Stephens' report on the Guatemalan civil war in the 1830s

Still on a kick of reading whatever Mayan history books I have around the house. Coe, Gallenkamp, and now the first volume of Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. Stephens was some kind of diplomat from the U.S. who brought his friend Catherwood the artist ("friend"??) with him. They landed in Belize, Stephens wrote endless snarky racist journal entries often rather heinously about people who were being nice to him, rode around on muleback losing his luggage & complaining about having to eat tortillas, & finally arriving at Copán, which he bought for 50 bucks while pissing off the main dudes in the neighbhorhood.

I'm really fascinated with his description of Rafael Carrera. So it's 1839 and Carerra, who's about 23 years old, is running around with a ragged army of thousands and a bunch of rusty muskets. When Stephens isn't not sexually harassing nuns (really!) he's is simultaneously: horrified that the Indian peasants are rising up and threatening the nice, lovely, civilized city and its aristocrats; & impressed by Carrera himself, I would say charmed by, no, crushed out on Carrera, for being dedicated and self-improving. Maybe horrified by the "barbarian" army . But struck by Carrera's leadership qualities and how he was learning to read.

So, very interesting that the wikipedia entry on carrera is all about him as a conservative friend of big landowners etc. and Dictator - because in his youth he sounds like an idealist, leader of a revolutionary army, specifically hating on foreigners and white people as well as the rich.

There were some amazing stories about crowds of religious women tearing soldiers apart and beating them to death. Here is what Stephens describes --

- the aristocrats wanted centralized government. protectors of the church
- the federal party who wanted sovereignity of the states (central american states). idealists following the U.S. revolution. reform. legal, land reform, etc.
- Flores tried to tax the church institutions.
- A mob, mostly women, beat him to death in the church where he fled for sanctuary
- More mobs of women with knives roamed around incited by priests, fighting anyone who was anti-religion (For two years)
- General Morazan (a liberal reformist) invades Guatemala from San Salvador.
- He broke up the churches, exiled friars and priests.
- Morazan elected president, 1831- 8 years of Liberal party rule.
- Carrera's army rises up against the aristocrats and centralists but then against the liberals and put the Central party back in power (as pro-religion)
- Civil war. Liberals control Honduras, San Salvador, Quezaltenango. Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica delcared themselves independent.
- England and France dither around. The U.S. has a treaty with Central America.
- Stephens watched the new government reinsitute the wildly repressive Leyes Antiguas (of colonial Spain)
- Carrera in 1829 was a drummer boy in Colonel Aycinena's (conservative) regiment
- During Morazan's rule Carrera herded pigs in a rural village.
- 1837, Cholera epidemic. The priests persuaded the Indians that foreigners had poisoned the water and should be thrown out. "Viva la Religion, y muerte a los Etrangeros!" Revolution. Judges and officials killed.
- Galvez (head of state) sent soldiers to put down the rebellion. They burned a lot of villages and raped and killed Carerra's wife.
- Carrera bands together with others to kill all the government officials and judges.
- His demands were: Kill all foreigners (except spanish priests), abolish the Livingston Code (which people were burning copies of in the streets!), bring back the friars, exile heretics, restore the church.
- He joined with the Antiguanos in 1838 and basically conquered Guatemala city.
"With a tumultuous mass of half-naked savages, men, women, and children, estimated at ten or twelve thousand, presented himself at the gates of the city." The Antiguano army freaks out along with the Guatemalan city dwellers.
...choking up the streets, all with green bushes in their hats, seeming at a distanc elike a moving forest; armed with rusty muskets, old pistols, fowling-pieces, some with locks and some without; sticks formed into the shape of muskets, with tin-plate locks; clubs, machets, and knives tied to the ends of long poles; and swelling the multitude were two or three thousand women, with sacks and alforgas for carrying away the plunder."
The revolutionaries were bought off...
Morazan arrives...
And then leaves...
And then Carrera came back.
Stephens is negotiating with him on behalf of the U.S.!

It's immensely confusing but totally fascinating!

You wouldn't guess any of this from "overview" style history books. I'd love to read some original source other than Stephens!