Salvadoran Civil War

Before the Spanish conquest, the area that is now El Salvador was made up of two large indigenous states and several principalities. The indigenous inhabitants were the Pipils, a tribe of nomadic Nahua people long established in Central Mexico. The eastern region was populated and ruled by the Lencas.

Jaguar monolith, in the national anthropology museumEarly in their history, the Pipil, became one of the few Mesoamerican indigenous groups to abolish human sacrifice. Otherwise, their culture was similar to that of their Aztec and Maya neighbours. Remains of Nahua culture are still found at ruins such as Tazumal (near Chalchuapa), San Andrés (northeast of Armenia), and Joya de Cerén (north of Colón).

Independence

The first "shout of independence" in El Salvador came in 1811, at the hands of criollo elite. Many intellectuals and merchants had grown tired of the overpowering control that Spain still had in the American colonies, and were interested in expanding their export markets to Britain and the United States. The Indigenous uprisings aimed at Spanish subjugation plagued the territory at this time, and they were re-interpreted by the Republicans to serve their purpose and show popular support for independence. Thus a movement grew amongst the middle class criollo and mestizo classes. Ultimately, the 1811 declaration of independence failed when the viceroyalty of Guatemala sent troops to San Salvador in order to crush the movement. The momentum was not lost however, and many of the people involved in the 1811 movement became involved in the 1821 movement.

In 1821, El Salvador and the other Central American provinces declared their independence from Spain. When these provinces were joined with Mexico in early 1822, El Salvador resisted, insisting on autonomy for the Central American countries. Guatemalan troops sent to enforce the union were driven out of El Salvador in June 1822. El Salvador, fearing incorporation into Mexico, petitioned the United States Government for statehood. But in 1823, a revolution in Mexico ousted Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, and a new Mexican congress voted to allow the Central American provinces to decide their own fate. That year, the United Provinces of Central America was formed of the five Central American states under Gen. Manuel José Arce.

In 1832 Anastasio Aquino led an indigenous revolt against creoles and mestizos in Santiago Nonualco, a small town in the province of San Vicente. The source of the discontent of the indigenous people was lack of land to cultivate. The problem of land distribution has been the source of many political conflicts in Salvadoran history. The Central American federation was dissolved in 1838 and El Salvador became an independent republic.

El Salvador in its early history was impenetrably localized, aided by its geography, its unbridged rivers that could only be crossed at fords and its lack of any linking highway that could take wheeled vehicles. The first highway for wheeled traffic was begun in 1855. Thus the "Fourteen Families" (actually many dozens of families) that have controlled El Salvador's history were all but independent territorial magnates. Through the 19th century, the much-amended (1859, 1864, 1871, 1872, 1880, 1883, 1886) constitution of 1824 provided for a unicameral legislature of 70 deputies, in which 42 seats (a majority) was set aside for the landowners (3 representing each of the 14 Department), technically chosen by the popular vote. Each Departmental governor however, was appointed by the president. The system was easily manipulated. During the later 19th century smaller landholding, and traditional communal holdings that predated written deeds, were absorbed into the coffee plantations (fincas). The great majority of Salvadoreans were landless.

El Salvador's early history as an independent state--as with others in Central America--was marked by frequent revolutions; not until the period 1900-30 was relative stability achieved. The economic elite, based on agriculture and some mining, ruled the country in conjunction with the military, and the power structure remained in the control of the "Fourteen Families" of wealthy landowners. The economy, based on coffee-growing after the mid-19th century, as the world market for indigo withered away, prospered or suffered as the world coffee price fluctuated. From 1931--the year of the coup in which Gen. Maximiliano Hernández Martínez came to power until he was deposed in 1944 there was brutal suppression of rural resistance. The most notable event was the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising, commonly referred to as La Matanza (the massacre), headed by Farabundo Martí and the retaliation led by Martinez's government, in which thousands of indigenous people and political opponents were murdered, imprisoned or exiled. Until 1980, all but one Salvadoran temporary president was an army officer. Periodic presidential elections were seldom free or fair.

From Military to Civilian Rule

From the 1930s to the 1970s, authoritarian governments supported by the US employed political repression and limited reform to maintain power, despite the trappings of democracy. Fidel Sánchez Hernández was president from 1967 to 1972. In July 1969 El Salvador invaded Honduras in the short Football War. During the 1970s, the political situation began to unravel. In the 1972 presidential election, the opponents of military rule united under José Napoleón Duarte, leader of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). Amid widespread fraud, Duarte's broad-based reform movement was defeated. Subsequent protests and an attempted coup were crushed and Duarte exiled. These events eroded hope of reform through democratic means and persuaded those opposed to the government that armed insurrection was the only way to achieve change. As a consequence, leftist groups capitalizing upon social discontent gained strength. By 1979, leftist guerrilla warfare had broken out in the cities and the countryside, launching what became a 12-year civil war. A cycle of violence took hold as rightist vigilante death squads in turn killed thousands. The poorly trained Salvadoran Armed Forces (ESAF) also engaged in repression and indiscriminate killings, the most notorious of which was the El Mozote massacre in December 1981 in which some 900 civilians were slaughtered. It has been calculated that the military junta received 1 billion US dollars from the US in military aid to combat the insurgence.

On October 15, 1979, the Revolutionary Government Junta, a group of military officers and civilian leaders ousted the right-wing government of the President, General Carlos Humberto Romero (1977-79). PDC leader Duarte joined the junta in March 1980, leading the provisional government until the elections of March 1982. In an effort to project a more moderate image, the junta initiated a land reform program and nationalized the banks and the marketing of coffee and sugar. PDC leaders including Duarte also pledged to end human rights abuses from the military and affiliated death squads.

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