11 - Central America from Independence to c. 1870

Summary

The first half century of national independence was an unhappy time for the provinces formerly comprising the kingdom of Guatemala: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Tensions in the economic and social structures of the late colonial period led to bitter political struggles and civil war, and the high expectations expressed by Central American leaders at the beginning of the period were soon dashed on the hard rock of reality. Economic stagnation, class antagonism, political tranny and anarchy replaced the relative tranquillity and stability of the Hispanic era. Instead of a united and prosperous independent isthmian nation, a fragmented and feuding cluster of city states calling themselves ‘republics’ had emerged by 1870. Nevertheless, however disappointing the rate of economic and social change, some important and necessary steps had been taken in the transition from colonialism to modern capitalist dependency.

Historians of Latin America often pass rapidly over Central American independence with the suggestion that it came about merely as a natural consequence of Mexican independence. It is true that Central America was spared the bloody wars that characterized the struggles for independence in Mexico and Spanish South America. Central American Creoles did not seize control of the government following Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808. Peninsular rule continued in Guatemala City until 1821. And independence when it came was the result of an act of an assembly of notables who on 15 September 1821 accepted the fait accompli of Agustín de Iturbide's Plan of Iguala.