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“A Sea of Indians”: Ethnic Conflict and the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1952

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Jim Handy
Jim Handy*
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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Extract

The Indian is an inexhaustable layer of exploitation and his best song is his taciturnity…. Guatemala is sad; a desperate, horrid, fearful sadness … a sad people living with a totally alien world within us. (Ernesto Juan Fonfrias, “Guatemala: un pueblo triste,” Diario de Centro América, Sept. 1, 1950.)

Fonfrias’ assessment of Guatemala in 1950 contains important clues to understanding the “revolution” from 1944 to 1954 and its overthrow. The revolution has been extensively studied; but most works have concentrated on American involvement in the overthrow of the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954 and have thus only provided us with limited views of the various conflicts that developed during the two revolutionary administrations (Juan José Arévalo, 1944-51, and Arbenz, 1951-54). This has most certainly been the case with studies of rural Guatemala during the revolution. Despite the importance of the agrarian reform initiated in 1952, the reform and the conflicts that it fostered are not clearly understood. Recent research has suggested, however, that the tensions were more complex and more deeply rooted in Guatemala's rural history than earlier works had indicated.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , October 1989 , pp. 189 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1989

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References

1 The best known studies of US involvement in the overthrow of the Arbenz government are: Schlesinger, S. and Kinzer, S. Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, (New York, 1983)Google Scholar; Immerman, R. The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, (Austin, 1982)Google Scholar; Bodenhiemer, Susanne Jonas Guatemala: plan piloto para el continente, (San José, Costa Rica, 1981)Google Scholar; de Soto, José Aybar Dependency and Intervention: The Case of Guatemala in 1954, (Boulder, 1978).Google Scholar

2 Handy, Jim “National Policy, Agrarian Reform, and the Corporate Community during the Guatemalan Revolution” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 30:4 (October 1988), 698–724 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Handy, Jim “Revolution and Reaction: National Policy and Rural Politics in Guatemala, 1944–1954,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1985)Google Scholar; Añoveros, Jesús García La reforma agraria del Arbenz en Guatemala, (Madrid, 1987).Google Scholar

3 See for example Wasserstrom, R. “Revolution in Guatemala: Peasants and Politics under Arbenz,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17(1975), 443–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Peláez, Severo Martínez La patria del criollo, (San José, Costa Rica, 1979), p. 535.Google Scholar

5 The best work on the Carrera period is being done by Woodward, R. L. Jr. See his “Population and Development in Guatemala, 1840–1870” SECOLAS Annual, 14 (1983)Google Scholar, unpaginated; and his “Liberalismo, conservadurismo y la actitud de los campesinos de la montaña hacia el gobierno de Guatemala, 1821–1850,” Anales de la academia de geografía e historia de Guatemala, 56 (1982), 195–210.

6 See McCreery, D. “Coffee and Class: The Structure of Development in Liberal Guatemala,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 56 (1976), 438–460 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and his “Debt Servitude in Rural Guatemala, 1876–1936,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 63 (1983), 735–759. For a discussion of the role of the military in one highland municipio see Carmack, R. “Barrios y los indígenas, el caso de Santiago Momostenango,” Estudios Sociales, 6 (1972), 52–73 Google Scholar; and his “Spanish-Indian Relations in Highland Guatemala, 1800–1944,” in MacLeod, M. and Wasserstrom, R. (eds.) Spaniards and Indians in Southeastern Mesoamerica, (Lincoln, 1983), pp. 215–253.Google Scholar

7 The numbers come from Enclosure number one in Despatch from the U.S. embassy in Guatemala to the State Department, May 1, 1945, General Records of the Department of State in the National Archives, decimal series S14. (Hereinafter Records of State.)

8 The most obvious examples of the continued adherence of reformers to Positivist ideals came during the 1920s when a new generation, the generation of 1920, began to challenge many of the prevailing political and social ideas in Guatemala. Despite this, and despite the fact that they frightened many in the Guatemalan elite, they advocated ideas little different from those prevalent a half-century earlier. The most noteworthy was Miguel Angel Asturias’ thesis for the Universidad de San Carlos in 1920 entitled El problema social del indio in which he argued that miscegenation was the best answer to the “problem.” His thesis became the most influential treatise on Indian policy for a whole generation.

9 Bunzel, Ruth Chichicastenango: A Guatemalan Village, (Locust Valley, 1952), p. 12.Google Scholar

10 For a discussion of the Carrera revolt see Ingersoll, H.M. “The War of the Mountains,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Washington, 1971)Google Scholar and Woodward, R.L. “Social Revolution in Guatemala: The Carrera Revolt,” in Applied Enlightenment: Nineteenth Century Liberalism, (New Orleans, 1972), pp. 43–70.Google Scholar

11 See Handy, Jim Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala, (Boston, 1985), pp. 69–73 Google Scholar; McCreery, D. “Land, Labor and Violence in Highland Guatemala: San Juan Ixcoy (Huehuetenango), 1893–1945,” The Americas, 45(1988), 237–249 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jackson Lincoln Steward, “An Ethnological Study of the Ixil Indians of the Guatemalan Highlands,” Microfilm Collection of Manuscripts on Middle American Cultural Anthropology, University of Chicago, number 1, 1945, p. 69.

12 See Redfield, Robert “Culture Contact without Conflict,” American Anthropologist, 41: 514–517 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sol Tax, “Notes on Santo Tomás Chichicastenango,” Microfilm Collection of Manuscripts on Middle American Cultural Anthropology, University of Chicago, number 16, 1947, p. 12. Also see Juan de Dios Rosales, “Notes on Aguacatán,” Microfilm Collection, 24, 1949, esp. p.32 and Melvin Tumin, “San Luis Jilotepeque: A Guatemalan Pueblo,” Microfilm Collection, 2, 1945, pp. 234–237.

13 This summary of Ubico’s resignation and Ponce’s attempts to stay in power are taken from a wide range of sources. For further discussion see Handy, , “Revolution and Reaction,” pp. 84–88.Google Scholar

14 Impartial, Oct. 24, 1944.

15 VI Censo de población, (1950), pp. 102–228; Censo agropecuario 1950, (Guatemala City, 1954), tomo 1, “Agricultura,” 28; tomo 3, “Población agricola,” 131; “Patzicia, Chimaltenango” number 91, of “Síntesis socio-económico de una comunidad indígena,” located in Archivo de materiales culturales, Instituto Indigenista Nacional, Guatemala City; and Carátulas para expedientes, Municipal Land section, Department of Chimaltenango, located in the Archivos generales del Instituto nacional de transformación agraria, Guatemala City.

16 Impartial, Nov. 30, 1944.

17 See Handy, , “Revolution and Reaction,” pp. 196–198, for further discussion.Google Scholar

18 Diario de sesiones: asamblea constituyente de 1945, (Feb. 24, 1945), 503-519; and "Constitución 1945" Article 83, Article 137, paragraph 15.

19 “Lo que son las misiones culturales,” Revista de la Guardia Civil, 2, (1946), 230–231.

20 “Constitución, 1945,” articles 55, 58 (par.2), 59.

21 Schlesinger, Jorge Revolución comunista: Guatemala en peligro, (Guatemala City, 1946), p. 6.Google Scholar

22 El Impartial, May 11, 1945; VI Censo de población, p. 101; Censo agropecuario, 1950, tomo 3, “Población agricola,” 138.

23 For workers’ federation statement see Imparcial, May 6, 1945. Quotes taken from Impartial, June 1, 1945.

24 Censo agropecuario, 1950, tomo 3, “Población agricola,” 137; VI Censo de población, pp. 100, 111; Imparcial, Aug. 26, 28, 1947.

25 On San Andrés Iztapa see Imparcial, Nov. 30, 1944. On Olapa see Imparcial, Sept. 24, 1945. On Montúfar see Imparcial, Feb. 25, 1945. On Sansur see Imparcial, July 27, 1946. On Comotán and Villa Canales see US counsel to State, Jan-. 25, 1946, Records of State, decimal series 714.

26 Imparcial, June 2, 18 and July 10, 1945.

27 Carátulas para expedientes, Alta Verapaz, finca Guaxcux, and Baja Verapaz, finca Chipacapox, Archivos generales del INTA. Censo agropecuario, tomo 3, “Población agrícola,” p. 118.

28 Imparcial, Aug. 2, 1946. For the quote by García Granados see memorandum between him and Assistant Secretary of State, Spruile Braden, May 29, 1947, Records of State, p. 714.

29 Imparcial, Jan 14, 1947; Imparcial, April 7, 1947.

30 Quoted in N. Stines, secretary of U.S. embassy to State, Dec. 9, 1946, Records of State, decimal series 814.

31 Stines to State, Jan. 27, 1947, Records of State, 814; Imparcial, Jan. 2, 3, 4, 1947.

32 VI Censo de población, 1950, 99, 224; Censo agropecuario, 1950, tomo 3 p. 136.

33 Imparcial, Jan. 2, 5–8, 16, 29 and Feb. 3–4, 1948.

34 M.K. Wells, secretary of U.S. embassy to State, Feb. 14, 1951, Records of State, p. 714; CIA Research Reports, reel 5, SR-46, July 27, 1950, p. 21.

35 Imparcial, May 20, 1948.

36 Imparcial, Oct. 25, 1951.

37 For further discussion see Handy, Jim “Resurgent Democracy and the Guatemalan Military,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 18 (1987), 383–408 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Revolution and Reaction,” 405–412.

38 See for example Torres-Riyas, E. “Crisis y conyuntura crítica: la caída de Arbenz y los contratiempos de la revolución burguesa,” Revista Mexicana de sociología, 41 (1979), 297–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar