Moving down both the physical and chronological map from Standing Rock, there's a little-known, extremely high-impact historical occurrence involving Salvadoran Native Americans, extreme oppression and a small insurrection that led to the massacre of about 90% of the Pipil population in the country.
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| Excuse the bad quality, the picture comes straight from 1932 |
Some context:
But first, some keywords:
Pipiles: A Mayan subgroup, the original inhabitants of the country
Mestizos: Direct mix between a Spanish colonizer and a Pipil
Ejidos: Small plots of land that weren't completely ruled by the great landowners, but completely the property of the Pipiles
Okay, now to it.
It's 1932 in El Salvador, the smallest country of Central America:
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| The small brown country in the West. |
No, wait. Let's rewind a bit more--
1524-1821 (Yes. This far back)
The Colonial period in El Salvador was an agriculture-based economy, and heavily stratified in respect to the "amount" of Spanish ascendence (proportional to Native American) that one had.
Simply put; the more Spanish a person, the more power and money one had. Nothing new here- this has been a historical and contemporary occurrence globally.
El Salvador obtained its independence from Spain in 1821, and the country went from being a colony to being a proper state... And with that, the lands that belonged to the Spanish Crown were up for grabs. And not for the indigenous populations, exactly.
You see, these lands were given dirt cheap... to the already wealthy Mestizos, but weren't available to be bought by the Pipiles at all. Meaning that the lands which had been for public consumption and work passed to the hands of a select few (14 families, in fact). However, the Pipiles were spared some; there were small parcels of land (ejidos) that they could work on and wouldn't have to pay tribute to the lords of the land.
Even the ejidos were taken from the Pipiles, by the new "Ley de Extinción de los Ejidos" (Law for the Extinction of the Ejidos), passed by the then-president Rafael Zaldívar (he also passed a law banning any African, African-American or Arab people from entering the country. Charming).
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| Charming |
Anyway, this guy. He established that ejidos were to be dissolved and integrated to the larger plots of land which belonged to the big landowners. Of course, now the land truly belonged completely to the aforementioned fourteen families... and the indigenous population was reduced to a kindly-worded form of slavery-- complete with communal currency and forced labor.
Let's do this.
It's December of 1931 and the president in power, Enrique Araujo, is overthrown in a coup led by his vice president, Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez:
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| Out with the old... |
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| ... in with the new |
This made the oligarchy quite happy, as Araujo was a firm proposer of a severe Agricultural reform. As you might imagine, it didn't make the rest of the population very happy.
On the night of January 22, 1932, the rebel peasant armies took to the centers of major rural districts, led by Augusto Farabundo Martí, of the Salvadoran Communist Party. In total, the so-called "Peasant Rebellion" lasted three days, and managed to interrupt supply lines from the rural hubs to the cities.
The number of casualties attributed directly to the uprising (perpetrated by the rebels) was less than 100.
The government retaliated to the full extent of their power: estimates range anywhere between 10- and 40,000 peasants killed by government forces. A bit louder for the people in the back;
Casualties that were the direct responsibility of the rebels: less than 100
Casualties that were direct retaliation from the government towards the whole lower strata of the country: anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000
And these weren't all part of the rebellion, either.
There was a "raze" doctrine implemented; any individual that fit the description of the rebels was to be shot or hanged.
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| Like this. |
or this.
No government or military officials were ever prosecuted for the crimes.
Why does it matter?
Well, for one, the people killed were mostly Pipil. Which means that, for the most part, the country was completely left without the strong cultural ties that had consolidated the oppressed social class into a united identity. Without these historical ties, society was left suspended in a limbo of "what if"? Where there was a cyclical oppressive power dynamic between the military, government and landowners, and the rest of the civil population... Which eventually culminated in one of the longest civil wars ever waged in America (the continent); from 1980 to 1992.
However, this post will have to be split in half-- I needed to set the precedent and historical bases for the contemporary civil issues part, which will come the next post.
See you next time!
