The five republics of Central America

Front matter

THE FIVE REPUBLICS OF CENTRAL AMERICxl

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

DIVISION OF ECONOMICS AND HISTORY John Bates Clark, Director

Author's Preface

By many persons in the United States, Central America is conceived of chiefly as a land of revolutions, bankrupt governments, and absconding presidents, and a haven for fugitives from justice from more settled countries. The progress of the people of the Isthmus since their declaration of independence, and the significance of this progress in view of the difficulties with which they have had to contend, are rarely recognized. The fact is too frequently overlooked that the greater part of the people of the five republics, except in Costa Rica, are descendants of the semi-civilized aboriginal tribes whom the Conquistador es enslaved in the sixteenth century, and that these Indians still remain, for the most part, in a condition of dense ignorance and economic dependence. Even the white upper classes were prevented for three centuries from making any advance in civilization by the restriction of intercourse with other countries and the centralization of authority in the hands of foreign officials, under the Spanish colonial system; and they were unable to set up a stable political system when they obtained their independence, because of their lack of experience in self-government, and because of the absence of political institutions upon which a stable system of government could be based.

When we take these facts into consideration, and when we see the advances which some of the Central American Republics have been able to make despite these handicaps, we shall be less ready to conclude that their people are inherently unfit for self-government. Our own race is removed from the disorderly conditions which characterize the more turbulent parts of the Isthmus only

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by a few hundred years, and in the United States we are not unfamihar today with evils similar to some of the worst evils of Central American political life. There is no reason to suppose that all of the five republics will not eventually develop stable governments, as some of them have already done. Although conditions in many parts of the Isthmus are still very bad, they are gradually being overcome by the efforts of the better elements among the ruling classes and by the gradual progress of the common people. Since the Washington Conference of 1907, moreover, the preservation of internal and international peace in the Isthmus has been powerfully aided by the infiuence of the United States.

That the economic and political conditions of Central America and the other countries of the Caribbean should be understood by the American government and the American people is of the utmost importance. The policy of the United States, more perhaps than any other factor either external or internal, will determine the course of the development of the five republics during the next few decades, and if this policy is to be beneficial, it must be based on knowledge and must be controlled by an intelligent public opinion. Only injustice can result from the publication of works like many of the recent superficial descriptions of Central America, whether they portray the five countries as foci of continual disorder, constitutionally incapable of self-government, and hence destined to absorption by a stronger power, or paint a ridiculously laudatory picture, based on ofiicial reports and on the utterances of the authorities rather than on critical observation. It is the purpose of this study to describe conditions simply as they appeared ±0 the author during a sojourn of two years in the Isthmus, with the object of setting forth what the people of Central America have achieved since their declaration of independence and what problems confront them in their present stage of development.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xr

The difficulties in the way of a careful study of the historj' and the economic and political conditions of the five republics are verj' great., because there is so Httle trustworthy written material. Historical works are especially unsatisfactory. The colonial period is ably treated in two or three books by Central American authors, but the development of the community since its separation from Spain, and the far-reaching economic and political changes which have taken place during the last century, have apparently never been studied by anyone who was equipped by historical training and by a knowledge of the country to interpret them. In attempting to obtain material for sketching the historical development of the Isthmus, therefore, I have been forced to rely on the very inadequate histories which do exist, which are little more than lists of presidents and revolutions, and upon a large number of political pamphlets, government documents, and memoirs of Central American leaders and of early travelers in the Isthmus. Much of this material is all but worthless because of the ignorance or the ulterior motives of the writers, but there is enough of value to reveal certain broad tendencies of economic and political development.

It is equally difficult to secure data concerning the condition of the countri' at present. Official publications can rarely be accepted as reliable because of the carelessness with which records are kept and statistical data are gathered by most of the departments, and because official statements about the material progress of the country' and the activities of the authorities too often represent patriotic aspirations rather than accomplished facts. The differences in the use of terms and in standards of public service, moreover, are so great that it is difficult for a foreigner to obtain an idea of the actual situation in one of the countries merely by conversation with the authorities and other persons in the capital. The writer found it extremely helpful to supplement such conversations xvi AUTHOR'S PREFACE

with trips to the provincial towns and through the rural districts. An acquaintance with the life and the character of the people outside the somewhat Europeanized cities, and an observation of the actual working of the political machinery, did much to make clear many things which otherwise might have been difficult to understand. The courtesy of the officials of the five governments, and the hospitality extended to the traveler by all classes of the people, make a journey through Central America an experience upon which one can always look back with keen pleasure. It would be impossible here to thank individually the many friends who helped to make my stay in the Isthmus both pleasant and profitable. Nevertheless, I wish to express especially my appreciation of the assistance which I have received from Dr. L. S. Rowe, Mr. John M. Keith, Senor Luis Anderson, Senor Manuel Aragon, Mr. Boaz Long, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Jones, General Luis Mena, Mr. and Mrs. Wilham Owen, Professor Philip M. Brown, Senor Francisco Castro and Dona Fidelina de Castro, Dr. Escolastico Lara, Dr. Juan B. Sacasa, Dr. Louis Schapiro, and General Jose Maria Moncada. Without their assistance, it would have been impossible to secure the information upon which this study is based.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Country and the People . . 1

II. Central American Political Institutions .24

Chapter I The Country And The People

Physical Features — Character of the Population — The Land-owning and Laboring Classes: Their Mode of Life and Personal Characteristics — Factors Which Have Retarded Economic Development — Agricultural Products — Foreign Immigration and Investments.

Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica, the five Republics of Central America, occupy a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, extending East and South from Mexico to the Isthmus of Panama. Although their combined area is smaller than that of the state of California,^ they comprise many regions of strikingly different climatic conditions, for the mountains which occupy the greater part of their territory cause variations in the distribution of rainfall, and also provide plateaus and high valleys where the tropical heat is less intense because of the altitude. Along the shore of the Caribbean Sea there is a broad strip of country but little above sea level. This has remained almost uninhabited until recently because of its intense humidity and suffocating temperature, but within the last twenty-five years it has become of great economic importance, at least to the outside world, through its exports of bananas. The lowlands extend inland to the Central American Cordillera, a series of ranges which

^ The estimated area and population of the five countries, as given in the Statesman's Year Book for 1916, are:

Area. Papula tion.

171,990 4,915,133 grow higher and higher as they approach the Pacific Ocean, until they culminate in a great chain of volcanic peaks which traverses the Isthmus from the Mexican boundary to that of Panama. It is near these peaks, where the decomposed lava from past eruptions has created a marvelously fertile soil, and where the climate, with copious but not excessive rains during six months of the year, is healthful and favorable to agriculture, that the great majority of the people of Central America live. Almost all of the more important cities and towns are situated either in the mountain valleys, at an altitude of from two to seven thousand feet, where the temperature rarely exceeds eighty degrees Fahrenheit, or in the hot, but dry and therefore comparatively healthful plain between the base of the volcanoes and the Pacific Ocean.

Populous and partially civilized Indian communities had existed in this part of America for centuries before the Spanish conquest, and their descendants form the bulk of the population of the five republics. Although the original inhabitants were almost exterminated in many districts by the oppression and mistreatment of the early colonists, enough remained to become the predominant racial element in the conglomerate population, Spanish in language and religion but Indian in civilization and standards of living, which arose from the fusion of the invaders, the aborigines, and the negroes who were brought in as slaves or escaped to the mainland from the West Indies. This was especially true of the three central countries of the Isthmus, and the development of these has therefore been somewhat different from that of Costa Rica, where the white stock predominates even among the common people, and from that of Guatemala, where the pure-blooded Indians are still a distinct and separate race.

Although the Central American countries are theoretically democracies, there is in each a small, powerful upper class, consisting of the so-called " principal families.'*

These are for the most part descendants of the prominent Creole ^ families of colonial days, and are therefore in many cases of pure or almost pure Spanish descent. A large proportion, — perhaps the majority, — however, have more or less Indian and even negro blood in their veins. This class has been able to maintain its dominant position in the community, partly because of its command of the government, which it assumed when the republican institutions which the Isthmian patriots attempted to introduce after the declaration of independence were found to be unworkable because of the ignorance of the mass of the people, but more especially because of its control over agriculture. At the time of the conquest, the land, like everything else in the invaded territory, was treated as the property of the crown, and that in the neighborhood of the Spanish settlements was divided among the colonists by the royal governors. Further large allotments were made from time to time during the colonial period. After the declaration of independence, the governments of the several republics continued to regard as state property all land not already specifically granted, and sold or gave away large tracts of it to rich natives or foreigners, notwithstanding the fact that much of the pubhc domain was already occupied by peasants who had always considered the patches which they cultivated as their own. The number of large holdings has been further increased in some of the republics by the division of the common lands formerly held by each village among the village's inhabitants; for the beneficiaries have often sold their shares to their wealthier neighbors. At the present time a comparatively small number of persons own a very large amount of agricultural property, and employ the majority of the other inhabitants of the Isthmus as workmen on their plantations. The economic and political power of this class would manifestly be very

^ The word Creole is used in the Spanish-American sense, to signify a person of Spanish descent born in America.

great even if it were not supported by their prestige as the descendants of the conquering race.

Although their wealth is entirely agricultural, the " principal families " invariably reside in the cities. They make frequent visits to their plantations, which they intrust to the care of overseers, but the majority of them show a marked aversion both to country life and to rural pursuits. As a whole they are neither very enterprising nor very energetic. Those who do not inherit a plantation which produces an income sufficient to support them turn to one of the already overcrowded learned professions rather than to the development of the natural resources of their countries, in the exploitation of which foreigners are daily making fortunes before their eyes. Nearly every member of the upper class, moreover, is actively engaged in politics, often to the exclusion or to the detriment of his other occupations.

The wealthier families live in one or two story houses of adobe or concrete, which cover a surprisingly large extent of ground but have little pretension to architectural beauty or to comfort. These are built around two, and often three, courtyards or patios. The front patio, upon which open the sola, or parlor, and the bedrooms, generally contains an attractive garden surrounded by an open corrector, which serves as living room and dining room. At the rear are the kitchen, stable, and servants' quarters. The standard of living, especially in the less advanced countries, is still rather primitive. Furniture and food are of a very simple character, and the servants, of whom each family employs a large number, are untrained and inefficient. The band concerts three or four times a week, the cinematographs, and occasional cheap operettas offer almost the only opportunity for diversion, except on the very unusual occasions when a government subsidy makes possible a short season of opera or drama. Social events are comparatively few. In every city there are two or three civic fiestas during the year, when the native society abandons itself to a round of dancing, horse-racing, and other gayeties, but at other times the capitals of the Isthmus are decidedly dull. Life in them has, however, a peculiar charm for the foreigner, because of the kindliness and friendliness of the people.

Since the building of the railways and the increase of commerce have brought the Central American countries into closer touch with the outside world, there has been a great change in customs and ways of living in such places as Guatemala, San Salvador, and San Jose de Costa Rica. The high price of coffee during the last decade of the nineteenth century brought about an era of prosperity such as the rather backward communities of the Isthmus had never before known. Elaborate private residences and costly public buildings were erected in the national capitals, and pianos, window glass, modern furniture, and other articles which had formerly been little used, were imported from Europe in great quantities. After the reaction which set in when the value of coffee in the world's markets declined, the new standard of living remained, and even the poorer members of the upper classes now enjoy most of the comforts and many of the luxuries of modern civilization. The tendency to adopt European and North American customs is greatly furthered by the young people, who in increasing numbers are sent abroad to school and college, for they return with new tastes and new ways of thinking even when they do not acquire a great amount of learning.

Although the members of the upper class are for the most part descendants of the conquistador es, social and political prominence is today no longer entirely a matter of birth. The old Creole families formed a narrow and exclusive circle until the latter part of the nineteenth century, but as a result of factional wars among themselves and against other portions of the community.

they have now become generally impoverished and almost exterminated. A new element, recruited from Ihe more intelhgent and ambitious members of the lower classes, has meanwhile achieved a large amount of political power, and has perforce been admitted to a position almost of equality with the old aristocracy. At the present time, humble birth in itself is no obstacle to advancement, although educational opportunities are so limited, and the part played by family influence and favoritism is so great, that only the most capable and energetic boys from the lower classes can hold their own with those to whom the accident of birth has given powerful friends and greater opportunities for study.

The half-breeds, known as ladinos or mestizos, occupy an intermediate position between the white aristocracy and the great mass of the laboring population, in which the Indian blood predominates. For the most part these are artisans, or skilled laborers, in the towns. They are generally clever workmen, enterprising and quick to learn, but without the capacity to work steadily and diligently for any one object. They occupy practically all of the positions which call for manual dexterity or special training. Many become more prominent than the persons of pure Spanish descent in the public schools and universities, and not a few rise to high positions in the government or in the learned professions.

In each of the five republics there are some small farmers, who are for the most part descendants of the early Spanish colonists. These are the leading citizens of the smaller towns and villages. They do not always have property of their own, but often cultivate fields allotted to them by the municipalities of which they are citizens. The new settlements which were founded from Xivae to time during the colonial period were given tracts of land, usually a league square, to be used in common by their inhabitants, one part as pasture, another as forest, and a third to be apportioned each year among the members of the community. Similar grants were made to many of the Indian villages and tribes, which in some cases received a title to much larger tracts than their white neighbors. These common lands still exist in all of the repubhcs, but the number of villages which hold them has been greatly reduced because some of the governments, as in Costa Rica and Guatemala, have enacted laws dividing them among the inhabitants, in the hope of stimulating private enterprise. The property thus apportioned, as we have stated above, was frequently sold to the rich planters, especially in the districts where the climate was suited to the cultivation of coffee, and the former owners became part of the class of landless laborers. Even where this has not occurred, the smaller villages have in most places decayed because of the emigration of their inhabitants to the cities and to the coffee-growing centers. The small-scale agriculturist has ceased to be an economic factor of importance, except in Costa Rica and in some parts of Salvador; and today there are few places more lifeless and more depressing than the once prosperous settlements in the more remote country districts.

The household servants and the common laborers, who form the poorest classes, are descendants of the native tribes whom the conquistadores overcame and enslaved early in the sixteenth century. The first settlers everywhere forced the Indians to work for them, either by declaring them slaves, as a punishment for rebellion, or by establishing the encomienda system, under which influential Spaniards were intrusted with the religious instruction of the inhabitants of certain villages, and in return for the benefits thus conferred were allowed to demand a certain amount of labor from their spiritual charges. These encomiendas, or repartimientos, were the principal source of income among the early colonists. The unfortunate aborigines were compelled to work in mines or plantations or to bring in tribute to their masters, and they were treated with the most revolting cruelty when they failed to do so. After the Spanish government became aware of the grave abuses which the system involved, it ordered its suppression, but the encomiendas were finally abolished only after a long struggle with the colonists, who were secretly aided by the royal governors in maintaining their privileges. The Indians never entirely regained their economic independence, for their descendants, with the exception of a few thousands who live an isolated, half-savage life in clearings in the forest, are to the present day dependent upon employment on the plantations of the white families.

"" Whether in the cities or in the country, the laboring classes live in one or two room huts of adobe or wood, with dirt floors and thatched roofs. A crude table and two or three chairs, one or more beds of rawhide or wood, and often a shrine, with a small image of the Virgin or of some saint, comprise the entire furniture. The walls are decorated with colored prints and advertisements, which are much prized by those fortunate enough to secure them from some passing traveler or from friends in the city. There is usually a loft in one end of the hut, in which the stock of corn and beans, if there is any, and a few of the more bulky family possessions are kept, while the small tools and utensils and the contents of the larder are suspended from the walls. Water, which is often brought by the women on their heads from some little distance, is contained in large earthenware jars and dipped out in gourds, which serve not only as cups but as washbasins. Cooking is performed over an open fire on a brick platform, where there is sometimes a primitive oven. The family livestock is represented by a few pigs and chickens, which associate on friendly terms, inside and outside of the house, with the lean dogs and naked children.

Under such conditions, fhe Central American laborer lives contentedly and without worry, for he requires few clothes and but a small amount of inexpensive food. Corn, prepared in the form of tortillas, beans and rice cooked with lard, and coffee form the diet of the average family day after day. Plantains are also eaten in great quantities in some parts of the Isthmus, and eggs can frequently be secured. Meat can be had only occasionally outside of the cities, and vegetables, although easily grown, are little cultivated. The same is true of the innumerable and delicious tropical fruits, which grow up where accident dictates, without care or protection. Because of the primitive living conditions, there is a considerable amount of disease and a high death rate, especially among the children. Malarial fever and typhoid are common, and intestinal parasites are omnipresent. The hookworm, especially, has done incalculable harm. The eradication of this disease has recently been undertaken by the governments of several of the five republics, with the aid of the International Health Commission of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has contributed large sums of money and lent trained men for the prosecution of the work. The prevalence of the hookworm, which perhaps contributes as much as any other factor to the poor physical condition of most tropical races, is indicated by the fact that of the persons examined by the representatives of the Commission in 1915, 60.1 per cent were found to be infected in Costa Rica, 58.6 per cent in Guatemala, and 49.4 per cent in Nicaragua.^ Notable results have already been obtained, not only in curing sufferers, but in educating the people and their governments to appreciate the need for improvements in sanitation and the need for closer attention to the public health in general. When the principles of hygiene are better understood in the Isthmus, and when better systems of sewers and water supply are

^ These figures are compiled from the Second Annual Report of the International Health Commission, 1915.

provided, the Central American cities should be as healthful as any in the temperate zones, for their moderate climate and the porousness of the volcanic soil upon which they are situated should do much to prevent the diseases common in other parts of the tropics.

In the country villages, life is extremely imeventful and deadening. The women spend a large amount of time in visiting one another and in attending church services or prayer meetings. The men work, where there is work, on week days, and get drunk on aguardiente, or sugar-cane rum, on Sunday. The fiestas and fairs, which are held at least once a year in every village, are mainly an occasion for gambling and debauchery, so far as the common people are concerned. There are few other recreations. The monotony of such an existence, which leads the rural laborers to embark on any adventure offering promise of excitement and prospects for loot, is one of the factors which makes it easy to raise a revolutionary army in many of the Central American States.

Except in Guatemala, where there exists a peonage system which will be described later, the wages of the working man are not very low, considering the fact that his services are of far less value to the employer than would be those of one who was more energetic and intelligent. They range in general from the equivalent of fifteen cents United States currency a day with food and lodging to thirty, forty, or even fifty cents a day without it, and in some places are still higher. The workmen are neither conscientious nor physically strong, and the amount which they accomplish in a day is small. On many plantations, payment is made by the task, and the employees work intermittently, frequently failing to appear for days at a time. This is in part due to the prevalence of drunkenness and disease, and in part simply to an indisposition to work more than is necessary to provide a bare subsistence.

There is little pretense of equality in the treatment by the government of the upper and lower classes. The laborers and country people are forced to bear the entire burden of the military service which is theoretically required of all, and to perform work on the roads and other public undertakings from which the wealthy families are practically exempt; and they are everywhere taxed heavily, although by indirect means, for the benefit of the professional politicians who occupy posts in the government. The petty local officials exercise an almost irresponsible authority over them, and frequently use their power for their own personal advantage or for that of their friends. The poor man enjoys little security in his personal or property rights, and thus has little incentive to better his position.

Education, however, has done much in the last twenty-five years to improve the situation of the masses in the more advanced republics, for the laboring man who learns to read and write has in his hands a powerful weapon both for his own protection and for the advancement of his political and economic interests. In Costa Rica, where public schools have been established everywhere and the percentage of illiteracy is comparatively insignificant, the peasants are assuming a more influential place in the community. Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras have been prevented by internal disorder and lack of resources from raising their educational systems to the level of that of their more tranquil neighbor, but their rulers have taken a very real interest in popular instruction, and have made it possible for a very large part of the people to acquire a knowledge of reading and writing. In Guatemala alone the great majority of the inhabitants are at present illiterate. This is not entirely the fault of the government, which has instituted a large number of schools and has legislated for the establishment of others by the owners of plantations, but is due rather to the indifference of the Indians themselves, who as a rule do not care even to learn to speak Spanish.

Public and private morality have been rather disastrously affected by the social conditions arising from the conquest of a half -civilized race by adventurers who in too many cases belonged to the lowest and worst classes in Spain. The Indians who continued to form the bulk of the population were deprived of their own religious and moral customs, and were given in their place a Christianity which was imposed upon them by force, and of which, because of the cruelty and licentiousness of their conquerors, they saw only the worst side. The oppression and violence which characterized the communities of the Isthmus during their early history long prevented their social life from acquiring stability, and made brute force, rather than conscience or public opinion, the ruling principle in private as well as in public affairs. Even at present, in some of the five countries, political and social conditions tend to militate against public spirit and altruism in pubHc life and personal honesty in private life. Social conditions also leave much to be desired. With the men of the upper classes, ideas of morality are generally rather loose, and it is not unusual to see a respected citizen bringing up a number of children by other women side by side with those of his lawful wife. The community not only does not censure his careless observance of the marital tie, but even receives the illegitimate offspring on practically the same footing as the legitimate. With the half-breed laborers, marriage is an institution which finds little favor, not, as is sometimes said, because of the expense which the ceremony involves, but because both the men and the women disHke the obligations and ties which a formal union creates, and prefer a relation which, although generally fairly permanent, can be broken off by either party at will.