History of Nicaragua
Pre-Colonial - 1800s
Pre-colonial Nicaragua was occupied by two distinct ethnic groups. The central and western regions were populated by tribes related to the Aztecs and Maya, who had migrated southwards from Mexico. In the opposite direction, probably from Colombia, came a different group, who occupied the Caribbean lowlands.
The country's name derives from Nicarao, the name of the Nahuatl-speaking tribe which inhabited the shores of Lago de Nicaragua before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and the Spanish word “agua”, meaning water, due to the presence of the large lakes Lago de Nicaragua and Lago de Managua in the region.
At the time of the Spanish conquest, Nicaragua was the name given to the narrow strip of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. Chief Nicarao ruled over that land when the first conquerors arrived. The term was eventually applied, by extension, to the group that inhabited that region: the Nicaraos or Niquiranos.
The pre-columbian Nicarao came to the area from northern regions after the fall of Teotihuaca¡n in Mexico, on the advice of their priests or religious leaders. According to tradition, they were to travel south until they encountered a lake with two volcanoes rising out of the waters, and stopped when they reached Ometepe, the largest fresh-water volcanic island in the world.
The arrival of Spanish colonists in the early 1500s brought the demise of most of the western and central populations through imported disease and forced labor. The eastern peoples survived due to a relative lack of interest from Spain and, later on, support from the British, who were challenging Spanish influence in the Caribbean.
In 1523, the first Spaniards entered the region of what would become known as Nicaragua. Gil González Dávila with a small force reached its western portion after a trek through Costa Rica, following a near disaster while exploring the western coast of Central America. He proceeded to explore the fertile western valleys and was impressed with the Indian civilization he found there. He and his small army gathered gold and baptized Indians along the way. Eventually, they so imposed upon the Indians that they were attacked and nearly annihilated. González Dávila returned to his expedition's starting point in Panama and reported on his find, naming the area Nicaragua. However, governor Pedrarias Dávila attempted to arrest him and confiscate his treasure. He was forced to flee to Santo Domingo to outfit another expedition.
Within a few months, Nicaragua was invaded by several Spanish forces, each led by a conquistador. González Dávila was authorized by royal decree, and came in from the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba at the command of the governor of Panama approached from Costa Rica. Pedro de Alvarado and Cristóbal de Olid at the command of Hernán Cortés, came from Guatemala through San Salvador and Honduras.
Córdoba apparently came with the intention of colonization. In 1524, he established permanent settlements in the region, including two of Nicaragua's principal towns: Granada on Lake Nicaragua and León east of Lake Managua. But he soon found it necessary to prepare defenses for the cities and go on the offensive against incursions by the other conquistadores.
The inevitable clash between the Spanish forces did not impede their devastation of the indigenous population. The Indian civilization was destroyed. The series of battles came to be known as The War of the Captains. By 1529, the conquest of Nicaragua was complete. Several conquistadores came out winners, and some were executed or murdered. Pedrarias Dávila was a winner; although he had lost control of Panama, he had moved to Nicaragua and established his base in León. Through adroit diplomatic machinations, he became the first governor of the colony.
The land was parceled out to the conquistadores. The area of most interest was the western portion. It included a wide, fertile valley with huge, freshwater lakes, a series of volcanoes, and volcanic lagoons. Many Indians were soon enslaved to develop and maintain "estates" there. Others were put to work in mines in northern Nicaragua, but the great majority were sent as slaves to Panama and Peru, for significant profit to the new landed aristocracy. Many Indians died through disease and neglect by the Spaniards, who controlled everything necessary for their subsistence.
In 1538, the Viceroyalty of New Spain was established, encompassing all of Mexico and Central America, except Panama. By 1570, the southern part of New Spain was designated the Captaincy General of Guatemala. The area of Nicaragua was divided into administrative "parties" with León as the capital. In 1610, the volcano known as Momotombo erupted, destroying the capital. It was rebuilt northwest of its original site.
Under Spanish rule, Nicaragua was incorporated in the Captaincy-General – an administrative region, also known by the Spanish term audiencia– of Guatemala. At its peak in the mid-16th century, this stretched across the whole of central America, from southern Mexico to Panama. Throughout the colonial era, two major struggles dominated the political economy of Nicaragua and indeed the whole region. The first was between the Spanish and rival imperial powers – mainly the British, French and Dutch, who made repeated incursions into Spanish-controlled territory. The second was the internal feud over trade policy. On one side were wealthy landowners – descendants of the original Spanish colonists, backed by the moral authority of the Catholic Church – who supported and relied upon trade monopolies in the mining and agricultural commodities which were the mainstay of the regional economy. In the opposing camp were anti-clerical ‘liberals’ who promoted a free trade system.
The region was subject to frequent raids by Dutch, French and British pirates; the city of Granada was invaded twice, in 1658 and 1660. The trade argument was a reflection of that raging within Europe; it was ultimately the events in Europe that brought about the end of colonial rule and national independence for Nicaragua. The catalyst was the French invasion of Spain in 1794, which triggered internal upheaval in the Captaincy-General and drastically weakened Spanish power. As one of the poorer colonial possessions, Nicaragua was low on the list of Spanish priorities and little serious effort was made to hang on to it. In 1821, the Captaincy-General of Guatemala declared independence. Some efforts from Mexico were made to bring Nicaragua to heel but in 1823, the five provinces – now the modern states of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras – declared full independence as the United Provinces of Central America. Internal feuding led to the rapid dissolution of the United Provinces and in 1838, Nicaragua declared itself a sovereign state with a democratic system of government.
The Mosquito Coast based on Bluefields on the Atlantic was claimed by the United Kingdom (and its predecessor states) as a protectorate from 1655 to 1850; this was delegated to Honduras in 1859 and transferred to Nicaragua in 1860, though remained autonomous until 1894.
1800s - Sandinista Revolution
Much of Nicaragua's politics since independence has been characterized by the rivalry between the liberal elite of León and the conservative elite of Granada. The rivalry often degenerated into civil war, particularly during the 1840s and 1850s. The fledgling nation was slow to stabilize and immediately became prey to what were now the most powerful foreign influences in the region – the British and the Americans. The British consolidated their control over the Caribbean seaboard, the so-called Mosquito Coast – the name derives from the term ‘miskito’ or mixed-blood, as most inhabitants of the area were descended from inter-marriage between Caribbean Indians and black former slaves.
The Americans first appeared in the form of the freebooting William Walker. In 1855, one of the ‘liberal’ factions disputing power in Nicaragua invited the American mercenary to come and aid their cause. Walker took effective control of the government by taking over the national army. However, he was no liberal and planned to remodel Nicaragua as a slave colony annexed to the US. Walker was eventually defeated after a bitter struggle. Honduras and other Central American countries united to drive him out of Nicaragua in 1857.After several unsuccessful attempts to re-invade Nicaragua, Walker was captured by the British, handed over to the Honduran government and executed in 1865. See the complete story of William Walker under Topics.
Taking advantage of divisions within the conservative ranks, José Santos Zelaya led a liberal revolt that brought him to power in 1893. Zelaya ended the longstanding dispute with the United Kingdom over the Atlantic coast in 1894, and reincorporated the Mosquito Coast into Nicaragua.
From this point on, the struggle between supporters and opponents of the US – along with the propensity of Washington to intervene when it felt its interests threatened – came to dominate the political landscape of Nicaragua. However, in 1909, the United States provided political support to conservative-led forces rebelling against President Zelaya. U.S. motives included differences over the proposed Nicaragua Canal, Nicaragua's potential as a destabilizing influence in the region, and Zelaya's attempts to regulate foreign access to Nicaraguan natural resources.
On November 18, 1909, U.S. warships were sent to the area after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) were executed by order of Zelaya. The U.S. justified the intervention by claiming to protect U.S. lives and property. Zelaya resigned later that year. U.S. Marines occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, except for a nine month period beginning in 1925. From 1910 to 1926, the conservative party ruled Nicaragua. The Chamorro family, which had long dominated the party, effectively controlled the government during that period. In 1914, the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty was signed, giving the U.S. control over the proposed canal, as well as leases for potential canal defenses. Following the evacuation of U.S. marines, another violent conflict between liberals and conservatives took place in 1926, known as the Constitutionalist War, which resulted in a coalition government and the return of U.S. Marines.
From 1927 until 1933, Gen. Augusto César Sandino led a sustained guerrilla war first against the Conservative regime and subsequently against the U.S. Marines, who withdrew upon the establishment of a new Liberal government. Sandino rejected a 1927 negotiated agreement brokered by the United States to end the latest round of fighting between liberals and conservatives.
The revolt finally forced the United States to compromise and leave the country. When the Americans left in 1933, they set up the Guardia Nacional (National Guard), a combined military and police force trained and equipped by the Americans and designed to be loyal to U.S. interests. Anastasio Somoza García, a close friend of the American government, was put in charge. He was one of the three rulers of the country, the others being Sandino and the mostly figurehead President Juan Bautista Sacasa.
With U.S. support Anastasio Somoza García outmaneuvered his political opponents, including Sandino who was executed by National Guard officers in February 1934. Divisions within the Conservative Party in the 1932 elections paved the way for the Liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa to assume power. This initiated an inherently weak presidency—hardly a formidable obstacle to Somoza as he set about building his personal influence over Congress and the ruling Liberal Party. President Sacasa's popularity decreased as a result of his poor leadership and accusations of fraud in the 1934 congressional elections. Somoza García benefited from Sacasa's diminishing power, and at the same time brought together the National Guard and the Liberal Party in order to win the presidential elections in 1936. Somoza Garcia also cultivated support from former presidents Moncada and Chamorro while consolidating control within the Liberal Party.
Early in 1936, Somoza openly confronted President Sacasa by using military force to displace local government officials loyal to the president and replacing them with close associates. Somoza García's increasing military confrontation led to Sacasa's resignation on June 6, 1936. The Congress appointed Carlos Brenes Jarquín, a Somoza García associate, as interim president and postponed presidential elections until December. In November, Somoza resigned as chief director of the National Guard, thus complying with constitutional requirements for eligibility to run for the presidency. The Liberal Nationalist Party (PLN) was established with support from a faction of the Conservative Party to support Somoza Garcia’s candidacy. Somoza was elected president in the December election by the remarkable margin of 107,201 votes to 108. On January 1, 1937, he resumed control of the National Guard, combining the roles of president and chief director of the military. The Somoza family would rule until 1979.
After Somoza’s win in the December 1936 presidential elections, he diligently proceeded to consolidate his power within the National Guard, while at the same time dividing his political opponents. Family members and close associates were given key positions within the government and the military. The Somoza family also controlled the PLN, which in turn controlled the legislature and judicial system, thus giving Somoza absolute power over every sphere of Nicaraguan politics. Nominal political opposition was allowed as long as it did not threaten the ruling elite. Somoza Garcia’s National Guard repressed serious political opposition and antigovernment demonstrations. The institutional power of the National Guard grew in most government owned enterprises, until eventually it controlled the national radio and telegraph networks, the postal and immigration services, health services, the internal revenue service, and the national railroads.
In less than two years after his election, Somoza Garcia, defying the Conservative Party, declared his intention to stay in power beyond his presidential term. Thus, in 1938, Somoza Garcia named a Constituent Assembly that gave the president extensive power and elected him for another eight-year term. A Constituent Assembly, extension of the presidential term from four years to six years, and clauses empowering the president to decree laws relating to the National Guard without consulting Congress, ensured Somoza’s absolute control over the state and military. Control over electoral and legislative machinery provided the basis for a permanent dictatorship.
Somoza García was succeeded by his two sons. Luis Somoza Debayle became President, but his brother Anastasio Somoza Debayle held great power as head of the National Guard. A graduate of West Point, Anastasio was even closer to the Americans than his father and was said to speak better English than Spanish.
A group of revolutionaries were greatly strengthened by the Cuban Revolution. The revolution provided both hope and inspiration to the revolutionaries, as well as weapons and funding. Operating from Costa Rica they formed the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) and came to be known as Sandinistas. They took their name from the still legendary Augusto César Sandino. With aid from the United States, the Somoza brothers succeeded in initially defeating the guerrillas.
President Luis Somoza Debayle, under pressure from the rebels and their supporters, announced that national elections would be held in February 1963. Election reforms had been made that established secret ballots and a supervising electoral commission (though the Conservative Party never elected any members of the commission). Somoza had also introduced a constitutional amendment that would prevent family members from succeeding him. The opposition was extremely skeptical of Somoza's promises, and ultimately control of the country passed to Anastasio Somoza Debayle after Luis died of a heart attack in 1967.
The earliest opposition to Somoza came from the educated middle class and the normally conservative wealthy, such as Pedro Joaquín Chamorro. Gradually, however, the liberal opposition began to be eclipsed by the far more radical and violent Marxists that were inspired by the Cuban revolution.
From 1945 to 1960, the U.S.-owned Nicaraguan Long Leaf Pine Company (NIPCO) directly paid the Somoza family millions of dollars in exchange for favorable benefits to the company, such as not having to re-forest clear cut areas. By 1961, NIPCO had cut all of the commercially viable coastal pines in northeast Nicaragua. Expansion of cotton plantations in the 1950s and cattle ranches in the 1960s forced peasant families from the areas they had farmed for decades. Some were forced by the National Guard to relocate into colonization projects in the rainforest. Some moved eastward into the hills, where they cleared forests in order to plant crops. Soil erosion forced them, however, to abandon their land and move deeper into the rainforest. Cattle ranchers then claimed the abandoned land. Peasants and ranchers continued this movement deep into the rain forest. By the early 1970s, Nicaragua had become the United States' top beef supplier. The beef supported fast-food chains and pet food production. Six Miami, Florida meat-packing plants and the largest slaughterhouse in Nicaragua were all owned by President Anastasio Somoza Debayle.
Also in the 1950s and 1960s, 40% of all U.S. pesticide exports went to Central America. Nicaragua and its neighbors widely used compounds banned in the U.S., such as DDT, endrin, dieldrin and lindane. In a later study (1977) it was revealed that mothers living in León had 45 times more DDT in their breast milk than the World Health Organization deemed safe. Landless peasants worked on large plantations during short harvest seasons and received wages as low as USD$1 per day. In desperation, many of these poor laborers migrated east, seeking their own land near the rain forest. In 1968, the World Health Organization found that polluted water led to 17% of all Nicaraguan deaths.
A major turning point was the December 1972 Managua earthquake that killed over 10,000 people and left 500,000 homeless. A great deal of international relief was sent to the nation. However, newspaperman Pedro Joaquin Chamorro began to write sensational stories alleging that Somoza and the National Guard were embezzling relief money. This not only enraged the Nicaraguan people but also began to alienate the United States. Violent opposition to the government, especially to its widespread corruption, was then renewed with the Sandinistas being revived, this time backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union.
At a New Year's Day Party, a close friend of Somoza was taken hostage along with several others, including several Somoza family members, and executed. Somoza, in his memoirs, refers to this action as the beginning of a sharp escalation in terms of Sandinista attacks and government reprisals. Martial Law was declared soon thereafter, and the National Guard began to raze villages in the jungle suspected of supporting the rebels. Human rights groups condemned the actions, but U.S. President Gerald Ford refused to break the U.S. alliance with Somoza.
The rebels, emboldened by the success of their actions, stepped up their assault against the government. The country tipped into full scale civil war with the 1978 murder of Pedro Chamorro, who had continued to oppose violence against the regime. 50,000 turned out for his funeral. It was assumed by many that Somoza had ordered his assassination.
The Sandinista forces, gathering in neighboring Honduras and Costa Rica, infiltrated the country and began to seize isolated communities. Other towns, assisted by Sandinista guerrillas, attacked and expelled the National Guard units. Somoza responded with increasing violence and repression. When León became the first city in Nicaragua to fall to the Sandinistas, he responded with aerial bombardment, famously ordering the air force to "bomb everything that moves until it stops moving."
The U.S. media grew increasingly unfavorable in its reporting on the situation in Nicaragua. Realizing that the Somoza dictatorship was unsustainable, the Carter administration attempted to force him to leave Nicaragua. Somoza refused and sought to maintain his power through the National Guard. At that point, the U.S. ambassador sent a cable to the White House saying it would be "ill-advised" to call off the bombing, because such an action would help the Sandinistas gain power. When ABC reporter Bill Stewart was executed by the National Guard, and graphic film of the killing was broadcast on American TV, the public became more hostile to Somoza. In the end, President Carter refused Somoza further U.S. military aid, believing that the repressive nature of the government had led to popular support for the Sandinista uprising.
Sandinista period (1979 - 1990)
As Nicaragua's government collapsed and the National Guard commanders escaped with Somoza, the U.S. first promised and then denied them exile in Miami. The rebels advanced on the capital victoriously. On July 19, 1979 a new government was proclaimed under a provisional junta headed by Daniel Ortega (then age 35) and including Violeta Chamorro, Pedro's widow.
The United Nations estimated material damage from the revolutionary war to be USD$480 million. The FSLN took over a nation plagued by malnutrition, disease, and pesticide contaminations. Lake Managua was considered dead because of decades of pesticide runoff, toxic chemical pollution from lakeside factories, and untreated sewage. Soil erosion and dust storms were also a problem in Nicaragua at the time due to deforestation. To tackle these crises, the FSLN created the Nicaraguan Institute of Natural Resources and the Environment.
The Sandinistas were victorious in the national election of November 4, 1984. Although the election was certified as "free and fair" by international observers, there were many groups, including the Nicaraguan political opposition and the Reagan administration, who claimed political restrictions placed on the opposition by the government. The primary opposition candidate was the U.S.-backed Arturo Cruz, who succumbed to pressure from the United States government not to take part in the 1984 elections; other opposition parties, such as the Conservative Democratic Party and the Independent Liberal party, were both free to denounce the Sandinista government and participate in the elections The fears of opposition groups were apparently well founded, as it was later discovered that the FSLN had, in fact, been actively suppressing right-wing opposition parties while leaving moderate parties alone, with Ortega claiming that the moderates "presented no danger and served as a convenient facade to the outside world". Ortega was overwhelmingly elected President in 1984, but the later years of war took an unparalleled toll on Nicaragua's economy and left many families in quite difficult situations.
U.S. and Contras
U.S. President Carter initially hoped that continued American aid to the new government would keep the Sandinistas from forming a Marxist-Leninist government aligned with the Soviet bloc. Given past American support for the long rule of the Somoza family, though, and the committed Marxist ideology of the ruling FSLN government (many of the leading Sandinista had long-standing relationships with the Soviet Union and Cuba), Carter's approach made little sense. The Carter administration allotted the Sandinistas minimal funding to start them off, but the Sandinistas resolutely turned away from the U.S. and, with Cuban and East European help, built up an army of 75,000. The buildup included T-55 heavy tanks, heavy artillery and HIND attack helicopters, an unprecedented military buildup that made the Sandinista Army more powerful than all of its neighbors combined. The Soviets also pledged to provide MiG 21 fighters, but, to the annoyance of the Sandinistas, the aircraft were never delivered.
Managua became the second capital in the hemisphere (after Cuba) to host an embassy from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. Ironically, in light of the tensions between their Soviet sponsors and China, the Sandinistas allowed Taiwan to retain its mission and refused to allow mainland China to enter the country.
The first challenge to the powerful new army came from groups of Somoza's National Guard who had fled to Honduras. The Contras were soon under the control of Nicaraguan business elites who opposed Sandinista policies to seize their assets. The Contra chain of command included some ex-National Guardsmen, including Contra founder and commander Enrique Bermúdez and others. One prominent Contra commander, however, was ex-Sandinista hero Edén Pastora, aka "Commadante Zero," who rejected the Leninist orientation of his fellow comandantes.
After his election in 1980, Ronald Reagan understood relations between the United States and the Sandinista government as an active front in the Cold War. The Reagan administration insisted on the "Communist threat" posed by the Sandinistas--reacting particularly to the support provided to the Sandinistas by Cuban president Fidel Castro, by the Sandinistas' close military relations with the Soviets and Cubans, but also furthering the Reagan administration's desire to protect U.S. business interests in the country, which it claimed were threatened by the policies of the Sandinista government. The United States attempted to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Nicaragua by expanding the supply of arms and training to the Contras in neighboring Honduras, as well as allied groups based to the south in Costa Rica. President Reagan called the Contras "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers" despite the fact that they had a reputation for brutal violence including hacking off limbs off anyone who opposed them.
American pressure against the government escalated, including attacks on Nicaraguan ports and oil installations (September 1983-March 1984) and the laying of magnetic mines outside Nicaraguan harbors (early 1984), actions condemned as illegal (June 27, 1986 Nicaragua v. United States) by the International Court of Justice. The U.S. refused to pay restitution and claimed that the ICJ was not competent for the case. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in order to pressure the U.S. to pay the fine. Although only Israel and El Salvador, which was receiving massive amounts of military aid to fight its own guerrilla insurgency, voted with the U.S., the money still has not been paid. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the American ambassador to the UN under Reagan, criticized the Court as a "semi-judicial" body. The U.S. was legally bound by the court's decision, had signed the treaty and made use of the court in other cases. On May 1, 1985 Reagan issued an executive order that imposed a full economic embargo on Nicaragua, which remained in force until March 1990.
In 1982, legislation (the Boland Amendment) was enacted in the U.S. to prohibit further direct aid to the Contras. Reagan's officials attempted to illegally supply them out of the proceeds of arms sales to Iran and third party donations, triggering the Iran-Contra Affair of 1986-87. Mutual exhaustion, Sandinista fears of Contra unity and military success, and mediation by other regional governments led to the Sapoa ceasefire between Sandinistas and Contras (March 23, 1988) and subsequent agreements (February, August 1989) for Contra reintegration into Nicaraguan society preparatory to general elections.
Post-Sandinista period
In a stunning landslide defeat (ABC news had been predicting a 16 point Sandinista victory - they lost by 14 points), the FSLN lost to the National Opposition Union led by former Sandinista Violeta Chamorro in elections on February 25, 1990, but still largely controlled the army, labor unions, and courts. During President Chamorro's nearly 7 years in office, her government achieved major progress toward consolidating democratic institutions, advancing national reconciliation, stabilizing the economy, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and reducing human rights violations. In February 1995, Sandinista Popular Army Cmdr. Gen. Humberto Ortega was replaced, in accordance with a new military code enacted in 1994 by Gen. Joaquín Cuadra, who espoused a policy of greater professionalism in the renamed Army of Nicaragua. A new police organization law, passed by the National Assembly and signed into law in August 1996, further codified both civilian control of the police and the professionalization of that law enforcement agency.
The October 20, 1996 presidential, legislative, and mayoral elections also were judged free and fair by international observers and by the groundbreaking national electoral observer group Ética y Transparencia (Ethics and Transparency) despite a number of irregularities, due largely to logistical difficulties and a baroquely complicated electoral law. This time Nicaraguans elected former-Managua Mayor Arnoldo Alemán, leader of the center-right Liberal Alliance, which later consolidated into the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC). Alemán continued in liberalizing the economy and fulfilling his campaign promise of "works not words" by completing infrastructure projects such as highways, bridges, and wells (thanks in large part to foreign assistance received after Hurricane Mitch hit Nicaragua in October 1998). His administration was, however, tainted by charges of corruption that resulted in the resignation of several key officials in mid-2000. Alemán was subsequently arrested and sentenced to twenty years in jail for corruption.
In November 2000, Nicaragua held municipal elections. Alemán's PLC won a majority of the overall mayoral races, but the FSLN fared considerably better in larger urban areas, winning a significant number of departmental capitals, including Managua.
Presidential and legislative elections were held on November 4, 2001--the country's fourth free and fair elections since 1990. Enrique Bolaños of the PLC was elected to the Nicaraguan presidency, defeating the FSLN candidate Daniel Ortega, by 14 percentage points. The elections were characterized by international observers as free, fair and peaceful.
President Bolaños was inaugurated on January 10, 2002. During the campaign Bolaños promised to reinvigorate the economy, create jobs, fight corruption and support the war against terrorism. In November 2006 the presidential election was won by Daniel Ortega, bringing him back into power after 16 years of opposition. International observers, including the Carter Center, judged the election to be free and fair.
The country has partly rebuilt its economy during the 1990s, but was hard hit by Hurricane Mitch at the end of October 1998, almost exactly a decade after the similarly destructive Hurricane Joan.
Pre-colonial Nicaragua was occupied by two distinct ethnic groups. The central and western regions were populated by tribes related to the Aztecs and Maya, who had migrated southwards from Mexico. In the opposite direction, probably from Colombia, came a different group, who occupied the Caribbean lowlands.
The country's name derives from Nicarao, the name of the Nahuatl-speaking tribe which inhabited the shores of Lago de Nicaragua before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and the Spanish word “agua”, meaning water, due to the presence of the large lakes Lago de Nicaragua and Lago de Managua in the region.
At the time of the Spanish conquest, Nicaragua was the name given to the narrow strip of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. Chief Nicarao ruled over that land when the first conquerors arrived. The term was eventually applied, by extension, to the group that inhabited that region: the Nicaraos or Niquiranos.
The pre-columbian Nicarao came to the area from northern regions after the fall of Teotihuaca¡n in Mexico, on the advice of their priests or religious leaders. According to tradition, they were to travel south until they encountered a lake with two volcanoes rising out of the waters, and stopped when they reached Ometepe, the largest fresh-water volcanic island in the world.
The arrival of Spanish colonists in the early 1500s brought the demise of most of the western and central populations through imported disease and forced labor. The eastern peoples survived due to a relative lack of interest from Spain and, later on, support from the British, who were challenging Spanish influence in the Caribbean.
In 1523, the first Spaniards entered the region of what would become known as Nicaragua. Gil González Dávila with a small force reached its western portion after a trek through Costa Rica, following a near disaster while exploring the western coast of Central America. He proceeded to explore the fertile western valleys and was impressed with the Indian civilization he found there. He and his small army gathered gold and baptized Indians along the way. Eventually, they so imposed upon the Indians that they were attacked and nearly annihilated. González Dávila returned to his expedition's starting point in Panama and reported on his find, naming the area Nicaragua. However, governor Pedrarias Dávila attempted to arrest him and confiscate his treasure. He was forced to flee to Santo Domingo to outfit another expedition.
Within a few months, Nicaragua was invaded by several Spanish forces, each led by a conquistador. González Dávila was authorized by royal decree, and came in from the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba at the command of the governor of Panama approached from Costa Rica. Pedro de Alvarado and Cristóbal de Olid at the command of Hernán Cortés, came from Guatemala through San Salvador and Honduras.
Córdoba apparently came with the intention of colonization. In 1524, he established permanent settlements in the region, including two of Nicaragua's principal towns: Granada on Lake Nicaragua and León east of Lake Managua. But he soon found it necessary to prepare defenses for the cities and go on the offensive against incursions by the other conquistadores.
The inevitable clash between the Spanish forces did not impede their devastation of the indigenous population. The Indian civilization was destroyed. The series of battles came to be known as The War of the Captains. By 1529, the conquest of Nicaragua was complete. Several conquistadores came out winners, and some were executed or murdered. Pedrarias Dávila was a winner; although he had lost control of Panama, he had moved to Nicaragua and established his base in León. Through adroit diplomatic machinations, he became the first governor of the colony.
The land was parceled out to the conquistadores. The area of most interest was the western portion. It included a wide, fertile valley with huge, freshwater lakes, a series of volcanoes, and volcanic lagoons. Many Indians were soon enslaved to develop and maintain "estates" there. Others were put to work in mines in northern Nicaragua, but the great majority were sent as slaves to Panama and Peru, for significant profit to the new landed aristocracy. Many Indians died through disease and neglect by the Spaniards, who controlled everything necessary for their subsistence.
In 1538, the Viceroyalty of New Spain was established, encompassing all of Mexico and Central America, except Panama. By 1570, the southern part of New Spain was designated the Captaincy General of Guatemala. The area of Nicaragua was divided into administrative "parties" with León as the capital. In 1610, the volcano known as Momotombo erupted, destroying the capital. It was rebuilt northwest of its original site.
Under Spanish rule, Nicaragua was incorporated in the Captaincy-General – an administrative region, also known by the Spanish term audiencia– of Guatemala. At its peak in the mid-16th century, this stretched across the whole of central America, from southern Mexico to Panama. Throughout the colonial era, two major struggles dominated the political economy of Nicaragua and indeed the whole region. The first was between the Spanish and rival imperial powers – mainly the British, French and Dutch, who made repeated incursions into Spanish-controlled territory. The second was the internal feud over trade policy. On one side were wealthy landowners – descendants of the original Spanish colonists, backed by the moral authority of the Catholic Church – who supported and relied upon trade monopolies in the mining and agricultural commodities which were the mainstay of the regional economy. In the opposing camp were anti-clerical ‘liberals’ who promoted a free trade system.
The region was subject to frequent raids by Dutch, French and British pirates; the city of Granada was invaded twice, in 1658 and 1660. The trade argument was a reflection of that raging within Europe; it was ultimately the events in Europe that brought about the end of colonial rule and national independence for Nicaragua. The catalyst was the French invasion of Spain in 1794, which triggered internal upheaval in the Captaincy-General and drastically weakened Spanish power. As one of the poorer colonial possessions, Nicaragua was low on the list of Spanish priorities and little serious effort was made to hang on to it. In 1821, the Captaincy-General of Guatemala declared independence. Some efforts from Mexico were made to bring Nicaragua to heel but in 1823, the five provinces – now the modern states of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras – declared full independence as the United Provinces of Central America. Internal feuding led to the rapid dissolution of the United Provinces and in 1838, Nicaragua declared itself a sovereign state with a democratic system of government.
The Mosquito Coast based on Bluefields on the Atlantic was claimed by the United Kingdom (and its predecessor states) as a protectorate from 1655 to 1850; this was delegated to Honduras in 1859 and transferred to Nicaragua in 1860, though remained autonomous until 1894.
1800s - Sandinista Revolution
Much of Nicaragua's politics since independence has been characterized by the rivalry between the liberal elite of León and the conservative elite of Granada. The rivalry often degenerated into civil war, particularly during the 1840s and 1850s. The fledgling nation was slow to stabilize and immediately became prey to what were now the most powerful foreign influences in the region – the British and the Americans. The British consolidated their control over the Caribbean seaboard, the so-called Mosquito Coast – the name derives from the term ‘miskito’ or mixed-blood, as most inhabitants of the area were descended from inter-marriage between Caribbean Indians and black former slaves.
The Americans first appeared in the form of the freebooting William Walker. In 1855, one of the ‘liberal’ factions disputing power in Nicaragua invited the American mercenary to come and aid their cause. Walker took effective control of the government by taking over the national army. However, he was no liberal and planned to remodel Nicaragua as a slave colony annexed to the US. Walker was eventually defeated after a bitter struggle. Honduras and other Central American countries united to drive him out of Nicaragua in 1857.After several unsuccessful attempts to re-invade Nicaragua, Walker was captured by the British, handed over to the Honduran government and executed in 1865. See the complete story of William Walker under Topics.
Taking advantage of divisions within the conservative ranks, José Santos Zelaya led a liberal revolt that brought him to power in 1893. Zelaya ended the longstanding dispute with the United Kingdom over the Atlantic coast in 1894, and reincorporated the Mosquito Coast into Nicaragua.
From this point on, the struggle between supporters and opponents of the US – along with the propensity of Washington to intervene when it felt its interests threatened – came to dominate the political landscape of Nicaragua. However, in 1909, the United States provided political support to conservative-led forces rebelling against President Zelaya. U.S. motives included differences over the proposed Nicaragua Canal, Nicaragua's potential as a destabilizing influence in the region, and Zelaya's attempts to regulate foreign access to Nicaraguan natural resources.
On November 18, 1909, U.S. warships were sent to the area after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) were executed by order of Zelaya. The U.S. justified the intervention by claiming to protect U.S. lives and property. Zelaya resigned later that year. U.S. Marines occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, except for a nine month period beginning in 1925. From 1910 to 1926, the conservative party ruled Nicaragua. The Chamorro family, which had long dominated the party, effectively controlled the government during that period. In 1914, the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty was signed, giving the U.S. control over the proposed canal, as well as leases for potential canal defenses. Following the evacuation of U.S. marines, another violent conflict between liberals and conservatives took place in 1926, known as the Constitutionalist War, which resulted in a coalition government and the return of U.S. Marines.
From 1927 until 1933, Gen. Augusto César Sandino led a sustained guerrilla war first against the Conservative regime and subsequently against the U.S. Marines, who withdrew upon the establishment of a new Liberal government. Sandino rejected a 1927 negotiated agreement brokered by the United States to end the latest round of fighting between liberals and conservatives.
The revolt finally forced the United States to compromise and leave the country. When the Americans left in 1933, they set up the Guardia Nacional (National Guard), a combined military and police force trained and equipped by the Americans and designed to be loyal to U.S. interests. Anastasio Somoza García, a close friend of the American government, was put in charge. He was one of the three rulers of the country, the others being Sandino and the mostly figurehead President Juan Bautista Sacasa.
With U.S. support Anastasio Somoza García outmaneuvered his political opponents, including Sandino who was executed by National Guard officers in February 1934. Divisions within the Conservative Party in the 1932 elections paved the way for the Liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa to assume power. This initiated an inherently weak presidency—hardly a formidable obstacle to Somoza as he set about building his personal influence over Congress and the ruling Liberal Party. President Sacasa's popularity decreased as a result of his poor leadership and accusations of fraud in the 1934 congressional elections. Somoza García benefited from Sacasa's diminishing power, and at the same time brought together the National Guard and the Liberal Party in order to win the presidential elections in 1936. Somoza Garcia also cultivated support from former presidents Moncada and Chamorro while consolidating control within the Liberal Party.
Early in 1936, Somoza openly confronted President Sacasa by using military force to displace local government officials loyal to the president and replacing them with close associates. Somoza García's increasing military confrontation led to Sacasa's resignation on June 6, 1936. The Congress appointed Carlos Brenes Jarquín, a Somoza García associate, as interim president and postponed presidential elections until December. In November, Somoza resigned as chief director of the National Guard, thus complying with constitutional requirements for eligibility to run for the presidency. The Liberal Nationalist Party (PLN) was established with support from a faction of the Conservative Party to support Somoza Garcia’s candidacy. Somoza was elected president in the December election by the remarkable margin of 107,201 votes to 108. On January 1, 1937, he resumed control of the National Guard, combining the roles of president and chief director of the military. The Somoza family would rule until 1979.
After Somoza’s win in the December 1936 presidential elections, he diligently proceeded to consolidate his power within the National Guard, while at the same time dividing his political opponents. Family members and close associates were given key positions within the government and the military. The Somoza family also controlled the PLN, which in turn controlled the legislature and judicial system, thus giving Somoza absolute power over every sphere of Nicaraguan politics. Nominal political opposition was allowed as long as it did not threaten the ruling elite. Somoza Garcia’s National Guard repressed serious political opposition and antigovernment demonstrations. The institutional power of the National Guard grew in most government owned enterprises, until eventually it controlled the national radio and telegraph networks, the postal and immigration services, health services, the internal revenue service, and the national railroads.
In less than two years after his election, Somoza Garcia, defying the Conservative Party, declared his intention to stay in power beyond his presidential term. Thus, in 1938, Somoza Garcia named a Constituent Assembly that gave the president extensive power and elected him for another eight-year term. A Constituent Assembly, extension of the presidential term from four years to six years, and clauses empowering the president to decree laws relating to the National Guard without consulting Congress, ensured Somoza’s absolute control over the state and military. Control over electoral and legislative machinery provided the basis for a permanent dictatorship.
Somoza García was succeeded by his two sons. Luis Somoza Debayle became President, but his brother Anastasio Somoza Debayle held great power as head of the National Guard. A graduate of West Point, Anastasio was even closer to the Americans than his father and was said to speak better English than Spanish.
A group of revolutionaries were greatly strengthened by the Cuban Revolution. The revolution provided both hope and inspiration to the revolutionaries, as well as weapons and funding. Operating from Costa Rica they formed the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) and came to be known as Sandinistas. They took their name from the still legendary Augusto César Sandino. With aid from the United States, the Somoza brothers succeeded in initially defeating the guerrillas.
President Luis Somoza Debayle, under pressure from the rebels and their supporters, announced that national elections would be held in February 1963. Election reforms had been made that established secret ballots and a supervising electoral commission (though the Conservative Party never elected any members of the commission). Somoza had also introduced a constitutional amendment that would prevent family members from succeeding him. The opposition was extremely skeptical of Somoza's promises, and ultimately control of the country passed to Anastasio Somoza Debayle after Luis died of a heart attack in 1967.
The earliest opposition to Somoza came from the educated middle class and the normally conservative wealthy, such as Pedro Joaquín Chamorro. Gradually, however, the liberal opposition began to be eclipsed by the far more radical and violent Marxists that were inspired by the Cuban revolution.
From 1945 to 1960, the U.S.-owned Nicaraguan Long Leaf Pine Company (NIPCO) directly paid the Somoza family millions of dollars in exchange for favorable benefits to the company, such as not having to re-forest clear cut areas. By 1961, NIPCO had cut all of the commercially viable coastal pines in northeast Nicaragua. Expansion of cotton plantations in the 1950s and cattle ranches in the 1960s forced peasant families from the areas they had farmed for decades. Some were forced by the National Guard to relocate into colonization projects in the rainforest. Some moved eastward into the hills, where they cleared forests in order to plant crops. Soil erosion forced them, however, to abandon their land and move deeper into the rainforest. Cattle ranchers then claimed the abandoned land. Peasants and ranchers continued this movement deep into the rain forest. By the early 1970s, Nicaragua had become the United States' top beef supplier. The beef supported fast-food chains and pet food production. Six Miami, Florida meat-packing plants and the largest slaughterhouse in Nicaragua were all owned by President Anastasio Somoza Debayle.
Also in the 1950s and 1960s, 40% of all U.S. pesticide exports went to Central America. Nicaragua and its neighbors widely used compounds banned in the U.S., such as DDT, endrin, dieldrin and lindane. In a later study (1977) it was revealed that mothers living in León had 45 times more DDT in their breast milk than the World Health Organization deemed safe. Landless peasants worked on large plantations during short harvest seasons and received wages as low as USD$1 per day. In desperation, many of these poor laborers migrated east, seeking their own land near the rain forest. In 1968, the World Health Organization found that polluted water led to 17% of all Nicaraguan deaths.
A major turning point was the December 1972 Managua earthquake that killed over 10,000 people and left 500,000 homeless. A great deal of international relief was sent to the nation. However, newspaperman Pedro Joaquin Chamorro began to write sensational stories alleging that Somoza and the National Guard were embezzling relief money. This not only enraged the Nicaraguan people but also began to alienate the United States. Violent opposition to the government, especially to its widespread corruption, was then renewed with the Sandinistas being revived, this time backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union.
At a New Year's Day Party, a close friend of Somoza was taken hostage along with several others, including several Somoza family members, and executed. Somoza, in his memoirs, refers to this action as the beginning of a sharp escalation in terms of Sandinista attacks and government reprisals. Martial Law was declared soon thereafter, and the National Guard began to raze villages in the jungle suspected of supporting the rebels. Human rights groups condemned the actions, but U.S. President Gerald Ford refused to break the U.S. alliance with Somoza.
The rebels, emboldened by the success of their actions, stepped up their assault against the government. The country tipped into full scale civil war with the 1978 murder of Pedro Chamorro, who had continued to oppose violence against the regime. 50,000 turned out for his funeral. It was assumed by many that Somoza had ordered his assassination.
The Sandinista forces, gathering in neighboring Honduras and Costa Rica, infiltrated the country and began to seize isolated communities. Other towns, assisted by Sandinista guerrillas, attacked and expelled the National Guard units. Somoza responded with increasing violence and repression. When León became the first city in Nicaragua to fall to the Sandinistas, he responded with aerial bombardment, famously ordering the air force to "bomb everything that moves until it stops moving."
The U.S. media grew increasingly unfavorable in its reporting on the situation in Nicaragua. Realizing that the Somoza dictatorship was unsustainable, the Carter administration attempted to force him to leave Nicaragua. Somoza refused and sought to maintain his power through the National Guard. At that point, the U.S. ambassador sent a cable to the White House saying it would be "ill-advised" to call off the bombing, because such an action would help the Sandinistas gain power. When ABC reporter Bill Stewart was executed by the National Guard, and graphic film of the killing was broadcast on American TV, the public became more hostile to Somoza. In the end, President Carter refused Somoza further U.S. military aid, believing that the repressive nature of the government had led to popular support for the Sandinista uprising.
Sandinista period (1979 - 1990)
As Nicaragua's government collapsed and the National Guard commanders escaped with Somoza, the U.S. first promised and then denied them exile in Miami. The rebels advanced on the capital victoriously. On July 19, 1979 a new government was proclaimed under a provisional junta headed by Daniel Ortega (then age 35) and including Violeta Chamorro, Pedro's widow.
The United Nations estimated material damage from the revolutionary war to be USD$480 million. The FSLN took over a nation plagued by malnutrition, disease, and pesticide contaminations. Lake Managua was considered dead because of decades of pesticide runoff, toxic chemical pollution from lakeside factories, and untreated sewage. Soil erosion and dust storms were also a problem in Nicaragua at the time due to deforestation. To tackle these crises, the FSLN created the Nicaraguan Institute of Natural Resources and the Environment.
The Sandinistas were victorious in the national election of November 4, 1984. Although the election was certified as "free and fair" by international observers, there were many groups, including the Nicaraguan political opposition and the Reagan administration, who claimed political restrictions placed on the opposition by the government. The primary opposition candidate was the U.S.-backed Arturo Cruz, who succumbed to pressure from the United States government not to take part in the 1984 elections; other opposition parties, such as the Conservative Democratic Party and the Independent Liberal party, were both free to denounce the Sandinista government and participate in the elections The fears of opposition groups were apparently well founded, as it was later discovered that the FSLN had, in fact, been actively suppressing right-wing opposition parties while leaving moderate parties alone, with Ortega claiming that the moderates "presented no danger and served as a convenient facade to the outside world". Ortega was overwhelmingly elected President in 1984, but the later years of war took an unparalleled toll on Nicaragua's economy and left many families in quite difficult situations.
U.S. and Contras
U.S. President Carter initially hoped that continued American aid to the new government would keep the Sandinistas from forming a Marxist-Leninist government aligned with the Soviet bloc. Given past American support for the long rule of the Somoza family, though, and the committed Marxist ideology of the ruling FSLN government (many of the leading Sandinista had long-standing relationships with the Soviet Union and Cuba), Carter's approach made little sense. The Carter administration allotted the Sandinistas minimal funding to start them off, but the Sandinistas resolutely turned away from the U.S. and, with Cuban and East European help, built up an army of 75,000. The buildup included T-55 heavy tanks, heavy artillery and HIND attack helicopters, an unprecedented military buildup that made the Sandinista Army more powerful than all of its neighbors combined. The Soviets also pledged to provide MiG 21 fighters, but, to the annoyance of the Sandinistas, the aircraft were never delivered.
Managua became the second capital in the hemisphere (after Cuba) to host an embassy from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. Ironically, in light of the tensions between their Soviet sponsors and China, the Sandinistas allowed Taiwan to retain its mission and refused to allow mainland China to enter the country.
The first challenge to the powerful new army came from groups of Somoza's National Guard who had fled to Honduras. The Contras were soon under the control of Nicaraguan business elites who opposed Sandinista policies to seize their assets. The Contra chain of command included some ex-National Guardsmen, including Contra founder and commander Enrique Bermúdez and others. One prominent Contra commander, however, was ex-Sandinista hero Edén Pastora, aka "Commadante Zero," who rejected the Leninist orientation of his fellow comandantes.
After his election in 1980, Ronald Reagan understood relations between the United States and the Sandinista government as an active front in the Cold War. The Reagan administration insisted on the "Communist threat" posed by the Sandinistas--reacting particularly to the support provided to the Sandinistas by Cuban president Fidel Castro, by the Sandinistas' close military relations with the Soviets and Cubans, but also furthering the Reagan administration's desire to protect U.S. business interests in the country, which it claimed were threatened by the policies of the Sandinista government. The United States attempted to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Nicaragua by expanding the supply of arms and training to the Contras in neighboring Honduras, as well as allied groups based to the south in Costa Rica. President Reagan called the Contras "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers" despite the fact that they had a reputation for brutal violence including hacking off limbs off anyone who opposed them.
American pressure against the government escalated, including attacks on Nicaraguan ports and oil installations (September 1983-March 1984) and the laying of magnetic mines outside Nicaraguan harbors (early 1984), actions condemned as illegal (June 27, 1986 Nicaragua v. United States) by the International Court of Justice. The U.S. refused to pay restitution and claimed that the ICJ was not competent for the case. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in order to pressure the U.S. to pay the fine. Although only Israel and El Salvador, which was receiving massive amounts of military aid to fight its own guerrilla insurgency, voted with the U.S., the money still has not been paid. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the American ambassador to the UN under Reagan, criticized the Court as a "semi-judicial" body. The U.S. was legally bound by the court's decision, had signed the treaty and made use of the court in other cases. On May 1, 1985 Reagan issued an executive order that imposed a full economic embargo on Nicaragua, which remained in force until March 1990.
In 1982, legislation (the Boland Amendment) was enacted in the U.S. to prohibit further direct aid to the Contras. Reagan's officials attempted to illegally supply them out of the proceeds of arms sales to Iran and third party donations, triggering the Iran-Contra Affair of 1986-87. Mutual exhaustion, Sandinista fears of Contra unity and military success, and mediation by other regional governments led to the Sapoa ceasefire between Sandinistas and Contras (March 23, 1988) and subsequent agreements (February, August 1989) for Contra reintegration into Nicaraguan society preparatory to general elections.
Post-Sandinista period
In a stunning landslide defeat (ABC news had been predicting a 16 point Sandinista victory - they lost by 14 points), the FSLN lost to the National Opposition Union led by former Sandinista Violeta Chamorro in elections on February 25, 1990, but still largely controlled the army, labor unions, and courts. During President Chamorro's nearly 7 years in office, her government achieved major progress toward consolidating democratic institutions, advancing national reconciliation, stabilizing the economy, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and reducing human rights violations. In February 1995, Sandinista Popular Army Cmdr. Gen. Humberto Ortega was replaced, in accordance with a new military code enacted in 1994 by Gen. Joaquín Cuadra, who espoused a policy of greater professionalism in the renamed Army of Nicaragua. A new police organization law, passed by the National Assembly and signed into law in August 1996, further codified both civilian control of the police and the professionalization of that law enforcement agency.
The October 20, 1996 presidential, legislative, and mayoral elections also were judged free and fair by international observers and by the groundbreaking national electoral observer group Ética y Transparencia (Ethics and Transparency) despite a number of irregularities, due largely to logistical difficulties and a baroquely complicated electoral law. This time Nicaraguans elected former-Managua Mayor Arnoldo Alemán, leader of the center-right Liberal Alliance, which later consolidated into the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC). Alemán continued in liberalizing the economy and fulfilling his campaign promise of "works not words" by completing infrastructure projects such as highways, bridges, and wells (thanks in large part to foreign assistance received after Hurricane Mitch hit Nicaragua in October 1998). His administration was, however, tainted by charges of corruption that resulted in the resignation of several key officials in mid-2000. Alemán was subsequently arrested and sentenced to twenty years in jail for corruption.
In November 2000, Nicaragua held municipal elections. Alemán's PLC won a majority of the overall mayoral races, but the FSLN fared considerably better in larger urban areas, winning a significant number of departmental capitals, including Managua.
Presidential and legislative elections were held on November 4, 2001--the country's fourth free and fair elections since 1990. Enrique Bolaños of the PLC was elected to the Nicaraguan presidency, defeating the FSLN candidate Daniel Ortega, by 14 percentage points. The elections were characterized by international observers as free, fair and peaceful.
President Bolaños was inaugurated on January 10, 2002. During the campaign Bolaños promised to reinvigorate the economy, create jobs, fight corruption and support the war against terrorism. In November 2006 the presidential election was won by Daniel Ortega, bringing him back into power after 16 years of opposition. International observers, including the Carter Center, judged the election to be free and fair.
The country has partly rebuilt its economy during the 1990s, but was hard hit by Hurricane Mitch at the end of October 1998, almost exactly a decade after the similarly destructive Hurricane Joan.
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