6 - Central America

Summary

The history of Central America during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions poses a conundrum. Between 1808 and 1821, the kingdom of Guatemala failed to display any sustained or widespread opposition to the Spanish colonial order. This apparent lack of engagement with the Atlantic revolutionary experience suggests that the colony was an anomaly in an empire that witnessed multiple examples of revolutionary sentiment. However, like the majority of the Spanish Empire, the isthmus did not confront the political chaos produced by the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy with either equanimity or unanimity. Here, as elsewhere, peninsular authorities hunkered down in a defensive stance, fearing both foreign subversion and creole pretensions. Here, as elsewhere, local grievances flared into ill-defined uprisings and regional interests gained ground against the metropolitan and colonial capitals. Here, as elsewhere, opportunists manipulated the crisis to advance personal agendas, while idealists sought to sow the seeds of real revolution among the wider population. Yet, here, as elsewhere, a popular majority failed to mobilize against the established order and preferred to either keep faith with colonial institutions or hold out hope for the possibility of imperial reform until independence became the only viable option.