals were not compatible with a
united province. At independence, then, the tensions culminated. Comayagua not only
decided to break with Guatemala but to inform Tegucigalpa that it, too, should no
longer obey the authorities in the capital, in civil, military, ecclesiastic or fiscal
matters.48 Tegucigalpa refused, preferring to ally with the Guatemala JPS, which had
supported its long, but ultimately successful, bureaucratic struggle to reestablish the
alcaldia mayor o f Tegucigalpa (1800-1817). “In no way, nor under any aspect,”
insisted Tegucigalpa’s city fathers in their declaration o f independence, “do [we] wish
to belong to the Government of Comayagua.”49
Tensions escalated into military confrontation because independence provided
the first chance for each town to forge alliances outside o f the province without fear o f a
centralized government response. Responding to rumors that Comayagua planned to
invade it to force recognition as the capital, by November 21, Tegucigalpa petitioned
for help from San Miguel and San Salvador. Such a plea would have been impossible
during official Spanish rule, when the two neighboring cities would have had to clear
48 Francisco J. Monterey, Historia de E l Salvador: Anotaciones Cronologicas 1810-1842, tomo I (San Salvador: Editorial Universitaria, 1996), p. 67. According to Monterey, Tegucigalpa received Comayagua's act o f independence and instructions on 30 September 1821. After Jose Tinoco stepped down as governor of Honduras on 21 November, the replacement, Honduran native and lawyer Juan Fernandez Lindo immediately wrote to Tegucigalpa, informing that Comayagua had already sworn independence and its intent to join Mexico.49 Luis Pedro Taracena Arriola, Ilusion Minera, p. 319. He, in turn, cites the article, “Actas de Independencia,”in the Revista del Archivo y Biblioteca N acional, T IV , Nos. 15-16 (1908), pp. 617-622.
311
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
their responses through Spanish officials in their own province as well as in Guatemala
City.50 This Salvadoran help arrived in the form o f two groups o f militia counting over
400 men from San Salvador by December 18, who reinforced Guatemalan forces who
occupied Santa Rosa and Omoa, to oppose Comayagua.51
Comayagua, having cut its ties to Guatemala, sought support from distant
Mexico, but also built an alliance with the capital o f Nicaragua, Leon, which found
itself in a similar situation. Leon’s elite also resented the political interference and
economic drain represented by Guatemala City, and also faced a recalcitrant junior city,
Granada, which refused to participate fully in Leon’s version o f independence. Leon
did not merely send troops to help Comayagua. Its diputacion provincial also wrote to
the besieged city, informing that it now undertook to serve as mediator, not just in the
area o f Nicaragua, but to influence the fate o f the former kingdom.52
Trans-provincial meddling was a trap that each capital sprang, hoping to prove
that it could replace Guatemala City as a legitimate regional authority. Such meddling
generally provoked resentment, ridicule or disinterest, and did not simplify a return to
normal relations based on equal footing within a redistricted territory once the
interregnum drew to a close. Intra-provincial rivalries proved fertile ground on which
to experiment with inter-provincial alliances and battles, an example that would prove
disastrous in each attempt to build a post-independence Central American government.
50 ANH (Tegucigalpa), Fondo Diputacion Provincial (DP), Caja 160, No. 4 (B3.1.0). 21 November 1821, Letter o f Jose Tinoco, governor o f Honduras, to the Muy Ilustre y Leal Ayuntamiento de San Miguel y Comandante de Armas. Tinoco accused the city fathers o f Tegucigalpa o f being tricked and oppressed by Francisco Aguirre and his brother, Jose Rojas, and Dionicio Herrera.51 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, p. 71.
312
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The nature o f the alliances in this instance was demonstrably temporary and
opportunistic, rather than reflective o f underlying ideological or political commitments.
Tegucigalpa believed that San Salvador and Guatemala, which had resisted integration
into Mexico would be sympathetic; Comayagua gambled that Leon, also declared
independent of Guatemala and allied to Mexico, would be supportive. By the end of
December, Tegucigalpa found that its alliance with Guatemala had cost it its Salvadoran
ally, which recalled its troops. Changing partners, San Salvador sought to shore up an
alliance with its neighbors to hold off Guatemalan and Mexican control. It lanced an
appeal to Comayagua and Leon to create a union to make up a “respectable state” that
would be able to put an end to the disastrous civil wars brewing in Tegucigalpa and
Granada, and to present a “respectable force” to repel the “attacks o f despotism,” while
still having resources left to attend to reinvigorating the economy.53
Captain General Gainza, in return, could rely on Tegucigalpa not to provoke its
former capital. He wrote again in early April to express his support for the town’s
decision not to take up the request of its pueblo, San Antonio, to create a competing
diputacion provincial.54 For Tegucigalpa’s loyalty to Guatemala, the villa learned in
January 1822 that the Gainza had promoted it to city, and had designated its “patriotic”
ayuntamiento. The city immediately published this mark of respect in the town proper
52 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No. 354, ND. In my notes, I mention that Tegucigalpa answered but do not have the text o f the answer.53 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador..., p. 72.54 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 352, 7 April 1822, Gabino Gainza a; Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa.
313
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and circulated it to the other towns “addicted” to it as capital.55 When Guatemala had to
inform Tegucigalpa that it had accepted union with Mexico, it sweetened the pill by
also informing the city council that at the same time that Guatemala had also declared
Tegucigalpa fully independent from Comayagua.56 Tegucigalpa was thus overjoyed in
1823 to participate in the election o f representatives to a National Constituent Assembly
(ANC) for a federation o f Central American states, demonstrating the proof o f its joy
with an immediate oath of fidelity to the new congress in July 1823.57 Nor was such
honorific reward limited to the cabecera. In late February 1822, the Tegucigalpa
ayuntamiento was pleased to inform alderman Jose Tomas Funes and priest Tomas
Jalon of Choluteca of Gainza’s report that they were “worthy o f praise for their zeal,”
with the city adding that “[they] will be eternally recognized in the grateful hearts of the
residents o f this city” for their role in opposing Comayagua.58
For such favors, Gainza could count on Tegucigalpa to circulate his message
that San Salvador’s decision to secede from Guatemala was based on false claims that
Guatemala had no faculty to make the decision that annexed Central America to
Mexico. Gainza’s proclamation (banda), duly circulated, stated that the resolution
55 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No. 128, Jose Cabanas to Municipalidad de Tegucigalpa, 11 January 1812. Juticalpa, on January 12, congratulated its cavecera and reiterated its willingness to put its “few arms” at Tegucigalpa’s disposition alongside its “enthusiastic valiants.” ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No. 316.56 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No 322, Gabino Gainza to Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, 22 January 1822. Gainza praised Tegucigalpa’s heroic resistance to Comayagua’s pretentions and incursions, noted that Guatemala had made its cause one with that o f Tegucigalpa, and that “in the moments o f declaring its union with Mexico, in accord with the general will, agreed also that Tegucigalpa belongs in now way to comayagua, not remaining politically, militarily or fiscally dependent. Past events, however sad, have strengthened (estrechados) this city with that, and have prepared for always brotherhood of Guatemaltecos and Tegucigalpenses.57 ANH, Fondo DP, caja 162, No. 149 (b4.10). Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa al Jefe Politico, 22 July 1823. The je fe politico is Herrera.
314
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
taken in the colonial capital did not resolve the question, but simply respected the
majority vote in favor of union to that empire that the “pueblos in their open councils
have spoken (<espuesto).” Gainza asked Tegucigalpa to circulate his official position in
the pueblos to avoid having the “suggestions and intrigues o f rabblerousers
(perturbatos)” confuse “simple citizens.” 59 Gainza then followed up with the prize that
would assure him o f Tegucigalpa’s loyalty: notification that he had separated that
district from the political and military control o f Comayagua.60
In addition to seeking outside alliances, each regional capital also had to
consider how best to improve its position within the province. Comayagua attempted to
convince the towns in Tegucigalpa’s jurisdiction to switch provincial allegiance and to
accept the Comayagua government and junta, and met with limited success as
Tegucigalpa moved to retain their loyalty. The Tegucigalpa ayuntamiento
constitucional wrote to the villages within the boundaries o f its alcaldia mayor on 5
November asking them to inform if they had sworn independence along the lines of
Guatemala and Tegucigalpa, or of Comayagua.61 It also sought to entice districts within
Comayagua’s district to change allegiance.
58 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 168, No 538, 20 February 1822, Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa al Regidor del Ayuntamiento de Choluteca, Jose Tomas Funes.59 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 323, 23 January 1822, Gabino Gainza al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa.60 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 332, 18 February 1822, Danli Ayuntamiento to Tegucigalpa Ayuntamiento, acknowledging receipt o f this information. Danli’s ayuntamiento was made up of: Anotnio Jose Lazo de la Vega, Jose Firrafino Vicente Firrafino, Simon Diaz, Miguel Anonio Rojas, Angel Maria Medina and Ramon Arriaga, secretary. The town council o f Texiguat also received this information. Caja 165, No 338, 25 February 1822. Texiguat’s town council was: Miguel Peres, Benito Medina, Luis Alvarez, Vicente Funes de Espinal, and interim secretary Vicente Rodriguez.61 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No 160.
315
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
From the outset, most of the ayuntamientos o f Tegucigalpa’s alcaldia mayor
reiterated their loyalty and willingness to send arms to defend against the importunate
Comayagua if required. The towns of Aguanqueterique, San Juan, San Antonio
Aramezina, Yuscaran, Goascaran, Langue, Aluvaren, Reytoca, and others along their
mail circuit (cordillera) had already organized to defend the province.62 Choluteca, the
only other well-established Spanish villa, stated its loyalty as well.63 A year later, the
division of the province into two competing series of towns was made clearer, when
Comayagua listed the partidos that recognized it as capital: Nacaome, Yoro, La
Yntibuca, and Aguanqueterique. From the list, it is clear that after its initial sowing o f
discord in the Tegucigalpa district, Comayagua was able to recruit only one further
town, Aguanqueterique, to its side in the next year.64 During the course of the fall, the
key port towns and garrisons of Omoa and Truxillo had also changed sides, leaving
Comayagua land-locked.65
62 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 160, No. 4 (B3.1.0). 21 November 1821, Letter of Jose Tinoco, governor of Honduras, to the Muy Ilustre y Leal Ayuntamiento de San Miguel y Comandante de Armas. Tinoco accused the city fathers of Tegucigalpa of being tricked and oppressed by Francisco Aguirre and his brother, Jose Rojas, and Dionicio Herrera. Caja 16S, No 402, Ayuntamiento del Mineral de Yuscaran al de Tegucigalpa, 2 December 1821. Yuscaran recognized Tegucigalpa as its cabecera.63 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 164, No 276, 5 November 1821, Ayuntamiento de Choluteca al Ayuntamiento Patriotico de Tegucigalpa. The Choluteca council was made up o f Zenon Zuniga, Jose Francisco Larios, Jose Tomas Funes, Jose Antonio Arsenal, Baleriano Jolla, and Juan Jose Pinel, secretary.64 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 260, No. 10, 9 December 1822, Joaquin Estrada, Sec., Comayagua. Lista de los partidos que se hallavan reconociendo a esta capital y a su gobnierno a tiempo de las elns. Echas de diputados a Cortes del Congreso mexicano en el mes de marzo de 1822. Aguanqueterique had informed Tegucigalpa o f its decision in late 1821, apparently because Comayagua had decided to join the Mexcian Empire. The council defended its decision by citing articles 325 and 326 o f the Spanish Constitution that supported a DP for each province. Fondo DP, Caja 164, No 296, Ayuntamiento de Aguanqueterique al de Tegucigalpa, 5 December 1821.65 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 160, Mariano Urmeneta, Alcalde de Tegucigalpa, cordillera, 5 November 1821.
316
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The distinctions o f loyalty were not so clear in some cases, however. Some
town councils, like that o f Danli, apparently pledged loyalty to Comayagua while
continuing to claim a connection with Tegucigalpa, in order to ensure a positive local
outcome, regardless o f which town gained ascendancy.66 Others, like Nacaome, chose
to remain neutral by publishing the official notices o f both would-be capitals.67
In Olancho, cabecera Juticalpa at first accepted its traditional position in the jurisdiction
of Comayagua and refused overtures o f Tegucigalpa on the grounds that they were
impractical. Tom between demands from both provincial powerhouses, the first-ever
Juticalpa town council wished on November 1 for the pueblos “to unite their will and
submit to one government, [in order to] put an end to the evils that present themselves...
[Tegucigalpa’s] cause is not the same as ours because [your] government has been
independent o f Comayagua, but this partido never has been.”68 However, on the same
date, impelled by the attendance o f numerous residents at a town council meeting,
Juticalpa’s council opted to obey
constituted authorities...[obeying] as Captain General and [jefe] superior, Gabino Gainza [and] obeying also the Suprema Diputacion Provincial of Comayagua, once it includes a legitimate representative o f this partido, as well as the Intendant Don Jose Tinoco, insofar as his [acts] do not oppose those o f the Capital o f theKingdom.69
In other words, the municipales drafted a statement that, if correctly quoted, allowed
them to protest loyalty to either capital. A subsequent attempt by Comayagua to collect
66 See, for example, AGCA letters.67 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 164, no 283, 21 November 1821, Silvestre Tome, Nacaome to Ayuntamiento deTegucigalpa.68 Ayuntamiento de Juticalpa al de Tegucigalpa, 1 November 1821. Cited in Jose A Sarmiento, Historia de Olancho, p. 82. The Juticalpa letter answered one o f 2 October 1821 from Tegucigalpa, inviting the town to resist the “new order o f things” that Comayagua was trying to impose.Sarmiento found numerous municipal documents from this period in Juticalpa's municipal archive.69 Sarmiento, Historia de Olancho. p. 85.
317
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
a new head tax led to a change o f allegiance. Jose Manuel Rodesno, mayor and acting
juez politico o f Juticalpa, had to inform Tinoco in Comayagua that the pueblo had
informed him that they would rather lose their heads than pay the new tax, unless the
rest of the nation paid as well.70 They also requested the return o f the previous
governor, Joaquin Tome, o f the same family that had worked with the Tegucigalpa
Zelayas since the previous century. Even as late as January 1822, when Juticalpa’s
town council reiterated its “addiction” to Tegucigalpa, this profession o f loyalty
followed a December 31 note to governor Juan Lindo in Comayagua excusing earlier
support for Tegucigalpa as a temporary response to the apasionados active in
Comayagua.71 Caught between two cabeceras and unsure o f the outcome, prize towns
like Danli and Juticalpa could not afford to remain neutral, nor, however, could they
entirely antagonize either possible victor in the conflict. Thus, the correspondence o f
such towns often reflected the dilemma o f the awkward position o f annexes (anexos).
Why not simply cut their losses and secede from each cabecera as the two
fought for supremacy? Clarification o f orders as well as administration o f justice were
services Tegucigalpa could still offer its anexos. When a town had doubts about the
“rituals” or ceremonies to be used in a swearing in of the first new ayuntamiento after
70 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 160, No 2, Jose Manuel Rodezno to Tte Captain General and Jefe Superior Politico Jose Tinoco, Juticalpa, 19 November 1821; Jose Maria Zelaya to Same, Juticalpa, 21 November 1821. Zelaya sought the advice o f the town council, military commander, and juez politico.71 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 168, no 540, 31 December 1821, Ayuntamiento de Juticalpa al GPS de Comayagua Juan Lindo. The council was Jose Manuel Rodezno, Francisco Garay, Bacilio Gomes, Damian Mendoza, Jose Maria Barahona, Baltasar Cubas, Mariano Gonzales, Felix Martines, and Jose Leon Maz, secretary. The letter, while it did distance itself to a certain extent from Tegucigalpa, nonetheless requested that Lindo stop sending them providencias, or accords, from Comayagua.
318
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
independence, it wrote to the jefe politico or ayuntamiento in Tegucigalpa.72 When in
doubt about requirements for militia, towns such as Texiguat consulted the Tegucigalpa
ayuntamiento to seek permission to form “urban troops” or for clarification.73 When
criminal cases required the intervention of outside authorities, from tracking down a
fugitive to interpreting a section of the law, the small, rural, mining and Indian villages
counted on their capital. When actual government seemed insufficient—as when the
mayors o f San Antonio complained that they could not administer justice well as their
jurisdiction was divided in two by a hill, leaving those on the far side o f the city hall
and church undisciplined and inclined to commit crimes— mayors sought decisions in
the cabecera?4 When questions about taxes arose or generated local conflict, the
cabecera's advice was sought.75 When in need o f news from superior officials, in
Guatemala City or another recognized capital, the smaller towns counted on their
cabecera to circulate this information in the cordillera circuit as well. The town council
of Goascoran, in February 1822, reminded Teguicgalpa that as an “addict” of its
provincial capital, it need for its “well-being and prosperity... individual notices o f the
system of this city [Tegucigalpa].. .for we wish to have the joy to know them for our
72 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No 120, 29 December 1821, Municipalidad de Santa Ana al Jefe Politico de Tegucigalpa. Regarding the 1821 elections, the town said the lieutenant alcalde mayor had officiated, as had been done in Ojojona.73 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 161, No 71, Alcalde de Texiguat, Benito Medina, to Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, 26 October 1821.74 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No 147, 11 (...) 1822. Mayors Tiburcio Galo, Jose Maria Reyes and Antonio Mayrene wrote to the Tegucigalpa JP insisting that “he would do as was convenient.”75 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No 122, 31 December 1821. Tax farmers (asentistas) Pedro Barahona and Hermenegildo Valdes asked not to pay their city and tavern taxes. Acting governor Jose Manuel Rodesno forwarded the case to the jefe politico of Tegucigalpa
319
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
own government.”76 Tegucigalpa JP Dionicio Herrera made sure that important news,
such as Gafnza’s January 1822 call for elections for deputies to the Mexican Congress
o f 1822-1823, circulated to “all the ayuntamientos in this territory {comprehension)." 77
The courts of the Tegucigalpa municipality and the jefe politico o f the district were
quite full in the 1821-1823 period, with both operating to resolve everything from small
financial cases to accusations o f treason and disloyalty. Independence and civil war did
not in any way diminish the political connections between cabecera and anexo, but
instead strengthened their ties as villages with new councils, like Texiguat and San
Antonio participated in the circuit.
Furthermore, many anexos shared more than political ties with their cabeceras.
Tegucigalpa had long-standing family and economic ties with many o f the towns in the
former alcaldia mayor. The Tome family o f Danli had long served the Zelaya family of
78Tegucigalpa as majordomos, or managers, o f the family’s haciendas there. The
Medina family had branches in Danli and Tegucigalpa.79 The Valle family of
76 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 163, No 178, 13 February 1822, Ayuntamiento de Goascaran al de Tegucigalpa. Mayors Marcelo Ferrofino and Juan de Dios Calisto signed the letter.7/ ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No 132 and 136, 5 and 20 February 1822, Dionisio Herrera, Jefe Politico, Tegucigalpa to Clergy, Parishes and Districts (Partidos), on elections o f deputies to Mexican Cortes o f 1822-1823. As well as setting election dates, Herrera explained that elections would use the rules o f the Spanish Constitution. The second cordillera went to towns that seem not to have corresponded with Tegucigalpa in this period, possibly because they were so close or small that they formed no councils o f their own. Herrer's correspondence suggests that they remained with the capital, since they were in the immediate jurisdiction. Tamara, Rio Hondo and Talanga signed off on this cordillera; Suyapa, Jacaleapa, Villanueva, Llaguacina, Mateo, Tamara, Rio Abajo, Rio Hondo, Talanga did not,8 ANH, Fondo Colonial, 1776: Libro del Escribano Rivera, p. 169; ANH, Fondo Colonial, Caja 115, NO. 3716, Padron de Espaholes de Tegucigalpa, 1815; Vicente Toledo y Vivero and Capt, Joseph Celaya, “Nomina de los Vecinos Principales del Real de Minas de Tegucigalpa en 1762,” R evisa del A rc h iv o y Biblioteca N acional de Honduras 25:1/2 (1946), pp. :6-10; Leticia Oyuela, Fe, riqueza y poder. Antologia critica d e documentos para la historia de H onduras (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras,1992), “Testamento de Pedro Martir de Zelaya.”79 See note 60.
320
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Choluteca and Tegucigalpa was intermarried with the Lozanos o f Yuscaran. The
Morazan family had branches in both Tegucigalpa and Yuscaran as well, and two of
their number sat on the Yuscaran town council in 1821.80 The Boijas family often spent
time near their mines in San Antonio.81 Equally important, key members o f the
Tegucigalpa elite went into business with miners in the district, presumably supplying
tools, sulfur, capital and a market for the work. Joint “denuncias” or claims for new
and abandoned mines, were a regular phenomenon well into the mid-1820s, with
notices such as Santiago Bueso Sotomayor’s joint claim with Pedro Pablo Chaves, a
miner native to Aguanqueterique, to a virgin silver mine near Curaren, being registered
dozens o f times a year.82 For an anexo to sever ties with its cabecera would mean
withdrawal from long-standing commercial ties—Tegucigalpa had the stores in which
miners shopped and procured supplies; the mining towns and cattle-producing towns of
the district were the life’s blood o f Tegucigalpa’s greater economy. It also meant
severing family connections that provided banking and matchmaking services to its
members, as well as entree into politics and social life.
80 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 164, No 402, 2 December 1821, Ayuntamiento de Yuscaran al de Tegucigalpa; and Caja 171, No SO, 1826, Denuncias de Minas; index, Felipe Valle was married to Macedonia Lozano, of Yuscaran. Juan Bautista Morazan, was a merchant and resident of Yuscaran in 1782 (Garay, 8), and likely the father of Bemabe and Juan Nepomuceno Morazan, m unicipales there in 1821. Three other members o f the council were from the Paz family, which also had its roots in Tegucigalpa and mining. ZELAYA GARAY, THIS IS THE SPACE FOR THE WHOLE THESIS TITLE< AND YEAER< AND Universidad de Honduras, p. 8; ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 164, No 402; Mario Felipe Martinez Castillo, Apuntam ientos para una historia colonial de Tegucigalpa y su alcaldia m a y o r (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Universitaria, 1982), p. 133.81 ANH, Fondo Colonial, Caja 115, Padron de 1815. Juaquin Boijas’ family was not in the city, but at the mine. In the same year, Miguel Boijas’ family was living at their mine in Yuscaran.8‘ ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 176. This and numerous other cases can be found in Caja 176.
321
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In addition to traditional circuits o f supply and exchange, in the independence
period Tegucigalpa and its anexos required each other for defense and information. In
addition to assurances o f loyalty, the towns o f the district organized militias, provided
advance notice of troop movements in Comayagua, and occasionally had arms to offer
as well. Justo Jose Herrera o f Choluteca, wrote as a
son o f this pueblo, as captain of the company of volunteers o f this villa, as je fe politico o f this partido, I have the honor to offer you all my influences, all my interests, and my life as a gift for the liberty and independence o f the pueblos o f Our Province, and those of the rest o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala, that wish to enjoy them.
Herrera, brother of the acting JP o f Tegucigalpa, Dionisio Herrera, sealed this
promise with a remission of 30 shotguns and 1640 cartridges. The Choluteca city
council sent a separate letter echoing his sentiments.83 Cantarranas intercepted mail
from Comayagua to Danli for Tegucigalpa and Pespire warned of Comayagua’s plans to
invade with troops from Leon and Truxillo in mid-December 1821.84 The towns also
organized militias, conducting enlistment under the supervision o f the jefe politico,
activating an 1820 instruction o f the Spanish Cortes previously circulated by Gainza.85
Tegucigalpa, using its connections with other cities, such as San Miguel and San
Vicente in El Salvador, was able to import additional troops, and took on the burden of
83 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 164, no 275, f 13, 5 November, Jose Justo Herrera to Ayuntamiento Patriotico de Tegucigalpa and No. 276, Ayuntamiento de Choluteca al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, 5 November 1821. The ayuntamiento of Choluteca was made up o f Zenon Zufiiga, Jose Francisco Larios, Jose Tomas Funes, Jose Antonio Arsenal, Valeriano Jolla, and juan Jose Pinel, sec.84 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 305, 13 December 1821, Ayuntamiento de Cantananas a la Ciudad de Tegucigalpa; Caja 162, No 108, 12 December 1821, Ayuntamiento de Pespire al Jefe Intendente deTegucigalpa.85 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 161, No 96. 24 October 1821. The Tegucigalpa council recalled a decree o f 18 October 1820, for citizens to form companies, enlisting and electing their own officials. Per article 27, the council elected mayor Felipe Reyes as lieutenant o f the third “national” company.
322
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
paying them.86 It also coordinated its own troops with those in the countryside, and the
town council entrusted the organization of their troops to Francisco Aguirre, a
Guatemalan native with economic ties in the region.87
Yet it is important to note that Tegucigalpa had to negotiate with each individual
town that it wished to recruit to its cause, since the ties that bound each anexo to its
cabecera did not necessarily foster cooperation between them. Thus, rather than
reflecting a concerted effort at defense, the organization had come town by town. In
October, for example, the mayor o f Texiguat, Benito Medina, asked the Tegucigalpa
town council to send him a copy o f the regulations for forming the urban militia that
was required, underlining that it would march in lockstep with Tegucigalpa, its
cavecera}% The city council of Juticalpa, in the meantime, was supplying arms to
Tegucigalpa’s ayuntamiento on request, despite fears of an invasion by British and
Zambo (Mosquito) forces.89 In November, Pespire also underlined its resistance to
Comayagua’s blandishments, and by December, the mayor of Pespire was informing
the governor of Tegucigalpa that Comayagua, united with Leon and with troops from
Trujillo, was planning to invade. He promised all the help that Tegucigalpa could ask
86 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No 130, 27 January 1822, Francisco Delgado and Toribio Melendez, to JP and Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, The two sought funds for the San Miguel and San Vicente troops’ return to San Salvador. They were needed there to help their capital after its separation from Guatemalan government. Cost of maintaining just the Tegucigalpa garrison in March o f the same year was over 10 pesos daily. The funds covered costs o f only about 40 soldiers and officers. Even to meet this expense, the city fathers found themselves required to borrow funds from the JP. See Nos. 85, 90, 91.87 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 161, No 94, Jose Cerra y Vigil to Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, 18 October 1821, and No 95, Juan Alcaopey to Same, 28 October 1821, renouncing his position. Aguirre and his brother, Jose Maria, a merchant, both served in the Tegucigalpa militia in 1821. (La Poblacion de Tegucigalpa en 1821, Revista del Archivo y Biblioteca Nacional de Honduras, Nos. 24-27.)88 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 161, No. 71, 26 October 1821, Alcalde del Ayuntamiento de Texiguat, Benito Medina, al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, formacion de tropas urbanas.
323
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
for.90 The province clearly rallied around its cabecera, and this, as well as
Comayagua’s acceptance of support from Nicaragua, played into Guatemala’s decision
to support the province against the Comayaguan annexation.
Even after Comayagua had planned and earned out an aborted attack on the
district to force integration in December 1821, and Salvadoran troops had retired from
their protective positions, most towns remained loyal. Still, the relationship continued
to be a direct line between the cabecera and anexos. Common enemies, however,did
not seem to form the basis for a common provincial understanding. In January 1822,
Juticalpa remained steadfast, as did Yuscaran, an important mining center where many
wealthy Tegucigalpans had interests.91 Goascaran reiterated its “addiction” to
Tegucigalpa in February 1822,92 as did Texiguat and Orocuina.93 In the end, neutral
Danli also respected Tegucigalpa, perhaps in part because local landowner Dionicio
89 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 161, No. 72, 3 December 1821, Ayuntamiento de Juticalpa al ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa. No 74, 21 December 1821, Mariano Gonzalez al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa.90 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, No. 108, 12 December 1821, Mayor Nicolas Sanders to Jefe Interino, Tegucigalpa. No 163, 27 November 1821, Ayuntamiento de Pespire al Alcalde lo y Jefe Ynterino de la Provincia de Tegucigalpa. In the November letter, Sanders referred to the fact that Comayagua had attempted to paint Tegucigalpa and Guatemala’s positions as “despotic and anarchic.”91 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 316, 22 January 1822, Ayuntamiento de Juticalpa al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa; and No 326, 1 February 1822, Ayuntamiento de Yuscaran al de Tegucigalpa. The Juticalpa council was made up o f Jose Cabahas, Pedro Barriento, Francisco Mendeta, Damian Mendoza, Pedro Baraona, Francisco Ylario Yrias, Timoteo Ma(...), Yanuario Gonzales, and secretary Jose Gregorio Contreras. Yuscaran’s council included mayors Manuel Emigidio Vasquez, a Tegucigalpa merchant and miner, and Jose Manuel Cepeda; and aldermen Francisco Arguello, Ignacio Lagos, Teodoro Rodriguez, Marcelo Ordohes, and Estevan Rodriguez, and secretary, Calixto Harbin. It is likely that Ignacio Lagos was related to Guadalupe Lagos, a Tegucigalpa miner with interests in Yuscaran who would be mayor of Tegucigalpa in 1825. ANH (Tegucigalpa), Fondo DP, Caja 171-10.92 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 163, no 178, 22 February 1822, Ayuntamiento de Goascaran a la Ciudad de Tegucigalpa. Alcaides are Marcelo Ferofino y Juan de Dios Calisto, who is also juez politico.93 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 338, 25 February 1822, Ayuntamiento de Texiguat al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, no. 340, 7 March 1822, Ayuntamiento de Orocuina a Tegucigalpa. Texiguat’s council was Miguel Peres, Benito Medina, Luiz Alvares, Vicente Funes de Espinal and Vicente Rodriguez, interim secretary. Benito Medina, likely an uncle o f Angel Medina o f Danli (see note 60), also had studied in Guatemal’s Colegio Seminario in the 1770s.
324
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Herrera, with strong ties there, received a simultaneous appointment by Gainza in
Guatemala as the new governor o f the province (jefe politico subaltemo).94
There seems to be only one case in which Comayagua initially achieved a
conquest of a Tegucigalpa anexo. This case shows the importance that control or
influence of a town council exerted, even in a small village. The town o f Cedros was
“seduced” in 1821 to join with Comayagua over Tegucigalpa, and to favor the Mexican
empire. By 1823, however, with the erection of an independent Central American
federation, the village divided over whether or not to continue with the new alliance. A
group signing themselves “The Miners o f Cedros” reported the existence o f a group that
favored returning Cedros to Tegucigalpa’s authority. The miners claimed that the town
council scribe, Gregorio Contreras, a Tegucigalpa native, led this group and had
attempted to depose the elected mayor, Francisco Gardela, also a Tegucigalpan (Both
men would later serve on the Tegucigalpa city council). By late 1823, the Cedros city
council lobbied for resumption of the Tegucigalpa connection, and wrote to the
Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (ANC), begging to be reunited with a town o f “free
men, who have known to sustain their rights,” with which Cedros shared not only
commercial and family ties, but a relationship based on mining and agriculture.
Contreras drafted the letter to the ANC that underlined how Comayagua had, in 1821,
urged Cedros'’separation from both Guatemala and Tegucigalpa, although Cedros had
94 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, no 328, 18 February 1822, Ayuntamiento de Danli al Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa. The Danli town council was made up o f Antonio Jose Lazo de la Vega, Jose Firrafino, Vicente Firrafino, Simon Diaz, Miguel Antonio Roxas, Angel Maria Medina and secretary Ramon Arriaga. Angel Medina had family ties with the Ydiaquez and Aranda families in Tegucigalpa, the
325
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
not received “the slightest injury (agravio) from these two Cities.” Under Contreras’
guidance, and perhaps pressure, the municipality o f Cedros reconsidered and, in 1823,
found the switch o f allegiance illegitimate and prejudicial, undertaken by false claims
about the benefits that union with Comayagua and the Mexican Empire were to have
produced.95
The story of Cedros is just one case in the competition between Tegucigalpa and
Comayagua between 1821 and 1823 to expand and consolidate, respectively, control
over the extensive jurisdiction of the alcaldia mayor. The means by which Cedros was
persuaded to return to the Tegucigalpan fold, however, reflects the tools available to a
cabecera to influence its anexos. The cabecera was able to send or make use o f its
native sons living in outlying districts to cajole, urge and even threaten the less well-
connected members o f the community to choose Tegucigalpa. In 1821, Tegucigalpa
native Francisco Garay served a key role as mayor of the town o f Juticalpa in assuring
the alliance of his district with “our just cause.” The steps he took included collecting a
donation of 79 pesos and sending some shotguns and merited special thanks from
Tegucigalpa’s ayuntamiento.96 Greogrio Contreras, also of Tegucigalpa, served as
secretary not just in Cedros, when that town voted to rejoin Tegucigalpa in late 1822,
but earlier in the year in Juticalpa. Presumably, Contreras’s presence buttressed the
decision to express willingness to take up arms on its new capital’s behalf, since
Cordova and Najera families in Guatemala and the Coello family in Choluteca. He himself had studied philosophy in the Colegio Seminario in Guatemala in the 1810s. (Tridentino, 1810)
AGCA B Legajo 98, Expediente 2707. Sobre la adhesion de Cedros a Tegucigalpa o a Comayagua.96 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 164, no 295, 5 December 1821, Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa a Francisco Garay. The letter referred to Garay as a “good son of Tegucigalpa."
326
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Garay’s 1821 term as mayor had ended.97 Yet a third example, from this one district, is
that ofTexiguat’s municipal secretary and schoolmaster in 1821, Joaquin Rivera, who
was a direct descendant o f Estevan Rivera, a Tegucigalpa cabildante o f the early 1800s,
and a relative o f contemporary Riveras. Rivera was also married into the powerful
Marquez family there, and would later serve as president o f Honduras (1833-1836).98
One way, then, that Tegucigalpa was able to influence the politics o f its pueblos
was through assignment, loan or use o f a man with strong family and economic ties to
the cabecera to serve in a municipal capacity in an anexo. As an educated person,
connected to the cabecera, as well as in service as the official drafter o f municipal
correspondence, such a person was in a good position to guarantee that the town
councils he worked for acted in conformity with that capital’s wishes. The ties that
bound the anexos to the cabecera, could be reinforced through individual attention and
perhaps indirect threat.
In cases where Tegucigalpa’s cabildantes suspected that a town was not
resisting Comayagua’s blandishments, they took various measures. In November 1821,
they instructed Justo Jose Herrera to bring the mayor o f Nacaome, Benito Contreras, to
the city for questioning.99 When Silvestre Tome, the priest o f Nacaome, was reported
97 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No. 316, 12 January 1822, Letter o f judcalpa to Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, 12 January 1822. Gregorio Contreras served as secretary of both these councils, and in 1823 was secretary in Tegucigalpa proper.98 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 161, No 71, Alcalde o f Ayuntamiento of Texiguat, Benito Medina, to Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa, Joaquin Rivera signs as secretary. Medina also had relations in Tegucigalpa. See www.hondudata.com/enciclopedia/enciclonew/honduras/presidentes/ioaquinrivera.htm for more on Rivera’s political career.99 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 162, 26 Nov 1821, Justo Jose Herrera, Choluteca, to Alcalde 1° y Mayor interino. Herrera was unable to fulfill the comision, since mayor Benito Contreras had gone to the feria
327
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to be forming a “faction” (the Central American term for political parties opposed to the
government), they wrote asking him to cease subverting his parishioners. The indignant
curate responded that he had no such intention and that if the Nacaome mayor chose to
publish Comayagua’s providencias as well as Tegucigalpa’s. He claimed he had had no
part in it nor influence over the mayor’s actions, since this civil official was not under
Tomes dominion. Further, Tome suggested that it was praiseworthy if the tranquil town
opted for neither side, remaining neutral as the only means to preserve its reputation and
tranquility.100
By May 1822, the two sides were in conflict (movimientos) but the beginnings
o f reconciliation were about to commence. Juan Lindo, a Honduran native and newly-
named governor of Comayagua, attempted to win Tegucigalpa’s loyalty in June 1822,
with an emphasis on the end to government “from another world.” 101 It was another
mechanism, however, that would have permanent effect. On October 16, Comayagua
sued Tegucigalpa for peace for the first time, one ayuntamiento to another, bypassing
the medium of governors and diputaciones provinciates. The former capital wrote that
now the time had come to clarify the political situation and fill with honor both pueblos,
ending the rivalries, disunions, and divergences that former governments had embroiled
them in. Comayagua offered a meeting between two representatives o f each side in
Rancho Grande, to avoid a civil war. The meeting was to include a three-day banquet,
in San Miguel. He received assurances that the rest o f the cabildo o f Nacaome would put Contreras under house arrest upon his return.100 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 164, no 283, 21 November 1821, Silvestre Tome, Nacaome to Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa. Nacaome was responding to a 6 November letter.101 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No. 366, 25 June 1822, Juan Lindo to Ayuntamiento de Tegucigalpa.
328
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
embraces to show fraternity, and publication o f the peace throughout the Empire to
serve as an example for “other pueblos in like case.”102 It was too early for
reconciliation, but agreement of the two municipalities was what was required to reach
a solution.
How was the breach finally healed? Between Tegucigalpa and Comayagua, it
would take a decision to alternate the capital between the two cities that led to
agreement to form a single province, or state. Between the smaller districts divided in
the civil war o f 1822, other mechanisms were used to attempt reunification. Although
most modifications o f allegiance within state boundaries were resolved, either
peacefully or through coercion within the state, those outstanding in 1823 went to the
ANC for decision. Nacaome, which sided with Comayagua in the conflict, had
previously included Pespire among the towns that recognized it as a cabecera. Despite
Pespire’s willingness to take up arms against Comayagua, Nacaome issued an invitation
to its former anexo to send an elector to the scheduled elections o f Comayagua’s deputy
to the Mexican congress of 1822-1823. A few days later, Nacaome mayor Comelio
Valle also resisted orders to allow soldiers to march on Pespire to remove their
commander, Francisco Yzaguirre, from prison. Valle recognized the “fatal results...
that could upset Pespire and deprive it o f peace and tranquility,” and opted to dispatch
the other mayor, Francisco Gutierrez, to ensure his moderation was noted. He also
noted the “intimate,” that is family and economic relations, which had contributed to
102 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No 379, 16 October 1822, Ayuntamiento de Comayagua al de Tegucigalpa. The Comayagua council was: Victor Rodas, Josef de la Pasqua, Secundino Quifiones, Juan Jose Mendoza, Juan de la Rosa Muhos, Jose Leon Rios, Rafael Bustillo, and secretary Ciriaco Vasquez.
329
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the “true brotherhood and inalterable harmony” that linked the two towns.103
Democratic mechanisms, especially those that included power sharing in some
institutionalized form, proved to be an adequate, if not ideal, means o f tending to the
damage on the surface and permitting the normalization o f relations that had become
inimical in the intoxication o f independence. With the ANC in session, a newly-elected
ayuntamiento in Comayagua (per decree o f ANC of 23 August) once again repeated its
desires to work together for common interests. This new municipality did refer to the
municipality of the city o f Tegucigalpa.104
A similar mechanism resolved the political fate o f Cedros, which had switched
from Tegucigalpa to Comayagua in the early days of independence. The Cedros town
council had previously petitioned the Honduran state government, located in
Comayagua, to return to the jurisdiction of Tegucigalpa, but had been rejected as
making an “indecorous” request. Nonetheless, the jefe politico o f Honduras, a former
Spanish official and straightforward and honorable man, followed the new regulations
and forwarded the case to the ANC for resolution. The ANC’s Government
Commission initially recommended leaving Cedros attached to Comayagua until the
Constitutional Committee could determine the division o f the new Federation’s
territory. The Honduran committee member, Joaquin Lindo, representing Comayagua,
likely weighed heavily in this decision. However, when the full congress considered
103 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 168, No 544, 22 February 1822, Letter o f Ayuntamiento de Nacaome al de Pespire; No 546, 27 February 1822, Comelio Valle, Mayor of Nacaome.104 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 165, No 402, 17 November 1823, Municipalidad de Comayagua a la Municipalidad de la Ciudad de Tegucigalpa. Comayagua’s cabildo was: Jose Severino Quifiones,
330
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the committee's recommendation, it resolved to return Cedros to the district o f
Tegucigalpa until a final decision was made.105
* * *
The dynamic o f a resistant city or town using the mechanisms o f persuasion,
election or coercion to convince its anexos to support its pretensions and to recruit new
districts was widespread. The battle between Comayagua and Tegucigalpa represents
just one example. In El Salvador, San Salvador sought to include Sonsonate, Santa
Ana, Chalchuapa, Ahuachapan and San Miguel in its break from Guatemala and
Mexico in January 1822. The Guatemalan junta, in return, when hearing o f Santa
Ana’s resistance to the Salvadoran overtures, determined to separate that district from
El Salvador and unite it with Sonsonate. It dispatched Chilean-bom sergeant major
Nicolas Abos Padilla in order to assure the incorporation.106
Arturo Taracena has sorted out the strands in the case o f Quezaltenango
(Guatemala), which in November 1821 sought to aggregate neighboring provinces to
support its ambition to be a separate district within the Mexican empire. As in
Honduras, Quezaltenango first invited other highland towns to jo in their districts in a
Francisco Cantarero, Juan Romero, German Guerrero, Raimundo Boquin, Jose Gregorio Doblado, Jose Maria Guerrero, Juan Ignacio Maradiaga, Francisco Bueso, Juan Solano, and Miguel R. Cubas, Secretary105 AGCA B Legajo 98 Expediente 2707. The Cedros municipality letter o f 6 October 1823 went first to the jefe politico superior o f Honduras (Comayagua), who sent it to the his homologue in the Federation on the grounds that redistricting was not one o f his responsibilities. This je fe forwarded the case to the ANC, which took its decision on 2 February 1824. The city’s lener, drafted and written by Gregorio Contreras, was signed by the members o f the city council. Most were literate, although only two members, Ysidro P. Yzaguiire and Juan Lorenzo Cruz, had handwriting o f well-educated men. The other literate councilors were Mariano Membrefio, Manuel de Jesus Soto, Felipe Mencia, Nolasco Membrefio, and Jose Luciano Zepeda. Two members were illiterate or not present, regent Antonio Jose Leyva (?) and sindic Feliciano Mendes. The “Miners o f Cedros” lener is undated, but was copied in Comayagua on 15 October 1823.106 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, p. 76.
331
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
separatist movement, writing to Solola, Totonicapan and even towns as distant as
Antigua Guatemala. As in Honduras, when invitations proved insufficient, the
Quezaltenango authorities used force. They sent troops and agents to ensure regional
primacy by wresting Huehuetenango and the valley o f Salcaja from the control o f San
Miguel Totonicapan, the regional capital. They also sought to annex parts of
Suchitepequez that were contiguous to Guatemala and could provide a Pacific coast
outlet. As in Honduras, different towns sought different means o f protection. One,
Huehuetenango, resisted the appeal, apparently believing that expressing loyalty to
Guatemala City would lead to a desired elevation to the rank o f intendancy and the
increase o f the number o f subject pueblos. Another, Totonicapan, protested to Iturbide
that “Quezaltenango wants to annex pueblos to have a greater extension that makes it
capable o f being a Capital.” Although initially inclined to take a hard line, Gainza and
Mariano Aycinena, leading the JPC in Guatemala, determined by August 1822 to grant
Quezaltenango effective control of a vast highland district to avoid direct confrontation.
Quezaltenango would have its jefe politico, whose jurisdiction would extend to the
districts o f Solola, Totonicapan, Suchitepequez, and part o f Soconusco.107 As in
Honduras, it was the towns o f its designated region that Quezaltenango sought to annex,
presuming they would bring both land and residents with them. For at least a brief
period, in the fall o f 1822, it seemed that here, as in Honduras, the tactic would succeed.
107 Taracena, Invention Criolla, pp. 88-93.
332
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
City Council and Power
In the interregnum, both the institution and members o f the city councils of
Central America found their power unblemished. With the Spanish Constitution still
determining responsibilities, town and city councils retained the significant government
functions of the Cadiz period (see Chapter 5). As we saw above, they found that in a
period of upheaval, some responsibilities, such as the municipal role in organizing
militias and collecting donativos, led to increasing visibility and influence when
choosing sides in intra- and inter-provincial confrontations. Further, as the juntas
provincials fought to establish authority over vast expanses o f territory, they turned to
city councils to support and fund their goals; this meant that city councils also had the
power to thwart provincial aspirations.
Independence provided Central American towns the chance to prove that it was
not Spain, but local interest, that made an electoral system work. Regardless o f the
district, all acting governors and juntas continued to apply the electoral system set up by
the Spanish Cortes, in which popular elections selected parish and then partido
representatives who would in turn vote for local and national officeholders. These laws
were used in practice, since Central American towns were comfortable with them both
from the 1812-1814 introduction and the revival of 1820-1821. Each December during
the interregnum, local electoral juntas would convene to select the mayors, sindics and
aldermen for the subsequent year. Even in disputed cases, the laws o f Cadiz served as
the basis for resolution. Thus, when Inocente Vega of Dolores Ysalco sought in 1822 to
renounce his election as mayor for 1823, he appealed to the district jefe politico, in this
333
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
case, the governor of Sonsonate, arguing that his loss of an eye made him unfit for the
post. Although governor Jose Fernandez Padilla agreed to exempt Vega on these
grounds, he was chastised by the man elected to replace Vega, Lorenzo Castillo, who
argued that the Cadiz decrees in effect only gave the jefe politico superior, and not each
department's jefe politico, the power to annul an election. Fernandez Padilla, after this
reminder, forwarded each man’s request for exemption to acting governor and Mexican
military chief Vicente Filisola, who upheld the first election. Vega assumed his office
i nson 30 January 30 1823, a mere 45 days after his first complaint.
One of the interesting points that becomes clear in considering the makeup of
municipal councils is the unprecedented power that accrued to the city secretary, who
often served in other capacities, such as town notary or scribe. As the drafter and
executor o f official municipal documents, the secretary had an important platform from
which to influence local politics. As seen above, in the towns attached to Tegucigalpa,
elites from the cabecera could be found serving in this post in order to smooth
communications between capital and anexo and influence local decision-making. This
secretarial importance was far from unique. Householder (vecino) of Ahuachapan,
Estevan Duran, denounced the municipal secretary o f his town (pueblo), Jose Norberto
Moran, for propagating ideas “in favor of the republican system” and sharing with town
108 AMS, Caja, Juzgados, 1821-1829, No 2. El Sor. Ynocente Bega, de Yzalco se escusa dl nombramLo de Alcalde, 1822, No. 13. Fernandez Padilla was a lieutenant coronel and the military commander as well as jefe politico o f Sonsonate district {partido), and served in the Sonsonate city council as mayor in 1821 and alderman in 1835-1836. The other officiating members o f the Ysalco town council were Judas Tomas Delgado, Atanacio Monzon, Jose Francisco del Castillo, Cristobal Trejo (?), Casimiro Menendes, and an alderman named Viscarra. Secretary Felipe Zequeyna signed for the missing aldermen.
334
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
i noresidents the writings (escritos) o f (Jose Francisco)Barrundia. Bammdia was a
young liberal of Guatemala City whose prolific and anti-imperialist writings were not
always well-received.
Yet, as was also clear above, city mayors retained traditional influence as well.
The San Salvador mayor, Casimiro Garcia Valdevellano, was one o f the few deposed in
1821. This Spaniard, resented by the liberal and republican elite of the Salvadoran
capital, was deposed in early November to end his use of the municipal platform to
promote union with Mexico.110 The mayor o f the same town, Marcelino Mendoza, was
arrested when forces from Guatemala sent to force San Salvador to accept union with
Guatemala and Mexico laid charges against him o f having corresponded with
“dissidents” of San Salvador. It took two weeks under interrogation, for Mendoza to
name individuals who “inclined” toward the republican system and to explain the means
used by the “Salvadorans” to increase support for their “republican party.”111 When
asked, the council syndic, Miguel Arevalo, said that the actual “addict” o f the
republican system was Norberto Moran, who maintained a correspondence with Juan
Manuel Rodriguez, vecino of San Salvador.112
109 AGCA B 5 .ll Legajo 75, Expedience 2246, 6 March 1822.110 AGCA B5.4 Legajo 59, Expediente 1380, f. 3. Valdevellanos fled for refuge to Guatemala City where he wrote on 13 November that “the general population (la generalidad) favors Iturbide...for there are really few who want a Republic, and these are precipitando, so we will thus be Mexican.”111 AGCA B5.11, Legajo 75, Expediente 2246, f.5, 12. 29 March and 12 April 1822. Manuel Romero and Antonio Prado to Coronel Manuel Arzu, Comandante General de la Columna Exped. de Guate contra San Salvador. On his arrest on 29 March, Mendoza could or would not identify individuals; on 12 April, 2 weeks later, he did.112 AGCA B5.11, Legajo 25, Expediente 2246, f. 25. 24 April 1822. Arevalo also suggested that Moran was interested in ensuring that Salvadoran troops stationed in Santa Ana come to Ahuachapan.
335
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The actual importance o f the city council in this period cannot be better
underlined than by looking at the men who filled its seats. In 1821, the year in which
Central America achieved its bloodless independence from Spain, the seats in important
city councils were filled with men of political acuity, ambition and power. A selection
from three town councils o f 1821—Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa, and Sonsonate—
shows cabildantes holding elective state and federal office as presidents, vice-
presidents, ministers, congressmen and senators well into the 1840s. Additionally, it
demonstrates that this group o f individuals also served as a resource when executives
nominated departmental governors. (See Table 6.3) Nor were these three town
councils the only ones to have distinguished members in this year. Cirilo Flores, an
architect o f Quezaltenango’s independence movement and later president o f Guatemala,
served as mayor in his town in this year.113 The overlap o f municipal, state and national
office holding would continue throughout this period.114 Although municipal office-
holding retained its cachet for men of political interests and ambition well into the
nineteenth century, few years saw as distinguished a selection of cabildantes as 1821,
when voters responsive to ongoing upheavals in Mexico and Peru selected individuals
perceived capable and stable enough to manage whatever crisis or transition arose.
113 Taracena, Invencion Criolla, p. 86. Flores also represented Quezaltenango in the ANC of 1823-1824.114 See Chapter 7.
336
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 6J City Councilors of Guatemala City, Sonsonate, Tegucigalpa, 1821Position Guatemala City Tegucigalpa Sonsonate
Alcalde 1 Lie. Jose Cecilio del Valle Felipe Santos Reyes Jose Fernandez PadillaAlcalde 1(2) Mariano Larrave MD Estevan GuardiolaAlcalde 2 Satumino del Campo Ariza Mariano Urmeneta Mariano RodriguezAlcalde 3 Lie. Antonio RoblesRegidor 1 CpL Miguel Jose Manrrique Francisco Juares Manuel ParedesRegidor 2 Lie. Jose Antonio Larrave Juan Estrada Manuel H. RomeroRegidor 3 J.Antonio Espanol y Lopez Dionisio Gutierrez Mariano MartinezRegidor 4 Lie. Pedro Jose Valenzuela Manuel Ugarte Casimiro GarciaRegidor 5 Jose Maria Cardenas Leon Vasquez Francisco RivasRegidor 6 Romualdo Quifionez Tomas Midense Jose Maria CeaRegidor 7 Manuel Perales Basilio GomezRegidor 8 Jose Petit Juan Alcaya y VigoRegidor 9 Carlos Avila Santiago BuesoRegidor 10 Pedro Sologa(i)stuaRegidor 11 Jeronimo CladeraRegidor 12 Isidoro Valle y CastricionesSindic 1 L. Mariano Aycinena y Pifiol Eusebio Ruiz Joaquin SosaSindic 2 Lie. Pedro Arroyave Rafael RivasSecretary Lie. Jose Fco. Cordova Dionisio de Herrera Eduardo Vega
Future Political Posts President* Dionisio Herrera -Honduras (1824) * Mariano Aycinena-Guatemala (1827)* Jose Cecilio del Valle- Executive, UPCA (1824), Federation (1834, died before taking office) Vice President* Jose Cecilio del Valle-Federation (refused) * Pedro Jose Valenzuela-Guatemala (1835) Minister* Pedro Jose Valenzuela—Federation (1830, Hacienda), Guatemala (1832, Secretary general)* Jose Francisco de Cordova-Guatemala (1827, Secretary general)* Felipe Reyes-Honduras (1825, Consejero de Estado)* Manuel Romero-El Salvador (Consejero de Estado; Chief of Section, General Ministry) Congressm an* Mariano Aycinena—Guatemala (Verapaz, 1839; 1841; 1842-1843)* Jose Antonio Larrave-ANC (Esquipulas, Guat, 1823-5), Guatemala (Sacatepequez, 1829)* Pedro Jose Valenzuela-Guatemala (Chimaltenango, 1824)* Jose Francisco de Cordova—ANC (Santa Ana, El Salvador, 1823-5); Federation
(Congressman, 1825-6; Senator, 1835)* Jose C. del Valle—Fed. (Congressman, 1826) * Francisco Rivas-Fed. (Congress, 1827)* Jose Santiago Bueso Sotomayor—Comayagua (DP, 1821), Honduras (1825, Truxillo; 1839)* Manuel Romero-El Salvador (1824, Congreso Constitucional; later senator); Federation Governor* Francisco Juares-Tegucigalpa, 1830; 1846-1847, 1850 * Esteban Guardiola-Teguc., 1821* Francisco Rivas-Sonsonate, 1827 Judge* Eusebio Ruiz-Tegucigalpa, 1841 M ilitary
337
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
* Jose Fernandez Padilla-Sargento Mayor, 1821-1823 * Capt. Miguel Jose Manrrique, 1821* Capt. Francisco Juares, 1825Sources (Table 6.3): Romero, Guion Historico delpoder legislativei de El Salvador, l aParte: Constituyentes-Legislaturas y sintesis biogrdjicas des sus presidentes. 1822- 70 (San Salvador: Publicaciones de la Asamblea Legislativa, 1966); Marure, Efemeridades; www.hondudata.com/enciclopedia/enciclonew/honduras/goberaantes.html
Conclusion
Between September and November 1821, the principal cities of Central America
declared their independence from Spain. Although a junta provicional consultiva (JPC)
established in Guatemala City in the fall of 1821 claimed to act for all the former
provinces o f the Kingdom of Guatemala, competing jun/a? existed or erected
themselves in each, and for the most part represented the will o f one city and its elites to
control politics within a specific region. Often, they failed to do so. Thus, it cannot be
said that a unified government in fact controlled the region in this period. Furthermore,
while between January 1822 and June 1823, the former colony officially joined the
Mexican Empire, this new affiliation did not lead to coordinated government. From
June 1822, Colonel Vicente Filisola—sent by Mexican emperor Agustin Iturbide at the
head o f a military column to govern and to ensure Central America’s annexation—lived
and worked with the authorities in Guatemala City. Yet Filisola, with Mexican and
Guatemalan troops, spent much o f his time in Central America bringing recalcitrant
provinces El Salvador and Nicaragua into the fold. Mexican laws, including a
redistricting o f the former Kingdom o f Guatemala into three provinces, were
implemented on a piecemeal basis.115 The provincial juntas continued to work through
115 Monterey, Historia de El Salvador, p 97. The 9 November 1822 order o f Iturbide to divide Guatemala into 3 comandartcias generates—Chiapas, Nueva Guatemala, Leon de Nicaragua—under Brigadiers Miguel Gonzalez Saravia, Vicente Filisola, and Manuel Rincon, was never implemented.
338
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
their governors, rather than cooperating with forces in Guatemala City, and except in
the case o f Costa Rica, the divisions within each province seemed to widen rather than
heal during the interregnum o f 1821-1823. In the meantime, old and new city councils
acted on the belief that with the Spanish “compact” broken, they had the right to decide
on their political future, not simply on the responsibility o f local administration and
obedience to a cabecera. The conservative historian Manuel Montufar y Coronado was
not far wrong in blaming the “hotheads (exaltados) [of Guatemala]” for having
“founded the anarchic dogma that the pueblos, on becoming independent from Spain,
recovered their natural liberty, and were free to form new societies according to their
convenience in the new order o f things.” 116 The problem had become much greater
than what to do with a dozen provinces upon independence; by 1823, Central American
leaders had to ponder what to do with 200 towns.
By the beginning o f 1823, then, when the Mexican Empire showed strong signs
o f self-destructing from within, it was clear that the union with Mexico would not work.
First, the tensions within Central America were too great to support any joint or even
individual decision to join the political powerhouse to the north. Second, it became
clear that Mexico itself was not prepared to invest politically or militarily to back up its
supporters, except in Chiapas, where trading interest was strong. If previous elites had
complained at the distances between Guatemala City and their provincial capitals, a
year o f slow and laborious correspondence with Mexico City simply confirmed that
distant capitals provided more drawbacks than advantages. Third, and perhaps most
116 Manuel Montufar y Coronado, Memorias para la historia de la Revolucion de Centro-america (1832).
339
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
important, the Mexican Empire that Central Americans had supported (however
reluctantly and intermittently) had disintegrated, and the power vacuum in Mexico City
made home rule seem more sensible.
Thus, in March 1823, when Vicente Filisola moved to revive the abrogated 1821
convocation o f a Central American constituent assembly to reconsider the question o f
the isthmus’ political future—absolute independence or continued union with the
beleaguered Mexican empire—the call met with support as towns and provinces moved
to elect deputies to attend the Congress. The Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (ANC),
which opened its doors in June 1823 and eventually included representatives from
Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, formally declared
absolute independence in October of the same year. After two years o f paying the
economic and political price o f promoting local over regional politics, the elites of
provincial towns and cities determined to participate in a true national project. While
the differences and divisions that surfaced so disruptively in 1821 had not been
resolved, for the moment, at least, elites o f the former Kingdom o f Guatemala had
decided to attempt a joint solution.
340
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 7:
City, State and Nation in Central America, 1825-1839:
From Pueblos to Pueblo, Creating the National State
“The pueblo of the Federal Republic of Central America is sovereign and independent.” “The pueblo of the Republic is formed by all o f its inhabitants.”
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Central America, 1824 Title 1, Articles 1 and 3.
“We, the representatives of the pueblos included in the Intendancy of S. Salvador and Alcaldfa Mayor o f Sonsonate, met in a Constituent Congress...”
Preamble, Constitution o f El Salvador, 1824 “We, the representatives of the Salvadoran pueblo, met in a Constituent Assembly...”
Preamble, Constitution o f El Salvador, 1841
On June 24, 1823, the General Congress of the former Kingdom o f Guatemala
began its sessions. A week later, having taken the name Asamblea Nacional
Constituyente (ANC), the congress began the work of healing the wounds of the
interregnum and establishing the legal bases for a federation. After declaring
independence from Spain and Mexico for the Provincias Unidas del Centro de America
(UPC A) on July 1, the ANC set to work to establish a republican system with separation
of executive, judicial and legislative functions. For the first time, the territory
separating Mexico from South America assumed a common name—Central America—
that did not reflect one of its parts—Guatemala—but instead the assembled whole. This
linguistic shift represented a concession to the many regions that opted to participate in
the federation but wished to assure that Guatemala City and its elites would not
dominate the new government.
341
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Not content with renaming the land it would govern, the ANC set out an entire
program o f linguistic changes that reflected new ways o f thinking about government
and society. Some extended principles first adopted under the Spanish constitution.
Former Spaniards, Creoles, Indians, ladinos and mulatos became citizens. Some were
new, and derived from other influences. As had happened in France and the United
States following their revolutions, titles of nobility, including the honorific “Don”
applied to all pure-blooded Spaniards, were abolished; diocesan titles were limited to
the inoffensive “padre” (Father) rather than excellency and other titles previously
enjoyed by bishops and archbishops. Equally fundamentally, a rebaptism of the
institutions o f political authority hinted at a break with the past. Drawing from the
language o f the French revolution, the ANC renamed the audiencias o f the past cortes
territoriales (territorial courts); the plethora o f provinces became departamentos and
distritos/partidos (departments and districts) and the ayuntamientos became
municipalidades (municipalities) which provided the base unit for the larger districts.1
Provinces, of course, were to become states. The Central American motto, Dios, Union,
Libertad (God, Union, Liberty) adopted by the ANC became the close on official
correspondence, replacing the traditional Dios guarde a Ud. Muchos anos (God keep
1 For a complete discussion o f the debates in the French congress to turn a plethora of pre-revolutionary royal, noble, religious and municipal districts into a standardized and codifled whole, see Ted W. Margadant, Urban Rivalries in the French Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), Chapter 2 and Chapter 6. Proposals for the division of former districts into departements differed over whether the new territories should be equal in criteria such as physical territory, number of inhabitants, or wealth o f inhabitants. Concern was also shown on maintaining the independence o f extant municipalities. The 23 July 1823 decree which renamed territory and inhabitants is mentioned in Alejandro Marure, Efemerides de los hechos acaecidos en la republica de Centro-America desde el aho de 1821 hasta el de 1842, Vol. 9, Biblioteca Guatemalteca de Cultura Popular (Guatemala: Editorial del Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 1956 (1844)), p. 18.
342
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
you many years). Easily and permanently adopted, these linguistic shifts were
nonetheless felt to be extremely important Alejandro Marure, one o f Central
America’s politicians and its first post-independence historian, highlighted the new
terms in a special entry in his timeline o f important events o f the period.2
If renaming the institutions o f government and territorial demarcations was
quickly achieved and equally quickly applied, a more fundamental shift in the nature of
political thinking was much harder to accomplish and even harder to name. Central
Americans reached independence as part of municipal communities. It was the pueblos
o f the isthmus that had proclaimed independence and opted to join a federation. How
were the new leaders going to take the pueblos, the sovereign towns, and make one
pueblo, or one people? How would the federal pueblo relate to the pueblos o f the
states?
Before examining the language adopted by the ANC to address the problem of
determining in which community, or set of communities, sovereignty would lie, it
behooves us to define our terms. As Jose Carlos Chiaramonte noted for Argentina in
the early nineteenth century, the word pueblo “is one o f the terms that brings most
confusion resulting... from the coexistence in the era of Independence o f both old and
new meanings.”3 The same multiplicity of meanings existed also in Central America.
Yet, for all the possible meanings o f the term pueblo, Central American usage was
consistent in the 1820s. According to political usage, a pueblo was the free association
2 Marure, Efemerides, page 18.3 Jose Carlos Chiaramonte, Ciudades. Provincias, Estados: Origenes de la Nacion Argentina, 1800-1846 ([Buenos Aires]: Editora Espasa Calpe, 1997), p. 114.
343
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of individuals who chose to live under one set of laws, and could refer to either the
collective inhabitants o f the federation, any one of the states, or an individual town.
The plural, pueblos, referred to the collection of city-states, the republicas, whose
sovereignty had allowed them to choose their form o f government, or to the collection
of states that made up the federation.
Although pueblo was often the preferred term to refer to political communities,
it was not the only one in use. Central American politicians used the word nacion, or
nation, in the 1820s and 1830s, as a synonym for the pueblo that made up the
federation. At this time, nacion did not have the connotation o f a homogeneous people
but of a “reunion of many Pueblos and Provinces subject to the same central
government and the same laws.”4 As the ANC declared in its bases for the 1824
constitution, States (Estados) were “the great moral bodies that compose the nacion, the
legislative centers that reproduce in different points the constitutive principles o f the
republic and generate and direct the internal life of society...” The “nation” was simply
a confederation of states whose inhabitants agreed to be bound by a common set of
laws.5 Given the municipal independence of Central America, this definition is the only
way to understand the appellation o f a “national” congress o f 1823. The different
pueblos of Central America had, by electing deputies to the congress, agreed to work
jointly to establish a mutually acceptable political system, or nation.
4 The quote is from an 1815 article in the Gazeta de Buenos-Ayres cited in Chiaramonte, Ciudades, Provincias, Estados, p. 116.5 “Informe Sobre la Constitucion leido en la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente el 23 de mayo de 1824,” reprinted in Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, “El proceso ideologico-institucional desde la Capitania
344
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The linguistic answer of the ANC to the question o f how to turn dozens o f
pueblos into one pueblo was a precipitous decision to bond the pueblos, or towns, of
Central America into pueblos, or states o f a federation, making them a pueblo, or
people. Article 1 o f the 1824 Constitution reads, ‘T he pueblo of the Federal Republic
of Central America is sovereign and independent.” Article 3 continues, “The pueblo o f
the Republic is formed by all o f its inhabitants.”6 In both cases, the pueblo meant the
political entity created. The people o f the federation became one pueblo only in the
sense of being part o f a voluntary political association, not in the sense of forming a
new homogeneous society. The states o f the new federation were supposed to form
such an association.
As Mariano Aycinena pointed out a decade later from exile in the United States,
the ANC deputies took it upon themselves to establish a federation before there were, in
fact, states to make it up.7 The delineation o f the territories—or selection o f the
pueblos—that would make up each state o f the new Central American republic was
among the most challenging tasks of the ANC. Under the Spanish Constitution and
Gainza’s electoral divisions, the four intendancies o f San Salvador, Chiapas, Nicaragua
and Comayagua provided an important basis for political division, and most historians
General de Guatemala hasta las provincias unidas del Centro de America: de provincias a estados”Revista de lndias 38:151/152 (1978), pp. 260, 279.6 Constitution of the Federal Republic o f Central America, 1824, Title 1, Articles 1 and 3. The word nation appeared only once in the 1824 constitution , as the subject o f Title 1, “Of the Nation and itsTerritory.”7 Un Centroamericano [Mariano Aycinena], Otras Rejlexiones sobre reforma politico en Centro-America (New York: Imprenta de Don Juan de la Granja, 1834), p. 6. Arguing that North American deputies in the same situation had agreed to an alliance before they created a federation, Aycinena castigated the deputies for having “more presumption than knowledge.” “Why,” he asked, “did they not limit themselves like the others to proclaim the sovereignty, liberty and independence of our provinces?”
345
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
claim that the intendancies were an uncontested blueprint on which the ANC modeled
the new federation’s states.8 Still, the task of the ANC was not so simple. Still-extant
corregimientos in the area around Guatemala City remained independent districts, as
did the alcaldias mayores o f Tegucigalpa and Sonsonate.9 The governorship o f Costa
Rica retained a separate political identity despite its attachment to Nicaragua. Chiapas
had apparently elected to remain part o f Mexico when the other areas o f the Kingdom
of Guatemala had proclaimed their independence. Furthermore, as we saw in the
previous chapter, between 1821-1823 even small political districts (partidos) and
municipal regions within these larger units expressed ambition to reorganize and
expand their political reach and complicated the work o f the ANC deputies. These, and
not the intendancies, were the politically sovereign pueblos that had participated in
independence, and were the direct electors of the congress’ deputies and were the units
the ANC had to consider when attempting to compose the new states.
The ANC certainly recognized the importance o f acting in a way that
acknowledged the political status o f the municipal-sized pueblos. Its early decisions
show its preparedness to consider forming polities distinct from the model that holds
that intendancies would become states. Among the earliest acts, on July 17, 1823, the
congress called for new municipal elections and allowed establishment of diputaciones
provinciates in Quezaltenango, Tegucigalpa, Chiquimula, and anywhere else considered
8 See for example Thomas L. Karnes, The Failure o f Union: Central America. 1824-1960 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), Miles Wortman, Government and Society in Central America. 1680-1840 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) and Carlos Melendez, La Independencia de Centro America (Madrid: MAPFRE, 1993).9 For more details, see Chapter 4.
346
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
necessary, with the requisite determination of territory before such bodies were to
open.10 Districts with pretensions to self-government and separation from a resented
colonial capital could thus be assured that while discussion on state-formation ensued,
their aspirations would be considered.
The open attitude of the ANC was entirely consonant with the petitions it
received from deputies elected by the districts within each larger province or
intendancy. If the many districts of the Kingdom of Guatemala had put aside their
animosity to join in a congress, they had not forgotten their grievances or ambitions.
The town and pueblos o f Santa Ana instructed their deputy to the ANC, Jose Francisco
de Cordova, to engineer their participation in the new Central American polity separate
from their colonial capital (San Salvador), with which they claimed to have “inimical
relations” due to recent events. Pending official creation o f a federation, Cordova asked
that Santa Ana depend directly on Guatemala.11 Sonsonate’s deputies at one point
petitioned to become a separate state in the federation, although it eventually settled for
joining El Salvador rather than Guatemala, the affiliation the rest o f the independent
districts of the capital area chose. The city of Granada asked not to form part of a
Nicaraguan state with Leon, while the district o f Matagalpa decided to separate from
district capital Granada and to unify with Leon. Matagalpa, Sebaco and Jinotega’s
10 AGCA B Leg. 91, Exp. 2453, f. 1. The 17 July decree was read on 1 August and approved on 4 August1823.11 AGCA B Leg. 84, Exp. 2386, Instruccion que comunica el Ayuntamiento de la Villa de Santa Ana a sus diputados respectivos en el congreso nacional constituyente de estas provincias del Centro de America, Sres. Ldos. D. Marcelino Menendez y D. Jose Francisco Cordova. Santa Ana’s eighth point in the instructions was that “an essential condition for the pact of union” was its “exclusion from the political and military government of San Salvador.” The ANC considered Cordova’s representation on 30 August 1823.
347
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
electors voted to accept Leon as capital because it “suited national prosperity to
conserve the unity and integrity o f the province of Nicaragua.”12 One deputy
introduced a motion to discuss whether to create a state called “Los Altos”—essentially,
Guatemala’s highland territory made up of the regions that had separated in 1821-1823:
Quezaltenango, Suchitepequez, Solola and Totonicapan.13
In the early days, then, it was not clear what the makeup o f the Salvadoran,
Guatemalan, and Nicaraguan states would be. What was clear was that the
acquiescence, or even the positive participation, of the new federation’s principal cities
and even the smaller towns encouraged to express their opinions by the model of
politics worked out after independence—Central America’s pueblos—would be
required for the new compact of states to come into being.
We will never know what the deputies would have decided had they been given
sufficient time to evaluate each request and respond to it. When it became clear by
December 1823 that the capitals of the former intendancies o f San Salvador, Nicaragua
and Honduras had convened state legislatures and would form state governments before
the ANC could make an official determination on the composition of the republic, the
congress quickly moved to provide general outlines for the nascent states to follow.
12 AGCA B Leg. 91, Exp. 2455, f. 16 and Leg. 84, Exp. 2385, No. 2, Matagalpa, 4 Sept. 1823. Granada's representatives Benito Rosales and Manuel Mendoza wrote, “Pedimos que en la distribucion en Ios estados federados que se ha de hacer en la constitucion que se esta formando, se cuente a Granada con los partidos que se tenga por conveniente unirle, por un Estado separado del de Leon, “ Guatemala 21 September 1823. The ANC sent the request to the Constitution Commission the next day. The district's decision was not absolute. Conditions placed on the change o f allegiance included: forgetting past affiliation with Granada; freedom to sell liquor (aguardiente); Leon’s participation in the ANC and a Central American federation; and that the mayor of Matagalpa (cabeza de partido) excercise as governor(jefe politico subaltemo) since creation o f a new post might serve as the “origin o f dissension.”13 AGCA B1 Legajo 91, Expediente 2472, f 8. No date or signature.
348
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Only after it had no choice did the ANC decree that each province should respect its
“former limits.” Yet, even with this constraint, the ANC stated explicitly that the
appropriate districts (partidos) participate in a governing council (junta gubemativa) in
preparation for each provincial congress. In other words, the pueblos should have their
wishes addressed in the formation of any state in order for that new state to be
legitimate. Provincial capitals should not lay claim to intendancies or larger territories
by fiat. Further, to defuse any tension that might result from accepting the intendancies
or bishoprics as bases for states, the congress allowed for individual districts to respond
to “local circumstances and general utility,” without doing violence to another partido
or directly harming the “state.” This response extended the possibility that a partido
could join a different state “on its border (que sea limitrofe).”14 In other words, the
ANC underlined its willingness to permit changes to colonial borders and territorial
organization in the process of creating states and allowing the smallest political units,
partidos, which were essentially regional towns and their satellites, to choose the state
of their allegiance. Once again, the ANC recognized the political sovereignty of the
pueblos and their right to voluntary association.
The composition o f the individual states of the federation, then, was an
important question whose resolution required both federal and state intervention. As
the provincial congresses met in 1824, the ANC was tom between a desire to satisfy
local needs and the practical requirements o f building a viable federation. In late May
14 AGCA B Leg. 91, Exp. 2458, ff. 14, 31 December 1823. Sent to Constitution Commission, 1 January1824.
349
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1824, the congress published a report on the bases for the constitution that explained
that since States were
the great moral bodies that compose the nation, the legislative centers that reproduce in different points the constitutive principles of the republic and generate and direct the internal life o f society.. .it matters for order and interior tranquility, not to open an ample road to premature requests, and not to permit the dismemberment or inopportune division into small and weak portions, nor union among incoherent pueblos and territories.
However, the same document also defended the advantages o f small states.
Such benefits included the ability of each state to legislate good and practical laws for
its specific inhabitants, an important element given Central America’s heterogeneity of
population in terms o f ethnicity, culture, wealth, morality and education (ilustracion).
“Small,” however, was a relative term, as the congress determined that the basis for a
state would be a minimum o f 100,000 inhabitants and an area with contiguous terrain.
Furthermore, the ANC held that any territory that sought to divide into more than one
state was supposed to leave an equal capacity in both parts to sustain one.15 It is thus
likely that the sizes o f the states that the ANC might have put together would not have
differed significantly from those formed from the colonial jurisdictions. What might
well have differed was the territories included in each polity and the internal divisions
of districts, and, hence, power.
Although circumstances forced the ANC to operate on the principle that
preferred acceptable colonial divisions but to permit adjustments that could defuse
tension or be otherwise justified, it nonetheless managed to take steps to provide for
350
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
change, at least in the future. Chiapas was invited to form a sixth state o f the Federation
whenever it was prepared to do so.16 Similarly, although the ANC determined to keep
the highland territories within the state of Guatemala, it allowed for a study to
determine if the territory met population, wealth and education (ilustracion) criteria to
form a separate state. A decade later, the state o f Los Altos briefly existed, before being
taken forcibly back into Guatemala (1838-1839).17 Other changes were immediate.
Due to the Nicaraguan civil war, the ANC authorized the state of Honduras to
temporarily incorporate the Nicaraguan district o f Segovia (1824-1826).18 Since
Mexico disputed the Soconusco region, both countries agreed that the district would
remain under the government o f its three city councils until a final solution was
reached.19 Mexico annexed the territory in 1842 on the grounds that the independent
city governments gave safe-haven to plotting political exiles and bandits.20
15 “Informe Sobre la Constitucion leido en la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente el 23 de mayo de 1824,” reprinted in Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, “El proceso ideologico-institucional.” Revista de Indias (1978): 260, 279.16 AGCA B7.25, Legajo 113, Expediente 2952, ANC, Sesiones Secretas, 18 September 1824. Having read communications from Ciudad Real de Chiapas of 24 and 14 September, informing that the district had voted to join Mexico over joining the Central American Federation, the ANC determined not to act but to seek input from the executive branch. Articles 5-6 o f the Federal Constitution o f 1824 stated that the Republic would comprise the former Kingdom of Guatemala, with the exception o f Chiapas which would become a state o f the federation when it freely joined.' ' AGCA B1 Legajo 4125, Expediente 92804, ff. 7-8v. Decree, 11 May 1824, Article 16. See Arturo Taracena Tarriola, Invencidn Criolla. Sueno Ladino, Pesadilla Indigena: Los Altos de Guatemala, de Region a Estado. 1740-1850 (Antigua, Guatemala: CIRMA, 1997).18 See Appendix R8.19 The fascinating story of this district’s final annexation by Mexico in 1842, over Guatemalan protests, can be read in an anonymous pamphlet, Soconusco, territorio de Centro-America ocupado militarmente de orden delgobinero mexicano (Guatemala, Imprenta de la Paz, 1842). Until Mexico’s takeover, the territory functioned as a staging ground for banditry and political plotting, for exiles from both countries found that none o f the city governments would cooperate to bring them to justice in either country. In 1832, Pedro Jose Valenzuela, Guatemalan Secretary o f State reported on how Manuel jose Arce, exiled in 1829, tried to use Soconusco as a staging ground for his return. P. J. Valenzuela, Memoria presentada al Congreso Federal de Centro America, al comenzar sus sesiones ordinarias del ano de 1832. Por Pedro
351
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Despite these good intentions, by 11 May 1824 the ANC decreed that
congresses would be allowed in Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and
Costa Rica, paving the way for the establishment o f a federation composed o f these, and
only these, states.21 A few changes were achieved, however. In 1825, Honduras
wrested control of the port of Trujillo and fortress of Omoa, both o f which had been
considered part of Honduran territory for most o f the colonial period, from the
government of Guatemala.22 The only region within the Federation to withdraw
permanently from one state to annex to another was Sonsonate. This former alcaldia
mayor opted in 1823-1824 to join the state o f El Salvador rather than that o f Guatemala,
despite (or perhaps because of) a 300-year history as an indirect satellite o f Guatemala
City. The manner of the switch is worth examining, for it shows the mix o f democratic
and undemocratic procedures that influenced politics in the period, and, in this case,
sealed the union of Sonsonate with El Salvador.
On 23 November 1823, the town of Sonsonate pronounced for annexation to El
Salvador, and invited the pueblos that formed the previous alcaldia mayor to do so as
well. A majority of the towns, including Ahuachapan, ratified the vote on 22
December. On the same date the El Salvador congress also ratified the aggregation.
This vote was not the end of the matter, however. Ahuachapan determined to use the
Jose Valenzuela, secretario provisional del Estado y del despacho de guerra y marina (Guatemala: Imprenta Nueva, 1832).20 Anonymous, Soconusco, territorio de Centro-America ocupado militarmente de orden del gobiemo mexicano (Guatemala: Imprenta de la Paz, 1842). The pamphlet contains interesting primary sources.21 AGCA B1 Legajo 4125, Expediente 92804, ff. 7-8v. ANC, Decree, 11 May 1824, Article 1. The congress did not even have maps of the Kingdom of Guatemala in its possession until June o f that same year. AGCA B1 Legajo 84, Expediente 2388, f. 4v. Session of 17 June 1824.
352
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
occasion to seek to reinvigorate a 1795 instruction to make it the cabecera o f a small
district, rather than to enter into a compact with El Salvador as a part o f the district o f
Sonsonate. By early 1824, with Guatemala objecting to the shift in Sonsonate’s
alliance, the question had reached the ANC, which instructed the parishes to elect
representatives to vote on whether to join Guatemala or El Salvador. After the local
referendum favored El Salvador, on 5 March 1824, the ANC formally ratified
Sonsonate’s aggregation to that state, an event recognized in the Salvadoran constitution
of 1824, which created o f the department of Sonsonate. Guatemala accepted the loss o f
Sonsonate philosophically, and had included in its 1825 constitution the possibility that
the district would join another state, although the constitution listed the district as part
o f Guatemalan territory.23 Ahuachapan’s bid for county status was denied. It remained
a district in the department of Sonsonate until 1869, when the Salvadoran legislature
created the Department o f Ahuachapan.24
It bears mention here that the rule o f law was not the only glue that bonded
Sonsonate to El Salvador. While legislation formalized the decision, this voluntary
annexation began with and was cemented by the marriage o f Pedro Jose de Arce—a
22 AGCA B 91-2473, ff. 10-12 (Guatemala), 3 and 5 January 1824. Both were included as territories in the 1825 Honduran Constitution.23 Constitution o f Guatemala, 1825, Title 1, Section 3, Articles 35 and 36.*4 Ricardo Gallardo, Las Constituciones de El Salvador Vol. 14, Las Constituciones Hispanoamericanas, ed. Manuel Fraga Iribame (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1961) pp. 494-505. Ahuachapan became capital o f a distrito in Sonsonate in 1869, with the disputed 4 villages once again under its direct authority (Atiquizaya, Ataco, Tacuba, Apaneca). Once part o f the state o f El Salvador, the Sonsonate department cabecera changed with political circumstances, moving from Sonsonate briefly in 1835 to Ahuachapan and then spending twenty years in Santa Ana. In 1855, the Salvador legislature decreed the division o f the department into two, Santa Ana and Sonsonate, with the cabecera o f each to be in the town after which the department was named. The law of 22 May 1835 establishing Santa Ana as capital o f the Sonsonate district can be found in Isidoro Meneudez, Recopilacion de las Leyes del Salvador en
353
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
member o f one of San Salvador’s leading families and brother to a Federation
president—to the daughter of one o f Sonsonate’s principal families, the Rascons, in
1821,25 A decade after moving to Sonsonate, Arce was elected to the city council, a
signal o f full integration into local political life.26 A second wedding, between Eugenio
Rascon and Maria Ana Escolan y Delgado, niece o f the bishop of San Salvador, Jose
Matias Delgado, sealed the political and social union of the two cities.27 The Rascon
and Arce families had exercised political influence through their respective city
councils and continued to do so while lending their sons to state and national
legislatures and executive offices. The political choice made by Sonsonate’s leading
family pre-dated the legal confirmation o f the move, and underlines that the legal
system worked best when it echoed the actual goals of those with power. Although
there were conflicts between San Salvador and Sonsonate over the first few decades, the
elite union that accompanied the democratic annexation helped smooth them over. If
Sonsonate’s allegiance was tom when invaded by Guatemalan or Salvadoran troops
who pursued each other across its border territory, no permanent rupture followed. In
other cases in which political votes did not produce the same permanent cohesion, we
Centro-America, 1821-1855 (Guatemala: Imprenta de L. Luna, 1855), Book 4, Title 1, Law 3, p. 180. The 1855 division of 14 February is in Book 4, Title 1, Law 8, p. 181.25 Vicente Filisola, La Cooperation de Mexico en la Independencia de Centro America, Vol. XXXV, in the series Documentos Ineditos o muy Raros Para la Historia de Mexico, (Mexico, 1911), p. 50. Filisola does not record the name of the bride.26 Pedro Jose de Arce was brother to Manuel Jose de Arce, president o f the Central American Federation (1826-1829). Pedro served on the Sonsonate town council from 1834-1835, and had been their depositary o f funds in 1832. He was also governor o f Sonsonate province in 1824, 1833, 1840, 1842, and 1848. Finally, he served as interim chief o f state (Jefe Provisional) in El Salvador in 1841 (See Appendix M and Marure, Efemerides, p. 137)2' Filisola, La Cooperation de Mexico en la Independencia de Centro America, pp. 50-100.
354
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
can only wonder if hostile behind-the-scenes relations between elites prevented political
union.
Sonsonate’s successful and legal switch o f states was, as noted, unique within
the Central American experience. Yet it demonstrates the important principle that local
leaders, as well as the deputies that had taken on the mantle of deciding the political
shape of independent Central America both believed in the sovereignty of the city. That
is, there was widespread support for the self-definition o f a pueblo, or community, with
political rights at the level of the colonial city district. The spirit that had conceived of
and implemented an isthmus-wide referendum of 1821-1822 was still active, and the
new states were conceived o f as a composite o f sovereign pueblos united under one law.
What was the upshot of the forced conclusion of the ANC’s consideration of
local and regional petitions during the formation of states within the Federation? One
can argue that it was a success, since the external borders agreed upon in 1825
endured.28 Reasons for this success was achieved through participation o f the gamut of
small and large pueblos in the recognition of state authority is explored below. Yet the
cost of this consolidation was extremely high. By failing to heed demands of towns as
important as Quezaltenango (Guatemala) Granada (Nicaragua) and Santa Ana (El
Salvador) in the organization o f states, the ANC simply passed on the problem of
internal tension and conflict to them. Such tensions contributed to two decades of
highly disruptive and violent politics and military engagements that resulted in the
dissolution of the federation.
355
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
One highly visible aspect o f the instability fostered by the accelerated
acceptance o f provinces as states was a lack o f agreed-upon state capitals and failure to
negotiate the federal seat.
Table 7.1: Capitals, Central America, 1825-1842
City State YearsGuatemala City Federation 1825-February 1834Sonsonate Federation February-June 1834San Salvador Federation June 1834-1839(1836-1839, DF)Antigua Guatemala Guatemala 1825-1826; April 1838-July 1838S. Martin Jilotepeque Guatemala September 1826Quezaltenango Guatemala September-October 1826Guatemala Guatemala 1827-Jocotenango Guatemala April 1830 (earthquake)San Salvador El Salvador 1825-1832San Vicente El Salvador October 1832San Salvador El Salvador 1839?Tegucigalpa & Comayagua
Honduras 1824-1831
Comayaguga Honduras 1831-1849Tegucigalpa Honduras 1849-18??; 1880-Leon Nicaragua 1825?-1845Masaya Nicaragua 1845Managua Nicaragua 1845-San Jose Costa Rica 1826-Quezaltenango Los Altos 1838-1839
Source: Marure, Efemerides, passim; Munro, The Five Republics o f Central America, p. 81.
The disruption experienced in hosting the federal capital led to the fall o f two
state governments (Guatemala, 1826; El Salvador, 1832), the murder o f one vice-
president (Cirilo Flores of Guatemala), and the beginnings of a tradition o f the federal
government using its host country as a seat to attack hostile or separatist governments
with in the federation. In part due to the presence o f the federal capital, neither
:s After Segovia was reabsorbed into Nicaragua in 1826, the only major alteration o f state territory was
356
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Guatemala nor El Salvador had a stable seat for its state authorities until the late 1830s.
In the other three states, competition between principal city pairs— Comayagua and
Tegucigalpa (Honduras); Granada and Leon (Nicaragua); and San Jose and Cartago
(Costa Rica)—over issues relating to government location led to internal strife, and at
times, military engagement. Tegucigalpa and Comayagua, for example, experimented
with dividing state authorities between the two cities, an experiment that ended in 1831
with Comayagua’s assumption o f the role o f capital until 1849, when Tegucigalpa’s
elites wrested the government back to their city.29 Until elites agreed to work together
in the aftermath o f indigenous and mulatto revolts in the 1830s, or to counter foreign
influence or invasion, it was extremely hard for governments to consolidate their hold
on power and extend their authority. The problem o f maintaining a republic made up of
states, whose politics were decided by republics of cities, was made manifest.
The period o f “capitals on horseback” was marked by internal violence within
states and the beginning o f alliances between compatible elite groups across state lines
to oppose common foes—including the federal government. A sketch of the principal
the 1838-1839 independence o f Los Altos from the state of Guatemala.29 See Appendix R for examples o f changes in political divisions in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and the Federation between 1825 and 1850. In Febuary 1835, San Salvador and some of its pueblos were constituted into an official federal district, enlarged in 1836 to include the distrilo o f Zacatecoluca, and ended in 1839 when the Salvadoran legislature reincorporated the territory back into their state. El Salvador moved its capital from San Salvador to San Vicente (1832) Marure, Efemerides, pp. 79, 86. Regarding the situation o f Comayagua and Tegucigalpa, Jefe de Estado Jose Santos del Valle in 1831 ended the alternation agreed upon on 29 August 1824 in the constituent assembly held in Cedros, and President Juan Lindo decreed Tegucigalpa capital on 22 June 1849, but it was not until 1880 that this city remained the permanent home o f the Honduran Government. See:http://www.hondudata.com/enciclopedia/enciclonew/honduras/presidentes/-juanlindo.htmand - Josesantosdelvalle.htm, http://www.hondudata.com/enciclopedia/enciclonew/honduras/- mapas/municipios/Franciscomorazan/tegus/decreto 11 ,htm
357
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
conflicts provides a sense of the general dynamic o f resolving disputes through military
invasion (Table 7.2).
Table 7.2: Principal Civil Wars, 1825-1842
Yrs Authorities Involved Ostensible Cause Results1826 Federadon-Guatemala
(Fed uses Salvadoran troops)
Guatemala government disagrees with federal authorities (Arce)
Fight or arrest o f Guatemalan government dissolution o f congress; Fed. convocation o f new congress
1827-1829
Guatemala-EI Salvador Salvadoran erection o f a separate bishopric
Salvador refusal to recognize federation; various military battles in Salvadoran territory
1827-1830
Nicaragua Seditious movement led by Juan Arguello
3 years o f civil war
1827 El Salvador-Federation (Fed uses Guate. troops)
Retaliation for 1826 ouster of Salvadoran gvt. by fed.
Various battles in which El Salvador wins
1827 Federation-Honduras Arce/Federation oust liberal government in Honduras
Joined with El Salvador and Nicaragua to defeat Fed. (Arce); rize o f Fco. Morazan; change of federal government
1832 Omoa-Federation (Fed. uses Guate. troops)
Ramon Guzman and morenos oppose fed.
Defeat o f Guzman et al.
1832 Federation-El Salvador Refusal to host fed. Capital leads to Morazan attack.
Honduras & Nic. support fed.; Fed changes Sal. Gvt.
1832 Honduras V. Dominguez vs. State Victory o f state1833 Nicaragua 3 towns denounce chief o f
state D. HerreraGranada & Leon unite to beat dissident Masaya, Managua, Matagalpa
1833 El Salvador Indian revolt (Aquino) vs. state
Defeated
1834 Nicaragua Granada & Metapan vs. Gvt Defeated1834 Federation-Salvador
(Fed=Guate, Ho, Nic)Morazan’s decision to sack the Salvador government
Federation wins
1835 Costa Rica Cartago, Alajuela, Heredia vs State/San Jose (Capital)
1836-1838
Guatemala Popular classes resist liberal reforms, esp. judicial;
Ouster o f liberal gvt .(Galvez); first caudillo (Carrera), non-elite origin
1838 Costa Rica Elected president ousted Usurper controls until 18421839-1840
Nicaragua & Honduras- Salvador
Oppose federation (capital is S. Salavdor)
Many battles; El Sal joins vs. fed; Morazan ousted; practical end of federal government.
1838-1839
Guatemala-Los Altos Highland districts separate from Guatemala’s government
Indians rebel vs. new gvt; Conservative Guatemala (Carrera) brings back to state
1842 Costa Rica-Federation S. Jose, Alajuela & Heredia oppose attempt by returned Morazan to reestablish fed.
Morazan eventually ousted, followed and killed when found.
Source: Marure, Efemerides, passim.
358
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
This conflictive dynamic indirectly explains some o f the consolidation o f some
form of state authority. By its interventionist methods, the federal government pushed
elites within states to unite to oppose federal invasion. The federal authorities under the
presidencies o f Manuel Jose Arce (1825-1829) and Francisco Morazan (1829-1838)
proved too quick to intervene in state politics, challenging and replacing state
governments in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala when it seemed as if
state executive or legislative branches diverged from federal policy. Since a federal
army made up of soldiers from all parts of the territory was never assembled, invasions
by the federation often resembled invasions the federation’s state o f residence
(Guatemala or El Salvador), exacerbating tensions between states. In response to
federal bullying, state authorities looked to their neighbors to ally to take on the
juggernaut, attempt an alternate form o f federation, or resist separatist movements by
principal cities with improper political alliance. Thus when the federation waged
separate campaigns against the Salvadoran and Honduran governments in 1827, these
two states joined with Nicaragua to defeat the troops o f Manuel Jose Arce.30 Elites in
each of these states had to put aside local quarrels if they were to succeed in ousting
external intervention.
Yet, despite the alliances forged between state legislatures and executives, the
dynamic of the independence period remained very much alive, with the principal cities
30 See Woodward, Rafael Carrera and the Emergence o f the Republic o f Guatemala, Chapter 2, “Conservatives and Liberals, 1821-1837” for a thorough, clear narrative o f the early years o f federal rule. Although Woodward perhaps relies too strongly on the idea of two opposing political parties, he nonetheless presents a remarkably readable dissection of the series o f wars and battles that divided leaders and scarred the Central American countryside in this period.
359
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
continuing to act as if they had the sovereign right to withdraw from their states if they
strongly disagreed with government policy. Municipal districts, in fact, remained at the
heart of the political ideology of the state-formation process as well. The state
legislatures meeting for the first time in 1824-1826 faced the same linguistic and
philosophical conundrum as the ANC: how to represent and define the source of their
sovereignty. The language most chose indicates that, in the aftermath o f the municipal
independence, they still considered sovereignty to reside in the pueblos, or towns, of
their districts. El Salvador’s congress in 1824 still claimed to be “the representatives of
the pueblos included in the Intendancy o f San Salvador and Alcaldia Mayor of
Sonsonate, met in a Constituent Congress....” That is, the state congressmen
represented a myriad of small, sovereign cities or districts that voluntarily joined the
state.
The cities themselves continued to behave as if they retained sovereignty. As
part o f their political tasks, the municipalidades o f the Central American federation
promulgated laws and announced constitutions, but also met in the often-tricky role of
determining a region’s allegiance in the many civil wars that broke out in post
independence Central America. The years of 1826-1827 were not typical, in that they
reflected numerous political changes that led to a civil war that divided, and effectively
ended republican federal rule for three years. However, a look at discussions in
regional city councils for this year shows the breadth o f the political decision-making
each city council retained and the challenges central governments faced in reducing
municipal autonomy.
360
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In Tegucigalpa, in January 1826, the city council received the new state
constitution o f Honduras and ordered its publication. By April o f the same year, the
council deliberated whether to arrest known “disturbers o f order” who were said to be
holding meetings. In August, the city council wrote its state capital to protest the
circulation o f debased currency, a problem rendered more acute because Tegucigalpa
was a mining center, and to urge the establishment o f an official mint there. On 4
November, when news o f the assassination of the vice president o f Guatemala reached
the town, aldermen expressed concern that the fragile federation was likely to topple
and urged the governor to expedite travel o f their delegates to the Honduran election of
president of the republic, in order to prevent the type o f bloodbath that had divided
Nicaragua. The following days, these fears seemed well grounded as a messenger
brought news of an attempted assassination of the president of Honduras. The city
responded with a letter to the president that said Tegucigalpa and its residents were at
his command and would support his orders and authority within the actual system. By
November 7, the city agreed to the president's request to send 50 unarmed men to him
in Comayagua from their militia (cuerpos civicos). On 27 November, the city and
governor resolved to ask the local priests to exhort the populace (el pueblo) to respect
the government and its authorities.31 In this instance, Tegucigalpa cooperated with
Honduran state authorities, but note that the city fathers presumed that they had the
right to decide where to place their allegiance and how much aid they would proffer to
31 AMT (Tegucigalpa), Caja, Actas de Cabildo, 1826, 28 January, 26 April, 4 August & 3 November 1826.
361
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
state government agents. If officially Tegucigalpa’s municipales served a city within a
state, in fact, they served the city first and the state only after deliberation.
Tegucigalpa was not alone in juggling the responsibility o f responding to
political tensions and uncertainties. Such a tight-wire act was common to the dozen
traditionally powerful towns with close to a 300-year legacy of representation of local
interests within the confines of the Kingdom o f Guatemala, and even within the Spanish
empire. When two such powerhouses competed for political control of new states, as
was the case with Leon and Granada in Nicaragua, bitter civil war could result. Yet it is
important to point out that this was not the only model that inter-city clashes followed.
Tegucigalpa, long-time rival o f Comayagua, preferred to negotiate a deal by which the
capital o f Honduras would alternate between the two principal towns.
For places like Sonsonate, which had opted during the first days o f the first
Central American constituent assembly to join the state o f El Salvador, the juggling was
particularly acute, as loyalties remained divided between the new capital, San Salvador,
and the old, Guatemala City. In 1827, the Sonsonate city council was called upon to
cope with conflict. On 8 May 1827, the acting mayor—who replaced not only the
elected mayor, who had fled the town, but also the other aldermen who should have
assumed the post—drafted a letter to assure the acting chief o f El Salvador o f the town's
loyalty, and to seek protection against its error in siding with another faction. A month
went by before the council met again, and opened a response from the state capital
forgiving their sins and welcoming them into the new government. A celebration,
surely tinged with relief, accompanied the communication o f this missive to the
362
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
neighboring pueblos of the department. In this case, as in others o f its ilk, a change of
municipales to a group sympathetic to a new state government often accompanied an
official plea, on behalf o f a town and its neighbors, for forgiveness for supporting the
enemies o f a winning faction.32 The town was less fortunate in 1834-1835, when
alliance with the wrong side (presumably Francisco Morazan who had established
Sonsonate as the Federal capital) led the Salvadoran government to move the
department capital away from Sonsonate to Santa Ana; it would be 20 years before the
town regained its position as provincial capital.33 Perhaps Sonsonate’s correspondence
with the municipalidades of San Vicente and San Miguel made the state capital
nervous, even though Sonsonate had written to congratulate the new state assembly on
its installation. After all, San Miguel had responded to Sonsonate’s invitation to respect
constitutional order with an indication that it, in turn, had written to several
“municipalidades in Honduras,” suggesting that the Salvadoran government might well
have to face the possibility that its own towns supported the federation, and its
Honduran chief.34
As these examples underline, although operating within state systems, the cities
of Central America continued to operate as politically sovereign entities, using the town
council to deliberate on matters o f state and to undertake alliances without seeking state
sanction first. The divisive behavior of the elite cities was particularly evident in 1838-
32 AMS, Caja Actas Municipales, 1821-9, Libro de Actas, 1827, Sessions o f 8 May, 2 June 1827. j3 Menendez, Recopilacion de las leyes..., Book 1, Title 4, Law 3, p. 176M AMS, Caja Municipalidad, 1830-9; Correspondence, 1834-1836, p. 25. 31 August 1834, Alcalde de San Miguel al de Sonsonate. On 1 August, Sonsonate had been informed by M. Cubar that Salvadoran troops had secured Izalco from the federation.
363
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1839, when Antigua withdrew from Guatemala, was followed by Chiquimula,
Sacatepequez and Verapaz, and set up its own government; Quezaltenango led nearby
provinces to form a separate state; and Tegucigalpa disowned the state o f Honduras
until it withdrew from the federation.35 By the time constituent assemblies convened in
each o f the five states o f the ailing federation in 1838-1841 to draft new constitutions, it
was clear that the states would survive.
With the track record of two decades o f civil war behind them, the new
legislatures were no longer unanimous in a political ideology that celebrated and
protected municipal sovereignty. Almost twenty years after the first political
experiment in republican government had taken shape, a shift had begun to occur in
political understanding, presumably the result of the failure o f a model that allowed
towns significant political freedom to function. Legislators went from representing
cities as sovereign to favoring sovereignty of the state and its government. The 1841
Salvadoran Constitution was introduced by the representatives o f the singular
“Salvadoran pueblo...”36 Honduras’ constitutions o f 1825 and 1839 reflected the same
linguistic and conceptual shift, with representatives o f the pueblos (1825) being
replaced by representatives o f the pueblo (1839).37 This shift reflected the fact that, by
1839, the states o f Central America had declared themselves sovereign and separate
from the federation, even though it would be an additional decade before they officially
assumed the status o f independent republics. Even in 1839, however, the shift reflected
35 See Marure, Efemerides, pp. 99-120.j6 Preamble, Constitution o f the State (El Salvador), 1824; Preamble, Constitution of El Salvador, 1841.
364
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
a changing rather than a changed ideology. The transfer of sovereignty from city to
state was not absolute. Guatemala’s legislators, in the constitution of 1825 as well as its
reform in 1839, were “representatives of the State,” although they acted “in use o f the■to
powers conferred on us by the pueblos.” If legislators in the early, optimistic years
had laid out a program o f consolidation that would move sovereignty from the cities to
the states, the message required reinforcement in the main cities of the isthmus in the
late 1830s.
The first conflicts experienced during the federal period, those discussed above,
began as conflicts between elites, their cities, and either state or federal authorities.39
However, by the mid-1830s, a different sort of political battle was shaping up. Under
the watchful eye o f federal president Morazan, liberal governments throughout the
isthmus used the decade of relative calm between 1829 and 1837 to begin implementing
the kinds of reforms dreamed o f by the ANC in 1823. After almost ten years o f land
expropriation, personal tax, loosening of restrictions on marriage and divorce, and
establishing a judicial system based on juries, the rural population of at least one state,
Guatemala, had had enough. The indigenous and ladino populations of Guatemala, led
by a charismatic young man named Rafael Carrera, rose up against the reformist
government of Mariano Galvez (1831-1838) and toppled it. They also brought the new
state of Los Altos, suffering from multiple Indian uprisings against similar taxes, back
3' Preamble, Constitution o f the State o f Honduras, 1825; Preamble, Constitution of the State of Honduras, 1839.38 Preamble, Political Constitution of the State of Guatemala, 1825; Preamble, Decree 76, 5 December 1839. In Article 2 o f the 1825 Constitution, the legislators had stated, “The pueblos of Guatemala, united in one sole corps, form the State.”
365
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
into Guatemala (1839). Although a similar uprising in 1830s El Salvador had been
crushed by the state, the tensions there favored a change to conservative rule in the
1830s.
What had these forces been doing, while the elite cities divided states in the first
decade of self-government? The record suggests that through their behavior, city
councils in the smaller towns followed a path designed to build states, rather than
destroy them. The following section suggests a way to understand why, given the
internal tensions and divisive civil wars fostered by the principal cities and towns, each
state in fact consolidated in this period. This can be seen through an examination o f the
government structures set up, as well as the activities o f the small towns that, unlike the
bigger cities, reinforced their participation within a particular government. That is,
having taken the top-down approach to understanding the tensions between and among
elite groups in most o f Central America, we also consider the constitution of the states
of Central America through a model better described as bottom-up.
Authorities in Countries and in the Countryside: the institutional framework
Before considering how the cities and towns of Central America participated in
the process of state formation, it behooves us to consider the practical organization of
the states of the federation. In the bases for the 1824 federal constitution, the deputies
o f the ANC imagined that the states would form “a concert of republics quite identical
in the political maxims o f their structure.. .The States will thus be as homogeneous as
39 See Woodward, Rafael Carrera and the Republic o f Guatemala, for discussion o f the political ideologies supposedly at bay.
366
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
corresponds to pueblos that are always united and brothers.”40 The republic of cities
would give way to the republic o f states.
As units of one federation, the states of Central America indeed created similar
territorial and gubernatorial structures. Each established a republican government with
separate legislative, judicial and executive authorities. As noted above, territorial
division was the work of the legislature, which in each case respected the new federal
terminology and divided its state into departments, which would be made up of districts
(distritos) that were further divided into municipalities (municipalidades). Each
department and distrito had its cabecera, or district capital, in which state governors
and priests would reside, and district elections would be hosted (See Appendix R).
Just as the territories had similar structures, so, too did the governments of the
federation and states o f Central America, which divided power in the countryside,
among towns, governors and priests. In post-colonial Central America, as Miles
Wortman reminds us, at least one new republican institution sprang up for each colonial
one:
40 “ Informe Sobre la Constitucion leido en ia ANC el 23 de mayo de 1824,” reprinted in Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, “El proceso ideologico-institucional,” Revista de Indias (1978): 278.
367
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 7.3: Institutions of Republican Central America, 1825-1850
Central Authorities Captain General (CG) Royal appointmentAudiencia Royal appointment
State & provincial authorities
Intendant or Governor (Province) Royal appointment
Governor (County)Alcalde Mayor or Corregidor
Royal appt. from local nomination (CG)
Local authorities Cabildo/Ayuntamiento (Spanish City & Town)
Election/Purchase
Central Authorities President (Federation) Popular Election- ■ -■ t .-'-.... National Assembly (Fed Cong) Popular Election
Senate (Federation) Popular ElectionNational Judiciary (Federation) Popular Election
State & provincial authorities
Supreme Political Chief (State) Popular election
Political Chief or Corregidor (Department)
Executive Appt.
Legislative Assembly (State) Popular ElectionLegislative Council (State) Popular ElectionState Judiciary (State) Popular ElectionCivil Judges (District) Executive Appt.
Local authorities Municipality (City, Town & Village) Election
Sources: Wortman, Government and Society, Table 13.2, p. 239; Van Oss (1986); Constitucion de la Republica Federal de Centro-America, 1824.
At the state and national levels, a new series of executive, judicial and
legislative authorities took office through the novel means of elections and attempted to
revamp the Central American political system. The Spanish king and his Council o f the
Indies had previously selected bureaucrats bom outside the region to serve as chief
judicial, political and military officers. Under the federal system, a three-tiered indirect
electoral process o f electoral councils made up o f local citizens elected American-bom
and naturalized officials not only to administer their laws, but also to write them.
Applying republican ideas o f universal citizenship, the congress granted suffrage to all
368
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
financially independent adult male heads of household and made the town council an
entirely elected body. Indians and mestizos, the vast majority of Central America’s
inhabitants, retained the legal right granted under the Spanish constitution to elect their
local and national officials as any other community. More significantly, the new
Central American republic and its constituent states codified the enfranchisement o f the
casta and black communities o f the isthmus, rejecting once and for all any definition o f
citizenship predicated on continent of origin.41 Even when several states, including
Guatemala, moved to provide separate legislation and protections for Indian
communities by the 1830s, their official status and rights of citizens was not revoked.42
Despite the possibilities for fraud and election hijacking in a country with a high
illiteracy rate, it appears that elections regularly took place in the over two hundred
41 See Federal Constitution , 1824, Title 1, Section 2, Article 13. The Federation’s 1835 constitution granted citizenship to native-born or naturalized residents over 18 years o f age or married, on the condition that they exercised a useful profession or had “known means o f subsistence.” Reformas a la Constitucion Federal de Centroamerica, 1835, Title 2, Section 2, Article 14. Honduras’ state constitution did not address questions o f citizenship. These liberal definitions of citizenship based solely on place of birth, and, if necessary, naturalization, endured until the 1860s. In 1864, El Salvador limited the vote to literate or property-holding male heads o f household 21 years o f age or older. A seminary graduate (que obtengan grado literario) or married man 18 or older could also vote. Constitucion de El Salvador, 1864, Title 3, Articles 7 and 8. That a “guatemalteco” needed “a profession, office or property which prvides means of independent subsistence” was a provision continued into the 1850s. Constitucion de la Republica de Guatemala, 1851, Art. 1.42 See article 3, Decree 76, 14 December 1839, Asamblea Constituyente de Guatemala. This decree reiterates that “All those bom in Guatemala or naturalized there, according to laws establsiehd or to be established by the Constitution, are guatemaltecos," (Article 1) but then calls for protection of Indian communities but does not abolish Indian citizenship. See also the discussion regarding establishing a government ministry and commission to protect Indian communities. AGCA Cl Legajo 56, Expediente 1565, July-August 1839, Discussion and Decree 37, 16 August 1839. Some of the provisions, including the insistence that government decrees be translated into indigenous tongues and that the indigenous benefit from a translator when dealing with the government, were positive and sensible. Others, regarding reestablishment o f labor requirements, were not.
369
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
towns of independent Central America, and vastly increased the number and variety of
adult males exercising at least passive voting rights.43
The republican electoral system reinforced the cohesion o f municipal
communities, whose electoral councils (Juntas) selected not only local government but
also the men who would choose state and national authorities. It also reinforced the
distinctions between district and departmental capitals (cabeceras) and their constituent
villages. Following a system similar to that of the Spanish Constitution, citizens o f the
Central American federation elected authorities in an indirect system. Individuals
elected members o f parish popular councils (juntas populares), who in turn elected their
district (partido) representatives. The partido electors would meet in their cabecera to
elect departmental electors who would meet in a junta to elect federal and state
authorities. In most cases, it appears that electors were willing and able to make the trip
to their cabeceras to cast their votes.44 However, in times o f political turmoil, towns
within a district might find it impolitic to send representatives to a cabecera they had
not supported during a conflict. The governor o f Chiquimula (Guatemala), for example,
reported in 1829 that the village of Mongoi “distinguished for its love o f the system o f
liberty” feared to send its electors to district cabecera Mita, “of contrary (opinion)” in
the recent civil war. Congress unsympathetically pointed out that the electoral juntas of
43 Xiomara Avendaiio Rojas, “Procesos Electorates y Close Politica en la Federacion de Centroamerica, 1810-1840, UUnpublished doctoral dissertation. Mexico (DF), Colegio de Mexico, 1994.44 See AGCA Cl Legajo 36, Expedientes 897, 898, 904 and 905 for 1824 Guatemalan state elections; Legajo 117, Expedientes 3456 for 1829 state president and vice-presidential elections, and Legajo 38, Expediente 493, and Legajo 36, Expediente 941 for 1839 and 1840 congressional elections.
370
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Guatemala and Quezaltenango had met, despite similar political schisms within their
districts, and instructed him to hold his elections in the designated areas.45
The importance o f the municipal body, and the state’s need o f its cooperation,
led to the continuation o f a system o f privileges and honors for obedient or responsive
towns while in times o f political turmoil, a state could move the departmental capital to
punish a disloyal cabecera, depriving a town of significant importance.46 The trend
began with the ANC, and was picked up as state legislatures throughout Central
America promoted their villages to towns, and their towns to cities, for services to the
current cause (see Table 7.4). The ANC and subsequent federal and state governments
offered special subsidies or tariff reductions to port towns in attempts to increase trade.
Just as deputies to the Spanish Cortes had argued for funds and reduced tariffs to revive
ports, in the ANC the Honduran deputies (Lindo, Marquez, and Herrera) proposed
developing the Pacific port o f Dolores (in Danli), while 14 Guatemalan deputies
championed Iztapa, a port on the Pacific coast of the province o f Escuintla (site of
present-day port o f San Jose).47 The port cities were the gateway to increased trade
with European, South American and North American traders who plied the Pacific
coast, and thus deserving o f special encouragement.
45 AGCA Cl Legajo 117, Expediente 3449. Jefe Departamental de Chiquimula, Mariano Trabanino, al Congreso de Guatemala 2 July 1829. The Congress considered and rejected the request on August 6.46 In 1835, the state of El Salvador moved the capital of the department of Sonsonate to Santa Ana. Menendez, Recopilacion de las leyes.... Book 1, Title 4, Law 3, p. 1764' The Guatemalan port petition can be read in AGCA B1 Legajo 91, Expediente 2473, ff. 10-12. It called for a voluntary subscription o f landowners and merchants to fund the rehabilitation o f the port by the Consulado de Comercio, and a 10 year reduction in duties.
371
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Tab e 7.4: Promotions of CommunitiesCommunity Promoted
FromPromotedto
By Whom When
Metapan (ES) Pueblo Villa ANC 1823Ahuachapan (ES) Pueblo Villa ANC 1823Zacatecoluca (ES) Pueblo Villa ANC 1823Yscasu (CR) Pueblo Villa ANC 1824Masaya (N) Pueblo Villa ANC 1824Usulutan (ES) Pueblo Villa El Salvador Leg. 1827Chalatenango (ES) Pueblo Villa El Sal Leg. (?) 1831Suchitoto (ES) Pueblo Villa El Salvador Leg. 1836Nicoya (N) Pueblo Villa Nicaragua Leg. 1837San Fernando (ES) Pueblo Villa El Salvador Leg. 1847Comayaguela (H) Pueblo Villa Honduras Leg. 1849Santa Ana (ES) Villa Ciudad ANC 1824Sonsonate (ES) Villa Ciudad ANC 1824Quezaltenango (G) Pueblo Ciudad Guatemala Leg. 1825/9Totonicapan (G) Pueblo Ciudad Guatemala Leg. 1829Ciudad Flores (G) Pueblo Ciudad Guatemala Leg. 1831Salama (G) Pueblo Ciudad Guatemala Leg. 1833Nicaragua (Rivas) Villa Ciudad Nicaragua Leg. 1835Juticalpa (H) Pueblo Ciudad Honduras Leg. 1835Amatitlan (G) Villa Ciudad Guatemala Leg. 1835Guanacaste (CR) Pueblo Ciudad Costa Rica Leg. 1836Cojutepeque (ES) Villa Ciudad El Salvador Leg 1846ANC -Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (Federation, 1823-1825), Leg-LegislatureES-E1 Salvador, H-Honduras, G-Guatemala, N-Nicaragua, CR-Costa Rica
Sources: Marure, Efemerides, pp. 36, 57, 64, 75, 87, 89, 99; Menendez, Recopilacion de las Leyes de El Salvador, pp. 176-177, note 5; Gallardo,Constituciones de El Salvador, p. 494; Larde y Larin, Recopilacion de Leyes relativas a la historia de los Municipios de El Salvador, pp. 58-60; Honduras, Asamblea Constituyente del Estado de, 1849 (1948). Decree: Comayaguela -Villa. Revista del Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Honduras 26 (11 & 12): 509-510.
Equally, it could acknowledge similar levels o f importance o f district towns by
rotation of the governor through important towns in a district. When establishing the
department of La Paz in El Salvador in 1839, the legislature decreed that the cabecera
would be Zacatecoluca, but the governor would reside alternately in that town, Santiago
Nunualco and Olocuilta.48 The state, with no manpower to deploy in the countryside,
had to rely on city and governor to fulfill all the functions o f secular government.
372
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Although this decision to depend on municipal authority to represent state and
federation can be viewed in hindsight as an expression o f the weakness o f the new
republican governments, at the same time it can be interpreted as a sign of continuity
with the colonial bureaucratic system. As earlier chapters have shown, city
authorities—whether the full-fledged city councils of the Spanish and Creole cities, or
the more reduced body of alcaldes and regidores o f Indian and some ladino pueblos—
had served as voice o f both people and Crown since the sixteenth century.
The Independent Municipality: its organization and responsibilities
Within this new republic o f states, the republic o f cities maintained important
functions. That over two hundred municipalities received official voice in national
politics confirmed and expanded systemic change in Central American government
begun in the constitutional era and continued at independence. The time in which only
around a dozen o f the isthmus’ most important towns and cities, populated by Spaniards
and their descendants, had qualified for self-government through a locally-staffed town
council (ayuntamiento) was ended even if their overwhelming influence on state and
national politics had not.49 Just as the Bourbons had worked to strengthen province and
city at the same time in the interests of extending government to the dispersed
settlements of its kingdoms, the Central American federation and its state governments
followed a similar, and perhaps contradictory, policy.
Adapting the laws of the Spanish constitutional town council, the ANC opened
municipal status to any town with as few as 300 inhabitants, immediately increasing the
48 Menendez, Recopilacion de las Leyes..., pp. 180-181, Book 1, Title 4, Law 6 (17 May 1839), Article 3.
373
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
number of self-governing communities by a factor o f ten.50 El Salvador’s first
constitution established that towns with 500 or more souls {almas) would retain their
municipalities, as did Honduras’.51 Guatemala authorized municipal status to places
with 200 residents, insisting that both urban and rural communities be attended to (Title
8, Section 2, Articles 161-162). Where a population was too small, each state authorized
municipalities to name an “auxiliary mayor” {alcalde auxiliar) to govern smaller
populations. This non-elective position served much the same function as the colonial
alcalde de la hermandad: representing justice and administration in the distant areas of
a municipal jurisdiction.52 In all states, all municipal posts continued to be elective.
In the early years, the trend was to continue to expand such municipal
government. In 1832, El Salvador lowered the number o f residents required to form a
municipalidad to 200 “souls.”53 Whereas in the colonial system a hierarchy divided
settlements with self-government on economic and social importance as well as
ethnicity of residents, the constitutional system of Central America followed the
Spanish constitutional model to use population to distinguish which authorized a
J9 See Chapters 1 and 2.50The ANC decree o f 10 May 1824 determined the size o f the town council depending on population: less than 300, 300-500, and between 500-1000. Guatemala in 1825 and El Salvador in 1832 set the minimum population for a town council at 200 (Guatemala, No 60, 12 October 1825, Art. 16; El Salvador, 4 September 1832, Chap 2, Art. 51). The Spanish constitution system had set the minimum population requiring a council at 1000, a number too large for Central America (Article 310, Constitution Politica, 1812). In the colonial period, only Spanish towns had the right to a real town council (ayuntamiento) while Indian villages could have a comun del pueblo, whose elected justices only had functions as intermediaries between Indian residents and Spanish governors in tribute collection and incarceration of local lawbreakers.51 El Salvador, Consitution o f 1824, Chap. 10, Art. 73; Honduras, Constitution o f 1825, Chap. 12, Art. 82.52 Honduras, Constitution o f 1825, Chap. 12, Art. 83; Guatemala, Constitution o f 1825, Title VTII,Section 2, Article 163.53 El Salvador, Decree, 4 September 1832, Art .51. In the 1824 Constitution, a village needed 500 souls (almas) to merit a municipalidad. El Salvador, Constitution, 1824, Chap. 10, Art. 73.
374
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
settlement to have a full city government. The changes that independence brought to
the composition o f principal city councils are discussed at the end o f this chapter.
Establishing municipal government was one thing. Ensuring that it was
effective was another. The governor of Verapaz reported to the Guatemalan congress in
1839 that there was only one ladino, Jose Cruz Lopez, in the Indian pueblos o f Cahabon
and Lanquin who could read and speak Spanish. Over Cruz Lopez’ protests, the
governor had named him judge and enjoined him to communicate decrees and orders
from the government. But the unwilling judge reported back that the municipales o f the
towns were inebriated, and had spent the funds they had collected for the war tax
(subvencion de guerra) rather than turning it over to him.54 Not every community was
ready for or desired the responsibility and honor o f a full-fledged local authority. Yet,
through the 1830s, the official policy was to create a state in which most communities
were self-governing, and repeated pushes were made to ensure that city councils took
office.
Municipal authority overall remained strong not simply because more city
governments existed in Central America in the 1830s than the 1810s. City councils also
retained undisputed charge o f the interior government of the towns, and, as in the
Spanish colonial system, only an executively-appointed governor stood between them
and their state and federal capitals. The reformed constitutional council retained its
54 AGCA Cl Legajo 38, Expediente 942, ff. 5-12. Gefe Politico Arriaga de Verapaz al Congreso de Gutemala, 24 April 1839. The congress was concerned that the district’s election had been falsified, given that the town councilrs were drunken and did not understand Spanish.
375
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
authority as the principal secular institution in each town o f the republic.55 The
popularly elected body o f the municipalidad or ayuntamiento constitucional56 continued
to be in charge of the “political-economic government o f the pueblos."51 In practical
terms, this meant that the council kept its traditional responsibilities: tax assignment and
collection; administration of town lands (ejidos) and marketplaces; administration of
justice and health; funding and supervision o f education and public works projects, such
as road building, vaccination and water supply; maintenance o f prisons and hospitals, if
any; and military recruitment. As in the past, control of certain assets led to profit.58 In
addition, the post-independence municipality’s responsibilities included maintenance o f
a list o f citizens eligible to vote, insurance that debased coinage did not circulate,
reports on vital statistics, and supervision o f local elections.59 In other words, if the
theory of citizenship was set out in state and national constitutions, the practice of
citizenship was policed by the city and town councils of Central America.
55 ANC Decree, 23 July 1823.50 As under the Spanish constitutional system, derived from the colonial system, mayors and syndics continued to be elected annually while aldermen served for two years each, with half replaced in any given year. For a clear expression o f this mle, see AGCA C l, Leg. 56, Exp. 1569, ff. 39-47, Guatemala, Decree 50, 2 October 1839, Article 59. Between 1839 and 1845, and after 1847, the government of Guatemala reduced the ability to serve in councils to those who had already been municipales, but this restriction was the exception rather than the mle. See AGCA B 1 Leg. 708, Exp. 15677 for the 20 Sept. 1845 repeal o f the law, and Expediente 15678 for its reinstatement on 16 November 1847.57 Constitution o f the State o f Guatemala, 1825, Title 8, Section 2, Article 169.58 For example, the Guatemala City council members continued to have an unusually high share of ejido assignments. More than half of the Guatemala City ejido rentals in 1835 went to municipales and their relatives. Families that benefitted included: Salazar, Echeverria, Batres, Pinol, Samayoa, Lambur, Barberena, Bolanos, Quinones, Cordova, Valle, and Pavon. Families receiving access to these lands in 1840 included: Aycinena, Andrade, Dardon, Santa Cruz, Herrarte, Arrivillaga. See AGCA B Legajo 715 Expedientes 15976 (1835) and 16036(1840).59 El Salvador, Decree, 4 September 1832; B Leg. 192, Exp 4152, Guatemala, Decree 67, 9 November 1825 (Reglamento para el Gobiemo de los Departamentos); AGCA C l, Leg. 56, Exp. 1569, ff. 39-47, Decree 50, 2 October 1839. While requirements for and o f municipal government were originally mandated by the ANC, specific responsibilities and organization were legislated by the separate states.
376
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
City councils also maintained an important role in the military organization of
each state. In August 1823, the ANC instructed city councils to begin to form militias.60
So, in the days and weeks after independence, in kingdom capital Guatemala City and
elsewhere, it was the cabildantes who organized military enlistment in preparation to
repel either Mexican or Spanish invaders.61 Later, as the federation and individual
states each sought to muster up men to fight in the numerous confrontations between
cities, regions, and states, city councils continued to be the principal recruiters o f
militias. In 1826, for example, the town council of Sonsonate was ordered by the
Salvadoran government, according to a law o f 13 January of the same year, to convoke
the local peasants (paisanaje) between 18 and 45 years o f age to form the companies of
the militia (legion militar). District military commander authorized the council to draw
on other villages if the city limits did not produce sufficient men. Nonetheless, it was
the council that was delegated to enlist soldiers and to name sergeants and cabos.62 In
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, it was also the municipal council that took charge of
recruitment. There, the governor asked the city council to provide men known as ne'er
do wells (vagos y malentretenidos) to serve as the local contribution for the federal
army.63
60 ANH, Fondo DP, Caja 169, No. 99. Tegucigalpa, per the ANC decree of 18 August 1823, convoked its citizens to form military companies and enlist soldiers, and to elect officials. In this case, Captain Dionicio Gutierrez was selected as captain o f the city’s second company.61 See Chapter 6.62 AMS, Caja Actas Municipales, 1821-9, Libro de Actas, 1826, 18 February 1826.63 AMT, Libro de Actas de Cabildo, 1826, May 31, 1826. On June 2, 1826, the governor approved the selection, despite protests by some of the mothers of those "apprehended." By 20 July, the town learned that many had deserted, and recommended keeping them in Comayagua.
377
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Since no public works infrastructure existed outside the municipal sphere,
technical innovation often began with a project in the state capital, and only
subsequently was promulgated for the rest of a state. City lighting projects followed
this model. Guatemala City established gas lighting in the early 1840s, finally acting on
recommendations and projects advanced by city councils from the 1810s.64 This
novelty spread slowly throughout the rest of Central America. Although congresses
assumed the role o f instigators of innovation, passing legislation that either urged or
required lighting in specific towns, it remained up to the towns themselves to fund and
carry out any project. El Salvador’s congress decreed that the jueces de policia o f San
Salvador and the rest o f the cities in the state institute public street lighting in 1840;
towns and villages could establish lighting on request but were not forced to do so.65
Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras, did not receive public lighting until 1859, when a
congressional order decreed it.66
Attempts were made to reduce the city council’s judicial functions, but state
governments had a difficult time enforcing the ANC’s liberal ideal o f separation of
54 Alejandro Marure, Efem erides, p. 123. According to Marure, 5 December 1841marked the day the lighting became effective. Guatemala City's ayuntamiento had proposed various similar projects in 1811, 1818, 1821, 1824, 1837. AGCA A 1.2 Leg. 2189, Exp. 15737, f!76-77, Libro de actas, 1811; A l.2.3, Legajo 44, Expediente 1128, 1818, Bando del ayuntamiento sobre alumbrado publico; AGCA A1.2 Legajo 2194, Expediente 15747, ff. 54, 78, 152; B78.50, Leg. 865, Exp. 21230. For the 1840 establishment of lighting, see AGCA B78.50, Leg. 627, Exp. 12577-12579; Leg. 1648; B78.6, Leg. 3545.65 Ysidro Menendez, Recopilacion de las leyes..., Book 4, Title 5, Law 1(7 October 1840), Art. 1& 12. The decree called for the governor or mayors to designate the places to site the lamps (Article 3). Each municipality was to select one o f its members to ensure all provisions were carried out (Article 9). By 1843, the government had determined to use a tax on each head of cattle slaughtered in the city to fund the project, and later allocated additional taxes. Menendez, Recopilacion d e las leyes. Book 4, Title 5, Law 2, 25 April 1843, and Law 3, 14 August 1843. This tax is the same kind instituted by the Bourbon city councils to meet their needs. See Chapter 3.“ Reglamento, Alumbrado Publico, Tegucigalpa, 1859, Artss. 1-2, 18 in Anales, 1967-1969, No. 1, pp. 54-56.
378
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
judicial and executive power. Some o f the state governments attempted to establish a
system of local judges (jueces de primera instancia, jueces de letras), removing the
judicial functions from the mayor (alcalde) o f each town. However, a combination of
confusion on implementation, resistance and a lack of a sufficient number o f qualified
or willing applicants made this law a dead letter in most of the new republic until the
idea was abandoned in the 1830s.67 To take just one instance, the conservative
government of Guatemala o f 1839 abolished an elaborate system o f judicial circuits
created by the liberal government of Mariano Galvez (1831-1838), on the grounds that
the system had never functioned adequately and had confused the people. As part o f a
process designed to restore order, the government revived the colonial term for
governor (corregidor) and restored the mayors’ function as administrator o f justice.
Overall, the focus of the restored order was not the governor, but the cities and towns of
Guatemala. The commission that prepared the new legislation—three o f whose five
members served in the Guatemala City municipal council— underlined the official
recognition of the importance o f municipal government. Its report called on the
government “to return their influence to the municipalidades.. .for they are the most
6' Less than six months after establishing the judges, a federal congressman proposed to allow mayors to resume judicial functions in any town where there were no judges. This was often the case until the liberal government o f the 1830s pushed to assign them. (ANC, Decree, 23 December 1823). In El Salvador, the 1824 constitution left the mayors in charge o f justice until the 1850s, when civil judges (
ju eces de paz), took over responsibility for even the least important verbal and conciliatory cases (juicios conciliatorios y ju ic ios verbales). Constitucion de El Salvador, Chap. VIII, Art. 57, 59, 60. Menendez, Recopilacion de las Leyes de E l Salvador, p. 188, footnote 29. Menendez cites a legislative decree o f 9 December 1854. The 1825 Honduran constitution called for establishment o f ju eces de la instancia, but also noted that in the “pueblos en particu lar” mayors would administer justice. (Chap. 9, Art. 66 & 68).
379
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
important institution on which a representative government can be founded.”68 A
similar move to restore the functioning o f city government occurred in El Salvador in
1840, when the legislature fixing the bases for a new constitution stated one goal was to
“remove the obstacles that have paralyzed the development o f the municipal and
economic regime o f the pueblos."69 In brief, the city council, and particularly the
mayor, remained an important judicial functionary in the new system, with the power to
resolve local disputes and the function o f gatekeeper who stood between individuals and
state judicial authorities.
Old and new responsibilities reinforced the municipalidad as the core institution
of the political system, the place where citizenship would first and most explicitly be
exercised.70 In fact, except for a departmental governor (jefe politico, jefe
departamental) city government represented the only political institution present in
most Central American towns.71 Together, ayuntamiento and je fe politico represented
the presence of a central authority in the distant reaches o f each state.
68 AGCA C l, Legajo 56, Expediente 1569, f. 4v. Report of the Commission for Provisional Organization of the State, 27 July 1839. Final version, ff 39-47, adopted as decree 50, 2 October 1839. See particularly articles 41-46, 52-54 regarding municipal and mayor roles. The drafting commission was made up o f Andres Andreu, Alejandro Marure, an Orantes, Manuel Francisco Pavon and Francisco Vidaurre. Andreu, Pavon and Vidaurre all held office in Guatemala City’s m unicipalidad. See Appendix K.. In practice, the decision o f the Guatemalan government not to authorize lieutenant governors(tenientes corregidores), except in one instance, enhanced municipal power, since a district governor with no staff would be required to rely on municipal action to do his job. Because o f the department of Guatemala's large population, the assembly issued an order (No 58) that authorized a teniente corregidor for Amatitlan, San Crsitobal Palm, San Miguel Petapa, Santa Ynes Petapa and Villanueva, as well as their anexos. This district would be politically independent from Guatemala, although still considered part of the department. AGCA C l, Legajo 56, Expediente 1569, f. 53. Order 58, 6 November 1839.69 Legislative Decree, 24 July 1840, Article 8, in Gallardo, Las constituciones d e E l Salvador, p. 355.70 Avendaiio R., Procesos Electorates y Close Politico en la Federacion de Centroamerica, 1810-1840 .' 1 Replacing the colonial governor, the je fe politico was the state government’s mouthpiece in the countryside. Each state executive branched named its governors, often drawing them from the same group as before independence: wealthy and politically connected creoles, the Spanish-American elites.
380
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
As in the colonial past, the executive branch appointed governors to reside in
each department capital. The difference was that locally-elected political chiefs
employing the same fiat that had previously been exercised by the Spanish king. It was
not until the 1830s that Mariano Aycinena, after a sojourn in the United States,
denounced the practice as anti-democratic and unjustifiable. He reasoned that a
community with the authorization to elect not just its municipal councilors, but deputies
to congresses and presidents should elect its own governors. However, with the
governor’s position serving as the only executive appointee in extensive territories, no
executive was willing to alter the system. Nationally appointed governors continued in
Guatemala, at least, until well into the 20th century, with military governments naming
military officers to the posts, and combining political with military functions.
The Salvadoran law defining the responsibilities o f governors and municipalities
stated the relationship between the two most clearly, “the governors will be organs of
communication between the Executive power and Municipal Councils” (El Salvador,
Decree, 4 September 1832, Art. 2). In the 1830s, Mariano Aycinena argued that as
executive appointees rather than locally elected officials, these men “helped intrigue in
elections and serve as instruments o f the [chiefs o f state’s] blind ambition.”72 This was
at times an accurate reflection of the reality o f the governor’s position, but the theory
was otherwise. In El Salvador, the governor’s principal statutory responsibilities were
limited to circulating legislation, keeping public order, and supervising municipal
judicial functions, tax and statistics collection, and maintenance o f order (El Salvador
72 [Aycinena], Otras Reflexiones, p. 20.
381
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1832, Art. 2, 9-11). In Guatemala, the governor played a more active role although
most o f his responsibilities continued to hinge on a town’s doing its job correctly
(Guatemala, Decree 67, 9 November 1825, Art 3; Constitution of 1840, Article 13). In
times of war or unrest, the governor was often a military officer, who, in addition to
civil authority, supervised the organization o f militias and served as the first line of
defense against outside invaders and internal uprisings. By 1839, however, HI Salvador
at least had learned from experience the “dire” consequences o f combining political and
military in one man, and excised military responsibilities from the governor’s role.73
Essentially, if the national or state governments wanted anything done outside o f the
capital cities where they met, they would send orders to the jefe, but it would be the
town governments that would carry them out.
Authorities in the Countryside: State-building from below
As discussed above, the governments o f the federation and states o f Central
America divided power in the countryside and the responsibilities o f towns and
governors as guarantors o f order and administration. In addition, they also entrusted the
priests who lived and worked in the countryside with complementary attributes.74 The
legislation granting broad powers to town councils, assigning them to the immediate
supervision of governors and the helping hand o f the priest gave local authorities
significant autonomy. These local authorities returned the favor, calling on the new
3 Law of 15 May 1839, dividing political and economic command from that of the military, inMenendez, Recopilacion, p. 179.4 See Jordana Dym, “The State, the City and the Priest: Political Pariticpation and Conflict Resolution in
Independence-era Central America,” City and Nation: rethinking identity an d politics, ed. Michael Peter Smith and Thomas Bender, C om parative urban and com m unity research. Volume 7, 2000.
382
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
republican executive, legislative and judicial branches to mediate in local conflicts. The
following section looks at almost three-dozen cases in which disputes between two of
the three local authorities led to an appeal to a higher authority. In these cases, local
authorities used the traditional appeal to national authorities to reconstitute and re-
imagine themselves, both reinscribing a Central American identity and creating, or
accepting, state identities. This section, which shows the process o f state formation
from below, once again underlines the key nature o f municipal government and
identification within the Central American political structure.
Between 1823 and 182S alone, at least 63 local authorities from Guatemala and
El Salvador called on the higher-ups in federal capital Guatemala City to express
concern about or seek help in resolving a local issue; the number doubled to 160 in the
turbulent civil war period of 1826-1830; and settled back to around 120 in the period
1831-1836.75 O f 34 cases examined in the archive o f the archdiocese of Guatemala
(Guatemala and El Salvador)76 for the years 1821 to 1836, more than half originated
,s The Index o f Ecclesiastical Correspondence for 1821-1825 lists at least 85 letters and cases, 163 for the years 1826-1830, and 122 for 1831-1836. In the first two groups, about two thirds o f the letters are from priests, and one third from town councils, with just a couple each from the department chiefs. In the third period, almost half o f the letters are from towns, many wanting to fill a vacancy in their parish; the number o f letters from the governors remains small, but increases. I write “at least” for several reasons. First, the cases are taken from complaints directed at or passed to the archdiocese in Guatemala City, and thus only cases which involved secular and religious authorities are counted. Second, the documents for 1821 begin with September 15, or independence from Spain, rather than January 1. Third, I have only a partial listing o f cases from the Index, which itself overlooks and miscatalogues a small number of documents, and thus the number of cases within this archive could in fact be somewhat higher. I also don't include within the account cases classified in the index as priests seeking guidance or authorization on purely ecclesiastic matters, which appear not to involve a dispute with local authorities.,b This set o f documents will not provide information on cases in which church authorities either were not involved or informed. There may be correspondence between towns and central government on issues unrelated to clerical administration, in which neither side enlists the opinion or support gf the church.But, I believe that most cases in which a priest was even peripherally involved left traces in the diocesan archive. The close cooperation between civil and secular authorites that I will demonstrate later on
383
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
with town councils (21); eight started with a priest’s request. Judges initiated three, and
governors only two. There seem to be no cases in which individuals brought plaint on
their own behalf in the ecclesiastic archives. O f these cases, twelve occurred in the first
two years after separation from Mexico (1823-5). The rest were filed in the decade
between 1826 and 1836 and included all by judges and governors. There were two
grounds for appeals in all periods and by all appealers: politics and economics.
City and State: When in doubt, write the ANC
It was not governors or priests, but town councils that wrote most frequently to
the capital requesting intervention in local affairs. Leap-frogging over intermediate
authorities in the years immediately following independence, they wrote to the
Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (ANC). This is what the Indian municipalities of
Sensuntepeque and Titiguapa did in 1823, when they could get no backing within El
Salvador in their request to oust their current priest, accused o f supporting Mexican
imperialism, and return their former clergyman, a reported liberal in favor of
implementing constitutional reforms.77 Following the same route to authority, the
Indian municipality of Huehuetenango (Guatemala) echoed the Salvadoran towns’
language and tactics in December 1823, when claiming that priest Bernardino Lemus
had been an “enemy of the patria ” and an ardent supporter not only of union with
Mexico but also of their department’s separation from Guatemala.78
suggests that conflict in the countryside brought swiff, concerted reaction from the capital after consultation between church and state, and thus, a written church record.17 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No. 288, 3 1823, Sept., Municipalidad de Titiguapa al Arzobispo Casaus y Torres.8 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No. 285, Letter, 21 December 1823, Legajo de documentos sobre Presbitero (Pbro.)
Bernardino Lemus, priest of Huehuetenango
384
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Politics, however, was not the only justification for a demand to the ANC.
Priestly failure to properly administer a parish was also accepted by city and state as
actionable. Two Indian villages, Atitan and Sacualpa, both in Guatemala’s highlands,
were moved to ask the ANC’s intervention in 1823 not because of their respective
priests’ politics but as a result o f poor ministry. Sacualpa’s Father Manuel Cabrera
stood accused o f bad temper failing to administer the sacraments to his parishioners.
The Atitan ayuntamiento accused priest Francisco Paz o f a variety o f offenses, ranging
from conducting forced marriages, to exacting extreme tribute demands, to beating the
municipales (council members).79 Both priests’ aberrant behavior was inappropriate
for any minister and the accusations did not hinge on particular political leanings.
In some cases, towns would write to the ANC even if the government, and not
the priest, had committed wrongs that needed to be redressed. In a case from July 1823,
a ladino Salvadoran town council was not upset at their priest of seven years, father
Miguel Alegria, but at his removal from their parish. The “members o f the corporation
of the municipality of Chinameca,” who underlined that they had been newly elected
per the sovereign decree of the ANC, lost the priest who had arranged to have three
churches built in their district and turned no one away from baptism or burial for lack of
funds, because the federal government had declared him an opponent o f the current
political system.
This letter brilliantly showcases the tenuous quality o f the early republican
governments the towns were dealing with. “Why,” the municipality asked the ANC
9 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No. 269, November, Ayuntamiento constitucional, Sacualpa, al Soberano Congreso; No289, September, Legajo de Documentos contra el panoco de Atitan, Pbro. Francisco Paz.
385
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
indignantly,
has he (the priest) been separated from his parishioners? Could it be that he was “imperial,” and had exhorted us to follow that system? Ha! Sir: if he committed this fault, it was not his but ours, and we have rightly been punished, not him [by his removal].... When Citizen Gainza circulated an order to all the town councils, for all the pueblos to say if they wished to adhere to the empire, our priest spoke not a single word on the issue, either in public or private. The meetings which took place in the cabildos o f Jucuapa and Chinameca took place freely, and as the general opinion, then, was for the empire...[A] 11 those who went to those meetings then in those pueblos said that they wanted to join Mexico, and even more, after that it was known that the same Citizen Gainza had declared the union of these Provinces to the empire, and it was considered a great crime to speak against that government. What should curate Alegria have done, when he received instructions (oficios) from San Miguel to exhort the inhabitants to provide service to that government? If he had remained silent, and not spoken in public, as he did, he would have been considered a disturber o f order, and perhaps suffered the penalties others suffered... Even when the opinion o f Chinameca was different, it had always to follow the system of San Miguel, because force decides: and the bayonets were there and would have oppressed the pueblo if it had opposed them... How could our curate not do as he was ordered? ...Further, just as he exhorted us to obey that imperial government, he has also preached that we should be faithful, submissive and obedient to the Sovereign determinations of the ANC installed in the capital of Guatemala, and on the day of the oath [to the congress] he himself sang the mass and made the exhortation and was the first to take the oath in the presence of the constitutional mayor.80
Chinameca’s plaint is unusually eloquent and coherent. This large ladino town
which provisioned nearby provincial capital San Miguel presumably had access to a
well-educated notary who could make a strong case in favor o f discounting Father
Alegria’s supposed political inconstancy in a time when the ideology o f the central
authorities varied regularly.81 Yet Chinameca’s fundamental problem was the same as
that of Indian Sensuntepeque: political uncertainty at the top had provided opportunities
80 AHAG-C, Tl/108, No 162, 28 July 1823, Legajo de cartas de varios.81 Information regarding town populations, the social composition of inhabitants, and local agriculture or industry comes from Guatemalan priest Domingo Juarros’ Compendio de la historia de la ciudad de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1808-1821), reprinted as Compendio de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala.1500-1800 (Guatemala: Editorial Piedra Santa, 1981).
386
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
for local conflicts to lead to unwelcome changes in authorities at the bottom. In
Sensuntepeque the town council was brutally replaced through the efforts, we were told,
o f a priest allied with “antiliberals’' in the town’s political elite. State capital San
Salvador’s immediate problems with Mexican troops prevented it from taking effective
countermeasures. In Chinameca, a popular priest was removed for his willingness to
support whichever government was in control of the capital. Yet, whatever the
underlying economic or political causes provoking the decision to address the
government, towns called on authorities in the new political system to respond.
Chinameca’s decision to bring its complaint to the ANC doesn’t surprise. But
why would a small Indian village like Sensuntepeque or Sacualpa write directly to the
highest legislative body in the land, rather than appeal its case through the elaborate
hierarchy of officials available, on both civil and ecclesiastic sides? The answer lies in
the structure of colonial government. The audiencia, or Spanish court, located in the
colonial capital, had served as the appeals court for the entire colony, not a local
official. Thus, in the years subsequent to independence, towns from the Guatemalan
diocese forwarded their complaints to the newest highest authority, the Asamblea
Nacional, which not only served but represented the whole federation. By either
starting with an appeal to the top, as in the Chinameca or Huehuetenango cases, or
escalating to it, as in the case of Sensuntepeque and Titiguapa, the new municipal
councils were following tracks well worn by their colonial predecessors.
In adapting traditional appeals route to the new political circumstances, these
s' AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No 288, 3 September 1823, Municipalidad de Sensuntepeque a la ANC.
387
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
towns in essence acknowledged the legitimacy o f the new government to administer
justice in both civil and religious spheres. To establish their own legitimate right to
make demands on this new government, many councils highlighted the fact that they
too were part of the new system. These councils prefaced their letters with the
information that they were ayuntamientos constitucionales or municipalidades, that is
the duly-elected bodies that replaced non-elective colonial town councils. Not only
the government, but they themselves drew their authority from the new system, in
which they were already participating through accession to elective office.
Other councils, often representing Indian communities, used a combination of
colonial-era with republican political vocabularies. For example, the Indian mayors of
Santiago Atitlan wrote as representatives of the “masses” (comun) and “sons o f the
town” (hijos del pueblo). Additional research would be necessary to determine whether
the mixed language represented a less sophisticated approach, a nuanced reading o f the
political uncertainty at the center, a decision to cover all the bases, or an ambiguous
relationship to the change. It is possible that some towns wished both to make use of
the government’s authority to intervene, accepted by sending an appeal to the ANC,
while simultaneously communicating that they were unsympathetic to the political
decisions made in the capital.84 Yet, regardless of the vocabulary chosen, one thing did
83 Titiguapa, Sensuntepeque and Chinameca are Salvadoran examples o f this; the Lemus case in Huehuetenango is from Guatemala.MIn the Atitan case, it is clear that the writers know they need to preface their letter with the term alcalde for they use the colonial appellation o f justicia within the body o f their letter when referring to Paz’ wresting of the staff o f office from the town’s officials. AHAG-C, T 1/110, No 289, 1823, Legajo de Documentos contra el parroco de Atitan, Pbro. Francisco Paz.. The mixing o f language continued well into the 1830s, possibly to ensure that all bases were covered in an era o f changing political systems. See for example, the 1833 case of the Municipality o f San Miguel Chicaj that wrote as “hijos ciudadanos
388
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
not happen. No towns wrote to Mexican or Spanish authorities. Nor did their letters to
the republican governments emphasize their servitude as vassals, for it was as co
participants in the new system that the municipalidades o f Guatemala and El Salvador
could legitimize claims for government mediation.
Through appealing to the ANC, in addition to or in lieu o f state authorities, the
new municipalidades respected the tradition o f unity o f the former Kingdom of
Guatemala and the diocese, which included both Guatemala and Salvador. Given the
disorganized, fly-by-night nature o f the early state governments, as experienced by
Sensuntepeque and Chinameca, resorting to a federal power did not necessarily mean
identification with the peoples of the rest o f the isthmus, although some towns, like
Sensuntepeque, wrote as members o f “our nation.” Instead, the attempt was to retain a
government strong and stable enough to keep its end o f the bargain in terms of
maintaining order and rewarding its rural supporters. In the case against Lemus o f
Huehuetenango, the “honorable citizens.. .who live and breathe for the liberal system,
and who desire to manifest their faithful patriotism” wanted “to sustain the rights o f the
Guatemalan government” against a schism within the Guatemalan state. The
Guatemalan highlands had tried to withdraw not only from Central America during the
Mexican period, but also to erect a new state, Los Altos (a goal which would be briefly
achieved in 1838-9).85 Regardless o f whether use o f this language o f unity reflected a
alcalde constitucional y demas comun menores masaguales [Indian commoners] hijos del pueblo de San Miguel Chichaj.”AHAG-Gobiemo,Vol. 21, f. 332-333, Carta de la municipalidad de S. Miguel Chichaj,Verapaz.85 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No 285, 4 Nov. 1823, Carta de Ciudadanos de Gueguetenango al Supremo Poder Ejecutivo de las Provincias Unidas del Centro de America. The mayor accused Lemus o f supporting
389
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
belief in a Central American national identity or a rhetorical strategy, it served just as
use o f other types o f republican rhetoric, to doubly identify the authority o f the
appealing town and the authorities it turned to for help.
The first enthusiasm for independence continued to support union o f the
provinces o f Central America, and a government that righted wrongs throughout. Local
problems, be they between inhabitants o f one village or between towns within a district,
continued to be brought to the attention o f higher authorities for resolution. The project
of forging a state, or nation, which could keep order in the countryside was not just the
goal o f elites in the capitals, but one o f the goals those in the countryside apparently
wanted for themselves, as well, at least in certain circumstances.
Creating the state within the federation
The ANC, however, was not a court, and did not accept the role o f direct
mediator o f local conflicts. As a matter o f course, the assembly forwarded the
complaints to the head o f the appropriate state government. For cases from the
archdiocese o f Guatemala, this was the chief executive (jefe superior), o f the states of
Guatemala and El Salvador. In this post-independence period, the jefe superior, in his
turn, passed cases involving clerics on to the archbishop’s office to settle. Prior to
1830, it seems there is only one case, that o f Atitan, in which the secular authority
began an investigation at the same time as the ecclesiastic verification of charges. Even
in this case, however, the final decision on how to treat the problem remained in the
secession o f the Los Altos region from the state o f Guatemala and the federation in 1821. In this usage, the town considers the patria to be the federation and Guatemala the legitimate capital o f the state of the same name, to include their own town.
390
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
archbishop’s hands.86
This new procedure instituted by the ANC defined the responsibility for local
conflicts as one that was dealt with within state, rather than colonial or federal
boundaries, and it quickly took root. The weakness o f the federal government no doubt
aided the switch. After all, there were no federal agents in the countryside: towns and
governors were regulated by state legislation and reported directly to state officials in
the state capital. Despite an extended civil war fought in Guatemala and El Salvador
from 1826 to 1829, appeals by small towns for government mediation continued, and by
the early 1830s, towns routinely referred their complaints not to the Federal Congress,
the ANC’s successor, or to the president of the Republic, but directly to the state
governments.
Some towns continued to rely on republican language of association to attract
the desired intervention. In 1831, the Mam municipality o f Tejutla wrote to the
Guatemalan government, asking to keep its current priest, “in the name of the nation
and for our part.”87 Yet in the letter, there is no referent to what “nation” was meant,
and political developments had compounded the ambiguity o f its meaning. Did writing
to Guatemala and reffering to “nation” imply recognition o f the authorities o f the state
o f Guatemala as representative of a sovereign nation, a political break still seven years
into the future? Could it refer to the Mam community within Guatemala, and the
86 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, 289, 6 Mar. 1824, Legajo de Documentos contra el parroco de Atitan, Pbro. Francisco Paz. At the same time that the archbishop named two priests to interview witnesses to verify charges, the state government ordered the governor o f Solola to investigate. The episcopal prosecutor (fiscal) used both sets o f evidence to evaluate the claim and decided to call the Father Paz in forquestioning.
391
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
specific town in particular? Perhaps most likely, “nation” implied no particular
affiliation but the importance o f the term in Central American political rhetoric to
signify recognition of membership in a centrally administered political community.
Regardless o f which nation the town o f Tejutla claimed to belong to, the state it
recognized was clearly Guatemala.
Belonging, however, was not the only key used to open the door to government
intervention. Towns were prepared to imply that inaction would be met with
breakdown o f order in the countryside. The municipality of Masagua (Guatemala), in
1832, wrote the state government to seek redress for their priest’s foul language, insults
to municipal authority, and interference with elections of confraternity officials. They
claimed the government’s attention on the grounds that the priest’s disrespect could lead
to “ill-fated results” and impair their ability to keep order.88 Government mediation and
responsiveness, then, could be a condition to ensure that mediation rather than violence
would be the strategy of choice elected by local authorities, such as those in Masagua.
Like the ANC in the 1820s, the state executive in the 1830s continued to refer
local demands to the archbishop’s office for resolution. The shift was not with
government processing of complaints, but in how towns interacted with the “superior”
authorities: state officials, rather than federal ones, had become the mediators o f local
conflicts. By the mid 1830s, when a strong liberal regime under reformer President
Mariano Galvez governed Guatemala, this was reflected in increased municipal
8' AHAG-G, V. 21, ff. 153-155, 27 Sept. 1831, Carta de los feligreses de la Parroquia de Tejutla.88 AHAG-G, V. 21, fF. 194-197, 8 March 1832, Carta de la municipalidad de Masagua al Sup. Gob. delEstado.
392
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
acceptance o f state authorities at the departmental level as possible mediators. In this
period, some towns turned first to the intermediate authorities o f jefe departamental and
even the juez for help. Such appeals routes had existed in the colonial period, but had
quickly been abandoned after independence.89
The grounds for complaint routed through governors and judges varied,
although with a settled liberal government in power in the state capital, emphasis was
on priestly administrative or economic misconduct, rather than political activity.
Choice o f the official with whom to lodge a complaint seemed linked more to the
relationship between town and authorities, rather than any statutory requirement to
report to one or the other. In 1833, the municipality o f Zacapa (Guatemala) accused
priest Francisco Rendon of neglecting his official responsibilities when they required
him to work in the towns outside the cabecera. The town appealed to the governor,
who put the request into the judicial system. The courts referred the case to the central
government, which turned to the archbishop, who ordered an investigation.90 In 1834,
the municipal council o f Salama, when it could not get its priest to provide the accounts
for the church-building fund, asked the governor to intercede. Their own efforts to
reach an understanding with their prelate had only resulted in a vengeful sermon from
the pulpit that accused the council of meddling in affairs for which it had no
responsibility, exceeding its “small faculties.” In this case, the governor forwarded the
89 I found only one case from before 1831. In February 1824, the town council o f San Pedro Sacatepequez (Guatemala) asked the subjefe politico o f Quezaltenango for help in removing their curate, a Mercedarian friar living in sin with the mother of his two daughters. AGCA B Leg. 1248, Exp. 30474, Subjefe politico de Quezaltenango al Gobiemo (February 1824).
393
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
case to the Minister o f Interior (Gobemacion), who turned it over to the vicario
capitular.91 When the Indian community o f Guazacapan had a complaint against their
priest, whom they accused of keeping a lover, they appealed to the judge in their
cabecera. The judge, when stonewalled by the accused, sent the case to the Supreme
Court in Guatemala City; the court, in turn, brought the ecclesiastical prosecutor into
the case.92 Even if the departmental authorities did not have the ability or will to
resolve the question, the fact that towns had begun to use them as the first step in the
appeals process indicates a recognition o f their position in the hierarchy.
From the first days of independence throughout the turbulent 1830s, city
councils met to decide which governments to support, which troops to send, which
monies to circulate, which taxes to pay, and which laws to implement. Although
technically under the supervision o f the departmental governors who replaced the
colonial governors, city councils as duly elected representatives of the people had no
compunction about directly demanding state or federal government intervention or
attention.
What about the Individual?
The previous sections discussed the relationship between city, state and federal
governments in a system of mutually constituting appeals. In these sections, I have
argued that it was the city through its officials, not the individual, which could demand
90 AHAG-G, V. 21, f f. 338-51, 26 July 1833, Carta de la municipalidad de Zacapa al Gobemador departmental de Chiquimula, Mariano Trabanino.91 AHAG-G, V. 22, ff. 7-11; 18-20, 10 January 1834, Carta de la Municipalidad de Salama al Gefe departamental.
394
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
government mediation because political legitimacy derived from communal and not
individual needs. Implicit in this argument is that the city, not the individual citizen,
was the constitutive political element o f the Central American federation. Before
turning attention to cases originating with governors and priests, individual actors
operating within these larger institutions, one should emphasize the point that the new
citizens o f Central America continued to act as though the government was responsible
to communities and not to the individuals who made them up. Evidence from those
municipal appeals cases in which a defense survives show clearly that individuals
seeking governmental mediation under the new system disguised their particular
agendas through invocation of municipal representation.
The possibilities for individuals to hijack the mantle o f municipal authority as a
tool to gain advantage in a local political struggle come into focus when both accusation
and defense survive. In Sensuntepeque, the actual priest o f the parish, Francisco
Fuentes, proved to governmental satisfaction his patriotism, effectiveness as an agent of
social control, and the fact that the municipality had acted not for the common good, but
because o f “intrigues o f individuals (particulares).” Use of the Spanish word
“particular” implies behavior for personal rather than communal benefit. Specifically,
the previous priest wanted his parish back and was promising Sensuntepeque’s
municipales license to take revenge for acts committed during the conflict with Mexican
troops in return for their advocacy. In addition, Fuentes believed the municipality
resented him for using the pulpit to inveigh against robbery, a crime the town had quite
92 AGCA B Leg 1282, Exp. 31220, Camara de 2a Instancia, Escuintla. Caso 3. Contra el Ale 2o y Parroco
395
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
a reputation for committing.93
Similarly, priest Bernardino Lemus’ successful defense against charges o f
promoting secession challenged not only his accusers’ ideological charge, but their very
right to appeal on behalf of the town. A council’s right to aid was not in question.
Lemus agreed that “[w]hen one sees the representation o f a municipalidad, when one
considers that in it echoes all the voice o f a Pueblo, it is appropriate to give it all one’s
attention at once.” Instead, through fifty-seven testimonies o f “municipalities, [Indian]
communities (comunes), the most honorable inhabitants of Huehuetenango and o f other
towns,” he demonstrated that in this case, “ it was not the Pueblo which accused the
priest, but a few [men] compelled by Recinos; and of these, most are his relatives, his
cousin and five sons.”94
A close reading o f the original denunciation reveals the truth o f this assertion.
Although signed by the town secretary, in the municipal meeting room, and submitted
as a municipal representation, the letter was not from the municipalidad at all, but from
various “citizens of the municipalidad." Manuel Recinos, Huehuetenango’s municipal
secretary in 1823, wrote out and signed the letter. Recinos, as becomes clear in the
evidence, was also the agent behind and drafter of the original complaint. Most o f the
citizens who denounced the priest in the town hall were his relatives: his cousin and his
five sons, brothers-in-law, and several nephews. Two other signatories recanted when
de Guasacapan, H. Perez, y Pbro E. Echicoyen.93 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No 288, 7 Sep. 1823, Cura Fuentes al Arzobispo Casaus y Torres & 17 Nov., Cura Fuentes al Arzobispo.94 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No 285, 1824, Carta, Legajo de documentos sobre Pbro. Bernardino Lemus.
396
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
asked about their signatures.95
Only in 1824, after he had been elected mayor, was Recinos able to dispense
with letters from citizens and send letters from the council. By this point, however, the
municipalidad had little credibility with the government or archbishop. Lemus
evidence’ that ladinos Recinos and his ally, Joseph Aguayo, expropriated and sold
communal properties used by the town’s majority Indian population without
reimbursing the municipality, over Lemus’ opposition, carried the day. Lemus returned
to his parish from Guatemala City, where he had been called to make his case, and the
1824 city council’s objection to the celebration held on his return was ignored.96
These two cases are not unique. It would appear that a standard tool for a
priestly defense was the attack not on the principle of municipal appeals for government
intervention, but on the legitimacy of the accusing municipality. Similarly, it would
appear that a standard tool o f an individual or family engaged in a power struggle would
be to seek municipal validation of a claim. Even when an individual could not get an
actual municipality to front an accusation, if well-placed he could, like secretary
Recinos, bring all the trappings of municipal authority to turn a struggle for personal
gain into a political threat to the republic. In either case, the principle that the
municipality and not the individual citizen served as legitimator and gatekeeper to
issues government intervention in local administration remains unchallenged.
These also demonstrate that when not the source o f a complaint that claimed
95 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No 285, 4 Nov 1823, Carta de Ciudadanos de Gueguetenango al Supremo Poder Ejecutivo de las Provincias Unidas del Centro de America.96 AHAG-C, T l/1 10, No 285, 9 September 1824, Legajo de documentos sobre Pbro. Bernardino Lemus.
397
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
government attention, the municipality could serve as the authority corroborating or
denying cases lodged by other officials, such as the governor. Colonel Indalecio
Perdomo, Governor and Commander o f the department of Chiquimula, Guatemala,
wrote to the state capital in February 1828 to report priest Manuel Lemus’ supposed
betrayal of Guatemala by handing over the town o f Mita’s buried silver to attacking
Salvadoran troops. The municipality o f the town defended the priest, pointing out that
it had been a local family and not the priest who had betrayed the country. The council
even declared that Lemus through his sermons had urged the town’s residents to take up
arms to defend the patria?1 The government informed the archbishop, who summoned
Lemus to the capital to present his defense. When the case against Lemus could not be
substantiated, archbishop and government agreed to the priest’s return, with the
government underlining the need for priestly cooperation with the civil and authorities
in their departments.
Men of the Council
As the Lemus case demonstrates, it behooved the governments o f Central
America to determine who, in fact, was sitting on a given town council. Part o f the
reason for this need was not just to determine if a plea for government intervention on
behalf of a community was legitimate. On the contrary, governments wished to know
what type of person was making the request on his town’s behalf. After independence,
the abolition of legal restrictions on municipal office holding based on ethnicity (caste)
combined with the institutionalization o f popular elections and overall expansion in
9' AHAG-C, Tl/199, No. 69, 26 Feb. 1828, Arzobispo al Pbro. C. Lemus, priest o f Asuncion Mita.
398
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
government positions opened up numerous seats on city councils throughout Central
America. Traditional elite families continued to fill many o f the seats in the former
Spanish ciudades and villas, but no longer held a monopoly on the elective positions.
In addition to traditional sources o f new blood— European immigrants—many post
independence city councils in district and state capitals permanently incorporated men
of mixed ethnic background (castas) who had first participated openly in city
government in the Spanish constitutional periods (1812-1814, 1820-1821). The patterns
of post-independence municipal office holding, and the correlation between municipales
and holders o f state and national office, can be traced in Guatemala City and
Tegucigalpa, both sometime state capitals, and Sonsonate, cabecera o f the district of its
name within the state of El Salvador.
The makeup o f the Guatemala City town council between 1825-1850 in some
ways resembled that of the colonial ayuntamiento. The first- and second-generation
offspring of the Bourbon colonial elite and a few remaining descendants o f
conquistadores - sons o f the Aycinenas, Beltranenas, Palomos, Arrivillagas and
Urruelas among others—continued to hold many council seats at least up until 1850, the
last year I examined, although not all elite families survived the transition tono
independence and popular election. As in the colonial period, municipal office also
attracted immigrants, like merchants Domingo Payes (1822, 1849-50), Julian Villegas
98 Families with at least four municipales in Guatemala City between 1787-1850 include: Aguirre, Arrivillaga, Aycinena, Asturias (Alvarez de Asturias), Beltranena, Castillo, Galvez, Lara, Moreno,Najera, Pavon, Palomo, Taboada, Umiela, Valdes and Yela. Other families, like the Marticorenas and Manrriques, faded from the rolls. The Arrivillaga, Galvez and Najera families are three that participated in municipal politics since the early eighteenth century. See Appendix K.
399
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
(1827, 1840-41, 1847), Jose Maria Cambronero (1826-1827) Eusebio Tejada (1827),
and Damaso Angulo (1835, 1839, 1843, 1850) o f Spain." The continued presence of
European-bom city councilors after independence, when Guatemalans were no longer
required to elect them to office suggests that some of the tensions o f incorporation of
Spaniards into the colonial cabildo had to do with interpersonal relations rather than
ideological concerns. Certainly, the new arrivals took care to connect to local families
in the way their predecessors had. Angulo married into the Urruela family, Tejada into
the Oyarzabal family, and Cambronero into the Gutierrez family o f Costa Rica.100
Since the city council continued to oversee the markets, administer justice, and take
charge of militia recruitment and taxation, it is not surprising that land-owning and
merchant interests sought to maintain their influence in city government.
While continuing to include members of the merchant and landed elite, the
1825-1850 municipality fulfilled the promise of constitutionalism and incorporated
additional layers of Creole society. The post-independence period saw the emergence
of new families as regular municipal officeholders. Several families not represented on
the colonial ayuntamiento before the constitutional period o f 1820-1821 placed at least
three members each in the Guatemala City municipalidad in the two decades
immediately following independence. Most were professionals, like the six men o f the
Dardon and Dieguez families, who all were lawyers.101 In addition to economic and
99 See Appendix K.100 See Appendix K.101 Andres, Manuel and Marcos Dardon were syndics and mayors between 1836 and 1848. Jose Domingo, Juan and Manuel Dieguez were syndics and aldermen between 1820 and 1849. Other families
400
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
social status, elite and non-elite electors valued education as a criterion for council
membership. Certainly, the education level of the council increased after independence.
Fully 74 municipales between 1821-1850, from both traditional and new council
families, held university degrees or belonged to the newly established lawyers’
association (Colegio de Abogados).102 When one considers that only 39 individuals
were registered with the Colegio in 1813, it is clear that Guatemalans had actively
pursued the study o f the law in the years leading up to independence.103 The influence
of the Cortes of Cadiz and Spanish constitutionalism cannot be overstated. It is likely
that the election o f educated men to the Guatemala city council represented the opening
of participation in municipal government to upwardly-mobile men o f mixed-race
{mulato or mestizo) , although it would be impossible to prove without an examination
of baptismal records for the period.104
with a post-constitutional presence included: Samayoa, Palacios, Estrada, Flores and Larrave. See Appendix K.I0‘ See Appendix K.103 John Carter Brown Library, 70-2280 Broadsides. Guatemala, Lista de los Individuos del ilustre colegio de abogados de este reyno de Guatemala (Nueva Guatemala: [n.p.], 1813). Sixteen of the 39 would eventually serve in the Guatemala City cabildo.104 It would require an examination of the casta baptismal records for early nineteenth century Guatemala to confirm this hypothesis.
401
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 7.5: University Graduates and Lawyers, Guatemala City Council, 1821*1850
Officeholder ■' -V. v Origin ■ . . -GGSenice. ;]Umv/Cdleg^ier;Abosadoc?
Pablo Alvarado Costa Rica? 1830, Syndic 1810,F;1813MJuan Bautista Alvarez de Asturias Guatemala 1810-1837, A, S, R 1794, F ; 1797C
& LAndres Andreu Guatemala 1839-1848:A,R 1833, AFelipe Arana 1831, A -1814, MCesario Araus Guatemala 1824-25 S -1 8 1 4 ,LManuel Arbeu Guatemala Sec, 1825-28 1819,LPedro Arroyave Guatemala 1821, S -1794 LPedro Aycinena y Pinol Guatemala 1829-43, S, R, A 1823*Mariano Aycinena y Pinol Guatemala 1820-1826 S -1810, LMiguel Barrundia y Zepeda Guatemala 1826-31,R,S -1815 LJose Maria Bamitia y Croquer Guatemala 1820-1832 R -1816 LAntonio Batres y Asturias Guatemala 1815,S 1819-22 A 1793 FRafael Batres y Asturias Guatemala 1817-8 R; 1826 A 1798 FLuis Batres y Munoz (y Juarros) Guatemala 1832-3, R; 1845 A 1823*Gregorio Beltranena Guatemala 1820 R 1801 F; 1805 LJose Maria Beltranena y Llano Guatemala 1814-1827, R, A 1794 CJoaquin Beltranena y Llano Guatemala 1825-1829 R 1809 FManuel Beteta Guatemala 1839S 1849 A 1818 C, L(Jose) Vicente Bolanos Guatemala 1826 S, 1849-50 A 1841*
Manuel Bolanos Guatemala 1847 A 1819 F; 1843*Jose Maria Cardenas 1821 R 1809 TManuel Castro y Gutierrez 1827-1839 R, S 1785 FJose Francisco de Cordova Guatemala 1811-14; 20-21Sec 1804 F, 1808 LMariano Cordova Guatemala 1849 S 1843*Domingo Cortes 1823 S 1813 F, -1815LJose Domingo Estrada 1845 A 1807 T;1816*Jose Maria Estrada 1845 R 1803 FJuan Estrada 1831-4, S, A 1819 FJose Farfan 1850-1 R Prel835 MQuirino Flores Guatemala 1823-4S, 1825-41A 1807 F, 1810 MJose Mariano Galvez Guatemala 1822 S 1820 C & LMariano Herrarte Guatemala 1827 S 1818 CManuel Jose Jauregui y Jauregui Guatemala 1832 A 1813 FBuenaventura Lambur 1830,1843, 1857R -1825 MJose Antonio Larrave y Velasco Guatemala 1820-1838, R A 1800 CJose Ignacio Larrave y Velasco Guatemala 1825-9 R S A 1810 F; 1818*Mariano Larrave Guatemala 1821 A -1800 MBernardino Lemus 1814 A, 1825 S 1818 F; 1825*
402
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 7.5: University Graduates and Lawyers, Guatemala City (cont.)
Officeholder C^ S ayice . _ _ I M C d fe | deZ:;; ~Abogados* '='r̂
Jose Venancio Lopez Guatemala 1814, 1820S 1812*Jose Antonio Lopez Guatemala 1831-1841, A, R 1806 F, 1809 TMatias Martinez 1838-1848, S.A.R 1835*Manuel Montufar 1849-50, S 1849*Eusebio Murga 1834,1847R -1825 LJose Manuel Noriega 1831 A 1809 F; 1817*Gregorio Orantes 1833 S 1847 A 1833*Manuel Ortiz Urruela 1844 R 1839*Jose Francisco Pacheco Guatemala 1825 R 1822 LAntonio Padilla 1845 S 1843*Mariano Palacios y Panero 1827-28 S 1819 FManuel Pa von Guatemala 1848 A -1817 LManuel Pinol y Aycinena Guatemala 1839A 1818 L; 1822*Jose Basilio Porras Guatemala 1823-1846R S A 1810 F ,-1817 LFelipe Prado 1827 S 1839-40 R 1819 F; 1823*Manuel Rafael Ramirez 1814, 1820R 1794 F, 1798 CAntonio Rivera Cabezas 1824, 1848 1808*Jacinto Rivera Paz 1845-6 S 1849 R 1843*Antonio Robles 1821 A 1800 F, 1804 LLuis de la Roca 1836 R 1833*Benedicto Saenz 1823-1838, S R 1831 MManuel Salmon 1830 R 1833 A 1819 FRamon Samayoa 1849-1850 R 1847*Salvador Saravia 1849 A 1836*Juan Taboada Asturias 1842 S 1831*Manuel Ubico 1840 1836*Jose Maria Urruela y Urruela Spain 1827 -1845R S A 1828*Jose Valdes 1827 R 1829 A 1790 F, 1794 C 1797
L, 1810 Dr T & LLiverato Valdes 1849 A 1813 F ,1819 L;1822*Tomas Valdes 1846 R MJoaquin Valdes y Lacunza Guatemala 1818-1840 A R 1803 F, 1808 LFrancisco Xavier Valenzuela 1822-1842 R. A, S 1819/1821L; 1818 CPedro Jose Valenzuela 1821 R 1824 S 1821 L; 1824*Jose Maria Velasco 1829 R 1830 A 1818 CFrancisco Vidaurre 1833 A 1818 LManuel Zavala 1844-5 S 1843*
GC Service: A - Alcalde (Mayor), R - Regidor (Alderman), S=-Sindico (Syndic); Bachelor in: L = Law, F = Philosophy, C = Sacred Law, T = Theology, M = Medicine, A=Arts; * year of entry into the Colegio de Abogados.
Sources: AGCA A IL 2756, E 23814, Abogados examinados en la Real Aud. del Reino de Guatemala(l 801-1861); Indice de los grados de Bachiller conferidos, 1750-1821, A1 Leg. 6940, Exp.57773-57779.
403
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
A similar pattern o f traditional and innovative municipal officeholding emerged
in smaller towns, like Honduran capital Tegucigalpa and district cabecera Sonsonate.
However, there were some important distinctions. In both Tegucigalpa and Sonsonate,
the wealthy and educated successfully vied for municipal posts but opened office
holding to other local families and newcomers who might not have qualified for the
seats before 1821.105 Once again, many families that survived the split represented the
first- or second-generation offspring o f Spanish municipales o f the early nineteenth
century.106 Although they were fewer in the provincial cities, foreigners such as Jose
Ferrari and Estevan Guardiola in Tegucigalpa and Bertrand Save and Guillermo
Varchand in Sonsonate, continued to be elected to municipal office, even when they did
not want to be.107 The local communities clearly saw benefit in making use of the
expertise o f foreigners, regardless o f the foreign residents’ desires. What is interesting
to note here is that the foreigners in the provinces were as likely to come from a variety
of European countries -Ferrari was likely Italian, Save and Varchand were French—not
just from Spain. If Guatemala City still maintained its commercial and regional ties
>os These Tegucigalpa families included the: Alcantara, Fiallos Landa, Lardizabal, Lozano, Midence, Rosa, Ugarte, Urmeneta and Yrias. Some families, like the Alcantaras and Landas, can be traced to a Spanish immigrant of the early nineteenth century. In Sonsonate, the Angeles, Borica, Campo, Contreras, Cuellar, Mencia, Mendez, Rascon, Rivas, Sosa, Trigueros and Villavicencio families all had members on both pre- and post-independence municipalidades. See Appendices L (Tegucigalpa) and M (Sonsonate).106 For example, the Alcantaras in Tegucigalpa descended from Jose Alcantara who came to Central America in the 1770s. Pedro and Rafael Campo y Pomar o f Sonsonate were sons o f Pedro Campoo y Arpa, a Spanish merchant who had previously been both alderman and mayor of Sonsonate.107 Tegucigalpa, Libro de Cabildo, 1840, 1841, 1843. Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (Paris), Correspondance Consulaire, Guatemala, Volume 2 :1844-1845, pp. 235-249v. Ferrari, a miner and a banker (prestamista), naturalized as a Honduran citizen to serve on the city council. Save preferred arrest to taking office as mayor of Sonsonate in 1841 and 1844, because he risked losing his French citizenship by serving a government post in El Salvador. Two French consuls in El Salvador, Mahelin and Huet, raised his case with the Salvadoran foreign ministry.
404
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
with the Spanish homeland, the provincial capitals proved welcoming territory for men
with no initial connections.
Even more than in Guatemala City, however, new families rose to occupy
numerous city council seats in the decades following independence, and here we can
show that men considered castas in the colonial period took advantage o f the new
political system to establish themselves in positions of institutional power.108 In
Sonsonate, for example, Juan Santos Gutierrez, a mulatto whose seat on the city council
of 1817 was challenged because of his ethnicity, went on to be elected once as alderman
and three times as mayor between 1822 and 1834.109 In Sonsonate, the Angeles, Arauz,
Cea, Rivas and Vega families only served in the constitutional councils of 1812-1814
and 1820-1821 before independence, suggesting that they could only be elected under
constitutional rules, i.e. that they were o f casta heritage. They went on to serve in
multiple positions after 1821. The Estrada, Galindo, Gomez, Gutierrez, Reyes and
Ugarte families in Tegucigalpa shared this experience.110
Additional evidence that upwardly mobile castas made their way into provincial
city councils can be found by examining the professions they exercised. In
Tegucigalpa, the new municipales were likely to be in the trades rather than in
108 In Tegucigalpa, the new families included: Bustillos, Castro, Cerrato, Cubas, Davila, Estrada, Laynes Moncada, Reyes, Soto, and Zuniga. In Sonsonate: Angeles, Arauz, Cea, Choto, Gomez, Gutierrez, Huezo, and Vega were new. In Sonsonate, the Angeles, Arauz, Cea, Rivas and Vega families only served in the constitutional councils of 1812-1814 and 1820-1821 before independence, suggesting that they could only be elected under constitutional rules, i.e. that they were o f casta heritage. The Chotos only joined the council in the 1830s. See Appendices L (Tegucigalpa) and M (Sonsonate).109 Gutierrez was mayor in 1822, 1825 and 1834, and alderman in 1832. See Appendix M.110 See Appendix L (Tegucigalpa). Again, confirmation of these hypotheses would require an examination o f baptismal records.
405
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
professions such as law and medicine that required university training.111 Most were
artisans—tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, ironworkers and laborers. Although many of
these men were literate (they signed their names in the municipal book o f acts), they did
not merit the honorific “don” and lived outside the central neighborhood that was home
to most of the Spanish and Creole elite.112 Given the population distribution o f the
town, it is not surprising that upwardly mobile castas would make their way to the city
council. An 1801 census established that there were at most 86 Spanish (white)
families in Tegucigalpa and 507 ladino (mulatto) families, for the Honduras governor
who wrote the report suggested that many Spanish families were not as pure as they
pretended.113
This is not to say that the merchants and miners, and their relatives, vanished
from the town council. O f 49 capitalists (capitalistas) listed in an 1860 census of
Tegucigalpa, fifteen were or had been members o f the city council before 1850. At
111 Tegucigalpa had only around a dozen lawyers serve in its m unicipalidad between 1820 and 1850, and most were elected in the 1840s. See Appendix L (Tegucigalpa)1 There were fourteen tailors who served in the town council between 1821 and 1850, including Secundino and Nicolas Bustillos (139), Dionicio and Crecencio Cubas (102, 110), and Juan Gomes (280). Rafael Cubas (111), Guillermo Davila (109) and George Laines (114) were among five carpinters. Juan Angel Rosa (104) and Miguel Laynes (106) were shoemakers, and Roque Bustillos (209) and Justo Gomes (201) were blacksmiths (herrero, albanil). While many men reported their profession as “miner” it is impossible to distinguish between elites who financed mines and men who worked their own mines. Censo fo rm a d o de orden del Noble Ayuntam iento de esta villa de Tegucigalpa, d e sus vec in o sy havitatttes con expresion de sus edades, oficios, y n o tas....se com enso en lo de enero de 1821. Published in RABN. O f 488 houses surveyed in the census, only the first 19 were in the p laza m ayor, and by the 80th house, residents with “don” (honorific signalling membership in the Spanish elite) became scarce. With one exception, the tailors, carpinters, and other laborers lived in the houses from 100 onwards, and did not have the honorific “don,” suggesting their mulatto origins. Dionicio Gutierrez, a tailor, was, the only “Don”and lived in house 64; his wife and children, however, did not receive the honorific.113 AGI Guatemala 501, Ramon de Anguiano, governor, Poblacion d e las Provincias de H onduras, Matricula de 1801. The governor commented on this census that “while the Spanish families herein expressed present at first glance a civil population not in the least common (vulgar) and proper society and public sustenance, one should not believe this to be so. Most are creole families, which, if one seeks out their origin, perhaps do not merit this distinction."
406
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
least another 8 were sons and or brothers o f municipales. Furthermore, sixteen o f the
25 capitalistas living in the city center fell into one or the other o f these categories.114
Or, in other words, the tw o thirds o f the most important merchants and bankers of
Tegucigalpa had thought municipal office a worthwhile endeavor. Simply, the
financiers and merchants o f mid-nineteenth century Tegucigalpa continued to work
through the town council as well as through private enterprise to advance their own
interests, alongside the town’s artisans, who formerly had not been able to aspire to
such office.
City, State and Federal Government
After independence, the electoral system and the multiplication of government
posts combined to shorten the number o f years that men o f education and talent spent in
municipal office. For the same men in demand as mayors, syndics and aldermen in the
principal cities and towns of Central America—the same dozen or so urban centers that
had served as economic, political and cultural centers in the colonial period—were the
lawyers, doctors, miners, landowners and other professionals whom presidents selected
for their ministries and whom both small and large towns elected to national office. As
in the colonial period, there was a strong correlation between holding municipal,
military and government offices. Serving on the city council o f an important urban
center remained an indirect route to power as well as an alternate place to influence
114 "Matricula que forma la municipalidad de Tegucigalpa....con expresion de nombres y edades,” Revista del Archivoy Biblioteca Nacionales de Honduras, Vol. 24, pp. 47-8.. The report indicated that in addition to the list o f 49 capitalists, the city government had compiled a list o f 1327 proletarios as well.
407
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
government when state or national service was complete or impossible due to a change
in regimes.
The members of the mid-nineteenth century congresses and governments o f
Central America were o f three principal types, all o f whom represented the most
educated members of society: the priests, the lawyers, and the town councilors. The
latter two groups often overlapped. Many o f the most distinguished politicians o f the
early post-independence period had first experienced government as mayors, aldermen
and syndics as can be seen in the number o f Guatemala City, Sonsonate and
Tegucigalpa municipales who held numerous appointed offices (see Appendix S).
Unsurprisingly, the cabildantes o f Guatemala City had a significantly higher
participation in government than smaller towns, as their residents were not only the
wealthiest and best educated, but also resident in or near the capital o f the state and
federation. At least 175 men elected to this one town council after 1814 had held
elective and appointed office in various state and national governments by 1850. This
group included some of the most distinguished leaders of the period, and represented
both provincial elites who had made their careers in the capital, like Jose Cecilio del
Valle, author of the 1821 declaration of independence, and Guatemalan native sons, like
Jose Mariano Galvez, liberal reformer and Guatemalan president from 1831-1838.115
115 Arturo Taracena Flores, “Biografias sinteticas de guatemaltecos distinguidos”, Revista de la A c G uatem alteca de Estudios Genealogicos, H eraldicos y Historicos, p. 550; Nettie Lee Benson, “The Central American Delegation to the First Constituent Congress o f Mexico, 1822-1823,” H ispanic Am erican H istorical Review 49: 4 (1969), p. 692; Marure, Efemerides, p. 81; Ramiro Ordofiez y Jonama, "Primeras Damas del Reino, de la Republica Federal, del Estado y de la Republica de Guatemala,"Revista de la Academ ia Guatemalteca de Estudios Genealogicos, Heraldicos y H istoricos, p. 362; Carlos Melendez Chaverri, Jose Cecilio del Valle, Sabio Centroamericano (San Jose: Libro Libre, 1985), p. 222; B7 Leg. 3480, Exp. 79488, Lista de los C Diputados del Congreso Federal del aiio de 26; B 7 Leg. 3480,
408
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Valle, mayor o f Guatemala for most o f 1821, represented Central America in the
Mexican congress of 1821-1822, where he also served as Iturbide’s minister of state and
foreign affairs. He was a member o f the second and third interim triumvirates to govern
Central America after the break with Mexico, was thrice elected to the federal congress
(1823, 1836, 1831) refused to serve as vice-president o f the federation in 1833, and died
in 1834 just after his election as federal president. Galvez, an illegitimate child raised
in one of the city’s foremost families, was able under the new republican system to hold
public office without the paperwork and fees required under the colonial system to
"legitimize" a child bom outside wedlock. In addition to serving as the president who
insisted on creating a thoroughly liberal social, political and economic legal system,
Galvez was a judge, minister in the Federation, and member of the Guatemalan and
federal congresses.116
The pattern of men serving in municipal, state and federal government posts that
was laid out in Guatemala City was repeated in other towns, although at a lesser scale.
At least 23 men from the post-independence Sonsonate town council served in either
executively appointed office as ministers and governors (jefes politicos; jefes
Exp. 79530, Fechas en que se han tornado su asiento en el Congreso los CC diputados de la legislatura federal de 1831, ff. 3,9, 10.116 Galvez was left on the doorstep o f Gertrudis Galvez sister o f Manuel and Silverio Galvez Corral, cabildantes in Guatemala City and alcaldes mayores in San Salvador (See Chapter 1). Gertrudis was married to Manuel Fadrique y Goyena, a Spanish coronel who also served as lieutenant alcalde mayor in San Salvador. They had no other children. See the copy o f Galvez' original baptism is in AGCA, A1 Leg. 1949 Exp. 13055, the decision in 1807 by the Guatemala City mayor to apply a royal decree of 1794 to exempt Galvez from his "class" so that he could attend university. In addition to being President of Guatemala (1831 -1838), Galvez represented the department o f Sacatepequez on the JPC in 1821; was a judge in Verapaz and Sacatepequez (1830-1831), Minister o f Government for the Federation (1821, 1828-1829) and deputy in the Guatemalan (1831, 1836, 1839) and Federal (1826, 1829) congresses. See also Ramiro Ordonez y Jonama, “Primeras Damas del Reino, de la Republica Federal, del Estado y de la Republica de Guatemala," p. 363.
409
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
departamentales) or elective office as chiefs o f state (jefes politicos superiors),
legislators, and judges. Tegucigalpa, half-time capital o f Honduras, produced over 50
men who distinguished themselves in state and federation politics between 1821 and
1850. Among the men using municipal positions as a springboard for their political
careers were Francisco Morazan, who went from secretary and alderman o f the
Tegucigalpa city council to membership in the Honduran government to, finally,
presidencies of the Central American federation, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. Dionisio
Herrera moved from secretary o f the president of both Honduras and Nicaragua, and
Diego Vigil, president o f both Honduras and El Salvador. Manuel Romero was a
respected congressman from Sonsonate, who met with visiting foreigners, including
George Alexander Thompson o f Britain, who later served in El Salvador’s General
Ministry and Council of State.117
The record of state and national office holding in these three communities
suggest how the republican legislative, judicial and executive branches o f government
provided expanded political opportunities for elites from all regions of Central America.
Yet the same record also points to a disproportionate number o f positions o f importance
going to men whose communities o f origin were state capitals. District cabecera
Sonsonate produced only two executives in El Salvador,118 while the municipalidades
and capitals of Tegucigalpa and Guatemala between them served as point o f departure
11' George A. Thompson, Narrative o f an Official Visit to Guatemala (London: J. Murray, 1829), p. 70.118 Brothers Pedro and Rafel Campo y Pomar were, respectively vice-chief (1846) and interim chief (1841) o f state, and president (1855-1858) o f El Salvador. Manuel Hermerengildo Romero was a Counselor of State (Consejero de Estado), and Pedro Arce, a San Salvador native and long-time Sonsonate resident and municipal also served temporarily as chief o f state (1841). See Appendix S.
410
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
for almost four dozen men who would go on to be presidents o f the Central American
Federation, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Table 7.6 Tegucigalpa Municipales In Executive Office, 1821-1850
Municipal Position/ Year State Municipal Position/ Year StateFranciscoFerrera
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table 7.7 Guatemala City Municipales in Executive Office, 1821-1850 (cont.)
Municipal Position^ear StateJose Farfan Consejero Estado, 1879 GuatemalaMiguel Garcia Granados President, 1871-1873 GuatemalaJose Antonio Larrave Consejero de Estado, 1824 Guatemala
Bernardino Lemus Consejero de Estado*, 1835 Guatemala
Jose Venancio Lopez Chief of State, subst., 1842 GuatemalaJuan Antonio Martinez Exec. Power (PE), int., 1835
Consejero Estado*, 1835 President, 1848
GuatemalaGuatemalaGuatemala
Miguel Molina Consejero Estado, 1824, 1829 GuatemalaJose Najera y Batres Consejero de Estado,? 1840s GuatemalaManuel F. Pavon Consejero de Estado, 1853 GuatemalaJose Maria Ramirez Consejero de Estado, 1835 GuatemalaAntonio Rivera C Chief of State, 1830-1 GuatemalaRafael Roma Consejero de Estado, 1827-8 GuatemalaMariano Rivera Paz Consejero de Estado, 1838
Chief of State, 1838-1839 Chief, Cons.ConsuItativo, 1849
GuatemalaGuatemalaGuatemala
Jose Maria Urruela Consejero Estado, 1844-1856 GuatemalaJose Gregorio Salazar Consejero de Estado, 1829
Although Tegucigalpa and Sonsonate had approximately the same number o f
men on their town councils after independence, Tegucigalpa, part-time capital o f the
state o f Honduras, produced three times as many men involved in regional rather than
412
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
local politics. And while Tegucigalpa placed a creditable number o f its sons in
government, Guatemala—with its large Spanish and Creole population, the seat o f the
federal or Guatemalan state government, a university, mercantile ties to the Caribbean
coast, Mexico and Pacific—was in a class of its own with double the number of
positions and a much greater number o f men in top ministerial and judicial posts. The
capitals of the other states did not have the lock on education that was Guatemala’s
heritage until the 1840s, when both El Salvador and Honduras organized universities (in
San Salvador and Tegucigalpa respectively).119
The visibility of Guatemala City’s town council as a producer o f politicians is
likely due in part to preservation of evidence. Information on members o f the
Salvadoran and Honduran congresses is sketchy for these years.120 However, the
concentration o f education, economy, and political life that this one city experienced for
over two hundred years also contributed to its production o f a plethora o f educated and
politically active men. Thus while states like El Salvador and Honduras, with fewer
lawyers, a more dispersed and less unequally prepared set o f elites, sent men from most
of their communities to represent those communities in state government, Guatemala
119 El Salvador’s university was in part the brainchild o f Honduran-bom president Juan Lindo Zelaya (Sal: 1841-1842, Ho: 1847-1852), who also promoted his native state’s Literary Academy (1837) to a university in 1847 and established a Normal School in Comayagua. Tegucigalpa also was the home of Honduras’ first military academy, established by Tegucigalpa municipal Jose Antonio Marquez during his time as president o f Honduras (1831-1832). The academy, under the auspices o f Colombian coronel Narciso Benitez graduated, among others, presidents Francisco Ferrera, Santos Guardiola and Florencio Xatruch. Guardiola during his presidency (1856-1862) reopened the Colegio Tridentino of Comayagua, closed by bishop Hipolito Flores. See http://www.hondudata.com/enciclopedia/enciclonew/honduras/ presidentes- /j uanlindo.htm and -/Joseantoniomarquez.htm.120 Although I was able to find attendance records for the federal and Guatemalan congresses in the AGCA, there seemed to be no such documents in either the AGN or ANH. For the years in which each government published newspapers, it might be possible to reconstruct a greater part o f the information.
413
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
City’s well-educated, deep-pocketed and long-standing elites held a preponderance of
state posts.121
Table 7.8: Provincianos in the Guatemala City Town Council, 1809-1850
Syndic Place of Origin Year V-;-'. Syndic, GG j
U hiy.or ;polegiodeAbogados*
Alejandro Diaz C. de Vaca Nicaragua 1813-1814 1806, 1809Jose Venancio Lopez Nicaragua 1814, 1820 1812*Marcial Zebadua Tuxtla, Chiapas 1809/1812* 1809Joaquin Duran San Salvador, El Salvador 1823-1824 1818*Fernando Valero y Morales Tegucigalpa, Honduras 1823, 1828 1818*Manuel Valero y Morales Tegucigalpa, Honduras 1823 1818Damian Villacorta Sacatecoluca, El Salvador 1823-1824 1821*Jose Santiago Milla Tegucigalpa, Honduras 1827 1804/1807*Miguel Saisar Santa Ana, El Salvador 1830-1831 1834* •Pablo Alvarado* Costa Rica 1830 1810/1823Jose Maria Cornejo* Sonsonate, El Salvador 1823-4 R 1809 F
Sources: See Appendix K. *Comejo never finished his studies. Alvarado took his degree in medicine.
It is interesting to note that in the years o f the Cortes, and in the years
immediately following independence, the syndics, or lawyers, o f Guatemala City’s
town council were young lawyers, often from the provinces, who were recent graduates
of the university in Guatemala City.
Yet looking at the well-established councils to determine the representation of
municipales in a congress or government only tells part o f the story. The numbers of
former municipales from the range o f cities, towns and villages within state
121 While impressive, these numbers are likely incomplete. I do not have complete lists o f congressmen and ministers for any government —state or federation—from 1821 to 1850. Central America’s states have yet to compile (let alone publish) definitive lists of their early legislative representati-ves and cabinets. Disarray in Honduras’ archives and destruction o f materials in El Salvador’s were matched by disinterest in Guatemala. In the Federal archive, I did find some electoral records, and screening o f deputies by the legislatures, but more importantly, attendance records for many years o f the state and federal congress. Compilations of constitutions produced lists of deputies for some years. For Guatemala, see particularly AGCA B Legajos 84, 194, and 3480, B12.17 Legajo 224, and C l, Legajos
414
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
governments was formidable. The congresses o f post-independence Central America,
for all o f their flaws and weaknesses, in fact allowed representatives of large and small
communities to work together on common political and legislative projects.
Guatemala’s congress proved the exception rather than the rule as distant
districts elected residents o f Guatemala City who had ties in their districts, as often as
native sons. Guatemala’s ayuntamiento was particularly dense in lawyers, and it was
these men who often were elected to the various state and federal congresses to
represent not only the capital district, but frequently the other areas o f the state of
Guatemala. To list just a representative sample o f Guatemala City lawyers representing
other districts in state and national assemblies:
Table 7.9: Guatemala City Municipales who represented other districts in CongressLawyer Congress
Manuel Jose Jauregui y Jauregui Verapaz (AL, 1836)Jose Venancio Lopez Chimaltenango (AC, 1839-1842); Guatemala
(AL 1829, 1853)Manuel Antonio Arrivillaga y Zepeda Totonicapan (AC, 1842)Jose Luis Batres y Munoz Peten (AC, 1840-1842)Mariano Cordova Huehuetenango (AL, 1833)Jose Domingo Estrada Verapaz (1839-1842), Chiquimula (AL, 1843);
(AL, 1831), Solola (AL, 1836-7)* Guatemalan Congress (AL=Legislative Assembly; AC- Constituent Assembly) unless noted. Source: See Note 121.
In El Salvador, as in Honduras, districts preferred to elect local men to represent
them. While El Salvador does not have a record o f all the members of its early
legislatures, a compilation o f presidents of the congresses o f 1824-1850 yields a
significant participation o f municipales from all over the country. While colonial
36, 38, 56, 111, 130and 144.
415
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
cabeceras San Vicente, San Miguel and particularly San Salvador dominate the
presidency, numerous smaller towns saw their representatives elevated to this honor.
Table 7.10: Municipales who served as Presidents of El Salvador Congresses, 1824-1850
Town Deputy Town DeputyAhuachapan Norberto Moran Gotera Hermenegildo GutierrezSonsonate Manuel Rivera Sensuntepeque Juan Antonio FuentesMetapan *Jose Manuel Guillen Usulutan Lucas JarquinSanta Tecla *Miguel Saizar Chinameca Cipriano SamayoaSanta Ana Manuel MenciaSan Miguel Carlos Antonio Meany, Jose Maria CisnerosSan Vicente Mariano Prado, *Leon Quinteros, Jose Maria Cornejo, Miguel ElisondoSanSalvador
Benito Gonzalez y Martinez, Juan Jose Pineda y Aldafia, Juan Fomos, Juan Manuel Rodriguez, *Migue 1 Mendoza, Clemente Mixco, Domingo Antonio Lara, Toribio Lara, M. Morales Wading, Juan Uriarte, Manuel Zepeda, Mariano Funes
The presence of the same men in both city councils and congresses shows that if
municipal service was not a prerequisite for achieving other political posts, both kinds
of political office attracted the same and same kind of man. Furthermore, towns were
willing to send the same men to represent them in the capital that they elected to
administer the schools, finances, and hospitals at home. It seems likely that some o f the
overlap derives from a finite number of men both financially able and willing to
undertake the generally unpaid task of political service. It is equally true, however, that
individuals like municipal Jacinto Villavicencio, Manuel Mencia—son of a Sonsonate
mayor—who donated his library to Santa Ana’s municipality, and Jose Campo y
Pomar—brother and son of Sonsonate municipales- who initiated the construction o f a
new hospital and the restoration of the parish church of Sonsonate, also sought out the
416
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
P 2posts.
This synthetic overview cannot hope to provide an examination o f the
motivations of individuals whose careers either began or ended in the municipalidades
o f Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa or Sonsonate. However, it does suggest that the
creation of new institutions o f government—presidents, ministers, congressmen, and
bureaucrats—did not appreciably diminish elite interest in municipal government in the
chief cities of Central America. Rather, the same men who once had purchased
municipal office to show loyalty and to secure additional, salaried positions from the
Spanish crown continued to view the city council as a worthy position. At the same
time, men of the former castes (castas) also saw in the city council a step on the path to
respectability and power, taking advantage o f the new citizenship laws to assume
municipal positions and to take their place on the political stage. As shown above, in
some cases, it seems young lawyers practiced their skills in the positions o f syndic and
returned as aldermen or mayors later in their careers. In other cases, educated artisans
took their seats. In all cases, men who wished to influence taxation, the assignment o f
marketplaces, the accrual of access to city lands (ejidos) and city-state relations found
that mayor, alderman and syndic o f principal city councils were still important
government posts that provided practical and material benefits.
Guion Histdrico del Poder Legislativo de E l Salvador, / “Parte: C onstituyentes-Legislaturas, Sinteses Biograficos de sus presidentes, 1822-1870 (San Salvador: Publicacion de la Asamblea Legislativa, 1966), passim. Jacinto Villavicencio: AMS, Caja Juzgado 1821-9, #2, Arbitrios q propone el sindico...., ff. 10- 11 December 1828.
417
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Conclusion
In the tumultuous era o f the 1820s and 1830s Central America went from being
a republic of cities to a republic o f states. If achievement o f the goal creating one
Central American people united under the same law, receded with each civil war that
spilled over one state’s borders to involve its neighbors or federal authorities, the
process o f creating states, with a single sovereignty residing in the state government
rather than the cities and towns that served as district and department capitals took root
and began to flourish.
This change in the understanding o f the foundations o f political identity does not
mean that the city was abandoned as source o f political authority. Building the
institutions to govern a nation, or at least the inhabitants o f states, in nineteenth century
Central America was a project which battling elites in the capital(s) attempted to
communicate to the countryside in a variety o f ways. One way was to adapt and expand
colonial institutions such as the town council into part o f a new governmental system
that provided an ample space for political participation to a wider range of the
population. Another way was to involve small towns in the project o f supporting or
rejecting challenges to the new system. The municipality remained in the 1820s and
1830s the principal political institution in most settlements, the official arm o f the state
and the means through which any settlement had to filter its political activity in order to
be recognized by higher authorities or neighboring towns.
For the bigger towns, the continuing emphasis on municipal government led town
councils to behave as they had in the past, as political bodies with the authority to take
418
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
important political decisions, from whether to accept a new state or federal government to
whether to withhold or provide taxes or soldiers as required by law. This retention of the
practice of a city republica helped create a political environment in which civil war
became endemic. For smaller towns, the tension between state and federation, and
between important district capitals, led to an opposite approach. The smaller towns of
Central America sought out state authority as a means to mediate local conflict, much in
the way the Spanish imperial agents had functioned for them in the past.
What we learn from the hiccups, from the points where authorities o f the
countryside had issues they could not resolve locally, is that to a large extent, the grafts
o f liberal ideology onto colonial institutions worked, at least at a functional level.
Numerous town councils were established, and the municipales elected to office.
Governors and judges accrued authority and learned to appeal thorny issues, such as
local obstruction of justice, to the supposedly more powerful capital. For both
executive appointees and locally constituted authorities, the center continued to serve a
purpose. Towns, governors and priests used the center selectively to achieve certain
improvements or advantages in their local environments, or to rid a town or parish of an
unwelcome individual, invoking their identities as proponents o f new political ways to
gain access to services from the central state. The successor governments o f the
Kingdom of Guatemala had its uses and the towns and priests o f the Republic of Central
America and the states o f Guatemala and El Salvador determined to access them. Over
time, they learned to identify with state and not national governments, and even to
address their capitals through the state’s local representatives, judge and governor.
419
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
What state was called back into being by the towns, governors and priests of
Central America? Looking through the lens of local, we clearly see that it was not the
colonial state where authority came from outside the territory of Central America. Nor
was it a “sovereign state of every village,” as Argentine politician Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento sarcastically commented, a political vacuum in which no group or institution
could govern.123 God, Union, Liberty was a motto taken seriously not just by Central
America’s founding fathers, but by the towns and governors of the new country, and its
senior clerics as well. The countryside wanted a state capable of mediating between its
local powers, a state that worked with the church hierarchy to keep the peace between
town, governor and priest, a state that lived up to the promises it made in terms o f
citizenship and its rights. Rural communities had more to offer the fledgling republican
governments than challenge through uprisings; they wanted the responsibility spelled
out in laws and political broadsheets. Elected town councils that took on the role of
mediator between local interests and central government cannot be neatly categorized as
resisting republican government and its reforms. Uprising was the tool of last resort,
undertaken in Guatemala and El Salvador only a decade after unwelcome government
reforms, added on top o f political instability, made the living situation unbearable.
Future studies of the conflicts between capital and countryside or church and state
should look not only at the chasms but also at the bridges constructed to cross them.
123 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argiropolis ([Buenos A ires]: Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion : A-Z Editora, 1994), p. 77.
420
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
However, the municipalidad o f Central America did experience the reduction in
political status that the consolidation o f state government demanded. The 1825 state
constitutions made clear that the new states were composed o f their pueblos, in much
the same way as the states made up the federation. By the late 1830s, however, leader
conceived of their states not as a composite o f pueblos, or communities, but as a pueblo,
or people. The ideology that a political civilization or community found legitimacy in
the city as republic was coming to an end. The republic would, in future, be the state,
and for all its administrative, judicial and political importance the city would in future
represent local government in a state hierarchy.
421
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Conclusion
In 1846, the Guatemala City ayuntamiento had a problem. An Englishman by the
name o f Frederick Crowe had established a school in their city. Not only did Crowe
attract upper-class students to his elementary class and prove English lessons to college
students, but the Protestant missionary was also encouraging Guatemalans to read the
scripture for themselves rather than receiving the word o f God through their priests.
The council was concerned, for their mandate made them responsible for primary
education in the city. It determined to shut him down. Crowe, however, had powerful
allies. He held his school in the house o f an important Guatemalan lawyer and
determined to fight the council through use o f the law. First, an examination o f his
pupils proved their learning. When the city fathers still insisted Crowe close his school
on the grounds that he was illegally practicing his non-Catholic religion in public, the
missionary took his case to the Guatemalan courts. The state justice system supported
him; the minister and teacher was breaking no laws. Apparently vindicated, Crowe
resumed his teaching. But the city council, supported by the sternly disapproving
church, had not exhausted its options. Together, the two institutions convinced the
Guatemalan caudillo, Rafael Carrera, to expel him. The most Crowe’s good friends and
students in the capital were able to do was to bring him a horse to speed him on his way
to the country’s Caribbean coast. They, and the law, were powerless to effectuate his
return. City and church combined could still coerce the state.1
1 Frederick Crowe, The Gospel in Central America (London: Charles Gilpin, 1850), Part 3, pp. 552-584.
422
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
If Central America had passed from being a republic o f cities in the sixteenth
century to a republic o f states in the nineteenth, it had not abandoned the tradition of
municipal power. Guatemala City, as capital of the state o f Guatemala, had unusual
authority but it was not alone. The city council of Sonsonate (El Salvador) on three
different occasions ignored directions from the state government to exempt a
Frenchman, Bertrand Save, from municipal office because serving in a foreign
government jeopardized his French citizenship.2
Indirect municipal power remained intact into the 1840s, as the institution o f the
city government remained one of three pillars of Central American government. Yet,
over the course o f the tumultuous decades following independence, a concerted move
was underway to create a new ideology that moved political identity away from the city
or town—beyond the vecindad o f the colonial political system— to the greater society
operating under each state’s laws. Legislators and leaders moved from fostering
municipal identity to relying on the concept o f “conciudadanos” or fellow citizens of all
of the residents o f a state or o f the federation (depending on the case). For such citizens
who identified with their state and not simply their town of origin would act in concert
against an outside threat, like the invasion of a neighboring state or outside threat, like
the American filibuster William Walker in the 1850s. By the 1840s, it was no longer
the pueblos that leaders and demagogues appealed to but to one pueblo in their
exhortations for peace, or cooperation, or fund-raising. Centroamericanos!
Guatemaltecos! Salvadoreftos! Hondureftos! These were the rallying terms. It was the
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
people, and no! peoples, o f Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala or the Federation who were
the subject o f the discourse. When Rafael Miranda, Minister General o f the Federation,
addressed an appeal to his fellow citizens in 1845 -Centro-americanos! he exclaimed—
he wanted to convince them that the “sacrifices o f the pueblos o f the Federation” were
not in vain. But the pueblos he evoked were not the towns that had recovered their
sovereignty with independence from Spain, but the “pueblos.. .[and] the legislatures that
represent them.” Legislatures represented states, not towns. It was states, and not their
towns, that had agreed to a pact o f federation. So it was to the states (Estados)—
Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala—and not their component political institutions or
districts that the minister referred to in his speech as fighting, or cooperating, or
otherwise acting. Local revolt had been demoted to the work of “factions,” not towns
or peoples. They definitely no longer emanated from a legitimate source o f political
authority and no longer received the same negotiated response.3
Nor was the ideological shift present only in official discourse and documents.
When the Reverend Father Dr. Tomas Suazo, professor of theology at the University o f
San Carlos, preached the sermon commemorating twenty years o f independence from
Spain on 15 September 1841, he compared the people of Guatemala to the people o f
Israel -a nation. But Guatemala was “an independent people {pueblo), that may elect its
rulers from among its own sons; to give itself laws according to its needs, and with
1845, pp. 235-249v.3 Rafael Miranda, Alocucion: Proyecto de Reforma, Esposicion dirigda al Consejo (Guatemala: Imprenta de la Aurora, 1845). The copy I consulted was in the Harvard-Widener Library, Call No. SA 3815.10.
424
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
respect to its circumstances that a wise and prudent legislator should keep in sight”4
The move to associate the citizens of the state o f Guatemala as a common people, rather
than a community o f city-based peoples, was well underway.
By the 1830s, even the common people had learned to speak in terms o f states and
not towns. In San Vicente (El Salvador), a man disaffected with the Federation was
quoted as having told his drinking companions on Christmas Day, “Boys, don’t be
fools. The states o f Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador have engaged not to be of
the Federation, in the same way that out of five sons o f one mother, two obey her and
three do not.”5 Whereas until the 1820s, the cities might have been the “sons” o f the
Spanish mother, and politics was lived in terms o f the decisions o f cities, by the 1830s
the existence o f states as the location o f political legitimacy had been generally
accepted.
The city as republic had been replaced by the more elusive, intangible state, or
state government, as the official place in which an individual belonged. It would,
however, take more than one generation for the idea o f a truly national political
community to permeate Central America, regardless o f whether the nation or people
imagined was a Guatemalan or federal one. Yet, sometime during the debacle o f the
1820s and 1830s, when association with local agendas led to civil wars and failed to
consolidate durable governments, the language o f the sovereign town or city ceased to
4 R.P. Dr. Fr. Tomas Suaso, Sermon predicado e l quince de se tiem b re (sic) de m il ochocientos cu a ren ta y uno. aniversario de nuestra independencia del gob iem o esp a n o l en la santa iglesia catedral de G uatem ala (Guatemala: Imprenta del Ejercito, 1841)5 AGN, Caja 3 , Seccion Antigua, Correspondencia oficial, 1821-1871, #22-3. San Vicente, 25 December 1834, Juzgado de Primera Instancia: Contra Marselio Arriola por expresiones subversivas.
425
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
serve as a rallying cry. The goal of subsequent leaders from federalist Morazan to
ardent states’ independence promoter Rafael Carrera, was to knit the different ethnic
and regional groups into one political community that associated with the central state
and not just with their local councils. From pueblos to pueblo, we might deem this
project, for this was the shift in the language they used. When or whether such a
change took root outside the circle of the men who proposed it, however, has yet to be
determined.
The rise of the competing national republic did not, however, mean the demise of
the city as government institution, agent or authority. Despite the loss o f its status as a
republic, the city and its council would remain the principle administrative unit that
linked individual to state. If the leaders o f Central America wished to abandon a
republic o f cities in favor o f a republic of states, they nonetheless held fast to the
organization o f political community that made all official representation start in a city
council. Two hundred years after Antonio Fuentes y Guzman penned his paean to the
city as part o f his history of the Central American conquest, Mariano Aycinena—
conservative, former president o f Guatemala and municipal o f Guatemala City—
underlined an identical belief at a time when the composition of city councils and the
procedures for selecting their members was under debate in Guatemala in 1845:
426
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
One o f the principal defects of the Spanish Constitution, that here we have wanted to follow blindly, is to overturn the municipal regime o f the populations, established by use and custom, attempting to set up a uniform system that the ignorant multitude—over which habit holds the only moral force—cannot understand with ease or rapidity. It is something that, evidently, has always been felt, particularly in modem times: when the municipal regime is suddenly upset, the public calm is altered, because [the change] directly attacks the primary base of the social order, which is the individual (particular) regimen o f the pueblos— established by themselves, learned by tradition and rooted in habit. One can see that one should not modify the municipal regime, base o f all republican government.”6
Since the conquest, politicians and reformers had turned time and again to the
structures and organization of municipal government as the means to improve order and
administration in the state. Although different political groups or generations might
differ on the extent to which full municipal government should extend to the poor and
indigenous communities of the isthmus, they never doubted that the municipal regime,
however constituted, was the primary bulwark of the state, and the authority which
could speak for a community when it interacted with governor, diocese or congress. In
the mid-nineteenth century, there remained the hope that if the pueblos could fulfill
their duties and obligations, a new pueblo might emerge. Yet, the central role of the
city, or comunidad, or municipio was never in doubt. This tension between pueblos and
pueblo would inform the relationship between city and state governments, communities
6 Cited in Ramon A. Salazar, Mariano de Aycinena, (Hombres de la Independencia) (Guatemala: Editorial del Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 1952), pp. 74-75
427
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and their distant leaders, throughout the nineteenth century. The “base o f all republican
government” had too long, and too strong, a history to suffer a different fate. As
Frederick Crowe found out to his detriment, city government had a way o f winning out.
428
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX A
Political & religious status of Spanish Cities: Kingdom of Guatemala, 1523-1821
Municipality Status Political Position Institutions PreseatGuatemala(Santiago)(Asuncion)
Santiago (Antigua) in 1799 revived its town coucil
Ciudad Capital: Kingdom ofGuatemala(1549-1821)
Capital of Alcaldia mayor, Sacatepequez
Capt. Gral, Audiencia, Casa de Moneda (1731-3), Admin Gral de Alcabala (1763), Factoria de tabacos (1767), Admin de Correos (1768), Contaduria Mayor (1771); Militia (1781); Consulado de Comercio (1794) Sociedad Economica (1795- 1799), Gazeta de Guatemala (1797-1816), Colegiode Abogados(1810)
Sonsonate Villa Capital of Alcaldia Mayor (1552-1821) Port (Acajutla); 21 pueblos in 8 parishes
Capital of Partido in AM S Salvador: 2 villlas, 40 pueblos valles & haciendas, in 7 parishes
Subdelegado, Diputado consular, Estafeta de Correos
San Vicente de Austria, o Lorenzana
PuebloVillaCiudad
Capital of Partido in AM S Salvador, 5 parishes, 1 vill and 12 pueblos, with haciendas & obrajes
Subdelegado, Diputado Consular, Montepio de Afiil (176x), Fact. Tabacos, Estafeta de Correos
429
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX A (Continued)Political & religions status of Spanish Cities: Kingdom of Guatemala, 1523*1821
Municipality S ta tu I Political Position Institutions PresentSta Ana Grande Pueblo Capital of partido in AM
S Salvador, 19 pueblos in 6 parishes
Subdelegado; Dip Cons, estaf. de correos, reg milicas, 567 pi
S Pedro Zula Ciudad Cabildo exting. en 1800 SubdelegadoXeres de la Frontera
PuebloVilla
(Choluteca) Subdelegado
S Jorge Olancho Villa (San Jorge Olanchito) 1 co militia of 330s; Subdeleg.
Tegucigalpa(1580)
(1762)
Real de Minas
Villa
Capital AM, then Prtido, then AM (1580-1788; 1812-1821): 1 villa, 6 lugares de ladinos, 17 pueblos de indios, 13 minerales, valles & haciendas, 10 parishes
Subdelegado de Int., Caja real (subalt. de Com), Dip. Cons., Estaf. Correos, milicias- 767 plzas, squadron of caballeria., Casa de Moneda (1780-1795)
Truxillo en Honduras
VillaExtingReest
Comandancia, Port; abandoned after Dutch pirate attack, 1643; repop. 1789
Comandante militar, Subdelegado, dip cons, destacamto de cpo vet., Estafeta de Correos, Caja Rl.
Gracias a Dios Ciudad Capital, Gbno Honduras (1536-1542); Auddelos Confines ( 1542-1549)
Subdelegado, diputado consular, Estafeta de correos, Factoria de tabacos (1802)
Leon de Nicaragua
Ciudad Capital of Gobiemo (- 1786), partido and Intendancy (1787-1821), of 2 villas, 6 pueblos, many valles y haciendas
Intendant, Caja real de int, Estafeta de Correos, Fact Tabacos, Admin alcabala (1763), Dip Cons, batallon de milicias of 767 plazas
Granada Ciudad Capital of Partido in Gbno. of Nicaragua: 1 villa, 17 pueblos
Subdelegado, Dip. consular, Admin tabacos (1767)
Nueva Segovia CiudadReest
Capital of Partido in Gbno. of Nicaragua: 1 villa, 5 pueblos
Subdelegado de Int., milicias of 747 plazas, Dip. consular
Realejo Villa Capital of Partido, port, villa,mulatto carpinters
Subdelegado, Estafeta de correos
Rivas Villa Title of villa 1783 (Managua)Cartago Ciudad
ReestCapital of Gobiemo (15657-1821), 3 villas, 10 pueblos
Estafeta de correos
Villanueva Villa Also called: San JoseVilla Vieja Villa
430
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX A (continued):
Political & religious status of Spanish Cities: Kingdom of Guatemala, 1523-1821
Diocese (1534-1743), and then Archdiocese of Guatemala (1744-) cabildo ecclesiastico, colegio Tridentino, monasteries (D, F, M, SJDD), 4 parishes
Sonsonate cabecera of parish, 4 monasteries (D, F, M, SJDD) , Diocese: Guatemala
Quezaltenango Franciscam Monastery; cabecera of parish, Diocese: Guate.Ciudad Real de Chiapa
Seat, Diocese Chiapas (1541-), cabildo eccles., colegioTridentino, colegio Jesuita, monasteries (D, F, M, SJDD), hospital, convent, cabecera of parish
San Salvador cabecera of parish, with pretensions to have a diocese; 3 monasteries (D, F, M), 60 cofradias, Diocese: Guatemala
San Miguel de la Frontera
2 monasteries (F, M), cabecera of parish, Diocese: Guatemala
San Vicente de Austria, o Lorenzana
cabecera of parish, monastery (F), Diocese: Guatemala
Santa Ana Grande cabecera of parish, Diocese: GuatemalaValladolid o Comayagua
Seat of Diocese of Comayagua (1561-), cabildo ecclesiastico, colegio Tridentino, monsteries (F, M, SJDD), hospital
Xeres de la Frontera cabecera of parish, Monastery (M), Diocese: ComayaguaSan Jorge de Olancho cabecera of parish, Diocese: ComayaguaSan Pedro Zula cabecera of parish, Diocese: ComayaguaTegucigalpa Monasteries (F, M), cabecera of parish, Diocese: ComayaguaTruxillo en Honduras Seat, Diocese of Honduras (1520s-1561); Cabecera of parish,
Dio: Com.Gracias a Dios cabecera of parish, monastery (M), Diocese: ComayaguaLeon de Nicaragua Seat, Diocese of Nicaragua (1531- 1821), cabildo
ecclesiastico, colegio Tridentino, monasteries (F, M (2), univ. (1812), SJDD, hospital de Sta Catalina, cabecera of parish
Granada 3 monasteries (F, M, SJDD), hospital, cabecera of parish; Diocese: Nicarag.
Nueva Segovia cabecera of parish, Diocese: NicaraguaRealejo cabecera of parish; Diocese: NicaraguaRivas cabecera of parish, Di: NicaraguaCartago cabecera of parish, 1 monastery (F), Diocese: NicaraguaVillanueva cabecera of parish, Di: NicaraguaVilla Vieja cabecera of parish, Di: Nicaragua
Monasteries: F = Franciscan, D = Domincan, M = Mercedarian, SJDD = San Juan de Dios;
431
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
SOURCESSources: Juarros, Compendio de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1981), passim. Taplin, Middle American Governors, (Metuchen, NJ, 1976), passim; Bemabe Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala durante el gobiemo de Antonio Gonzalez Saravia, 1801-1811 (Guatemala, 1993), passim. Truxillo (1789): Gonzalez, AGI Guatemala 453 and RC Nov 18, 1807, AGCA A1.2 Leg. 2194, Exp. 21225. Rivas title, Ricardo Magdaleno, Titulos de Indias (Valladolid, 1954), p. 283. Choluteca: .http: www//2.data.com/enciclopedia enciclo.new/ honduras/ mapas/municipios/Choluteca/M unidecholuteca.htm.Tegucigalpa cedula de ereccion in AGI Guatemala 623.
432
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX B:
Table of Ayuntamientos of Colonial Central America (Kingdom of Guatemala), 1523-1807
Municipality Status Founded Composition in 1646 (known additions/changes)GUATEMALA (depends directly on the audiencia)
Guatemala (Santiago) (Asuncion)
Ciudad 1524(1776)
2 AO, AR, AM, Dep gral, 12 RR, Provincial SH, Alcaldes de SH, Tes Gral Papel sellado (fm 1643), Esno Publico y del cabildo, Diptn, y Alcabalas (RR Varied: stabilized at 20, 1644)
Sonsonate Villa 1552 2 AO, AM, 6 RR, Provl de Sta Hdd y 2 ASH, Esno pub y del cabildo
Quezal-tenango
Pueblo 1805 2 AO, at least 4 RR (probably 6) ****
Ciudad Real de Chiapa
Ciudad 1528 2 AO, AM, 8 RR, R yDG, Esno pub y cabildo
Alcaldia Mayor SAN SALVADORSan Salvador Villa
Ciudad15261543/5
2 AO, AR, AM, 8 RR, DG, Provincial y Ales SH, Esno del Juzgado Mayor y visitas
San Miguel de la Frontera
Ciudad 1530 2 AO, AR, AM, DG, 6 RR, RyDG, Esnopub y del cabildo
San Vicente de Austria
Villa 1658 2 AO, 4 RD’s, y 2 RS, Esno publico y de cabilda
Sta. Ana Grande
Pueblo 1807 2 AO, 6 RR ****
Alcaldia Mayor TEGUCIGALPATegucigalpa Villa 1768 (1768) 2 AO, 6 RS, also AR, AM, AP, DG (RC 17
Ciudad 1540 2 AO, AM, AM, DG, 4 RR, Provincial HDd y 2 ASH
San Jorge de Olancho
Villa 1530 2 AO, AM, 2 RR, esno pub
San Pedro Zula
Villa 1536 2 AO, AM, 2 RR, esno pub y del cabildo (1536/S Pedro Pto Caballos)
Truxillo en Honduras
Ciudad 1524
(1807)
2 AO, AM, 3 RR, Provincial HDD, Esno pub del cabildo y registros 2 AO, 1 S (RC)*** (reestablish)
Gracias a Dios
Ciudad 1536 2 AO, AM, Alferez Mayor, DG, 4 RR, Provincial Hdd, Alclades de Hdd, Esno pub y del cabildo
433
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX B (continued)
Table of Ayuntamientos of Colonial Central America (Kingdom of Guatemala), 1523*1807
GOBIERNO DE NICARAGUALeon de Nicaragua
Ciudad 1523 2AO, AM, AR, 6 RR, Ales de Hdd, Esno pub y del cabildo
Granada Ciudad 1523 2 AO, AM, AR, DG, 6 RR, Ales SH, Esno pu y del cabildo
NuevaSegovia
Ciudad -1530 * (1809)
2 AO, AM, Alf Mzy, 6 RR, DG, Esno Pub y Cabildo
Cartago Ciudad -1565 2 AO, AM, AR, DG, Esno pub de gbno del juzgo mayor y visitas de la rl caja, minas y registros y abaluaciones
Realejo Villa 1534 2 AO, Alguacil y guarda mayor del puerto, AR, DG, 3 RR, Esno cab y Registros
Rivas Villa Post-1646
KEY:AO - Alcalde Ordinario, RS - Regimiento Sencillo, RD - Regimiento Doble, AM - Regidor/Alguacil Mayor, AR - Regidor/Alferez Real, DG - Regidor/Depositario General (after 1799, a RS), RR - All regimientos (RS& RD), ASH - Alcalde de la Santa Hermandad, AP - Alcalde Provincial de la Sta. Hdd, Esno-Escribano
SOURCES:Principal information compiled from Domingo Juarros Compendio de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala, esp. pp 232-236, Taplin, Middle American Governors (Metuchen, NJ, 1976). Juarros’ 1646 information came from a 1646 report of Juan Diez de la Calle, an official of the Council of the Indies. Tegucigalpa cedula de ereccion in AGI Guatemala 623.* Nueva Segovia was founded by Pedrarias Davila, who died in 1531. Therefore, it dates to pre 1531. See Juarros.** S Vicente created at request RIVAS: Simancas*** Trujillo reestablished, RC Nov 18, 1807. AGCA A1.2 L 2194, E 21225 **** Santa Ana’s first sale of regimientos authorizes the sale of 6 “regimientos dobles y sencillos,” Titulo de Jose Mariano Castro, regidor y alcalde provincial, 31 July 1811. Titles for 3 RD and 1 RS were issued for Quesaltenango, 11 July 1815. AGI Guatemala 446.
434
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX C: Table of Political Divisions of the Reyno de Guatemala, 1654-1796
1654 1778 1788Ciudad Real (AM) Ciudad Real (P) (AM) Ciudad RealSoconusco (G) Soconusco (P) (G) Soconusco
Tuxtia (P) (AM) TuxtiaValle de Guatemala (C) Chimaltenango (AM)
Sacatepequez (AM)ChimaltenangoSacatepequez
Escuintla (C) Escuintla (P) (AM) Escuinta y GuazacapanVera Paz (AM) Verapaz (P) (AM) VerapazSonsonate (AM) Sonsonate (P) (AM) SonsonateSuchiltepeques (AM) San Antonio Such. (P)
(AM)Suchitepeques
Soloia o Tecpanatitlan (C) Atitdn o Soloia (P) (AM) SololdTotonicapan (C) Totonicapan (P) (AM) TotonicapanNicaragua (G) Leon (P) (G y Cmd.a) LeonNicoya (AM) Nicoya (C) (C) NicoyaMoninbo (C) (N) Subtiava o
Realejo (C) Realejo (C) (C) Realejo y SubtiavaCosta Rica (G) Costa Rica (P) (G) CostarricaQuezaltenango (C) Quezaltenango (P) QuesaltenangoChiquimula (C) Chiquimula y Zacapa (P)
(C)Chiquimula y Zacapa
San Salvador (AM) S Salvador (P) (AM) San SalvadorComayagua (G) Honduras (P) (G) ComayaguaTegucigalpa (AM) Tegucigalpa (P) (AM) Tegucigalpa y CholutecaSan Andres de Zaragosa (AM) (S)Amatique (AM) (S) Peten (Presidio)Chontales (C) (N) Golfo (presidio)Atitlan (C) San Juan (Castillo)Guazacapdn (C)Acasaguastdn (C) SegobiaQuesalguaque (C) (N) San MiguelTencoa (C) (Com)Quepo (C) (CR)Chim'po (C) (CR)Pacaca (C) (CR)Ujarraz (C) (CR)
G = Gobiemo, AM = Alcaldia Mayor, C = Corregimiento, P = Provincia, S = Suppressed, CR = Absorbed into Costa Rica, 1660, N = Absorbed into Nicaragua, 1660, and Com = Absorbed into Comayagua, 1660.
435
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX C (continued):
Table of Political Divisions of the Reyno de Guatemala, 1654-1796
-1790** 1796Gobiernos Reyno de GuatemalaCiudad Real (AM) Intendencia de Cdd RealSoconusco (G) l-CRTustla (AM) l-CRChimaltenango (AM) Sacatepequez (AM)**
AM Chimaltenango AM Sacatepequez
Escuintla (AM) AM EscuintlaVerapaz (AM) AM VerapazSonsonate (AM) AM SonsonateS Antonio Suchitepequez
AM S. Antonio Suchitepquesr)
Solola (AM) AM SololdTotonicapan (AM) AM TotonicapanNicaragua (Gbno) Intendencia de LeonNicoya (AM) l-NMatagalpa (AM) l-N
Realejo y Subtiava (AM) l-NCostarrica (G) Goviemo de CostarricaQuesaltenango (AM) C QuesaltenangoChiquimula (AM) C Chiquimula y ZacapaS Salvador (AM) Intendencia de S SalvadorComayagua (G) Intendencia de Com avaauaTegucigalpa (AM) 1788-1817: l-C; 1817-1821:
AMMilitary outposts:
Peten (Castillo) Castillo del PetenGolfo (Castillo) Fuerte de S CarlosS Juan (Castillo) Omoa
TruxilloCabo de GraciasRio TintoRoatan
G = Gobiemo, AM = Alcaldia Mayor, C = Corregimiento, P = Provincia, S = Suppressed, CR = Absorbed into Costa Rica, 1660, N = Absorbed into Nicaragua, 1660, and Com = Absorbed into Comayagua, 1660. I-CR = partido o f Intendancy o f Ciudad Real (Chiapas), I-N = partido of intendancy o f Nicaragua; I-C = intendancy o fComayagua
436
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Sources:Column: 1654. Glen W.Taplin, Middle American Governors (Metuchen, NJ: 1972), pp. 75-6. In 1660, 8 corregimientos were incorporated into larger gobiemos: 4 into Costa Rica (CR), 1 into Com ayagua (Com) and 3 into Nicaragua (N). Around 1703, the AM of Amatique and S Andres de Sarragosa were suppressed (S); Guazacapan and Escuintla joined to form an AM; Atitan and Tecpanatitan/Solola joined to form the AM of Solola. In 1753, the Valle o f Guatemala was divided into two alcaldias mayores, Chimaltenango and Sacatepequez. Taplin considers Totonicapan a corregimiento, but primary sources determine that the joint district o f Totonicapan and Gueguetenango (Huehuetenango) is an alcaldia mayor. See for example AGI Guatemala 446, Titulos de Juan Vacaro (1764) and Pedro Antonio Maceyra (1802).
Column 1778: Anonimo, Noticias del Reyno de Guatemala, 1778, Cuadro 2. Cargos politicos superiores y sueldos anuales, 1778. Published in the Academia de Geografia e Historia de Guatemala. LXTV (1990): 252.
Column: 1788: AGCA A3.16 246-4912, f 34. Partidos que Tributan. Notes that there are 655 pueblos in 23 partidos. In these, 99,156 tributarios p ay . 177532 pses 5 1/2 rr o f which the crown gets 164, 713 pp 2rr. Local military defense gets 9751 pp 3 Vi rr, the church gets 3067 pp 7 1/2 rr as its diezmo (tithe).Per Taplin, Middle American Governors, the Intendancy of Nicaragua included the former government o f Nicaragua, the alcaldia mayor o f Nicoya, and the corregimiento o f Realejo and Matagalpa, and had 6 subdelegados. Honduras, formed from the government o f Comayagua and alcaldia mayor o f Tegucigalpa, had 9 subdelegados. Chiapas included the government of Soconusco and alcaldias mayores o f Ciudad Real and Tuxtia, with 11 subdelegados. San Salvador had no territorial changes, incorporating the former alcaldia mayor o f San Salvador, and had 14 subdelegaciones.
Column ~1790. AGCA A3.2 Legajo 1355, Expediente 22716. No date. This is a list of provinces o f the Kingdom o f Guatemala when Juan Hurtado and Ignacio Guerra were both escribanos. The original document also includes a list o f the religious orders present in the province at the time, as well as the principal branches (ramos) o f the RealHacienda.
Column 1796: AGCA A1.25 Legajo 2603, Expediente 4389. Mails o f the Kingdom ofGuatemala.
437
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX D
Distances between different Cities of Central America, 1794 (leagues)
Distancias de esta Capital a las demis Ciudades del ReynoCiudad de San Salvador 60Ciudad de Gracias a Dios 81Ciudad de Comayagua 117Ciudad de San Miguel 97Ciudad de Granada 183Ciudad de Cartago 216Ciudad de Ciudad Real 400Ciudad de Coban 140Ciudad de Campeche 287Puerto de Truxillo 196Castillo del Peten 165
Distancias desde esta CapitalZacapaChiquimulaGolfoOmoa, pr tieraChalchuapaSanta AnaSonsonateCojutepequeChalatenangoZacatecolucaSan VicenteUsulutanGoteraTegusigalpaYuscaranAguantequeriqueViexoSubtiabaMasayaNicaraguaNicoyaGuatemala ViejoEscuintaChimaltenangoQuesaltenangoSn. Anto Retaluleu* all unusual spellings, SIC
Costa Rica Costa Ria 24536 3.1 30313 3.1Total 797, 203 920,409
Bemabe Fernandez Hernandez, El Reino de Guatemala durante el Gobiemo de Antonio Gonzalez Sardvia, 1801-1811 (Guatemala, 1993), p. 69. Military district populations have been added into the provinces (principally Comayagua), and el Peten added to Verapaz. (Note: Sonsonate has been included under Guatemala, not El Salvador, which it joined in 1824. Totals are mine).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX E (continued)
E2: Population of Guatemala City (Asuncion de Guatemala)
Ladinos Indios TotalAsuncion: Catedral* 10,837Asuncion: Remedios* 1603 1993 3596Asuncion: Candelaria* 2515 1831 4328Asuncion: S. Sebastian* 4646Asuncion: S Juan del Obispo* 3004 3004
* Jesus Maria Garcia Afloveros, Poblacion y Estado Socioreligioso de la Diocesis de Guatemala en el ultimo tercio del siglo XVIII (Guatemala, 1989), p 193.
440
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX E (continued)
E3: Population & Racial Composition of Select Cities & Towns, Central America, ca. 1800
City Spanish Mixed (MeO'*d,Miil, Par)
Indian Total
Santiago Guatemala *(1750s)
6616 25,041 6700 38300
Antigua Guatemala** (algunos) (los demas) (Mu) 7-8000S Juan Sacatepeques 75 336 5000 5411Chiquimula de la Sierra 296 589 (M) 2000 2885San Antonio Retahuleu**
:sp-Spanish, L - Ladino, Vlu-Mulatto, Me-Mestizo, Pa-Pardo, si - Negro (Black)Algunos - Some, los demas- the rest, Alm-Almas (Souls); Fam.- Families
441
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX E (continued)
Sources: ^Santiago, fin C. Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala 1541-1773, Estimated Population o f Santiago de Guatemala, p. 110, Table 9. His categories are Spanish & clergies = my Spanish; “gente Ordinaria” = my Mixed; and Indian o f 1 inner barrio (1300) and 4 outer settlements (5400).**Juarros: Ciudad Real: vecindario corto..no mas q 333 habitantes y como 50 indios de los Barrios, p 15; S Antonio Retahuleu w/ Sta Catarina Sacat., p 17; Sta Cruz Chiquimullila,p. 19, Sta Ana Grande, p. 21, Truxillo, p 29 (and 200 o f destacamento), Huehuetenango, p. 40, Solola, p. 43, Chimaltenango, p. 45, and Antigua, p. 47.*** Honduras information, 1801 Matricula, AGI Guatemala 501.
442
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX F: Jurisdictions of the Villas of Santisima Trinidad de Sonsonate &
Tegucigalpa
F-S1: Population By Parishes. 1770s
Parishes Total Pueblos Indios LadinosSonsonate 3864 5 733
Asuncion de Ysalco 2212 1 1817 395Dolores de Ysalco 3455 1 3060 395
Asuncion Agualchapa (Ahuachapan)Santa Maria Magdalena TacubaConcepcion AtacoSan Pedro CalucoSan Andres GuaymangoSan Miguel JujutlaSantiago NaulingoSan Silbestre GuaymocaSan Miguel SonsacateSan Ysabel MexicanosNuestra Senora Dolores Ysalco
Sto Domingo GunipamSan Pedro de PustlaSan Juan NaguisalcoSta Catarina MasaguaBo del Angel y San FranciscoSan Andres ApanecaSan Miguel QuezalcoatitanSanta Lucia JuayubaSan Antonio del MonteNuestra Sefiora Asumpcion Ysalco
21 pueblos and 2 barrios; 9 Julio 1791, Alcaldia Mayor, Sonsonate
443
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX F (continued): Jurisdiction of the Alcaldia Mayor of Sonsonate
♦In 1791, Tatumbla was a parish in the district o f Comayagua, not Tegucigalpa, and Aguanqueterique was a separate parish with 2082 residents. Aguanqueterique in 1801 was an Indian village in Goascoran.
F-T2. Population. Parish of Tegucigalpa. 1783AGE(years)
0-20,M
7-20,W
>20,M
>20,YV Total
Villa y sus arrabales en circuito, Espaiioles 104 88 104 150 446max. 3 1/2 leguas Mulatos 937 941 796 1178 3852
Pblo San Miguel, contiguo a la Villa Indios 27 28 32 37 124Pueblo Comayaguela, contiguo Indios 407 358 358 407 1530Valle de Rio Hondo y rio Abajo, 6leguas Mulatos 213 186 191 215 805Pueblo de Tamara y valle, con aldeas Indios 2 1 3 0 6
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX F (continued): Jurisdiction of the Alcaldia Mayor of Tegucigalpa
F-T3. Pooulation. Parish o f l 'egucigalpa, 1815
Lugares Fam ilias NinosConfesidn(Total)
Resumen(Individuals)
Tegucigalpa y sus barrios 525 595 2092 2687Espanoles en todo el curato 85 149 278 427Yndios del Pueblo Abajo 14 21 52 73Yndios del de Comayaguela 304 478 1021 1499Rio Abajo, mulatos 112 149 382 531Ermita del Rio Hondo y su valle 114 143 353 496Iglecia Tamara, Indios 5 8 10 18Tamara, y su valle, mulatos 58 74 240 314Soroguare, coa y sta cruz 80 124 266 390Matheos a Upare 30 31 98 129Potrero Ysaguire a Orcones 52 79 176 255Sta Rosa Loarque, a tierras del Pe. 27 83 148 231Jacaleapa minas de Villa Nva 83 135 335 470Ermita de Suyapa y su valle 54 90 197 287Sabana Grande a los Sitios etc 53 69 195 264Total 1596 2228 5843 8071
F-T4: Parishes of Tegucigalpa. 1791
Parish Pueblos1. Tegucigalpa: Tegucigalpa, Amarateca, Comayaguela, Pueblo Abajo, Tamara2. Aguanqueterique: Aguanqueterique, Alubaren, Curaren, Lauterique, Reitoca3. Cantarranas: Cantarrana, San Francisco V., Guaimaca V.4. Danli: Danli, Jamastran Valle, Potrerillos, Teupasenti5. Choluteca: Choluteca , Corpus Mineral, Linaca, San Martin M., Morolica V.,
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX F (continued): Jurisdiction of the Alcaldia Mayor of Tegucigalpa
F-T5: Parishes of Tegucigalpa. 1801
Subdelegacion de TegucigalpaParish: Tegucigalpa Pueblos (de Espafioles/Ladinos): Villa de Tegucigalpa, Rio Hondo, Rio Abajo, La Venta, Sabanagrande, El Rancho, El Cimarron, La Estancia de Oropoli, Xacaliapa/Suyapa, Pueblo Abajo, Reduccion de Mateo, San Antonio de Xalaca, S Diego Buena Vista, Caridad de Guinope, Santa Gerturids, Mineral de Sta Lucia, Mineral de S Antonio, Yuscaran; Pueblos de Indios: San Miguel de Tegucigalpa, Suyapa R, Comayaguela Pueblos de Indios
Parish: Oioiona Pueblos: Ojojona, Lepaterique, Santa Ana
Parish: Tatumbla
Parish Texiguat Pueblos: Texiguat, TamaraSubdelegacion de Danli
Parish: Danli Pueblos: Danli, Xaxetapa, Teupacenti, Alauca, Xacaliapa (Jacaleapa), Mineral de Potrerillos
Subdelegacion de CedrosParish: Cantarranas Pueblos: Cantarranas, Mineral de Cedros, Moroceli, Guaimaca, San
Subdelegacidn de NacaomeParish: Nacaome Pueblos: Nacaome, Goascoran, Pespire, San Juan, La Caridad,
Alubaren, Aramecina, S Antonio Dulce NombrePueblos de IndiosParish: Goascaran R Pueblos: Goascaran R., Langue, Aaramecina R., Pespire R,
Aguanqueterique, Curaren, Alubaren R, Reytoca, Lauterique Subdelegacion de Choluteca
Parish: Choluteca Pueblos: Villa de Choluteca, Namasigua, Yusguare, Orocuina, Mineraldel Corpus, Reduccion de S MarcoSyPueblos de Indios: Ninaca, Tiscagua
447
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX F (continued): Jurisdiction of the Alcaldia Mayor of Tegucigalpa___________ F-T6: Alcaldia Mayor de Tegucigalpa. 1743_________
* Town has same name as partido. ** In the relacidn, appear as “villas de negrosy mulatos." ° By 1765, Santa Lucia & Nacaome’s populations were classed as mulato, Potrerillos’ as pardo, and Corpus as Spanish and mulato. TERMS: Co. Mil. = Militia Companies; Ind. = Indian;Lad. = Ladino, Esp. = Espafiol. V =Villa (Town), P = Pueblo (Village), RM = Real Minas(Mine)
448
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix F: Alcaldias Mayores de Sonsonate & Tegucigalpa
Sources
F-Sl, S2: Jesus Maria Garcia Aiioveros, Poblacion y Estado Socioreligioso de ladiocesis de Guatemala en el ultimo tercio del siglo XVIII (Guatemala, 1989), pp. 194,205
F-S3,4 AGCA A3 Legajo 238, Expediente 4727
F-S5: AGCA A1.44 Leg. 588, Exp. 5331, Report of Alcalde Mayor Jose de Najera.
F-S6: Gazeta de Guatemala, No 95, 7 January 1799.
F -T l: Domingo Juarros, Compendio de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1981), pp. 32,64-81
F-T2: Revista del Archixo y Biblioteca Nacionales (Honduras), T. 28, p. 388.
F-T3: Padron, 1815, ANH (Tegucigalpa), Fondo Colonial, Box 105, Number 3716. NB: Sum of Soroguare is offby 100 in the original (490).
F-T4: Domingo Juarros, Compendio de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1981), pp. 32, 64-81.
F-T5: Matricula de Honduras, Ramon de Anguiano, Intendant, 1801, AGI Guatemala 501; reprinted: H. M. Leyva, ed. Documentos Coloniales de Honduras (Choluteca, Ho.: CEHDES, 1981), pp. 276-289.
F-T6 : 1765, Informe de Joseph Valle, Boletin del Archivo General de Guatemala 2:3, p. 466.
449
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix G: Commerce of the Kingdom o f Guatemala, 1800
G1: Noticia de las Provincias v partidos que tienen el Revno de Guatemala, con susrespectivas producciones.
Obispado de Ciudad Real de Chiapas. Sus producciones, ningunas en sustancia, excepto el poco tabaco que coge, proque las que da se consumen en sus despoblada provincia.
Soconusco. Produce cacao y algun afiil.Totonicapam. Da texidos de lana, y aun mas trigo.San Antonio. Cacao y algodon en rama.Solola. Tirgo y grabanzos.Chimaltenango. Trigo y minestras.Zacatepeques. Nada en sustancia.Escuintla. Sal y pescado.Guatemala, capital, y arzobispado. Muchos texidos de algodon.Verpaz, Ylados de algodon y zarzaparrilla.Chiquimula. Ylados de algodon y algunas minas de plata.Sonsonate. Muy pocos ylados de idem, algun balsamo, afiil, azucar, petates y
sombreros.San Salbador. Mucho anil y algun azucar.Comaagua, Obispado. Ganado bacuno, alguno mular, y muy poco afiil y zarzaparilla.Gracias. Tabaco y muy poco anil.Tegucigalpa. Minas de plata.Nicaragua, Obispado. Cacao, ganado bacuno y mular; quesos, afiil, palos de tinte,
maderas, mucho maiz, azucar, alquitranes, breas, tortugas y carey.Nicoya. Ganado de dichas dos clases, perlas, e ylo morado.Matagalpa. Trigo, azucar, y ganado de las propias dos clases.Segobia. Azucar y ganado.Costarrica. Tabaco, azucar, cacao e ylo morado.Nota: Q en quant a extraccion de maderas y palos de titne, no se verifican hoy otras que
las que del puerto de Realejo se Uevan al Peru.Otra. La pesca del carey y tortuga se hace en mucha abundancia por los Moscos e
ingleses que habitan por las costas del Norte de este reyno, sin que a nosotros nos resulte ventaja alguna.
Otra. El corte de palos de tinte y de exquisitas maderas respectiva a dicha costa del Norte, tampoco nos rinde utilidad chica ni grande, sucediendo con esto lo mismo que con el carey y la tortuga, por cuya razon y sin que el puerto de San Juan se fomente, jamas podra el reyno gozar lo que su mismo terreno le brinda por aquella prte en tantisima abundancia.: Granada, y Enero 3 de 1800.
Source: Attributed to Spanish merchant Juan de Zavala (1753-1800). In CarlosMelendez, ed., Textos Fundamentales de la Independencia Centroamericana (CostaRica: Editorial Universitaria, 1971), pp. 66-67.
450
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix G: Commerce of the Kingdom of Guatemala, 1800 (continued)
trapiches (mills) to grind sweet cane silver and gold minescom beans some wheat tobacco afiilrapaduras sugar cheeses salt
Sources:Sonsonate: Report, Don Joseph Melchor de Ugalde (Treasurer), 1765, Boletin del
Archivo General del Gobiemo. Vol. 2, No 2, p. 288
Tegucigalpa: Maria de los Angeles Chaverri Mora, “La Alcaldia Mayor deTegucigalpa en la Relacion Geografica de Don Baltasar Ortiz de Letona,1743,” p. 33. Paper presented at the Tecer Congreso Centroamericano de Historia, San Jose, Costa Rica, July 1996. The relacion geografica was reprinted in BAGG, Vol. 1, No 1, October 1935.1765: Informe, Joseph Valle, Boletin del Archivio General de Guatemala 2:3, p. 466.
451
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX H: Comparison of Prices Paid for Regimientos Sencillos, Kingdom ofGuatemala, 1781-1807 and the 1600s
Reeimientos Sencillos Afio Precio Ano PrecioRegidor Sencillo Nicaragua 1790 225
All prices are in pesos unless there is a T (tostones) or Due (ducados), for some o f the 17lh c values.
452
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX H: Comparison of Prices Paid for Reeimientos Sencillos, Kingdom ofGuatemala, 1781-1807 and the 1600s
SOURCES:
18th c.: AGI Guatemala 629, Listado de Valores de Regimientos, 1807, 1804: # 37,Captain General A. Gonzalez, 3 April17th c.: Juarros, Compendio Historico, pp 234-5.* Ciudad Real, Cartago & Chiapas values for 1781-5 and late 19th c respectively are from the Memorial that went w/ Listado de Valores, Testimonio: cumpto RC 1797 re legitimo valor ...a los oficios de Regidores, March 17 1807.
453
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX I: Comparison, Prices of Regimientos Dobles, Kingdom of Guatemala
RegimientosDobles
Year Price Year Price
San Vicente - 4 RD
1658 2400(4)
Cartago - 3 RD * 1798* 150Ciudad Real - 4 RD*
1781 500
Tes. Papel Sellado
Guatemala, est. 1643
1643 10,000
AJguacilMayor
Nicaragua 1803 305
Leon 1794 1240 1637 1750Leon 1798 1000Tegucigalpa 1802 362Tegucigalpa 1806 1320San Vicente 1800 400Granada 1794 1050 1637 2000San Miguel 1802 600 1643 2000Sonsonate 1798 300 1613 3000Sonsonate 1639 3000Ciudad Real 1800 200 1627 4687Santa Ana 1807 300Guatemala 1794 500 1644 14,000Comayagua 1634 1600San Salvador 1645 14.000TCartago 1643 1000
Alferez Real Tegucigalpa 1803 500San Vicente 1793 3125San Vicente 1801 3125Granada 1807 751 1637 2000Ciudad Real 1800 330Guatemala 1806 500 1636 3998 due.Guatemala 1794 500Leon 1637 1275San Miguel 1635 1000TComayagua 1629 1700TSan Salvador 1620 2000 TSan Salvador 1636 2000 TCartago 1640 300
Prices are in pesos unless there is a T (tostones) or Due (ducados). Sources: See Appendix H.
454
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX I: Comparison, Prices of Regimientos Dobles, Kingdom of Guatemala (cont.)
Regimientos Dobles Year Price Year PriceAlcaldeProvincial
Leon 1796 2000 1645 4000
San Miguel 1799(ren.)
600 1645 5000 T (Prov’cl)
San Miguel 1806 600Sonsonate 1803 300Cartago 1799 150San Salvador 1796 1105Guatemala 1794 500 1644 8000
RC: 27 Nov, Christobal Mendez, Alguacil Mayor, guarda mayor RD Nicolas de Ancheita y Castillo, R/AM, guarda
RC: 9 Jun: Manuel Diez Clemente: R/Alcalde Prov.l Sta Hdd RC: 9 Jun Manuel Carrera: regidor y depositario general, 250 p RC: 9 Jun Francisco Guevara y Dongo: regidor y Alferez Real, RC: 9 Jun Jose Antonio Cicilia y Montoya: Regidor sencillo AGCA: Leg 4632, ff287, 279, 281 v; Leg 2177 Exp 15713, f 67. RC: 28 Mar, Casimiro Jose Cuellar, R/Alf real RC: 9 Aug:Ramon de Borica, Regidor sencillo RC: 9 Aug; Cristoval Saavedra, alcalde provincial, vac. (AGI
Remates de Oficios. TegucigalpaConf. Buy Type Date NameMIA RS RC 16 Sep: Guillermo Rivera, 200 p1774 1772 RD RC 16 Nov: Jose de Zelaya y Midense, AP de Sta Hdd1774 RS RC 19 Sep: Luis Rivera, 200 p1775 RS RC 15 Mar: Francisco Boijas, 100 p1777 RS Don Juan Igno Garzon (Oyuela, 167)1779 1770 RD RC 17 Jan : Reg/Depo Gral: Pedro Martir de Zelaya (AGI 446)1789 1788 RD RC: 19 May: Ale R1 Sta Hdd, Juan Jacinto de Herrera, 300 p1791 RD RC 23 May: Francisco Gonzalez Travieso, Reg & A lf Real1793 1792 RS RC 27 Feb: Manuel Antonio Vazquez y Rivera1799 1793 RS Bacilio Midense 205p1795 1793 RS RC 21 Jun: Manuel Jose Midense, 205 pp1802 RS Miguel Maria Guerrero,1803 1802 RS RC 20 May: Jose Vigil, 200 p,1805 1802 RS Juan Miguel Midense, 200 p1806 RS Miguel Bustamante (not accepted)1807 RS Joaquin Espinoza, 21 Op1807 RD Francisco S Martin, Alg May, 300 p,1807 RS Jose Manuel Marquez, 210 p,1808 1807 RS RC 14 Feb: Benito Lorenzo LAVAQUI, 21 Op1810 1806 RD RC 27 Oct: Alferez Real Jose Vigil
456
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J: Sale of Regimientos (continued)
Guatemala Compra de Regimientos (Remates de Oficio)
Santiago de Guatemala1674 RD RC 16 Jul: Thomas Delgado de Najera, R/AM,1707 RD RC 6 Dec: Jose de Cabrera, 4600 pp
1739 RD RC 28 Jul: Alg Mayor de Aud, Manuel de Barroeta, for self & 1 son, 16,000 p
1753 RS RC 16 Sep: Simon Larrazabal; replaces BasilioV. Roma1764 1761 RD RC 8 Jul: Manuel Gonzalez Batres, Alferez Real1764 1761 RD RC 8 Jul: Basilio Vicente Roma, AM1764 1761 RD RC 8 Jul: Juan Fermin de Aycinena, DG
Retires: 1780: RC 29 May AGCA, 4632, 283v.1764 1761 RD RC 8 Jul: Francisco Ignacio Barrutia, AP1764 1761 RS RC 8 Jul: Fernando Palomo1764 1761 RS RC 8 Jul: Cayetano Jose Pavon1764 1761 RS RC 8 Jul: Ventura de Nagera (Najera)1764 1761 RS RC 8 Jul: Pedro Ignacio de Loaysa (Loaiza)1767 RS RC 12 Dec: Juan Thomas de Micheo1768 RS RC 21 Dec: Francisco Ignacio Chamorro1772 RS RC 4 Jun: Nicolas Obregon1774 RS Ventura Naxera y Mencos (1780 (RC)): Index AGCA, AO/Ayunt
Guatemala de la Asunci6n fTVueva Guatemala)1794 1793 RD Vicente Aycinena y Crarillo, Depositario General, 500 p & donat.1794 1793- RD Pedro Aycinena y Larayn, Depositario General, 500 p & donation1806 (1800: Becomes RS, b/c abolish all DG’s)1794 1793- RD Pedro Juan de Lara, AP (1807: gives to son, Manuel, AGCA A.l1807 44-1118), 500 p and donation1794 1793- RD Jose Maria Peynado y Pezonarte, Depo. Gral/Receptor de Penas,1819 500 p and donation1794 1793- RD Luis Francisco Barrutia y Roma, Alguacil Mayor, 500 p1794- 1793 RS Manuel Jose Pavon y Mufloz, 300 p plus 25 pp donation1806 resigns1794 1793 RS Miguel Ignacio Alvarez de Asturias y Naba, 300 p & 25 pdonation1794 1793 RS Jose Antonio Batres y Mufioz, 300 p & 25 p donation1794 1793 RS Martin (Antonio) Barrundia Segura, 300 p & 25 p donation1794 1793- RS Jose Antonio Castafiedo, 300 p & 25 p donation18031794 1793- RS Rafael Jose Ferrer, 300 p & 25 p donation1805
457
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J: Sale of Regimientos (continued)Guatemala de la Asuncion fNueva Guatemala)
Date NameAntonio (Saenz de) Tejada (AGCA A 205-3697)RC 1 June: Antonio Juarros: (Later RD)Manuel Jose de Lara, (left by father, Pedro Juan), AP Antonio Isidro Palomo Manrrique Miguel Jacinto Marticorena (AGCA A1.2 L 44, E 1129) Francisco (Antonio) Batres y (Najera) (AGCA 2188-15735,45v)
Ouesaltenango1806: establish ayuntamiento de Espanoles for this villa; sell all 6 regimientos to Bartolome Josef Tellez to resell, as procurador o f the town. He resells 5 to:
1807 RD Jose Mariano Castro, R/AP, 300 pp/5 yrs1807 RD Fernando Mendez, R/AR, 300 pp/5 years1807 RD Santiago Garcia, R/AM, 300 pp/5 years1807 RS Domingo Figueroa, RS, 200 pp1807 RS Mariano Menendez, RS, 200 pp(between original purchase & interim title (1810), some changed: vis)
Mariano Galvez, R/AP: val 150 p, sale Miguel Molina, R/Alg mayor, 150 pp Juan Antonio Lopez, R/AR, 150 pp Calixto Aguilar, 100 p RS
Santa Ana1806: Establish ayuntamiento de Espanoles for this pueblo; sell all 6 regimientos in 1806. Bartolome Jose Tellez purchased them all and resold them to other vecinos. Letter, 27 September 1809, Corregidor y Intendente de la Ciudad y Provincia de SanSalvador1811 1807 RD RC: 31 Jul Josef Mariano castro, R/AP, Pblo de Sta Ana, 300P1811 1807 RD RC: 31 Jul Fernando Mendez, R/alf Real, 300 pesos1811 1807 RD RC: 31 Jul Stiago Garcia, R/Alg Mayor, 300 pesos1811 1807 RS RC: 31 Jul Domingo Figueroa, RS, 200 pesos1811 1807 RS RC: 31 Jul Mariano Menendez, RS, 200 pesos
458
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J: Sale of Regimientos (continued)
San Vicente de AustriaConf. Type Date Name1650 RD RC: 30 May Antonio Rodriguez1754 RS? RC: 17 Jan Joseph de Villata, 128 pp1751 RD RC 21 Nov Phelipe de Pereira, R/DG, 250 pp1752 RS RC: 5 Mar Nicolas de Cafias, RS, 128 p1771 RD RC: 15 Nov Fco Comejo, AP, 300 p;1772 RD RC: 12 Oct Antonio Merino, R/DG;1775 RD RC: 15 Mar Jose Rodriguez, Alferez Real1781 RD RC: 28 Dec Juan Francisco Quintanilla, AP, 2000 pesos1780 RD RC: 9 Jun Francisco Molina, Alguacil Mayor, 380 pesos1782 RS RC: 22 Dec Antonio de Amaya, RS, 200 pesos1787 RD RC: 2 Feb Jose Antonio Rodriguez del Camino, R Alg May, 380 pp.1793 RS RC: 19 Feb Jose Antonio Vasconcelos, RS1793 RS RC: 19 Feb Mnl Anto Yraeta, RS1795 RD RC 28 Dec Felipe Mariano Vidaurre, Alf Rl, 3125 pesos1800 RS RC: 9 Aug Manuel Ximenez Basurto, RS1802 RD RC: 19dec: Jose Anto Rodeiguez del Camino, R/AM, 400 pesos1803 RD RC 21 Apr Josef Rafael de Molina, R/Alf Rl1816 1809 RC:? Mariano Prado, R/Alg May (AGI 629)
SAN SALVADORConf. Type Date Name1756: RD RC: 9 Nov Antonio Fernandez, Alg Mayor, 500 pesos1756 RS RC: 13 Nov Antonio de Arriaga; 300p,1756 RD RC: 30 Nov Luis Fernandez: Ale Prov. de la Sta Hermandad, 900 p,1767 RD RC: 1 Mar Juan de Aranzamendi, Alf May, 420 p1775 RS RC: 17 Jul Juan Antonio Rosales, RS, 300 p1779 RD RC: 2 Jul Pedro Gonzalez del Castillo, R/AP, 1000 pesos1781 RS RC: 26 Sep Benito Gonzalez Patifio, RS, 300 peoss;1785 RD RC: 6 Sep Bartolome Alvarez y Soto, R/Alg Mayor, 535 pesos1785 RS RC: 24 Jan Alexandra Ungo, RS, 300 pesos1786 RS RC: 26 Nov Venetura de la Calera, 225 pesos1795 RS RC: 4 May Domingo Luciano Duran, RS, 400 pesos1799 RD RC: 1 Jun Alexandra Saenz de Ungo, R/Alc Prv., 1105 p 1/2 r1802 RS RC: 25 Jun Pablo Gonzales, RS, 200 pp
459
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J; Sale of Reeimentos (continued)SAN MIGUELConf. Type Date Name1756 RS RC: 23 Mar Juan Joseph Escolan, 300 p1756 RS RC: 23 Mar Juan Gonzalez de Castillo, 300 pp;1757 RS RC: 12 Nov Manuel de Molina RS, 400 pesos1766 RD RC 13 Feb Jose Antonio Martinez Molina, Ale Prov, 600 p1770 RD RC: 16 Dec Phelipe Cisneros Torquemada, Alg Mayor, 400 p1771 RS RC: 27 Feb Joseph Sebastiann Zelayandia, 300 p1773 RD RC: 13 Sep Josef de Salazar, R/Alf Rl: 300 p1775 RS RC: 29 Sep Benito Dominguez de Castilla, 300 p1782 RD RC: 22 Dec Josef Antonio de Andrade, R/DG, 400 p1785 RD RC: 13 Apr Josef de la Luz Escolan, R/AP; 650 p1788 RS RC: 14apr Martin Josef Escolan, RS, 300 p1797 RS RC: 24 Dec Victor Santiago Rodriguez, 300 p (purchase in 1794)1797 RS RC: 21 Dec Josef Rumualdo Becerril, 300 p (purchase in 1794)1802 RD RC: 2 Feb Josef George Louzel, R/AP, 300 p (purchase in 1794)
COMAYAGUA1759 RD RC: 26 Jun Antonio Balibrera, AP/R (new title in 1763)1797 RD RC: 30 May Pablo Nieto, R/Alg Mayor: 800 pp (purchase in 1792)
XEREZ DE CHOLUTECA1761 RD RC: 7 Aug Juan Feliz Bricefio, R/DG, 100 p1762 RD RC : 7 Apr Joseph Martin de Zelaya, R/ALg May, 120 p
GRACIAS A DIOS1756 RS RC: 23 Mar Juan Tiburcio Lopez, RS, 100 p1655 RS RC: 11 Mar Joseph Rivera, RS, 100 p1655 RS RC: 11 Mar Gabriel de Saavedra, RS, 100 p
PROVINCIA DE NICARAGUAAlcaldes de la Santa Hermandad1761 RD RC: 2 Dec Juan Baptista de Armendiz, vo Granada, I670pp,1769 RD RC: 5May Refers to RC of 1761, in which Armendi is
Alcalde Provincial de la Santa Hermandad for 4 “cabildos y ciudades” : Leon, Granada, Segovia y Villa de Nicaragua 1670 pp, Captain Geenral’s temporary title, 26 May 1758
1782 RD RC: 23 Feb Josef Antonio Arauz y Altamirano, AP/R, 4cavildos q comprende la Provincia de Nicaragua, 3350pp
1789 RD RC: 10 Mar Manuel de Taboada, 2000 pesos; unico postor1798 1796 RS R C:30Jul Bias Joaquin de Sarria, 2000 p,
460
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J: Sale of Regimientos (continued)
NUEVA SEGOVIAConf. Buy Type Date Name1674 Juan de Aparicio, Regidor, 166 p ?1751 1749 RD RC: 30 Aug Miguel de Vilches y Cabrera, A lf May/Reg, 325 p1757 RS RC: 25 Oct Anto Bruno Fernandez de Bobadilla, 125 p1760 RS RC: 5 Sep Juan Philiberto Grozo, 125 p1760 RS RC: 5 Sep Francisco Joseph Casco y Aviles, 125 p1770 RD RC 16 Oct Miguel de Armas, A lf Mayor, 325 p
RIVAS (Concencion de Rivas)1752 1747 RD RC: 4 Jul Manuel de la Cerda, Alg Mayor, 300 p1752 1747 RD RC: 4 Jul Silbestre Villalta y Guzman, R/DG, 300 p1752 1747 RD RC: 4 Jul Juan Santos de San Pedro, R /A lf mayor, 300 p1752 1747 RS RC: 24 Jul Fco Mauricio de Orozco, 300 p1760 RD RC: 20 May Joseph de Villar, DG/R, 300 p1769 RS RC: 17 Sep Andres Gonzalez Araujo, 225 p1770 RD RC: 19 Nov Jose Manl Bonilla, Alg May; 305 p1772 RS RC: 12 Oct Luis de Bargas Bonilla, 200 pp , vacante1775 RS RC: 25 Feb Jose Jacobo Cordoba, 75 p1775 RD RC: 20 Mar Nicolas Velazquez y Baras, R/Alf Rl, 620 p1782 RS RC: 16 Dec Francisco Antonio Orozco, 75 p1782 RD RC: 16 Dec Andres de Villar, R/DG1789 RS RC: 15 Sep Manuel Antonio de Bustos, 235 p1790 RS RC: 17 Jul Ylario Parodi1791 RS RC: 24 Feb Jose Antonio de Bustos y Santiago, 2225 p1805 RD RC: 8jun Jose Antonio Bonilla, R/Alg Mayor: 305 p
LEON DE NICARAGUA1750 1749 RD RC: 7 Nov Joseph Antonio de Arechavala, R/DG, 915 p1751 1749 RS RC: 21 Nov Juan Phelipe de Oconor, 210 p1753 RS? RC: 18 Feb Diego de Carranza, R, 210 p1753 RS RC: 3 Jun Phelipe Constantino Oconor, repeat earlier1754 RD RC: 17 Jan Joseph Diaz de la Paz, R/Fiel executor, 260 p1755 RS RC: 1 Mar Francisco de Altamirano y Velasco, 300 p1759 RS RC: 5 Aug Santiago Vilches y Andravide, 150 p1763 RS RC: 25 Sep Francisco Estevan Sanchez de Herrera, 210 p1763 RD RC: 25 Sep Francisco Antonio de Somarriba, Fiel Ejec, 260p1765 RS RC: 5 Dec Estevan Jose Bricefio Coco, 210 p1766 RD RC: Nicolas Bricefio de Coca, A lf Mayor 1205p1767 RD RC: 25 Apr Manuel Antonio de Telleria, R/Alf Rl, 200 p
461
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J: Sale of Regimientos (continued)
LEON PE NICARAGUA (continued)Conf. Buy Type Date Name1769 RD D Pedro Baca ( Cabeza de Vaca), 1800 p, R/AR1775 RD RC: 8 Feb Pedro Manuel de Ayerdi, R/Fiel Exec, 3555 p1776 RS RC: 28 Jan Bernardo Jose Mendez de Figueroa, 300 p1778 RS RC: 23 Mar Thomas Fernandez Moure de Silva, 250 p1783 RD RC: 13 Sep Pedro Ygn. Diaz Caveza de Vaca, A lf Rl, 1800 p1783 RS RC: 26 Dec Jose Antonio de los Reyes, 320 p1783 RS RC: 26 Dec Francisco Diaz de Mayorga1784 RS RC: 16 Nov Domingo Nicolas Galarza, 550 p1785 RD RC: 14 Jun RS Luis Coeto de Landa, toAlg M ayor, 1300 p1786 RS RC: 26 Nov Juan Guidin, 285p1786 RS RC: 26 Nov Francisco Josef de Castellon, 325 pp1790 RS RC: 4 Oct Joseph Manuel Diaz Caveza de Vaca, 325p1791 RS RC: 23 May Bias Joaquin Sarria, 320 pp
1791 RS Joaquin de Arechavala bought and then ceded to D Jose Antonio Diaz, 760 p
1794 RD Jose Antonio Bustos, R/Alf Rl, 3200 p;(?Granada)
1795 RS Melchor dela Zerda, 330 p (Granada?)1793 RS Chaverria, 305 p1796 RS Lorenzo Cardenas, remate, 300 p1796 RS Jose Guerrero, 320 p1797 RD Juan Sanches, 1000 p
1799 RS RC: 22 Feb Juan Lorenzo Cardenal, 300 p1798 RD D Manuel Marchena, R/AP: 150 p (Granada?)1800 RS D Jose Parajon, 300 p1801 RS Agustin Anzoategui, 325 p1801 RS Rumallo Guerrero, 300 p1801 RS Jose Francisco Marino?, 300 p1801 RS Eduardo Arana, 300 p1801 RD Joaquin Solorzano, R/Alf Rl
1802 1799 RS RC: 7 Dec Benito Lardizaba, 360 p1810 1811 RD Reg: 4 Jul Josef Parajon, R/Alg May, 150 pesos (AGI 624)1818 RD RC: 6 Apr Leopoldo Aviles, Ale Prov, 2000 p
462
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J: Sale of Regimientos (continued)
GRANADAConf. Buy Type Date Name1668 RD RC: 22 Jun Diego Ruiz de Ocafia, A Provl Hdd, 1750pp M1682 RD RC: 14mar Diego Vazquez de Montiel, A lf Mayor 333 pp1754 RS RC: 23 Jul Alonso Cabezas y Urizar, 300p1759 RD RC: 5 Aug Alonso Cavezas de Urizar, Alf Mayor: 800 p1760 RS RC: 20 May Joseph Antonio de Arguelles, 150 p1776 RD RC: 18 Dec Manuel Antonio Arana, Alg May, 700p1779 RD RC: 17 Mar Jose Joaquin Solorzano, A lf Rl, 800 pp1780 1773 RS RC: 21 Jun Ubaldo Antonio de Pasos, 250 pp1795 1793 RS RC: 27 Jan Joaquin Vigil, 300 pp (1793 sale: AGI 629)
1794 RD D Anto Perez Mena, Alg May, 1050 p1803 RS RC: 5 Apr Josef Antonio de Echavarria, 305 p
CARTAGO1656*sic RD RC: 10 Feb Julio de Chavarria Nabarro, 175 p1795 1791 RD RC: 18 May Josef Antonio Oreamuno, Alg May, 150p1792 RD RC: 27 Apr Juan Francisco Bonilla, DG, 500 p1787 1786 RD RC: 23 Jun Francisco Carazo, Ale Provl, 150 p1782 1778 RD RC: 16 Dec Antonio de la Fuente, A lf Real(group request, to resestablish an extinct ayuntamiento', offers to pay in cacao)1754 RD: RC: 9 Jun Juan Manuel de Soborio, Ale Prov, 500p
CHIAPA (AGI 446)Conf. Buy Type’ Date Name1784 1782 RS RC: 19 Jun Agustin de Tejada, vacant since 1744,300 pp1784 1782 RD RC: 19 Jun Juan de Oliver, Alf Real, same arg, 500 p1784 1782 RD RC: 19 Jun Nicolas Coello, Alg Mayor1784 1782 RS RC: 19 Jun Jose Antonio Dominguez, 300 p1784 1782 RS RC: 19 Jun Bartolome Gutierrez, 300 p1784 1782 RS RC: 19 Jun Bias Gorris, 300 p1784 1782 RS RC: 19 Jun Antonio Gutierrez de Arce, 550 p1787 1785 RD RC: 12 Aug Santiago Gonzalez, R/Alf Rl, 500 p1802 1800 RD RC: 27dec Jose Manuel de Velasco y Campo,Alg May, 25C1802 1800 RD RC: 27dec Josef Maria Robles, A lf Rl, 300 p
463
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix J: Sale of Regimientos (continued)
ALGUACIL MAYOR DE AUDIENC1A28 Jul 1739: Manuel de Barroeta, Alg Mayor de corte; ..seen above 13 Nov 1795: Juan Mariano Barroeta: since 1787 (son o f Jose Manuel); splits with
brother Hipolito 21 Aug 1799: Antonio Batres, Alg Mayor:
TERMS: Alf Rl -Alferez Real (Standard Bearer); A lf May—Alferez Mayor (Standard Bearer); Alg May—Alguacil Mayor; Ale Hdd/Ale Prov—Alcalde de la Hermandad/Provincial de la Hermandad (Rural Constable); DG-Depositario Generalp - pesos
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850
NAME First Last PositionsAbarca, Manuel 1823 1834 1823b-4,1829a:R; 1829, 1831, 1834:
A3; 1831: A2Acuna, Manuel Jose 1826 1835 1826, 1832: R; 1835: A2Agreda, Andres, Maestro 1814 1814 1814a: RAguilar, Ricardo 1829 1829 1829b:RAguirre y Larios, Fco Xavier 1815 1838 1815: R; 1838: A2Aguirre, Antonio 1842 1851 1842, 1851:RAguirre, Francisco Xavier de 1795 1795 1795: A2Aguirre, Juan Francisco 1845 1850 1845: R; 1850: A3Ajuria, Juan 1834 1838 1834, 1838b: A3Alfaro, Salvador 1826 1847 1826-7; 1846-7: RAlbert, Tohmas 1832 1832 S2Almorza, Jose 1843 1843 RAlvarado, Jose Maria 1833 1833 RAlvarado, Juan Antonio 1823 1823 1823b: R (Sig. Jose Antonio)Alvarado, Pablo 1830 1830 S2Alvarez de Asturias y Beteta, Miguel Ignacio
Alvarez Asturias, Leocadio 1824 1924 A2Alvarez de Asturias, Mmo 1817 1818 1817-8: RAlvarez, Desiderio 1838 1839 1838b-1839b: RAndreu, Andres, Lie. 1839 1848 1839a: R; 1848: A3; 1844: A2Andreu, Antonio 1842 1850 1842, 1849-50: RAnguiano, Juaquin 1843 1843 RAngulo, Damaso 1835 1850 1843, 1850: R; 1835:A2;1839b:AlAngulo, Francisco 1833 1833 RAqueche, Juan Antonio 1809 1820 1809b-10:R; 1814a:Al; 1820a:A2Aragon, Jose Antonio 1830 1847 1832, 1847: R; 1830: A2Arana, Felipe 1831 1831 A1Araujo, Juan Antonio 1816 1818 1818: A2(l)Araus, Cesario, Lie. (Arauz) 1824 1825 1824-5: S2Arbeu, Manuel 1826 1828 1826-8: SEC
465
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsArevalo, Fermin 1824 1824 SI: not serveArevalo, Nicolas 1829 1829 1829b: RArevalo, Rafael 1834 1849 1838a, 1845-6, 1848-9:R; 1834:S2Ariza, Pedro (Arriza) 1790 1802 1790-1: R; 1802: A2Ariza, Satumino del Campo 1821 1821 A2Arraiz, Jose Francisco 1816 1816 S(2)Arrechea, Juaquin 1848 1848 RArrechea, Pedro Jose 1816 1828 1819-20; 1828: R; 1816: A2(3)Arrido, Domingo Antonio 1784 1789 1784-5; 1788-9: RArrivillaga y Coronado, Antonio Jose
1850: A2Arzu, Juaquin 1850 1851 1850-1: RAstorga, Jose Pablo 1823 1823 RAsturias, Jose Ignacio 1849 1849 A3Asturias, Juan Nepomuceno 1804 1818 1808; 1815-6:R; 1804:S; 1818:A1Asturias, Manuel, L. 1849 1849 RAvila, Carlos (Abila) 1821 1832 1821-2; 1832: RAyau, Jose Rafael 1839 1850 1843-4, 1850 (ren.)R; 1839b:A2Ayau, Manuel 1851 1851 R
466
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsAycinena y Carrillo, Dr. Josef Alexandra
Barrutia, Francisco Xavier 1816 1817 1816-7: R; 1816: SBarrutia, Jose Maria, Lie. 1820 1832 1820, 1832: R; 1823; SBarrutia, Juan Josef de 1791 1792 1791: S; 1792; RBarrutia, Luis 1812 1812 R (Same as Luis Fco?)Batres y Arrivillaga, Jose 1784 1789 1784-5; 1788-9:RB; 1776:A1Batres de Asturias, Antonio 1815 1831 1815:S;1819;27:A1; 1822,1831:A2Batres de Asturias, Rafael 1817 1826 1817-8: R; 1826: A2
467
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsBatres y Mufios, Ventura Jose 1790 1791 1790-1: RBatres y Mufioz, Jose Antonio 1792 1806 1792-1806: RP (RS)Batres y Mufioz, Julian 1808 1814 1811-2: R; 1808: S; 1814b: SBatres y Mufioz, Luis, Lie 1832 1845 1832: S2; 1833: SI; 1845: A lBatres y Mufioz, Miguel 1815 1819 1815; 1818-9: RBatres y Naxera, Antonio 1831 1831 A2Batres y Naxera, Francisco 1815 1831 1815-6; 1820; 1827-8 :R; 1831: A3Batres y Naxera, Pedro 1813 1813 1813;RBatres, Cayetano, Lie. 1842 1842 S2, SI: 1842Batres, Pedro Vicente, Lie. 1848 1851 1848: S2; 1849: SI; 1851: S2Beltranena y Aycinena, Manl 1813 1815 1815: R; 1813; S2Beltranena y Llano, Jose Ma. 1814 1827 1814a, 1818-9; 1827:R; 1827:A3Beltranena y Llano, J Manuel 1820 1820 1820b: RBeltranena y Llano, Mmo, Lie 1813 1813 1813: S2Beltranena y Llano,Pedro Jo 1811 1817 1811-2: R; 1817: SBeltranena, Gregorio 1820 1820 1820a: RBeltranena, Juaquin 1825 1829 1825, 1828-29a: RBeltranena, Manuel 1846 1850 1846, 1850 (renun): RBeltranena, Pedro Josef de 1786 1787 1786-7: RBeltranena, Vicente 1851 1851 RBenavente, Francisco 1825 1825 A2Bengoechea, Ramon 1833 1839 1839a/b: R; 1833:A3Bermejo, Gregorio, Lie. 1846 1846 RBeteta, Manuel Lie 1839 1849 1839a: S2; 1849: A3Bolafios, (Jose) Vicente 1826 1850 1826:S1; 1846,1850:A3; 1827:SecBolafios, Manuel 1847 1847 A3Bonilla, Policarpo 1827 1827 R: not serveBregante, Juan Jose 1822 1829 1822-3, 1829a: RBustamante, Juan Miguel 1827 1827 AlCaceres, Antolin 1834 1848 1837,1839a/b ,1845, 1847-8: R;
1834: A3Caceres, Jose Maria 1829 1832 1829b, 1832: RCaceres, Valero 1837 1837 RCalderon, Jose Ynocente 1818 1818 Sec intoCalvos, Juaquin 1838 1850 Sec
468
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsCambronero, Jose Maria 1826 1827 1826-7: RCambronero, Luis 1790 1791 1790-1:RCambronero, Miguel Maria 1820 1820 1820a/b: RCarbajal, Jose Maria 1820 1820 1820b:RCardenas, Jose Maria 1821 1821 1821:RCamino, Andres de 1784 1785 1784-5: RBCarranza, (Jose) Carmen 1826 1827 1826-7: RCarrillo, Francisco 1825 1825 RCasanova, Bernardo 1841 1841 RCastanedo, (Josef) Antonio 1786 1802 1786; 1792-1804:R; 1787:A2;
1788:A1Castilla, Jose Pablo 1842 1843 18277,1842-3 :R; 18277,1843 :A2Castillo La Riva, Francisco 1837 1837 A2Castillo, Doroteo 1832 1835 1832-3, 1835:RCastillo, Eusebio, Lie. 1813 1814 1813-14a: RCastillo, Jose Domingo 1834 1834 A2Castillo, Juan Jose 1826 1827 1826: S2; 1827: SICastillo, Manuel del 1813 1814 1813-14a:RCastillo, Sabino 1830 1830 SICastro, Estevan 1849 1849 RCastro, Juan de Dios 1826 1827 1826: S2; 1827: RCastro, Manuel (Maria) 1827 1839 1827 (not serve), 1831,1838b, 1839a:
R; 1831, 1834:S2; 1835:S1Cerda, Cayetano de la 1826 1831 1826: A3; 1831: A2Cerezo, Fernando 1841 1842 1841-2:RChaves, Manuel 1826 1825 R: not serveCividanes Espanol, Benito 1816 1817 1816-7: RCividanes, Braulio 1825 1838 1825-6/1831-2,1838a:R; 1829b:A2;
1826:A1Cladera, Jose Geronimo 1821 1829 1821-2: R; 1829a: A3Cladera, Mariano 1843 1851 1843: R, 1851: A3Coloma, Jose 1836 1846 1836, 1846: RContreras, Simon 1848 1849 1848-9: RCordova, Jose Francisco de 1811 1821 181 l-1814a; 1820b-1821: SecCordova, Mariano, Lie. 1849 1851 1849, 1850:S2; 1849, 1851: SICornejo, Jose Maria 1823 1824 1823b-4: R
469
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsCoronado, Ignacio de 1790 1791 1790-1: RCortes, Domingo 1823 1823 1823b: S2Corzo, Andres 1829 1834 1829b-31; 1833-4: SecCorzo, Candido (Corso) 1826 1831 1826-7, 1831: RCroquer y Mufioz, Julian 1792 1793 1792-3: RCroquer, Jose Maria 1823 1823 1823: S2;1823b: SIDardon, Andres, Lie. 1848 1848 S2,S1: 1848Dardon, Manuel, Lie. 1843 1844 1843: S2; 1844: SIDardon, Marcos, Lie. 1836 1846 1836,1846: A lDe I .eon, Francisco 1830 1838 1838a: R; 1830: A3de Leon, Jose Maria 1830 1830 R: not serveDieguez, Jose Domingo, Lie. 1820 1820 1820b: RDiegues, Juan, Lie. 1838 1844 1844: S2; 1838a: SIDieguez, Manuel, Lie. 1849 1849 S2Dighero, Eugenio 1841 1842 1841-2: RDuran, Juaquin 1823 1826 1823b, 1824: SI; 1836: A2Echeverria Ruiz, Jose 1823 1825 1823b-1825: REcheverria, Juan (Emiterio) 1819 1823 1819: R; 1823a/b: A3Echeverria, Juan Jose 1815 1818 1815-6: R; 1818: A2Escobar, Crecencio 1831 1832 1831-2: R; 1831: A3Escobar, Pedro 1825 1826 1825-6: REscobedo Rafael, Lie. 1846 1849 1849: R; 1846: S2,S1Espanol y Lopez, Juan Ant. 1820 1821 1820b-l: REspada, Andres 1829 1829 R: not serveEspinosa, Juan 1823 1823 REsquivel, Carlos 1829 1830 1829b-l830: REstrada, Jose Domingo, Lie. 1845 1845 AlEstrada, Jose Maria 1845 1845 REstrada, Juan 1831 1834 1831: S2; 1832: SI; 1834: AlEstrada, Manuel, Lie. 1850 1851 1850-1: RFarfan, Jose 1850 1851 1850-1: RFernandez Gil, Jose Frco. 1788 1791 1788-9: R; 1791: A2Fernandez, Francisco 1823 1823 RFerrer, Rafael 1790 1805 1790-1; 1794-1805: R;Flores, (Jose) Quirino 1823 1846 1823b-4, 1846: R; 1832: AlFlores, Jose Maria, Lie. 1847 1847 S2Flores, Pedro (Jose-1832) 1828 1832 1828,1829a, 1830:R 1832: A3
470
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsGalvez y Corral, Jose Mmo 1814 1814 A lGalvez, Mariano Jose 1822 1822 1822: S2Galvez, Pedro 1825 1834 1832, 1825: SI; 1834: A3Galvez, Xristobal (Silberio) 1784 1797 1784-5;1790-1:R; 1786:A2; 1797:A1Gandara, Jose Ysidro 1823 1825 1823b-1825: RGarcia Goyena, Jose 1795 1795 1795:SGarcia Granados, Jose 1813 1814 1813-14a: RGarcia Granados, Juaquin 1824 1825 1824-5: RGarcia Granados, Miguel 1844 1845 1844-5: RGarcia Zelaya, Jose 1810 1815 1810: Sec; 1815; SGarrido, Baltasar 1835 1835 A3Garrido, Claudio 1825 1830 1829b-1830:R; 1825:A3 (not sve)Gatica, Dionicio 1838 1838 1838a: RGomara, Ambrosio 1784 1794 1784-5;88:R; 1789:A2; 1790, 1794:
A lGomez, Jose 1823 1835 1823b: R; 1835: A3Gonzalez Cerezo, Miguel (^Father & son?)
1809 1849 1808a, 1831: S; 1809b-1810, 1845: R; 1849: Al
Gonzalez Dardon, Ygnacio 1814 1814 1814a: RGonzalez, Diego 1843 1844 1843-4; RGonzalez, Julian 1829 1844 1829a, 1844; R; 1833: A3Gonzalez, Ygnacio, Lie. 1844 1851 1844, 1850-1: RGorris, Pedro Jose de 1806 1806 1806: A2Gorriz, Jorge 1815 1816 1815-6: RGorriz, Juan Jose 1820 1820 1820b:RGuerra, Juan Jose 1830 1830 A3Guzman, Juaquin (Gusman) 1830 1837 1830-1,1832,1837:R; 1832: A2Hernandez, Juan de Jesus 1832 1843 1832, 1843:RHernandez, Pablo 1825 1849 1825, 1832-3; 1845, 1848-9:R;
1839a: A3Hernandez, Rafael 1833 1836 1833-4; 1836: RHerrarte, Mariano 1827 1827 SI (excused fin service)Hurtado, Lazaro 1826 1826 R: not serveJauregui, Felipe 1834 1834 SIJauregui, Manuel Jose 1832 1832 A l
471
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsJuarros y Lacunza, Antonio 1803 1814 1803-7; 1809a/b; 13 :R; 1808,14b:AlJuarros, Manuel Josef 1776 1791 1784-5,1790-1:R; 1776:A2;
1779,1787:A1Lopez, Jose Venancio, Lie. 1814 1820 1814a, 1820b: S2Lambur, Buenaventura 1830 1843 1830 (not serve), 1843: RLambur, Rafael 1826 1826 RLaparte, Joseph Manuel de 1787 1800 SecLara Pavon, Cayetano 1842 1842 RLara Pavon, Jose Maria 1849 1849 S2Lara Pavon, Pedro 1838 1839 1838b: S2; 1839a/b: SILara y Arreze, Manuel Jose,L 1807 1815 1807-9a, 1811,1814b:R; 1815:A2Lara, Nicolas 1838 1838 1838a: RLara, Pedro Juan de 1790 1806 1791; 1794-1806:R, 1790:S; 1793:A2Larraonda, Pedro 1823 1827 1823, 1827: RLarrave, Jose Antonio, Lie. 1820 1838 1820b-l:R; 1838a/b:A2 toAlLarrave, Jose Ignacio 1825 1829 1827: R; 1829b: SI; 1825: A2Larrave, Mariano, MD 1821 1821 1821: AlLazalde, Manuel 1786 1787 1786-7: RLeiva, Juan Jose 1825 1825 S2Lemus, Bernardino, Lie. 1814 1825 1814:A1; 1825:S2 (x serve)Llerena, Jose Maria 1833 1833 SecLopez, Antonio 1834 1834 Al(prob. same as Jo. Ant.)Lopez, Jose Antonio 1831 1843 1831: R; 1843: A2Lopez, Mariano 1828 1846 1828, 1838b, 1839a, 1846: R;
1846:A2Lorenzana, Juan Mariano 1825 1825 RLuna, Juan 1827 1827 RMachado, Santiago 1831 1836 1831, 1835, 1836: RMalagamba Vallarino, Geronimo
1818 1819 1818-9: R
Mancilla, Manuel 1841 1842 1841-2: RManrrique Guzman, Juan, Col 1784 1795 1784-5; 1789,1792-4.R; 1795:A1Manrrique, Miguel Jose, Cap 1814 1821 1814a, 1818-9, 1820b-l:RManzanares, Matias de 1784 1786 1784-5: R; 1786:A1
472
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsMarticorena, Jose Maria 1825 1826 1825-6: RMarticorena, Juan Bautista 1792 1815 1811-2; 1815 :R; 1792.S; 1797:A2;
1801, 1805: AlMarticorena, Miguel Jacinto de
1806 1817 1807-1810; 1814b; 1817: R; 1806: S
Martines, Tomas 1835 1836 1835-6: RMartinez de Escobar, Fco. 1829 1829 1829a: RMartinez Pacheco, Francisco 1786 1792 1786-7; 1790-1 :R; 1792:A1Martinez Zevallos, Jose Ma. 1801 1805 SecMartinez, Jose Antonio 1845 1845 A2Martinez, Juan (Antonio) 1825 1838 1825,1831-2, 1837,1838b: RMartinez, Matias, Lie. 1838 1850 1841,1850:R; 1838a:S2; 1838b:Sl;
1845:A1Mateu, R 1830 1830 RMatheu, Juan 1830 1845 1830, 1832, 1836, 1837, 1838b,
1845: R ; 1833, 1841:A1Matheu, Miguel 1843 1844 1843-4: RMeany, Carlos Antonio 1836 1842 1836: R; 1842: AlMelon, Sebastian 1803 1813 1809b-10:R; 1803:S;1813: A lMendes, Jose Ignacio 1840 1840 A2Mendia, Jose Maria 1830 1844 1830-1, 1836, 1843-4: RMendia, Miguel 1844 1845 1844-5:RMendizabal, Juan 1834 1834 RMendizabal, Rafael, Lie. 1846 1847 1846: S2; 1847: SIMexia, Mariano 1834 1835 1834-5: RMexia, Ventura, Lie (Mejia) 1836 1836 1836: S2; 1837: SIMicheo, Juan Sebastian 1816 1816 RMicheo, Mariano 1847 1847 RMilla, Jose 1848 1848 SIMi 11a, Santiago 1827 1827 S2Miron, Mariano 1825 1825 RMolina, Miguel 1824 1831 1831 :S2; 1824,1830,1831:S1Montealegre, Fernando 1847 1847 RMontufar, Manuel, Lie. 1849 1850 1849: S2; 1850: SIMorejon, Quirino 1831 1846 1831-2, 1846: R
473
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsMoreno, Lorenzo 1810 1813 1813:R; 1810: A2; 1811; AlMoreno, Mariano, Lie. 1826 1833 1826: R; 1830:A3; 1833: AlMoreno, Salvador 1830 1830 A3Moreno, Santiago, Lie. 1819 1825 1819-20; 1825: RMunos, Jose Maria 1825 1825 A2Murga, Eusebio, Dr. 1834 1847 1835, 1847: RMurga, Macario 1835 1836 1835-6: RMurilla, Jose 1819 1820 1819-20: RNaxera Mencos, Manuel 1807 1807 1807: SI (not serve)Naxera y Mendes, Mariano de 1789 1789 1789:SNaxera, Diego, Maestro 1814 1814 1814a: RNaxera, Jose (Najera) 1827 1846 1839b-40: R; 1827, 1832 (J): A2;
1835, 1846: AlNoriega, Jose Maria/Manuel 1823 1831 1823:Sec; 183l:A l(x serve)Obregon, Nicolas de 1789 1793 1789-93 (Buys RS in 1770)Oliver, Enrique 1827 1827 SecOliver, Juan 1786 1786 1786:ROliver, Manuel 1824 1845 1824-5; 1834-5:R; 1829a:A2,1845 A3Orantes, Gregorio, Lie. 1833 1847 1833: S2; 1847: AlOrtiz de Aviles, Xristobal, Lie 1796 1803 1796, 1803: AlOrtiz, Jose 1825 1825 ROrtiz, Manuel, Lie. 1844 1844 R: x toma posesionOyarzabal, Juan Pedro de 1788 1793 1788-9, 1792-3: RPacheco y Beteta, Francisco 1800 1812 1811-12: R; 1800:SPacheco, Francisco 1825 1825 R:?Same as Pacheco Beteta?Padilla. Antonio, Lie. 1845 1845 S2Padilla, Faustino 1828 1848 1831, 1838a, 1839a/b, 1842: R; 1828:
AlPalacios, Mateo 1826 1833 1829a:R; 1826:A2; 1833: AlPalacios, Ramon 1840 1847 1844-5:R; 1840:A3; 1847:A2Palomo Valdes, Antonio 1842 1842 R, A2: 1842Palomo Valdez, Manuel 1840 1850 1840-1: R; 1850: A2
474
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsPalomo, Antonio Isidro, Lie 1792 1812 1792:Asesor, 1806-1812:R; 1801:A2Palomo, Jose Ignacio, Lie. 1812 1812 1812:SPalomo, Jose Maria 1839 1840 1839b: S2; 1840: SIPavon y Mufioz, Cayetano Jose
1786 1810 1786-7:R; 1788:A2; 1789,1796,1802:A1
Pavon y Mufioz, Domingo Jose
1802 1828 1813:R; 1802:S, 1811:A2; 1816,1828:A1
Pavon y Mufioz, Manuel Josef 1790 1810 1790-1,1794-5: RB; 1796-1806, 1809b, 1810: R; 1796:A2
Pavon y Mufioz, Vicente 1815 1820 1815; R; 1817:A2; 1820: A lPavon, Juan 1839 1844 1839b, 1840, 1844: RPavon Aycinena, Manuel, Lie. 1848 1848 AlPayes y Font, Juan 1790 1812 1790-4: R; 1811-2: RPayes, Domingo 1822 1850 1849-50: R; 1822: A lPeinado, Josef Maria 1794 1819 1794-1819:R/DepGral; 1812:A1Peinado, Manuel 1817 1817 1817: SIPerales, Manuel-Sanchez de 1821 1826 1821-2; 1826: R; 1823b: A3Perez Brito, Francisco, Col 1814 1814 1814a: RPerez, Benito 1841 1841 RPetit, Jose 1821 1828 1821-2: R; 1827-8: RPielago, Vicente 1817 1820 1817-7: R; 1829a: A2Pilona, Jose Alvarez 1823 1825 1823b-5: R; 1825: A3Pilona, Jose Vicente 1843 1844 1843-4: RPineda, Manuel 1846 1847 1846-7: RPinol y Mufioz, Tadeo 1786 1806 1786-7:R; 1790:A2; 1806:A1Pifiol, Juan Jose 1835 1851 1842-3,1848,1851:R; 1835: A3Pinol y Aycinena, Manuel 1839 1839 1839a: A2Pinol y Aycinena, Tadeo 1844 1844 A3Pisna, Mariano 1822 1823 1822-3: RPoggio, Felix Antonio 1813 1817 1813-14a: R; 1816-7: RPolanco, Cleto 1834 1834 1834:RPonce, Jorge 1835 1839 1839a: R; 1835: A lPorras, (Jose) Bacilio 1823 1846 1823b,1831:R;1841:S; 1831: A2;
1846: A2Portugal, Jacinto 1822 1822 A3Prado, Felipe 1827 1840 1839b-: R; 1827: SI
475
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsPrem, Juan 1839 1839 1839a: RPresilla, Juan de 1785 1786 Mayordomo de PropiosQuesada, Juan 1847 1847 A2Quevedo, Mariano 1826 1826 RQuezada, Jose Maria 1832 1833 RQuifiones, Romualdo 1821 1822 1821-2: RQuiros, Esteban 1823 1824 1823b-4: RQuiros, Tiburcio 1835 1836 1835-6:RRamires, Manuel 1834 1834 S2Ramirez, Jose Maria 1834 1835 1834-5: RRamirez, Manuel Rafael, Lie 1806 1820 1806-7:SEC; 1814a, 1820b:RRamirez, Ramon 1815 1820 1815:R; 1817:A1; 1820b:AlRivas, Jose Juaquin 1786 1787 1786-7:RRivas, Valerio 1826 1826 RRivera Cabezas, Antonio 1848 1848 A2Rivera Paz, Jacinto, Lie. 1845 1849 1849: R; 1845.S2; 1846: SIRivera Paz, Mariano 1848 1848 AlRivera, Antonio, Lie. 1824 1824 A l, possibly A3Rivera, Julian 1841 1845 1841, 1844-5: RRivera, Manuel, Lie. 1843 1849 1843: S2; 1849: A2Robles, Antonio, Lie. 1820 1821 1820: Asesor; 1821: A3Roca, Luis de la 1836 1836 RRodriguez Taboada, Ambrocio
1792 1800 1792-3: R; 1800: A2
Roma y Asturias, Jose Mariano
1784 1812 1784-5,1788-9:R; 1791,1800, 1804,1812: Al
Roma, Luis 1787 1787 R (or L Fco Barrutia y Roma)Roma, Rafael 1819 1819 SRosa, Jacobo 1829 1829 1829b: SIRosales, Toribio 1822 1823 1822-3: RRosales, Victor 1846 1847 1846-7: RRuano, Jose Maria 1832 1832 RRubin, Manuel (Rubi) 1842 1843 1842-3: RRubio y Gemmir, Juan Miguel
1784 1802 1784-5: RB, 1802: Al
Rubio, Jose 1835 1842 1835: S2; 1842: A2Rubio, Manuel 1833 1839 1833-4: R, 1839b: A3
476
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsRuis, Santiago 1835 1835 RRuiz Santi Estevan, Regial 1850 1850 RRuiz, Miguel 1848 1848 RRusitan, Francisco 1827 1827 A3Saborio, Ramon 1827 1827 RSaens, Jose Antonio (Juan?) 1829 1830 1829b-30:RSaenz, Benedicto (Saens) 1823 1838 1823b, 1831,1838b:R; 1834:S2Saenz de Tejada, Antonio 1799 1809 1799: S; 1800-1809b: RPSaisar, Miguel 1830 1831 1830: S2; 1831: SISalazar, Francisco 1826 1825 RSalazar, Jose Gregorio 1822 1825 1822-3: R; 1825: A1Salmon (de Castafiedo), Fco 1813 1816 1813, 1816: A2Salmon, Manuel 1830 1833 1830: R (x serve); 1833:A3Samayoa, Eulalio 1830 1849 1830-1; 1848-9: RSamayoa, Felipe 1830 1831 1830-1: RSamayoa, Jose Maria 1832 1833 RSamayoa, Mariano 1829 1830 1829b-30,1838a:R; 1832:S2; 1836: A1Samayoa, Ramon, Lie. 1849 1850 1849-50: RSanchez, Ambrosio 1823 1824 1823b-4: A2Sanchez, Dionisio 1848 1849 1848-9: RSan Juan, Jose Miguel de 1788 1789 1788-9: RBSanta Cruz, Jose Modesto 1823 143 1823b:R; 1830: A3; 1843:A1Santa Cruz, Juan Eusebio 1817 1817 A2Saravia, Miguel 1836 1836 SISaravia, Salvador, Lie 1849 1849 A3Sarti, Jose 1832 1833 RSegura, Domingo (Gomez de) 1823 1831 1823,1828,1829a:R; 1831:A1Seron, Pedro Jose (Zeron) 1823 1831 1823, 1823b, 1827, 1828 (x serve):R;
1824, 1827, 1831: A1Sinivaldi, Alejandro? 1847 1847 RSolis, Jose Antonio (Lie.) 1823 1824 1823b-4: RSologastua, Pedro Jose 1821 1829 1821-2; 1828-29a; RSolorzano, Santiago 1830 1830 S: not serveSuniga, Florentin 1825 1838 1825,1838a: S2; 1826: SITaboada, Antonio 1822 1827 1822-3: R; 1826: A3-x serve 1827:
A3
477
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix K: Town Councilors, Guatemala, 1784-1850 (cont.)
NAME First Last PositionsTaboada, Juan Francisco 1801 1812 1811-2:R; 1801:S; 1804:A2Taboada Asturias, Juan, Lie 1842 1842 S2Taboada, Manuel 1839 1840 1839b~40: RTaborga, Ygnacio 1829 1829 8129b:RTejada, Eusebio 1827 1827 RTejada, Manuel 1846 1846 1846-7: RTejada, Pedro 1850 1850 RToledo, Enrique Alvarez de 1832 1832 RToledo, Juan Manuel 1826 1826 RToledo, Leon Angel de 1833 1842 1833-4, 1842:RTrulle, Rafael 1815 1816 RUbico, Domingo 1786 1786 SUbico, Manuel, Lie. 1840 1840 S2Uriarte Juan 1843 1846 1846: R; 1843: A3, A1Umiela y Casares, Gregorio 1786 1813 1786-7; 1790; 1811-3: R; 1809a/b; A1Urruela, Jose de 1813 1819 1813, 1815-6: R; 1819: A1Urruela, Manuel 1832 1850 1832, 1850: R; 1835: A1Urruela y Angulo, Gregorio 1828 1841 1828-9a, 1840a:R; 1832a:AlUrruela y Caseres, Rafael 1822 1832 1822-3b:R; 1826:A3;1832:A1 (x
serve)Urruela y Urruela, Juan Fco 1838 1843 1838b-1839b, 1842-3: RUrurela y Urruela, Jose Maria, Lie.
1815:A1Yturbuma, Martin 1819 1820 1819-20:RYturrios, Juan Angel de 1794 1794 SYzquierdo 1847 1847 A2Zavala, Manuel, Lie 1844 1845 1844: S2; 1845: SIZavala, Victor 1824 1825 1824-5: RZebadua, Marcial 1818 1839 1818: S; 1839a: A lZecena, Clemente 1834 1837 1834-5, 1837: RZelaya, Jose Ramon, Capt. 1814 1814 1814a: RZirion, Antonio 1836 1836 R
A- Alcalde (mayor), S-Syndico (Syndic), R-Regidor (alderman). See end of Appendix M for sources and fuller key.
479
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix L: Town Councilors, Tegucigalpa, 1787-1850
NAME First Last PositionsACEITUNO, Antonio 1842 1848 1843,1847,1848:R; 1842: AsesorAGUERO, Carlos 1836 1836 RDAGUERO, Jose Maria 1834 1834 A2AGURCIA, Jose Maria 1834 1834 RALCANTARA, Jose Maria 1840 1848 1840-1, 1844, 1846: R; 1848: A2ALCANTARA, Juan Manuel
1801 1819 1803-4; 1806-1812; 1815-6, 1819:R; 1801: A2; 1802: A l
ALCANTARA, Manuel Antonio
1802 1806 1802: S; 1806: Al
ALCAYA y VIGO, Juan 1821 1821 R/A1DVALVARADO, Lorenso 1840 1842 1840-2: RANRIQUEZ, Silberio (Hanriquez) (Henrriquez)
1830 1843 1830-1, 1836, 1842-3: R
ARGUETA, Luis 1825 1836 1825-6,1835: R; 1836-SARIZA, Pasqual, MD (Hariza)
1828 1829 1828-9: S
ARRAZOLA, Pedro 1825 1825 RBARELA, Eusebio (Varela)
1839 1839 R
BONILLA, Jose Maria 1840 1841 RBORJAS, Geronimo 1788 1798 1788, 1798: A2BORJAS, Joaquin 1806 1806 MPBORJAS, Miguel Antonio 1806 1806 SBORJAS, Pablo 1804 1827 1813-4; 1827:R; 1804, 181:
ASH; 1815; A2; 1820a: AlBOTELO, Felipe 1816 1817 1816-7: MPBRAN, Martin 1839 1847 1839, 1842-3, 1846-7: RBRITO, Luis 1822 1834 1822, 1834: AlBUESO SOTOMAYOR, Santiago
1821 1829 1821-2; 1829: R
BUSTAMANTE, Fernando 1843 1843 A2BUSTAMANTE, Miguel Eusebio
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix L: Town Councilors, Tegucigalpa, 1787-1850 (continued)
NAME First Last PositionsBUSTILLOS, Joaquin 1848 1848 RBUSTILLOS, Nicolas 1823 1823 RBUSTILLOS, Pio 1843 1844 1843-4: RBUSTILLOS, Roque 1823 1823 RBUSTILLOS, Secundino 1827 1827 1827a/b: RCALONA, Je. Encamacion 1842 1842 SCAMINOS, Vicente 1825 1826 1825-6: RCANO, Bias 1826 1845 1826, 1845: R; 18271, 1830: A2CARCAMO YRIAS, Gregorio
1805 1807 1805: S; 1807: A l
CARLAS, Pedro 1833 1834 1833-4: RCARLAS, Pedro Jose 1837 1842 1837-8; 1840-1, 1842; RCASTILLO, Jose 1828 1828 RCASTRO, Atanacio 1830 1850 1830-LR; 1832-50:SecCASTRO, Cayetano 1831 1840 1840: R(renuncia); 1831, 1833,
1839: Sec interinoCASTRO, Juan Ygnacio 1833 1850 1833-4,1845-6:R; 1872,1850:
AlCERRA Y VIGIL, Jose 1811 1812 1811: A2; 1812: A l (to revolt)CERRATO, Antonio 1838 1839 Tesorero MunicipalCERRATO, Domingo (Serrato)
1838 1848 1838-9,1843,1846-8: R
CERRATO, Juan Bautista 1825 1825 RCONTRERAS, Jose Gregorio
1826 1831 1826, 1831: Sec interino
CONTRERAS, Mauricio 1823 1823 RCUBAS, Crecencio 1829 1838 1829, 1832-3,1837-8:RCUBAS, Dionicio 1831 1831 AlCUBAS, Rafael Jose 1827 1836 1827b, 1836: RDAVILA, Faustino 1845 1849 1845-6; 1849 (renuncia): RDAVILA, Guillermo 1829 1830 1829-30:RDIAS, Rafael Camilo 1845 1848 1847-8: R; 1845: A lDuarte de Garaicoa, Manuel 1797 1805 1797, 1803, 1805; AlDURAN, Jose 1840 1841 RDUNAS HARIZA, Francisco Maria, Tte.
1791 1808 1805; R/ADV; 1791: A2; 1792, 1808: A l (1808: Fco Ariza) |
481
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix L: Town Councilors, Tegucigalpa, 1787-1850 (continued)
NAME First Last PositionsESCOBAR, Bias 1828 1847 1828-9. 1832-3, 1843-4, 1846b-
7: R; 1839: A2; 1844: MPESCOBAR, Manuel 1845 1845 R (renuncia)ESPINAL, Calisto 1821 1821 R (x toma psn?)ESPINOSA, Joaquin (Espinoza)
1808 1827 1808-1817; 1827a: RS (renun 1817); 1809, 1812: A2; 1815, 1827b: A l (27b:just Espinoza)
ESTRADA, Atanacio 1825 1827 1825:S1; 1827b: A lESTRADA, Felipe 1840 1847 1840-1, 1843-4, 1846 (renun): R;
1847: A2ESTRADA, Juan 1821 1822 1821-2:RESTRADA, Pedro 1830 1831 1830-1: R; 1832-50: SecESTRADA, Rafael 1829 1830 1829: R; 1830: S; 1841; MPFERNANDES, Laureano 1844 1844 RFERRARI, Jose 1840 1843 1840, 1841, 1843: AlFERRERA, (Jose) Ynes 1842 1842 A2FIALLOS ALLANSE, Jose Tiburcio
1802 1813 1802-3: ASH; 1803, 1813:A2; 1804: A l
FIALLOS, Antonio Ramon 1827 1845 1827b, 180, 1845 (renun): R; 1833: A2; 1840: A 1
FIALLOS, Eusebio 1842 1846 1842-3: R; 1846: A lFIALLOS, Jose Francisco 1819 1819 A2FIALLOS, Jose Maria 1850 1850 RFIALLOS, Manuel 1844 1846 1844-6: RFIALLOS, Manuel Francisco
GARAY, Juan Antonio 1822 1822 A2GARAY, Simeon 1825 1825 A2GARDELA, Francisco 1813 1813 RD
482
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix L: Town Councilors, Tegucigalpa, 1787*1850 (continued)
NAME First Last PositionsGOMES, Fernando 1816 1816 ASHGOMES, Juan 1845 1850 1845-6: R; 1850: AlGOMES, Vicente 1830 1831 1830-1: RGOMEZ, Basilio 1821 1821 RGOMEZ, Justo 1839 1839 RGONZALEZ AGUERO, Rafael
1787 1787 A2
GONZALEZ de CASTRO, Mnl.
1804 1806 1804-5: MP; 1806: A2
GONZALEZ TRAVIESO, Fco Antonio
1789 1803 1789:R; 1792-1803: R/AR;1796:A1
GUARDIOLA, Estevan 1821 1821 Al(2)GUERRERO, Miguel Maria 1799 1806 1801-1806: R/Alg May; 1799:
A2GUTIERREZ, Dionicio 1821 1822 1821-2: RGUTIERREZ, Eusebio 1834 1835 1834-5: RGUTIERREZ, Jose Maria 1827 1827 1827a/b: AlHANRRIQUEZ, Ygnacio 1839 1846 1839, 1845-46b: RHERNANDES, Macedonio 1843 1843 Ale de CampoHERRERA, Dionicio 1820 1821 1820b-1821: SecHERRERA,Jose Justo - Justo J
1813 1813 SI
HERRERA, Juan Jacinto 1789 1809 1789-1809: R/APJUARES, Francisco 1821 1829 1821-2: R; 1829: A l or R/ADVLAGOS, Guadalupe 1823 1825 1823: S; 1825: AlLANDA, Calisto 1838 1838 RLAND A, Francisco 1848 1848 RLANDA, Pedro Buenaventura
1788 1792 1788: MP; 1791-2: S?
LANZA, Eligio 1828 1829 1828-9: RLANZA, Pedro 1847 1847 RLARDIZABAL, Jose Miguel
1812 1820 1812: ASH; 1814:S;1820b:R or S
LARDIZABAL, Leocadio 1834 1849 1834: R, 1849: A2LASTIRE, Juan Miguel 1803 1803 A2(l)
A- Alcalde (mayor), S-Syndico (syndic), R-Regidor (alderman). See end of Appendix M for fuller key.
483
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix L: Town Councilors, Tegucigalpa, 1787-1850 (continued)
NAME ! First Last PositionsLAVAQUI (Labaqui), Benito Lorenzo de
Laynes ??? 1840 1840 A l: Fiallos per GarayLAYNES, Atanacio 1849 1850 1849-50b:RLAYNES, George (Laines) 1824 1824 A2LAYNES, Miguel 1823 1837 1823, 1827a/b, 1837: R; 1830:
A l (1837? ADV or A)LAZO, Agapito 1826 1846 1826-7, 1846 (renun): R; 1829-
31, 1839: SecLAZO, Francisco 1820 1835 1820b,1835:R; 1834:S; 1828: A lLAZO, Sotero 1849 1849 RLEIVA, Jose 1803 1809 1803-9: ASHLINDO, Joaquin 1818 1819 Sec/EsnoLOPEZ, Ysidoro 1840 1840 A2LOZANO, Andres 1813 1840 1820b: R; 1813-4: S2; 1840: TsLOZANO, Calisto 1804 1804 SLOZANO, Francisco (Losano)
1823 1838 1823: R; 1838: A2
LOZANO, Joaquin 1830 1830 RLOZANO, Jose Maria 1828 1832 1828-9: R; 1832: A2LOZANO, Leon 1827 1827 1827b:RLOZANO, Miguel Antonio 1836 1836 A2LUQUE, Manuel 1801 1802 MPMARCELLA, Francisco 1827 1827 1827b:RMARIN, Basilio 1816 1817 1816-7: AlMARQUEZ, Jose Antonio 1822 1823 1822-3: RMARQUEZ, Jose Manuel (MARQUES) (Joseph)
Cuesta, Gregorio Alonso 1819 1819 RQuesada, Ysidoro (Quezada)
1819 1819 R
SAN MARTIN, (Jose) Francisco
1803 1820 1807-1812; 1815-7: R/Alg May, 1803: S; 1805: ASH
SAN MARTIN, Josef Domingo
1808 1808 S
SANCHES, Jose Maria 1837 1839 1837-9: RSANDOVAL, Bartolo 1821 1821 S2 (x serve?)SELVA, Carlos 1823 1823 RSEVILLA, Ylario 1831 1850 1831-2; 1836-7, 1849: R; 1844:
A2; 1850b: AlSOTO, Bruno 1834 1844 1834:R; 1838,1839,1844:A1;
1843: R o AlSOTO, Juan Jose 1847 1848 1847-8: RSOTO, Manuel 1833 1833 RSOTO, Tomas 1827 1827 1827b: SecretarioTAB LA, Juan 1832 1847 1832-3 :R;1840:S; 1845:A2;
1847:A1TRAVIESO, Estevan 1816 1820 1817; 1820b: R/ADV; 1816: A2UGARTE, Damaso 1825 1829 1825, 1827b, 1829: R; 1826: AUGARTE, Jose Maria 1850 1850 SUGARTE, Juan Antonio 1823 1831 1823: R; 1831: A l; 1823, 1827a:
SecUGARTE, Manuel 1821 1849 1821-2: R; 1825-6: Dep Prop;
1828: A2; 1849: A3
487
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix L: Town Councilors, Tegucigalpa, 1787-1850 (continued)
NAME F irst Last PositionsURMENETA, (Jose) Benito 1825 1826 RURMENETA, Mariano (Jose)
URMENETA, Ramon 1824 1825 RVALLE, (Jose) Santos del 1825 1828 1825, 1828: RVALLE, Baltasar 1800 1806 1800: A2; 1806: AlVALLE, Pedro 1850 1850 RVASQUEZ y RIVERA, Manuel Antonio (VAZQUEZ)
1792 1803 1792-1812: R; 1792: S; 1794: A2; 1795; A l; 1803: DC
VASQUEZ, Leon 1820 1827 1821: R; 1827b: R?(Vasquez); 1820: Sec
VASQUEZ, Manuel Emigidio
1813 1814 1813-4: R; 1813: Sec
VASQUEZ, Yndalicio 1850 1850 RVEGA, Ygnacio 1826 1834 1834: R; 1826: A lVELES, Toribio 1837 1839 1839: A l; 1837: MPVIGIL, Diego 1827 1827 1827b: RVIGIL, Jose (VTJIL) 1802 1820 1802-3:RS; 1804-1820a:R/AR;
1803: AlVILLACORTA, Jose Maria 1836 1841 1836, 1840-1: RVILLAR, Jose Maria 1849 1850 1849: R; 1850: A2XEREDA, Joseph Miguel 1789 1789 SXIRON, Quintin 1850 1850 A3XIRON, Ygnacio 1825 1829 1825-6: S2; 1829: RYNESTROSA, Juan Antonio
1822 1827 1827b: r; 1822: A l
YRIAS, Antonio Jose 1801 1801 SYRIAS, Felipe 1844 1845 1844-5: RYRIAS, Francisco 1840 1842 1840-2: RYRIAS, Gabriel de 1792 1804 1792: A2; 1793, 1811, 1813,
1814: AlYRIAS, Juan 1833 1847 1846-7:R; 1840,41:A2; 1833: AlYRIAS, Juan Jose 1827 1827 1827a/b: RYRIAS, Matias-Carcamo Yrias
1809 1818 1813-4: R; 1809: ASH; 1818: A2
488
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix L: Town Councilors, Tegucigalpa, 1787-1850 (continued)
NAME F irst L ast PositionsYRIAS, Pablo 1825 1846 1825, 1844-6: RYRIVARREN, Jose 1807 1814 1812:S; 1807:A2; 1811,1814:
AlZELAYA, Jose Maria 1809 1810 1809: R/AP; 1810: A2ZELAYA, Joaquin (Juaquin)
1827 1827 1827b: R
ZELAYA, Jose Simon de 1802 1802 1802: A2ZELAYA, Pedro Martir de 1787 1792 1787-97: R/DGZEPEDA, Andres (Cepeda) 1790 1790 1790: A2ZEPEDA, Ysidoro 1829 1836 1839-30; 1834, 1836: RZUNIGA, Antonio (Santos) 1836 1839 1836, 1839: RZUNIGA, Fermin 1840 1850 1840-1 ;1845-6b;1850:R;
1845:TsZUNIGA, Geronimo 1826 1832 1826-27b: R; 1831-2: RZUNIGA, Jose Maria 1829 1829 RZUNIGA, Macedonio (Suniga)
1827 1841 1827b-8: R; 1840-1; Tes. Dpto.; 1832: M. Zuniga, A l
ZUNIGA, M 1832 1832 AlZUNIGA, Matias 1825 1825 RZUNIGA, Ramon 1844 1845 R
A- Alcalde (mayor), S-Syndico (syndic), R-Regidor (alderman). See end o f Appendix M for sources and fuller key.
489
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix M: Town Councilors, Sonsonate, 1787-1850
cc F irst L ast PositionsANGELES, Bias de los 1826 1838 1826-27b, 1828: R; 1838: A o RANGELES, Dionicio 1837 1844 1837: S2, 1844: SIANGELES, Geronimo 1842 1853 1842: R; 1853: AlANGELES, Mnl de los 1814 1814 RANGELES, Ramon de los
1831 1849 1833b, 1834, 1849: S; 1831: MP
ANGULO, Nicolas 1830 1835 1830-1, 1835: RAQUECHE, Eusebio 1818 1818 A2AQUECHE, Francisco 1818 1818 SAQUECHE, Manuel 1819 1819 RARAUZ ? 1823 1823 RARAUZ, Cirilo (Sirilo) 1837 1849 1837: R; 1849?ARAUZ, Jacinto 1820 1828 1820, 1827-8: RARAUZ, Pablo 1848 1849 1848-9: RARAUZ, Sisto 1834 1834 RARCE, Pedro 1832 1837 1836-7: R; 1832a: dep FondosARDON, Gregorio 1835 1835 A3, AlAYARZA, Josef 1782 1782 SBALCARCEL, Je Maria 1792 1794 1792: R; 1794: ASH; 1793: A2BARCHARD,Guillermo
1830 1841 1830-1: R; 1840: A l
BARRIENTOS,Gerardo
1839 1839 R
BARRIENTOS, Ygno. 1820 1820 ASH YsalcoBATRES, Leandro 1843 1843 SecBORICA, Pedro 1833 1833 1833b:RBORICA, Ramon de 1798 1799 1798: R; 1799: Dip ConsBORICA, Ygnacio 1831 1837 1831,1832: S; 1837: A3BURGOS, Antonio 1776 1776 SCABRERA, Lorenzo 1823 1835 1827b: R; 1823: SI, 1835: A2CALDERON DE LA BARCA, Fco
1779 1784 Sec
CALDERON, Francisco 1836 1836 R
490
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix M: Town Councilors, Sonsonate, 1787-1850 (continued)
CAMPO, Rafael 1833 1842 1833b, 1836, 1842: RCANAL, Felipe de la 1829 1831 1829,1831: SecCANALES, Marcos 1842 1842 A2CARBALLO, Antonio 1781 1782 1781-2: RSCARDONA, Diego 1832 1833 1832a/b: S2; 1833a/b: SICARMANO, Juan Antonio
1811 1820 1811-2:RB; 1815,1818:A2; 1819: A l; 1820: AM disallows eln RB
CARRERA, Manuel 1775 1786 1775-1784: R/DG; 1786: A lCASTANEDA, Julio /Julian
OSORIO, Gregorio 1822 1827 1822: R; 1827a/b: A2OSORIO, Rosalio 1853 1853 A2OYA, Josef Paulino de 1798 1798 R/AlgMOYARZUM, Juan Antonio
1820 1820 A2(l)
Fernandez PADILLA, Jose
1821 1836 1835-6: R; 1821: A l
PAD IN, Simon 1793 1793 R/A2DVPANIAGUA, Bonifacio 1824 1824 SecPAREDES, Juan 1835 1835 RPAREDES, Manuel 1820 1833 1820-1; 1833a: RPENATE, Jose Maria 1853 1853 RPEREZ YBARRETA, Millan
1792 1794 1792; A2
POMAR Y TORRE, Juan Antonio
1781 1791 1781: S; 1790-1; A l
POMAR, Jose Maria 1808 1820 1808-9; 1816-7: RB; 1820: SIPOMAR, Lucas de 1818 1837 1822, 1837: R; 1818, 1836:A1
(renun 1836)PORTILLA,Buenaventura
1832 1837 1837: R; 1832b, 1835-6: Sec
PRIETO, Marcelino 1825 1827 1825,1827b: SecQUEJADA, Jose 1843 1843 A2QUEVEDO, Jose Maria 1826 1826 RRAMOS, Jose Antonio 1822 1849 1822, 1828-30, 1844-5: R; 1849: AlRASCON, Eugenio 1808 1820 1808, 1810, 1812, 1814-20: RP;
VILLA VICENCIO, Pdr 1842 1848 1842: R; 1848: R or AWAND IN, Jose Mariano 1826 1826 SecWANDIN, Luis Mrno. 1795 1795 A2XIBAJA, Jose 1841 1841 RXIBAJA, Manuel 1835 1848 1835: R; 1844; S; 1848: R o r ?XEMENEZ DE SISNEROS, Tomas
1780 1795 1780-2: S; 1795:? Compra RP
XIMENEZ, Jose 1810 1813 1813: R; 1810: SYMENDIA, Jose 1843 1843 A2YMENDIA, Jose Maria 1837 1837 AlYPINA, Manuel de 1809 1816 1810,1812:RB; 1809:A2; 1816:A1YPINA, Mariano Lopez 1799 1800 1799: A l; 1800: AM interinoYPINA, Rafael de 1775 1800 1788-1800: Remate R; 1775; S;
1786: A2; 1792, 1793, 1800: AlZAPATA, Jose Maria 1810 1813 1810, 1811, 1813: A2ZUNIGA, Bartolome 1813 1813 Al
KEY:A 1-Alcalde de Primer Voto; A2-Alcalde de Segundo Voto; ADV-a regidor who is termporarily replacing a mayor (alcalde deposito de vara); S-Syndic, R-Regidor, RB- Regidor Bienal; RP -Regidor Perpetuo, Sec-Secretary, DP -Depositario General; Alg May - Regidor/Alguacil Mayor; ASH -Alcalde de la Sta. Hermandad; Alcayde - Jailer; Portero-Concierge
Compra- Purchase of office; Remate-Auction/sale of office; x serve -not take office or remain in it; Renun-resigns office
Year a/b: Year in which there was a change of municipal government. The officeholder either served in the first (a) or second (b) period or both (a/b).
498
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendices K-M
Principal Sources:Guatemala:Libras de Cabildo, 1787-1850, AGCA A.l.2.3 Legajos 2185-2194; B78.1 Leg. 532, Exp. 10107
to Leg. 536, Exp. 10157.Actas de Election, AGCA Al .2.3 Legajo 224, Legajo 44 Expediente 1136,1111Titles, AGI, Guatemala 629, 426
Tegucigalpa:Archivo Municipal de Tegucigalpa (Tegucigalpa): Libras de Actas Municipales, 1801-1832
Archivo Nacional de Honduras (Tegucigalpa), Actas, 1813, Fondo Colonial, Caja 112, #3583 ; Remate, Regidores de Tegucigalpa, 1792, Fondo Colonial, Caja 88, No 2926, 2932.
Sonsonate:Archivo Municipal de Sonsonate (Sosnonate): Libras de Cabildo, various years between 1784-
Archivo General de la Nation (San Salvador): Seccion Colonial, Caja 1, Carpeta 2, Libra de Actas, 1811-1814
These sources provided the basic information on the men who held office in the cabildos ofGuatemala, Sonsonate and Tegucigalpa between 1776-1850. Some of the matronymics comefrom additional research in other sources, including notarials and congressional documents.
499
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix N: Mayors and Syndics, Santiago and Asuncion de Guatemala, 1700-1800
Year Alcalde de 1 Voto A/E Alcalde de 2* Voto A/E Slndico A/E1700 Juan Lucas
Urtante, RLucas de Larrave E Juan Ignacio de Uria E
1701 Juan de Langarica E Manuel Medrano A Josef LovoXiron1702 Josef Lara
MogrovejoA Juan Igno de Urias E Antonio de Herrarte E
1703 Josef Calvo de Lara
Josef de Naxera A Juan Ygnacio de Uria E
1704 Manuel Medrano A Sebastian de Loaisa E Francisco Fuentes y Guzman
A
1705 Sebastian de Loaisa
E Josef de la Tovilla y Galves
A Francisco de Montufar A
1706 Tomas de Arrivillaga
A Ventura Arroyave y Beteta
E Josef Lovo Giron
1707 Juan Antonio Ruiz de Bustamante
E Juan Asepitia A Antonio de Herrarte E
1708 Josef Bernardo Mencos
A Miguel Montufar E Antonio Sepien
1709 Sebastian de Loaiza
E Bernardo Cabrejo A Juan Igno de Urias E
1710 Juan Lucas Urtarte E Domingo Oyarza Lie Josef Davalos A1711 Bentura Beteta E Juan Antonio Varon A Lie Josef Davalos A1712 Fdo de la Tovilla A Francisco X. de
FolgarA Francisco Marcelino
FallaE
1713 Diego Rodriguez Menendez
A Pedro de Yturvide E Antonio de Olaverrieta
E
1714 Bartolome de Galvez
E Miguel Fernandez Cordova
A Manuel de Zevallos E
1715 Josef Alvares Asturias y Navas
A Vfanuel de Zevallos E Domingo de Retana E
1716 Miguel de Montufar
E Miguel Eustaquio Urias
A Juan Calderon de la Barca
A
1717 Bernardo Mencos A Juan de Ruballo E Josef Samayoa 11718 Sebastian de
LoaisaJuan Gonzales Batres A Jedro de la Barrera A
1719 Miguel German F. de Cordova
A Juan Flores Duran Juan Arochena E
1720 Pedro Carrillo Mencos
Josef Galvez Corrado
A oiis Anto Mufios E
Alcalde de Primer Voto-First Mayor; -Alcalde de 2° Voto-Second Mayor; Sindico-Syndic A - Americano (Creole), E- Espanol (Peninsular, Spaniard)
500
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix N: Mayors and Syndics, Santiago and Asuncion de Guatemala,
1700-1800 (cont)
Year Alcalde lo A/E Alcalde 2o A/E Sindico A/E1721 Josef A. delas
AturiasA Anto de Olaverrieta E Manuel de Lexarza
PalaciosE
1722 Juan de Berraneche E Antonio De Zepeda A Juan Calderon A1723 Miguel de Urias A Domingo retana E Juan Colomo A1724 Bentura de
Arollave y BetetaE Manuel Josef de
estradaA Juan Antonio Colomo A
1725 Josef A. de las Asturias
A Juan de Zavala E Juan Antonio Colomo A
1726 Juan de Ruballo E Diego Gonzalez Batres
A Guillermo Martinez de Pereda
E
1727 Lucas Carlos Coronado
A Francisco de Dios Sobrado
E Antonio de la Campa A
1728 Juan Barraneche E Juan Antonio Diguero
A Antonio de la Campa A
1729 Bernardo Cabrejo A Juan Angel Arochena E Agustin Arrivillaga1730 Juan Angel de
ArochenaJuan Calderon de la Barca
A Francisco de Herrarte A
1731 Josef de las Asturias N.
A Pedro Landivar E Tomas Garcia Bamonde
E
1732 Guillermo Martinez de Pereda
E Cristoval de Galves A Juan de Pezonarte E
1733 Josef A. las de Asturias
A Juan Francisco del Real
E Juan Pezonarte, reelected
E
1734 Manuel Munoz E Pedro Juan Carrillo A Tomas Garcia Bamonde
E
1735 Juan Gonzalez Batres
A Josef Samoyoa E Anto de la Campa Cos A
1736 Domingo de olavarrieta
E Josef de Naxera A Tomas Carrera E
1737 Pedro Carillo A Gaspar Juarros E Francisco Portillo A1738 Bentura Beteta E Josef de Olaverrieta Josef Molina Sandoval H1739 Pedro Ortz de
LetonaA Bartol de Eguizabal E Francisco Anto de la
Granda
501
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix N: Mayors and Syndics, Santiago and Asuncion de Guatemala,
1700-1800 (cont)
Year Alcalde lo A/E Alcalde 2o A/E Isiadico A/E1740 Guillermo
Martinez de PeredaE Francisco Herrarte A Toms Carrera E
1741 Anto Zepeda A Juan de Abaurrea E Miguel de Coronado A1742 Manuel Munoz E Francisco Portillo A Basilio Roma R, E1743 Juan Gonzalez
BatresA,A R
Francisco Anto Granda
E,R
Dr Francisco Vidaurre A
1744 Juan Martin Munoz E Josef de Arrivillaga A Josef Rosa E1745 Pedro Ortiz de
LetonaA,R
Francisco de Chavarria
E Pedro Cabrejo A
1746 BartolomeEguisabal
E Joaquin Montufar A Agustin de Olaverri E
1747 Josef Naxera A,R
Basilio Roma E Joef Estrada A
1748 Gaspar Juarros E Diego Arroyave Beteta
A Josef Torresillas
1749 Miguel de Coronado
A,R
Felipe Manrrique E,R
Manuel de Larrave A
1750 Blank1751 Josef de Arrivillaga A Agustin de Olaverri E Josef Gonzalez Robles E1752 Manuel Munoz E Pedro Loaisa E Manuel de Mella E1753 Manuel de Galvez A Manuel de Mella E Francisco Yturregui E1754 Francisco Barrutia E Manuel de Larrave A Francisco Yturregui E1755 Pedro Letona A,
RJosef Gonzales Robles
E Juan Josef Ganuza E
1756 Basilio Roma E,R
Pedro Cabrejo A Francisco Yturregui E
1757 Juaquin de Montufar
A,R
Salvador Cavarer E Lorenzo Garcia
1758 Francisco Barrutia E Vfiguel Asturias A Juan Fermin de Ayzinena
E
1759 Manuel Larrave A J. Fermin de Azyinena
E Manuel Batres A
1760 Agustin Olaverri E Vfanuel Batres A Femado Palomo E1761 Manuel Batres A Francisco Palomo Cayetano Pabon E1762 Gaspar Juarros E Simon de Larrazabal A Juan Barrutia E1763 Cristoval de Galves A Cayetano Pavon
RIgnacio Zepeda
Alcalde de Primer Voto-First Mayor; -Alcalde de 2° Voto-Second Mayor; Sindico-Syndic; A - Americano (Creole), E- Espafiol (Peninsular), R-Regidor (Alderman)
502
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix N: Mayors and Syndics, Santiago and Asuncidn de Guatemala,
1700-1800 (conL)
Year Alcalde lo A/E Alcalde 2o A/E Isindico I A/E1764 Josef Gonzales
RoblesE Juaquin de Lacunza A Tomas Dighero
1765 Josef Gonzales Robles
E Juaquin de Lacunza A Juan Jose Ganuza E
1766 Simon de Larrazabal
A,R
Juan Tomas Micheo E Josef Batres A
1767 Manuel de Mella E Ventura Naxera A, R Nicolas de Letona A1768 Manuel de Larrave A Felipe Rubio E Cayetano Pavon R1769 Manuel Llano E Josef Batres A Manuel Juarros A1770 Pedro Cabrejo A Benito Carrera A Mariano Arrivillaga A1771 Juan Tomas
MicheoE,R
Mariano Arrivillaga A Miguel de Eguizabal A
1772 Bentura Naxera A,R
Francisco Ignacio Chamorro
E Ignacio Mufioz A
1773 Felipe Rubi E Miguel Eguizabal A Mariano Galvez A1774 Miguel Asturias A Juan Pinol E Fernando del Sobral E1775 Fco. Chamorro E,
RAndres Munoz A Diego del Barco
1776 Josef Gonzales Robles
E Manuel Juarros A Juan Antonio de la Pena E
1777 Miguel Asturias A Juan Anto. Pefia E Diego Peinado E1778 Felipe Rubio E Ygnacio Munoz A Both resigned.1778 Francisco Ig.
ChamorroE,R
Pedro Josef Micheo E
1779 Manuel Juarros A,R
Francisco Pacheco E, R Martin Valdez E
1780 Josef Batres A Gregorio Urruela E, R Lorenzo Montufar A1781 Juan Ant. de la
PenaE Vfariano Roma A Josef Fernandez Gil E
1782 Matias Manzanares E,R
Lorenzo Montufar A Ambrosio Taboada E
1783 Lorenzo Montufar A, Jedro Beltranena E Juan Gil del Barrio E1784 J. Fermin de
Ayzinena, MarquisE Col. Juan Manrrique A Domingo Arido E
1785 MarianoArrivillaga
A *edro Ayzinena Juan Pedro Oyarzaval E
503
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix N: Mayors and Syndics, Santiago and Asunci6n de Guatemala,
1700-1800 (cont.)
Year Alcalde lo A/E Alcalde 2o A/E Sfndico A/E1786 Matias de
ManzanaresE Cristoval Silverio de
GalvezA Domingo Ubico E
1787 Manuel Juarros A Josef Ant. Castanedo E Martin Barrundia E1788 Josef Ant. Castafiedo E Cayetano Pavon A Lorenzo Ximenz Rubio E1789 Cayetano Pavon E Ambrosio Gomora E Mariano Naxera A1790 Ambrosio Gomara E Tadeo Pinol A Pedor Juan de Lara E1791 Josef Mariano Roma A Josef Fernandez Gil E Juan Josef Barrutia A1792 Francisco Pacheco E Luis Barrutia A Juan Baptista
MarticorenaE
1793 Bentura Naxera A, R Pedro Juan de Lara E Dr Josef Ayzinena A1794 Ambrosio Gomora E Vizente de Ayzinena A Juan Angel de Yturrios E1795 Col Juan Manrrique A Francisco X. Aguirre E Josef Garcia Goyena E1796 Lie Cristoval Aviles E Manuel Pavon A, R Basilio Barrutia E1797 Cristoval Galvez A Juan Baptista
MarticorenaE Basilio Barrutia E
1798 Cayetano Pavon A Martin Valdez E Pedro Arrivillaga A1799 Martin Valdez E Miguel Igno.
AsturiasA, R Antonio Texada E
1800 Josef Mariano Arrivillaga
A Ambrosio Taboada E Francisco Pacheco y Beteta
A
Alcalde de Primer Voto-First Mayor; Alcalde de 2° Voto-Second Mayor; Sindico-Syndic A - Americano (Creole), E- Espafiol (Peninsular), R - Regidor
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix O: Regidores Bienales, Guatemala City, 1784-1792
Name Years A/E Name Years A/EJuarros, Manuel Jose 1784-5 A Pacheco, Francisco 1786-7 EBatres, Josef 1784-5 A Urruela, Gregorio 1786-7 EManzanares, Matias 1784-5 E Beltranena, Pedro 1786-7 ERoma, Mariano 1784-5 A Oliver, Juan 1786-7 EManrrique, Juan 1784-5 A * Castafiedo, Josef Ant. 1786-7 EGalvez, Cristobal de 1784-5 A Yrungarai, Mateo 1786-7 (E)Camino, Andres del 1784-5 (E) Pifiol, Tadeo 1786-7 AGomara, Ambrosio 1784-5 E Pavon, Cayetano 1786-7 ERubio y Gemmir, Juan Miguel
1784-5 A Lazalde, Manuel de 1786-7
Arrido, Domingo 1784-5 E Rivas, Josef Joaquin 1786-7 A* Barrutia, Luis 1786-7 A
Arrivillaga, Mariano 1788 A Juarros, Manuel Jose 1790-1 ARoma, Mariano 1788-9 A Martinez Pacheco, Fco. 1790-1 E* Aycinena, Pedro 1788-9 E Urruela, Gregorio 1790 EFernandez Gil, Jose 1788-9 E Galvez, Cristobal 1790-1 AGomara, Ambrocio 1788-9 E Coronado, Ygnacio 1790-1 ASan Juan, Josef Miguel
1788-9 (A) Barco, Diego del 1790-1 E
Arrido, Domingo 1788-9 E * Ferrer, Rafael 1790-1 EOyarzabal, Juan Pedro
1788-9 E Ariza, Pedro 1790-1 E
* Asturias y Beteta, Miguel
1788-9 A Cambronero, Luis 1790-1 E
* Aycinena, Vicente 1788-9 A Batres y Mufioz, Vntra 1790-1 A* Barrundia, Martin 1789 E * Pavon, Manuel 1790-1 A
•Lara, Pedro Juan de (replaces Urruela)
1791 E
A = Americano (Creole), E = Europeo (Spaniard), 0 - Attributed
* = Purchases a permanent seat in 1793. (Repetitions). Source: AGI Guatemala 446. Nicolas Obregon was the only permanent regidor in this period . He had purchased his seat in 1772.
505
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix O: Regidores Bienales, Guatemala City, 1784-1792 (cont.)
* Aycinena, Pedro 1792-3 E 10 o f 11 1793 Purchasers:* Castanedo, Josef Antonio
1792-3 E Aycinena, Pedro E
Manrrique, Juan 1792-3 A Aycinena, Vicente ATaboada, Ambrosio 1792-3 E Miguel Asturias Beteta AOyarzabal, Pedro 1792-3 E Bam m dia,Martin
Luis BarrutiaEA
* Bammdia, Martin 1792-3 E Castafiedo, Josef Ant. E* Asturias, Miguel de 1792-3 A Batres, Jose Antonio APayes, Juan 1792-3 (E) Ferrer, Rafael
Lara, Pedro J.EE
Croquer, Julian 1792-3 A Manuel Jose Pavon A* Batres, Jose Antonio
1792-3 A 1 l m seat o f 1793 to:
Aycinena, Jose 1792 A Jose Maria Peynado AA = Americano (Creole), E = Europeo (Spaniard), 0 - Attributed
* = Purchases a permanent seat in 1793. (Repetitions). Source: AGI Guatemala 446. Nicolas Obregon was the only permanent regidor in this period . He had purchased his seat in 1772.
Sources on place of origin: See prrincipally AHN (Madrid) Consejos 20983, Piezas 2, 8 and 10, or AGCA A1.2 Legajo 43, Expediente 1082.
506
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix P: Mayors, Asuncidn de Guatemala, 1776-1820
Year Alcalde 1° E/A Alcalde 2o E/A1776 Gonzalez Roves,Jose E? Juarros,Manuel Jose A1777 Asturias, Miguel A Pefia, Juan Anto de la E1778 Chamorro, Francisco
IgnacioA Micheo, Pedro Jose E
1779 Juarros, Manuel A Pacheco, Francisco E1780 Batres, Jose A Urruela, Gregorio E1781 Pena, Juan Antonio de la E Roma, Mariano A1782 Manzanares, Matias E Montufar, Lorenzo A1783 Montufar, Lorrenzo A Beltranena, Pedro E1784 Aycinena, Juan Fermin E Manrique, Col. Juan A1785 Arrivillaga, Mariano A Aycinena, Pedro E1786 Manzanares, Matias E Galvez, Xristobal A1787 Juarros, Manuel Josef A Castanedo, Josef Antonio E1788 Castanedo, Josef
AntonioE Pavon, Cayetano Josef A
1789 Pavon, Cayetano Josef A Gomara, Ambrosio E1790 Gomara, Ambrosio E Pifiol y Mufioz, Tadeo A1791 Roma y Asturias, Jose
MnoA Fernandez Gil, Jose E
1792 Martinez Pacheco, Francisco
E Barrutia y Roma, Luis Fco.
A
1793 Naxera, Ventura A Lara, Pedro Juan de E1794 Gomara, Ambrosio E Aycinena y Carrillo,
VicnteA
1795 Manrrique Guzman, Juan
A Aguirre, Francisco Xavier E
1796 Ortiz Aviles, Xristobal E Pavon, Manuel (regidor) A1797 Galvez, Cristobal
SilverioA Marticorena, Juan Bta E
1798 Pavon, Cayetano A Valdes, Martin de E1799 Valdes, Martin de E Alvarez Asturias, Mig
Igno.A
1800 Roma, Josef Mariano A Rodriguez Taboada, Ambrocio
E
1801 Marticorena, Juan Bta. E Palomo, Antonio Isidro A
507
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix P: Mayors, Asuncidn de Guatemala, 1776-1820 (cont)
Year Alcalde 1° E/A Alcalde 2o E/A1802 Rubio y Gemmir, J.
MiguelA Ariza, Pedro E
1803 Ortiz de Avila, Xristobal E Aycinena, Jose, Dr A1804 Roma, Jose Mariano A Taboada, Juan Francisco E1805 Marticorena, J Bta E Barrutia, Bacilio A1806 Pinol y Munoz, Tadeo A Gorris, Pedro Jose de E1807 Aycinena Larrayn,
Pedro JA Batres y Munoz, Je Anto A
1808 Juarros, Antonio A Ysasi, Jose E1809 Urruela, Gregorio de E Arrivillaga y
Coronado,Pedro JA
1810 Barrutia, B./ Pavon, C (2)
A Moreno, Lorenzo E
1811 Moreno, Lorenzo E Pavon, Domingo Jose A1812 Peyando, Jose Maria (1) A Barrio, Jose E1812 Barrio, Jose (2) E Roma, Jose (2) A1813 Melon, Sebastian E Salmon, Francisco E1814 Perez Brito, Francisco
(1)? Azeituno, Jose Juqn (1) ?
1814 Aqueche, Juan Antonio (2)
E Galvez, Mariano Jose (2) A
1814 Juarros, Antonio (3) A Ysasi, Jose (3) E1815 Ysasi, Jose E Lara y Areze, Manuel
JoseA
1816 Pavon, Domingo Jose A Araujo, Juan Anto (1) E1816 Pavon, Domingo Jose A Salmon, Francisco (2) E1817 Ramirez, Ramon E? Pavon, Vicente A1818 Asturias, Juan Nepo A Echeverria, Juan Jose E?1819 Urruela, Jose E? Asturias, Miguel
(resign)**A
1819 Urruela, Jose E? Batres Asturias, Antonio A1820 Pavon, Vicente A Aqueche, Juan Antonio E
** Replaced by Diego Barco, E.
A-Americano (Creole); E-Espaflol (Spaniard); ? -origin assumed because o f altemativa (alternation between Creole and Spanish mayors)
Sources: AHN Consejos 20983; Juarros, Compendio de la Historia, pp. 193-199.
508
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix Q: Deputies to Suprema Junta Central, Spanish Cortes & DiputacionesProvinciales, Kingdom of Guatemala, 1813-1820
Cabildo SelectionsCityGuatemala, San Salvador,
Suprema Junta Central
Selected Vecindad ActionQuezaltenango, Ciudad Real:
Jose Aycinena Guatemala RESIGNSComayagua, Tegucigalpa, San Vicente, Choluteca/Tegucigalpa:
Jose Cecilio del Valle Tegucigalpa/Guate. Alejandro Ramirez Espafio1 RESIGNSManuel Jose Pavon GuatemalaMiguel Barroeta Domingo Figueroa Pedro Chamorro Juan Jose VillarJuan Fco. Vilchez y Cabrera (ecles)
Sonsonate Cart ago San Miguel Santa Ana Granada Nicaragua Nueva Segovia
Replacing the resignees: Antonio Juarros (Guatemala), Manuel Jose Pavon (Guatemala), Manuel Antonio Molina, Jose Maria de la Torre, Isidro Sicilia (Sonsonate), Francisco Ayerdi (Leon), Jose Maria Ramon (city o f origin, if known)
ELECTED: Manuel Jose Pavon
Cortes de C idiz - Extraordinaria (1810-1812)INTERIM deputies, resident in Spain, acting until the arrival of the elected representatives: Andres and Manuel Llano (resident in Cadiz)
ELECTED deputiesGuatemala City Antonio Larrazabal Priest Dr, Member Soc Ec, Cab.Ecc.Ciudad Real (C) Mariano Robles D. Priest Canonigo, Ciudad RealLeon (N) Jose Antonio Lopez Priest Dr, Leon, Soc Ec
de la PlataComayagua (H) Francisco Morejon Bachiller Comayagua, Soc Ec.Cartago (CR) Florencio Castillo Priest CartagoSan Salvador (ES) Jose Ignacio Avila Lawyer San Salvador, Soc Ec
509
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix Q: Deputies to Suprema Junta Central, Spanish Cortes & DiputacionesProvinciales, Kingdom of Guatemala, 1813-1820 (continued)
Cortes Ordinarias (1813-1814)PropietaryGuatemala City Jose Maria Peynado Landowner Not go; reg.; Soc Ec
Intendant, El Sal.Quezaltenango (G) Jose Cleto Montiel Priest Not goChimaltenango (G) Manuel MicheoVerapaz (G) Agustin Gutierrez Lizaurzaval Lawyer Not go; reg., LeonSolola & Francisco Barrutia Lawyer & Not go; reg. & syndicChimaltenango (G) Merchant GuatemalaChiquimula (G) Luis Pedro Aguirre Lawyer Not go; Consulado,Aud,
Junta de CensuraChiquimula (G) Luis Hermosilla Priest Not go; 1814electionSonsonate Serapio Contreras Priest Not goSan Salvador (ES) Manuel Arce (Per Gazeta de Guatemala)
Miguel Larreynaga Lawyer Not goSan Miguel (ES) Dr. Miguel Barroeta Priest Not goChiapas (C) Fernando Antonio Davila PriestCiudad Real (C) Juan Nepomuceno Fuero Not go, 1814electionComayagua (H) Jose Santiago Milla Lawyer ComayaguaTegucigalpa (H) Jose Santiago Milla Lawyer ComayaguaLeon (N) Pedro Solis Priest Not goNicaragua Miguel Larreynaga Lawyer Not go, Col Abg, Aud.
res. GuatemalaCosta Rica Rafael Barroeta Not go
SuplentesGuatemala City Antonio Larrazabal Priest Already in SpainEl Salvador Jose Ignacio Avila Already in SpainCosta Rica Florencio Castillo Priest Already in SpainHonduras Jose Francisco Morejon Already in SpainChiapas Mariano Robles Dominguez Already in SpainSonsonate Mariano Beltranena Lawyer/M. Not go, regidorGuate.Comayagua Nicolas Anacleta Parrilla Priest Not goLeon Alejandro Diaz Cabeza de Lawyer Not go, Leon, res. Gu.
Vaca regidor & syndic
510
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix Q: Deputies to Suprema Junta Central, Spanish Cortes & DiputacionesProvinciales, Kingdom of Guatemala, 1813-1820 (continued)
Chiquimula (G)
Guatemala City
Chimaltenango (G) Quezaltenango (G)
Verapaz (G)
Sacatepequez (G) Sonsonate, Escuintla
& Suchitepequez Ciudad Real (C)
Comayagua (H) Comayagua (H)San Salvador (ES)
San Miguel (ES) Leon (N)
Costa Rica
Cortes Ordinarias (1820)Luis Hermosilla PriestJuan de Dios Mayorga Julian de Urruela MerchantManuel Guerra Marchan* Priest Manuel Guerra Marchan Jose Leon Marroquin Priest Mariano Cordova Francisco Garcia PriestAntonio Rivera LawyerMateo Ybarra MerchantMariano Mendez
Fernando Antonio Davila Priest Tiburcio Farr era *Juan Esteban Milla LawyerDionicio Herrera* LawyerJose Maria Alvarez+ PriestMariano Gomez* LawyerJose Matias Delgado PriestToribio Argiiello LawyerPedro Chamorro*Jose Sacasa Jose Maria Zamora Jose Sacasa*
Soc Ec
regidor, Cons. Comercio Dean o f Tortosa; res Spain
Guatemala City resident, Guatemala City resignsresident, Guatemala City resident, Madrid
Comayagua, Col Abg, Soc Ec Tegucigalpa, sec. cabildo Dr, Soc Ec, univ professor+
Dr, Soc Ecreg., Leon, Soc Ec, Col Abog
Granada, ConsuladoLawyer, Merchant Lawyer LeonBachiller CartagoLawyer from Granada, res. Madrid
San SalvadorEconomicaSonsonateEconomicaChimaltenangoComayaguaChiapasQuezaltenangoGuatemala & Sacat.VerapazSuplentesGuatemalaChiapasComayagua
Mar.no Garcia Reyes PriestBruno Medina PriestEulogio Correa PriestJose Maria Perez PriestManuel Jose Pavon LawyerMarcial Zebadua Lawyer
Marques de Aycinena Marcial Zebadua LawyerJose Geronimo Zelaya
Dr, Member Soc.
Dr, Cabildo Ecc, Soc Ec Parish priest, Danli
(or Mariano)Soc Ec, col abog, regidor Soc Ec, col abog, reg. Gua.
Soc Ec, col abog, reg. Gu.
511
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix Q: Deputies to Suprema Junta Central, Spanish Cortes & DiputacionesProvinciales, Kingdom of Guatemala, 1813-1820 (continued)
Nicaragua- Diputacidn Provincial (1812-1814)
CR Brig. Tomas AcostaCR Joaquin ArechavalaLeon Domingo GalarzaGran. Pedro ChamorroN. Seg. Vicente AgiieroCRNic.CR*CR*
Anselmo Jimenez Agustin Gutierrez Jose Carmen Salazar Crisanto Sacasa
landowner, reg., col. o f a batallon, Leonlandowner, reg., cmdr o f voluntarios, Cons. Com.,Leonlandowner,merchant, lawyer, reg., Cons. Com.,Granadalandowner, capt. o f militia, Leonlandowner, Cartago (Costa Rica)lawyer, regidor,Leonmerchant, regidor, LeonGrananda* Carlos Machado
Guatemala — Diputacidn Provincial (1820-1821)
A) Operates at start with 1814 representativesSan Salvador Jose Matias Delgado PriestSonsonate Jose Simeon Cafias PriestGuatemala & Sacat. Manuel Jose Pavon LaywerVerapaz Marcial Zebadua Laywer
B) Election of newSan Salvador (ES) Economica Verapaz (G) Chiquimula (G) Ciudad Real (C) Guatemala (G) Guatemala & Sacat.
(G)San Miguel (ES)
representativesJose Matias Delgado Priest
Antonio Rivera LawyerJose Mariano Calderon Priest Mariano Robles* BachillerMarcial Zebadua LawyerMariano Beltranena Lawyer Alexandra Diaz C.* Lawyer Miguel Ant. Molina Priest Jose Geronimo Zelaya
Dr, Member Sociedad Ec Dr, Member Sociedad Ec Soc Ec, Col Abog, regidor Soc Ec, Col Abog, regidor
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix Q: Deputies to Suprema Junta Central, Spanish Cortes & DiputacionesProvinciates, Kingdom of Guatemala, 1813-1820 (continued)
Nicaragua- Diputacidn Provincial (1820-1821)Joaquin Arechavala Domingo Galarza Vicente Agiiero Agustin Gutierrez L. Manuel Lopez de la Plata Pedro Solis*Roberto Sacasa* Pedro Portocarrero Jose Maria Ramirez Manuel Gonzalez S. Nicolas Garcia Jerez
ComayaguaCholutecaGracias a DiosOlanchoTegucigalpaTocoaYoro (Olanchito)
landowner, regidor, col. of batallon, Leonlandowner, regidor, cmdr of voluntarios, Cons. Comercio,Leonlandowner, capt. of militia, Leonlawyer, regidor, Leon
priest, disqualified for becoming part o f Comayagua diocese priest, juez de obras pias, Leon lieut. coronel, Leonresident of Leon, representative of Costa Rica regidor, Leon, representative o f Costa Rica Intendant o f Nicaragua Bishop of Nicaragua
Comayagua Diputacidn (1820)Nicolas Yrias Priest ChantreJusto Herrera Jose Jeronimo Zelaya Jose Maria Zelaya Jose Serra MerchantJose Francisco Zelaya Santiago Gotay
regidor, Tegucigalpa regidor, Tegucigalpa
regidor, Tegucigalpa
* SuplenteSources:Deputy to Suprema Junta. Cabildo Selections. Xiomara Avendafio, “De Subditos a Ciudadanos: las primeras elecciones en la provincia de Guatemala, 1812-1822,” Revista de Historia (Managua, Nicaragua), 1994:3-4, pp. 44-54.Diputaciones Provinciales: Xiomara Avendafio, theis, pp. 170-171, 175-176; Gazeta de Guatemala, v. XVII, No. 25, 3 November 1813; El Editor Constitucional, 1820-1821, various; El Amigo de la Patria, 1820-1821, various. Manuel Lopez de la Plata exclusion from 1820 Nicaragua DP, AGI Guatemala 530, Letter 4 November 1820, Captain Geneal Gonzalez Saravia.NB: the 1813 Gazeta de Guatemala list of deputies has F. A. Davila as deputy for Chichicastenango, with Lie. Mariano Coello as his suplente.Representatives to Cortes. El Editor Constitucional, 1820-1821, various; El Amigo de la Patria, 1820-1821, various; Marie Laure Rieu-Millan, Los Diputados Americanos en las Cortes de Cadiz (Madrid: CSIC, 1990), pp. 39-45; Avendafio, “De Subditos a Ciudadanos,” and thesis, Annex no 2, pp. 168-169. Jose Geronimo Zelaya was an active member of the Guatemala DP, signing a 3 Sept. 1821 letter. AGI Guatemala 638.
513
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5
R l: States, Departm ents, Towns & Villages I. G uatem ala, 13 Departments, C apital GuatemalaDepartments Towns & villages Departments Towns & villages1. Sacatepequez 18 8. Escuintla 122. Chimaltenango 11 9. Chiquimula 83. Solola 11 10. San Agustin 84. Totonicapan 4 11. Verapaz 55. Gueguetenango 8 12. Salama 76. Quezaltenango 7 13. Peten 87. Suchitepequez 6Comprises 114 Towns and Villages, Population Computed at 700,000
H. Salvador, 4 Departments, Capital: San SalvadorDepartments Towns & villages Departments Towns & villagesI. San Salvador 23 3. San Miguel 102. Sonsonate 14 4. San Vicente 8Comprises 55 Towns and Villages, Population Computed at 350,000
III. Honduras, 12 Departments, Capital: ComayaguaDepartments Towns & villages Departments Towns & villages1. Comayagua 6 7. Gracias 52. Tegucigalpa 5 8. Llanos 53. Choluteca 4 9. Sta Barbara 64. Nacaome 4 10. Truxillo 25. Cantarranas 4 11. Yoro 26. Jutigalpa 3 12. Segovia 11Comprises 57 Towns and Villages, Population Computed at 200,000
IV. Nicaragua, 8 Departments, Capital: LeonDepartments Towns & villages Departments Towns & villages1. Leon 7 5. Subtiava 52. Granada 10 6. Masaya 123. Managua 4 7. Nicaragua 74. Realejo 4 8. Matagalpa 5Comprises 53 Towns and Villages, Population Computed at 200,000
V. Costa Rica, 8 Departments, C apital: San Jos£Departments Towns & villages Departments Towns & villages1. San Jose 3 5 .Iscan 22. Cartago 5 6. Alajuela 13. Ujarras 3 7. Eredia 24. Boruca 2 8. Bagases 3
514
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Comprises 21 Towns and Villages, Population Computed at 50,000
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5 (cont.)
R.2 Cabeceras en donde deberin reunirse los electores de parroquia p a r elegir loselectores de partido
CabecerasGuatemala City Antigua Guatemala Coban Salama PetenMazatenango Chimaltenango Sonsonate San Miguel TotonicapanHuehuetenango Quesaltenango Solola Escuintla CanguacoChiquimula San Agustin Esquipulas Jalapa ComayaguaTegucigalpa Gracias Quimistan Olanchito JuticalpaSan Salvador Cojutepeque Chalatenango Santa Ana San MiguelGotera San Vicente Sacatecoluca Leon ViejoManagua Masaya Granada Nicaragua Nva. SegoviaMatagalpa Cartago Ciudad Real Comitan TilaS Andres Simojoval Istacomitan Huistan Tuxtla Grande Tapachula
R.3 Juntas Eiectorales de Partido th a t voted in the 1825 Federal presidential elections
Guatemala: Guatemala City Sacatepequez Solola SalamaQuesaltenango Chimaltenango Totonicapan Chiquimula EscuintlaSan Agustin Huehuetenango SoconuscoEl Salvador: San Salvador Sonsonate Gotera San MiguelSan Vicente Chalatenango Santa Ana SacatecolucaHonduras: Comayagua Tegucigalpa Gracias CholutecaNacaome Cantarranas Juticalpa Llanos Sta. BarbaraTrujillo Yoro SegoviaNicaragua: Leon Granada Managua ViejoSutiaba Masaya NicaraguaCosta Rica: Costa Rica
515
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5 (cont)
R4: State of Guatemala 1825Departments (departamento)1. Verapaz, comprised of the old partido o f the same name, and Peten2. Chiquimula, comprised o f all the pueblos for the former corregimientos o f
Chiquimula and Zacapa3. Guatemala and Escuintla, formed by all the pueblos of the partido o f Escuintla and
Guasacapan, the capital o f Guatemala, the villas o f Guadalupe, Nueva Petapa, the pueblos o f Mixco, Chinauta, Jocotenango, Pinula, San Pedro las Huertas, Ciudad Vieja, in the Capital, San Miguel and Santa Ynes petapa, San Juan, and San Cristobal Amatitlan, and the poblacion o f Palencia
4. Sacatepeques and Chimaltenango, with all the pueblos o f Sacatepeques not included in the Dept, o f Guatemala, and all o f the extinguished corregimiento o f Chimaltenango
5. Suchitepques and Solola: the territories and pueblos o f the alcaldias mayores o f both partidos
6. Quezaltenango and Soconusco, all the pueblos o f the extinghished corregimiento of Quezaltenango and o f the former gobiemo o f Soconusco
7. Totonicapan and Huehuetenango, the same pueblos of both former partidos.
DepartmentVerapaz
Department Cabecera Distrito (district)Coban
Cabecera de Distrito
Chiquimula Chiquimula
1. Peten Remedios2. Cahabon Cahabon3. Coban Coban4. Tactic Tactic5. Salama Salama6. Rabinal Rabinal1. Zacapa Zacapa2. Acasaguastlan S. Agustin3. Sansaria Guastatoya4. Esquipulas Esquipulas5. Chiquimula Chiquimula6. Jalapa Jalapa7. Mita Asuncion Mita
516
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5 (cont.)
R4 (cont): State of Guatemala, 1825
Department Department Cabecera Distrito (district) Cabecera de Distrito
Guatemala CityS. Juan Amatitlan Concep. Escuintla Don Garcia Jalpatagua Chiquimulilla Cuajiniquilapa Antigua San Lucas S Sebn. Texar Chimaltenango San Martin San Juan Sacat. PazumQuezaltenangoOstuncalcoSan MarcosTexutlaTapachulaTotonicapanMomostenangoSacapulasHuehuetenangoMalacatanSolomaJacaltenangoCuilco
517
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5 (cont.)
R 5: Territorial Division, Guatemala, 1839-1840Departments Parish/Pop.Guatemala 15/24Chimaltenango 10/15 Verapaz 11/21Independent District Comandancia de Izabal Comandancia del Peten
Departments Parish/Pop. Departments Parish/Pop.Escuintla 7/21 Sacatepeques 10/37Chiquimula 14/44 Mita 8/30
Parishes1 5
Additional Departments after the reintegration o f “Los Altos” (1840) Quezaltenango Totonicapan SololaSuchitepequez Huehuetenango____________San Marcos
R6: Departments representedin Guatemala’s National Assembly, 1851Department Deputies Department Deputies Department DeputiesGuatemala 8 Sacatepequez 5 Chiquimula 6Quezaltenango 4 Suchitepequez 2 Verapaz 4Amatitlan 2 Totonicapan 2 Solola 2San Marcos 1 Huehuetenango 2 Chimaltenango 2Escuintla 2 Santa Rosa 1 El Peten 1Gualan, Izabal, and Santo Tomas 1
_____________R7: Departments and Districts o f El Salvador, 1825____________Departments:_______ San Salvador Sonsonate San_Vicente________ San Miguel
R8; Departments and Districs o f El Salvador, 1855Department District. No. o f Pueblos Department District. No. o f Pueblos.Sonsonate Sonsonate 16 Santa Ana Santa Ana 6
Choluteca Choluteca Choluteca, Corpus, S. Marcos MantoNacaome, Pespire Segovia Somoto
Ocotal MozonteJalapa Xican TotogalpaEsteli Yalaguina PalascaguinaTelpancea Condega Pbl. Nuevo
519
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5 (cont.)
RIO: Departments and Parishes of Honduras, 1831
Department Parish Department Parish Department ParishT egucigalpaT egucigalpa Gracias Gracias Olancho Olancho
Tatumbla Quezailica JuticalpaOjojona Llano de Sta Rosa SilcaCedros Sensenti MantoOrica Guarita OlanchitoTexiguat Gualcho TrujilloYuscaran Camasca Comayagua SagrarioNacaome Intibuca CaridadCholuteca Cerquin SiguatepequeCorpus Ocotepeque CururuDanlf Santa Barbara QuimistanCantarranas Celilac Omoa
Petoa YojoaYoro
Comments: Segovia, a Nicaraguan district joined Honduras between 1824 and 1826; Honduras’ 18314-department redistricting was apparently never implemented. Sonsonate was the only alcaldia mayor dependent on Guatemala to join a different state in 1824 (El Salvador). The state we now know as El Salvador kept the colonial name of San Salvador until 1824. Soconusco participated in the federal congress of 1824-1825, but afterwards did not join Central American politics and in 1842 was permanently annexed to Chiapas in Mexico. After 1826, the number of departments within each state varied, although the territory included in each state did not.
Rll : Territorial Division of Costa Rica, 1825-1838
1825 PartidosCartago San Jose Heredia Alajuela Guanacaste
1836 DepartamentosOriental Occidental Guanacaste
1841 PartidosCartaga San Jose Heredia Alajuela Guanacaste
520
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5Sources:
R l: Henry Dunn, Guatimala (New York: Carvill, 1828), pp. 195-196. From the ordering o f provinces, it appears that Dunn based his divisions on the Tabla a que deben arreglarse los partidos de las provincias de (state) para la eleccoon de diputados a su legislatura prepared in the ANC in May 1824. AGCA B1 Leg. 4125, Exp. 92804 has the tablas for Guatemala and Nicaragua. This legajo is missing the San Salvador divisions.
R2: Tabla Para Facilitar la Eleccion de Diputados y Suplientes para el Congreso de las Provincias Unidas de Guatemala (1824?), typed copy, Museo Nacional de Historia, Guatemala. Courtesy of Museum director, Licenciado Miguel Alvarez A.
R3: Estado que manifiesta el escrutinio de votos populares, praticado por el congreso en la sesion de 20 de abril de 1825, para la eleccion de presidente de la republica: expresando las juntas electorales de partidos.... Biblioteca Nacional de Guatemala, Coleccion Valenzuela, B087.
R4: Decreto 60, Asamblea Legislativa de Guatemala, 12 October 1825, Article 1. AGCA B11.5 Legajo 192, Expediente 4146.
R5: AGCA Cl Legajo 56, Expediente 1569.f 6. Tabla General de los departamentos en que queda divido el Estado de Guat.a segun lo dispuesto por la Asamb.a Constituyente. (1839) The number of pueblos in some departments changed after several successfully petitioned to change departments. The departments o f Los Altos reintegrated, Arturo Taracena Arriola, Invencion Criolla, Sueno Ladino Pesadilla Indigena: Los Altos de Guatemala, de region a Estado, 1740-1850 (Guatemala: CIRMA, 1997), p. 279.
R6: Gazeta de Guatemala, 31 Oct. 1851 in Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., Rafael Carrera and the Emergence o f the Republic o f Guatemala (Athens: U. of Georgia Press, 1993), p. 268.
R7: Departments and Districts of San Salvador, 1825, Constitution o f El Salvador,1825.
R8: Ysidro Menendez, Recopilacion de las Leyes de El Salvador, Book 4, Title 1, Division de los Departamentos y Pueblos que Componen el Estado. In addition to providing the 1855 division, Menendez also cites some o f the changes within the state since its formation in 1824.
521
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix R: Federal Republic of Central America- 1824-5
Sources: (cont.)
R9: Decree, Asamblea Constituyente del Estado de Honduras, 28 June 1825, in Revista del archivo y biblioteca nacionales, Volume 7 (1928), pp. 267-270.
RIO: Constitucion del Estado de Honduras, 1831, Chapter 1, Article 6. Not implemented.
R11: Marure, Efemerides, p. 36.
522
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix S: Important Political Events, Central America, 1825-1842
ConstitutionsEl SalvadorFederationCosta RicaGuatemalaHondurasNicaraguaFederationNicaraugaEl Salvador
Congresses24 June 18235 Mar 18246 Sept 1824 6 Sept 1824 15 Sept 1824 30 Jan 1825 6 Feb 182510 Apr 1825 14 Apr 182524 Apr 1825 2 May 1825 1 Feb 18265 Apr 18266 Apr 1826 13 Aug 1826 26 Oct 182611 Feb 182921 Apr 182922 Jun 1829 9 J u l18297 Oct 1838 1 Nov 183825 Dec 1838 1 Aug 183923 Jun 1840
24 July 1824 22 November 182422 January 1825 11 October 182511 December 1825 8 April 182613 February 1835 (rejected by the states)23 November 1838 18 February 1841
Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, Federation (Guatemala City) 1st AC, Estado de El Salvador (San Salvador)1st AC, Estado de Honduras (Cedros)1st CC, Costa Rica (San Jose)1st CC, Guatemala (Antigua)1st AO El Salvador (San Salvador)1st CF, Guatemala (Antigua)1st CC, Nicaragua 1 st AO, Costa Rica (San Jose)1st SF, Federation, (Guatemala City)1st CR, Guatemala (Antigua & Quezaltenango, to 1826)1st AO, Honduras (Tegucigalpa)1st AO, Guatemala (Antigua, San Martin Jilotepeque)-Sept 1826 1st CR, Honduras (Comayagua)1st AO, Nicaragua (Leon)1st CR, Nicaragua (Granada)
restored CR, Guatemala (Antigua) restored, AO, Guatemala (Antigua) restored, CF, Guatemala (Guatemala) restored, SF, Guatemala (Guatemala)2nd AC, Honduras (Comayagua)2nd AC, Costa Rica (San Jose)1st AC, State of Los Altos (Quezaltenango)2nd AC, El Salvador (Zacatecoluca), dissolves 2nd AC, El Salvador (San Salvador), resumes
AC- Constituent Assembly; CC-Constituent Congress; AO-Ordinary Assembly (Congress); CF- Federal Congress; SF-Federal Senate; CR-Council of Representatives (-state senate)
523
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix S: Important Political Events, Central America, 1825-1842 (cont.)
Bishoprics24 April 1825 San Salvador decrees (San Salvador)29 Sept 1825 Costa Rica decrees (San Jose)27 Dec 1842 Pope approves bishopric for El Salvador
Convocations for Federations1823-ANC-Federation (installed, 23 June)1826-10 October-Federal President Arce, to reorganize the federation (Cojutepeque):
does not take place1826-6 December-El Salvador government invites federal delegates to Ahuachapan:
does not take place)1833-20 April- Federation calls again for new meeting; disregarded by states; end union1832-Jan 7-El Salvador legislature revokes recognition of federal authorities
(temporary)1832-Dec 2-Nicaragua legislature revokes recognition offederal authorities until
revision of constitution; holds onto national taxes; 1833: El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica follow suit. Only Guatemala pays taxes until 1838.
1832-23 December-Nicaragua calls for ANC; Federation agrees; states reject on grounds of unfair division o f deputies
1833-23 Mar-Guatemala starts plan to convoke national assembly; Costa Rica & Nicaragua welcome
1842-17 Mar-Congress of Chinandega, proposing a 3-state federation of Honduras, EL Salvador and Nicaragua, is installed, creating a “provisory national government. On 27 July, pass the “pact o f Central American Confederation”; never in effect
Sovereign States1838-30 April-Nicaraguan legislation declares the state “sovereign, free and
independent” until a new federal pact can be written1838-May 30-CF declares states free to constitute themselves as they wish as long as
they keep republican government1838-5 Nov-State o f Honduras declares state free & indep o f federation1838-14 Nov 2-CC Costa Rica: pueblos assume fullness o f sovereignty, form free and
independent state, with all the capacity o f a “political body.”(during the presidency/dictatorship o f Francisco Morazan, 1842, Costa Rica briefly
declared for the federation again)1839-27 Apr-Guatemala’s president declares the dissolution o f the federal pact, and the
state in possession of its sovereign rights.; ratified by 2nd AC Guate, July 18391839- Nov 29-State o f Guatemala declares its chief o f state “president”, a title formerly
reserved for the Federation executive.Honduras, El Salvador shortly follow suit. Nicaragua changes the title to “Supreme Director.”
1841-30Jan-AC El Salvador renames the country a “republic” : term is not used until late 1840s.
524
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Appendix S: Important Political Events, Central America, 1825-1842 (cont.)
Treaties11 May 1839: friendship, Guatemala & Honduras5 June 1839: friendship, Guatemala & El Salvador1 July 1839: friendship, Honduras & Costa Rica24 Jul 1839: friendship, Guatemala & Nicaragua1 Aug 1839: friendship, Guatemala & Costa Rica10 Aug 1839: friendship, Los Altos & El Salvador7 Oct 1842: alliance, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua & El Salvador:mutual recognition o f absolute independence; agree to become a joint “political body”in the case of outside invasion; make attempts to revive the 1824 Constution an act oftreason
Source: Marure, Efemerides, passim.
525
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bibliography
Primary Sources: Archives
Archivo General de Centro America (AGCA, Guatemala City)
