A WAR OF WORDS: MANUEL MONTÚFAR, ALEJANDRO

MARURE, AND THE POLITICS OF

HISTORY IN GUATEMALATIMOTHY HAWKINS

In 1832, Manuel Montúfar y Coronado published Memorias para la historiade la Revolución de Centro América (Memoirs concerning the history of the

Central American Revolution), popularly known as the Memorias de Jalapadue to its place of publication. This was the first work to attempt to analyzethe creation of the new nation of Central America. A year later, Dr. MarianoGálvez, the reformist governor of Guatemala, commissioned another history,envisioned as an analysis of the struggle for independence and the earlynation-building process. Gálvez entrusted the latter commission to a youngscholar and government official, Dr. Alejandro Marure, and in order to com-plement and support this study, the Guatemalan government simultaneouslyreleased official documents pertaining to the postindependence period in a publication entitled Documentos para la historia de las revoluciones deCentro-América (Documents for the history of the Central American revolu-tions).1 Ostensibly, Marure’s Bosquejo histórico de las revoluciones de Cen-troamérica, desde 1811 hasta 1834 (Historical sketch of the Central Americanrevolutions from 1811 to 1834) and the Documentos would together serve “tofix the truth of the deeds of the Revolution.”2

The early 1830s was a time of intense social, political, and economic exper-imentation within Guatemala that followed an even more turbulent firstdecade of independence. Here, as in the rest of Latin America, the precipitousend of 300 years of colonial status produced a wide variety of strategies and

Timothy Hawkins is an assistant professor of history at Indiana State University.1Miriam Wiliford, “Las luces y la civilización: The Social Reforms of Mariano Gálvez,” in

Applied Enlightenment: Nineteenth Century Liberalism, 1830–1839 (New Orleans, La., 1972),38–39. See also Lorenzo Montúfar’s prologue to Alejandro Marure, Bosquejo histórico de las revoluciones de Centroamérica, desde 1811 hasta 1834 (Guatemala, 1960), 29–31.

2Quoted in Wiliford, “Las luces,” 39.

blueprints for rapid national development. In such an atmosphere a preoc-cupation with the immediate past among nation builders intent on ensuringa better future for their country might appear premature. Yet, it was the logicalculmination of an emerging political and ideological dispute within theCreole (Americans of European descent) governing class over the organiza-tion and identity of the new Central America, a country created out of theformer Kingdom of Guatemala and encompassing the states of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.3

During the initial debate over the future of the region after the collapse ofSpanish rule in 1821, the traditional Guatemalan landowning and merchantelite used its tremendous influence to push the colony toward annexation bythe Mexican empire of Agustín Iturbide. The collapse of this enterprise by1823, however, discredited this local nobility and allowed a younger, moreradical element to play a greater role in the political and economic life of whatwould become the Central American Federation. As the fight for powerbetween these groups heated up during the mid-1820s, two overtly incom-patible political philosophies began to emerge that would dominate regionalpolitics for more than half a century.

The established Guatemalan elite and their traditionalist allies from acrossthe social spectrum became known as the Conservatives—serviles (syco-phants) to their opponents—and were united in favor of moderate change,the retention of colonial institutions, the preservation of a hierarchical andcorporate social order, and a centralized political structure, rooted in theformer colonial, now national, capital of Guatemala City. On the other side ofthe political divide were the Liberals, or fiebres (hotheads). This group drewits strength from the heretofore disenfranchised urban middle classes, pro-fessionals, and provincial elites and promoted a complete break with theSpanish colonial legacy through the incorporation of progressive Westerninnovations and institutions; an emphasis on Enlightenment values such asindividual rights, liberty, and equality; and the establishment of a federalsystem of government with all states operating as equals. Although indepen-dence was achieved peacefully, the growing political polarization in Central

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3The most important secondary sources for this period include R. L. Woodward,“Economicand Social Origins of the Guatemalan Political Parties (1773–1823),” Hispanic American Histor-ical Review (hereinafter HAHR) 45 (1965): 544–66; Mario Rodríguez, The Cádiz Experiment inCentral America (Berkeley, Calif., 1978); Miles Wortman, Government and Society in CentralAmerica, 1680–1840 (New York, 1982); and J. C. Pinto Soria, Centroamérica, de la colonia alEstado nacional (1800–1840) (Guatemala, 1983).

America caused the early stages of nation building to be characterized byextreme and bitter factionalism. This trend eventually led to three years ofviolent civil war (1826–29) between the Conservative-dominated federal gov-ernment, based in and backed by Guatemala, and a coalition of Liberal stategovernments led by El Salvador.

Although the Liberals won a decisive military victory in this conflict, theirpolitical control over both Guatemala and the federation remained tenuous.Thus, in 1832 when an exiled member of the defeated Conservative govern-ment, Manuel Montúfar y Coronado, published his history, he opened a newfront in the ideological struggle between the two sides. While the Memoriaswas not a particularly controversial interpretation if removed from the heatedpolitical environment of the times, the political persuasion of its author—andthus the work itself—served as a direct challenge to the Liberal identity thatthe Gálvez administration had begun to foster in Guatemala. Therefore, tolegitimize Liberal rule and encourage patriotic unity behind the Liberal cause,Gálvez sought an alternate history that would take control of the nation’s pastby creating a Liberal-oriented national myth. By providing Marure with com-plete access to government archives, encouraging the distribution of theBosquejo histórico around the state, and publishing documentary corrobora-tion for its assertions, Gálvez encouraged the political manipulation of historyin the hope that it would justify the Liberal agenda and at the same time dis-credit his Conservative opponents.

The extent to which the Latin American nation builders valued history asan important tool in the construction and legitimization of independentstates cannot be overestimated. For most national historians of the nineteenthcentury, the Independence Period offered an unparalleled opportunity toaddress the birth of their respective nations from the perspective of a dra-matic, turbulent, and heroic transformation from colony to nation-state. InMexico, chroniclers such as Fray Servando Teresa de Mier and Carlos MaríaBustamante created founding fathers out of the defeated rebels MiguelHidalgo and José María Morelos. Similarly, in the South American republicsthe great liberators José de San Martín, Simón Bolívar, and Bernardo O’Higgins became national icons through the independence histories ofBenjamín Vicuña MacKenna, Miguel Luis Amunátegui, Bartolomé Mitre, andothers. Because of these writings, events such as Hidalgo’s initial call to arms,the Grito de Dolores, San Martín’s march across the Andes to liberate Chile in1817, and Bolívar’s reconquest of Venezuela, the 1813 Campaña Admirable,assumed legendary status and demonstrated the power and potential ofnational and popular unity to the citizens of these new nations. And, as the

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title of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s classic work on independence-eraArgentina, Civilization and Barbarism: The Life of Juan Facundo Quiroga(popularly known as Facundo), demonstrates, these accounts were more thanjust histories of the transition from colony to nation. They were often instru-mental in the promotion, projection, and development of a sense of nationalidentity (albeit one constructed almost exclusively by westernized, Creoleelites) among the newly liberated populations of Latin America.4

Although Central American elites would have to wait until 1832 for the firsthistorical analysis of their own independence, they recognized the practicaluses of historical inquiry as much as their counterparts to the north and the south. For a generation raised and educated during the Enlightenment,history served as an agent of civilization. It brought order to the past,clarified the present, and by providing a variety of examples of past behavior,allowed individuals to choose the optimal path for their future. In additionto improving individual lives, history also smoothed the way for general political, scientific, and technological modernization. As Marure argued,history

makes us compatriots to all the heroes of the world, citizens of all nations, menof all centuries . . . By studying the annals of the world, the genius, the customs,the religion of each people, the differences in their respective institutions and the errors or the wisdom of their legislation, we will know which should bethe basis for good government. . . . [History] presents to us the scale ofhuman knowledge; the successive gradations through which men have passedbefore elevating themselves to perfection; discoveries that have served as a bane to their different systems; the methods that have been employed in order to accelerate their advances; the genius that has given impulse to theirprogress.5

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4Sarmiento’s impact on Argentine national identity is discussed in Tulio Halperín Donghi etal., eds., Sarmiento: Author of a Nation (Berkeley, Calif., 1994). The Chilean context is addressedby Gertrude Matyoka Yeager in Barros Arana’s Historia Jeneral de Chile: Politics, History, andNational Identity (Fort Worth, Tex., 1981). For Peru, see Mark Thurner, From Two Republics toOne Divided: Contradictions of Postcolonial Nationmaking in Andean Peru (Durham, N.C.,1997). For a comprehensive analysis of the first national histories of Mexico and South America,see D. A. Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State1492–1867 (Cambridge, Mass., 1991).

5Quoted in Jack Ray Thomas, Biographical Dictionary of Latin American Historians andHistory (Westport, Conn., 1984), 21.

In underdeveloped Central America rapid progress was viewed as a par-ticular Liberal concern. By offering blueprints for national development andcase studies for the implementation of political, social, and economic inno-vations, history could work as a guide for the region’s entry into the modernage. Equally important, history served as a means of national advertisementand promotion. Chafing under the effects of three centuries of colonial iso-lation, Central American Liberals hoped that the publication and distribu-tion of national histories would entice foreign developers and immigrants totake advantage of the region’s resources and potential. This attitude is mostobvious in a work that Marure undertook later in life entitled Memoriahistórica sobre el canal de Nicaragua (A historical account of the Nicaraguancanal) on the viability of an interoceanic canal through the isthmus. Thus, asa means to further individual welfare, scientific modernization, and links withthe West, the study of history soon became an integral part of the Liberalreform program.6

These important benefits aside, Gálvez made the decision to give officialsponsorship to Marure’s Bosquejo histórico because he understood the fun-damental value of history as a political weapon. At the time, the concept of thehistorian as political partisan was common throughout Latin America.7

Perhaps the best examples of this tendency are the aforementioned Sarmiento,who later served as president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, and LucasAlamán, a leading Mexican intellectual and statesman who held ministerialpositions in a number of conservative administrations during the 1830s and1840s before writing his influential five-volume Historia de Méjico. As well-educated, well-traveled members of elite society, such men often played majorroles in the independence movements of their respective countries and servedat all levels of government during the nation-building process that followedliberation from Spain. The practice of history offered them an unsurpassedopportunity to justify past actions, promote old allies, excoriate opponents,and influence present and future generations for political advantage.

While the use of history in the Latin American nation-building processcould be interpreted as a constructive form of political manipulation of the

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6Ibid., 24. More detail on the Gálvez/Marure program can be obtained from Héctor Humberto Samayoa Guevara, La ensenanza de la historia en Guatemala, desde 1832 hasta 1852 (Guatemala, 1959).

7See E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century(Berkeley, Calif., 1983), 35–50; also Thomas, Biographical Dictionary, 3–10.

past, an essential ingredient in the building of a unifying national myth incountries with no clear identity and many social divisions, the trend could alsobe destructive. To the long-term detriment of the historiographic tradition inCentral America, the political appropriation of history early in the nationalperiod forced its first historians into the uncomfortable space between seriousscholarship and political propaganda and served only to intensify political andsocial divisions. Upon its publication, Montúfar’s Memorias de Jalapa imme-diately became the guiding light, in the words of the historian William Griffith, for those “responsible elements of the population [who] were forcedto endure a period of domination by a fanatical and power-mad minority ofinnovators whose intemperate program of change threatened to destroy theinstitutional structure of society.”8 For Liberals, on the other hand, Marure’sBosquejo histórico underscored the “struggle between the enlightened advo-cates of change and the obscurantist defenders of an archaic order; betweenthe democratic proponents of federation and the aristocratic perpetrators ofcentralism.”9 Even though both these historians shared a moderate, Enlight-enment-based political philosophy, Marure became the champion of the“Liberal” version of Central American independence and ultimately theprimary source for generations of historians of the period. The “Conservative”Montúfar, however, was dismissed as a reactionary for his alternative per-spective on the formative years of the Central American Federation and all butforgotten following the Liberal Reform of the 1870s. An analysis of the processwhereby these historians became political partisans will thus illuminate adefining characteristic of nineteenth-century Central America: the develop-ment of a historical tradition steeped in ideological extremism.

Manuel Montúfar y Coronado was born on 26 June 1791, into the most rar-ified level of the Central American Creole elite, a Guatemalan-based oligarchyknown as the Family.10 Led by the marqués de Aycinena, who was the only

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8William J. Griffith, “The Historiography of Central America since 1830,” HAHR 40 (November 1960): 550.

9Ibid., 550.

10Biographical information cited in Thomas, Biographical Dictionary, 255–56; Ernesto Chin-chilla Aguilar, prologue to Manuel Montúfar, Memorias para la historia de la Revolución deCentro América (Memorias de Jalapa), (Guatemala, 1963), 1:5–14; José Arzú, introduction toManuel Montúfar, Memorias para la historia de la Revolución de Centro América (Memorias deJalapa), 1:15–27. See also Edgar Juan Aparicio y Aparicio, “Los Montúfar,” Anales de la Acade-mia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala 56 (1982), 303–19.

titled aristocrat in the Kingdom of Guatemala, this clan had developed anunchallenged monopoly over local political, economic, and social power bythe end of the colonial period. Despite his illustrious pedigree, however,details of his early years remain elusive. Montúfar was a widely read and intel-lectually precocious youth who taught himself Latin, French, and English. Ahighly talented writer as well, he first achieved renown as an editor and con-tributor to a progressive newspaper, El editor constitucional, thereby formingpart of the group of radical, pro-independence partisans known as the cacos(thieves) that also included Pedro Molina, José María Castilla, and José Francisco Barrundia, all future Liberal partisans.11 Following independencein 1821, Montúfar served in a wide variety of political roles at the state andfederal level, from secretary of government to minister of war. During theseyears he also found time to help publish a newspaper, El indicador. In 1825he won a seat in the Guatemalan Constituent Assembly, served as its presi-dent, and contributed to the drafting of the state’s first constitution.

During the first years of the Central American Federation, however, aspolitical lines between the Liberal fiebres and Conservative serviles sharp-ened, those who found themselves in the ill-defined moderate center, such asMontúfar, were forced to choose sides. In the 1826 showdown between the Liberals and President Manuel José Arce, which precipitated the Civil War, Montúfar allied with the president and quickly became one of his closestadvisors, in addition to serving as the governor of the rebellious westernprovince of Quetzaltenango. As a colonel in the Guatemalan cavalry and Arce’ssecond-in-command during the first invasion of El Salvador, he also assumeda military role in the war. In 1829 Montúfar was captured by Liberal forceswhile leading an attack on San Salvador. Exiled along with the other leadingConservatives, he spent the rest of his life in Mexico, dying there on 18 May1844.

From the Liberal perspective, by the time of his exile Montúfar had solidlyand unequivocally established his Conservative record as a result of his linkswith the Guatemalan aristocracy, his break with the cacos, his high profile inArce’s failed presidency, and his armed opposition to the Liberals in the CivilWar. The appearance of the Memorias de Jalapa only two years after his exileseemed in this context a petty and biased attempt to rewrite the past and

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11For a revealing glimpse into Montúfar’s life and his relationship with the cacos, see ArturoTaracena Arriola, “Juicio politico sobre Manuel Montúfar y Coronado: Un esbozo biográficoatribuido a Pedro Molina,” Mesoamérica 28 (December 1994): 337–46. The split between Montúfar and his former friends was so bitter that many branded him a traitor.

torment his victorious opponents. In fact, the Memorias was not an apologiafor the Conservative cause but rather an attempt to come to terms with thepolitical polarization that threatened the future of the federation. A passion-ate supporter of Central American independence, a constitutionalist andpolitical moderate, an enlightened intellectual, and a keen observer of hissociety, Manuel Montúfar suddenly found himself a persona non grata in thenation he helped build. Using his own career and experiences as evidence, hewrote the Memorias at least in part as a warning to his countrymen, an actthat earned him the undying enmity of the Liberals.

The Memorias de Jalapa opens with a preface, an advertencia del autor, inwhich Montúfar sets out his particular perspective on the value and viabilityof writing contemporary history. Though he considers himself impartial, heacknowledges his limitations as a historian in exile, resulting from his lack ofdirect access to sources, and attacks the concept of historical objectivity as anunattainable ideal for any historian. In this case Montúfar recognizes that forhis memoir to have historical value he needs to be overt in his willingness tocriticize both sides of the political debate. Removed from the partisan battle-fields of his native land, he has now had the time to reflect on the forces thatcaused his exile:

[D]uring a time of civil discord no impartial man can be found . . . and this isbecause while the actors live it is impossible to get them to agree with the judg-ment of their fellow men, especially when their own intentions are examined.If historians divide themselves by system or party when judging the deeds of athousand years ago, it cannot be strange that while the actors are alive they writeapologies, calumnies, and under this pretext accusations, injuries, and diatribes.. . . An exact and truthful history can never please those who provided the mate-rials that form its argument; but the truth should never be sacrificed to hatredor flattery. The Memorias will not please any of the parties among which theRepublic of Central America is divided, and this is its only merit.12

The interest Montúfar takes in the process of political polarization per-vades every part of his memoirs. He begins his historical analysis of theperiod in 1820 with the division of criollo society between Pedro Molina’sradical, pro-independence cacos (thieves) and the Honduran José del Valle’smore moderate bacos (drunks) and emphasizes the deep tension and hostil-

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12Montúfar, Memorias, 1:30.

ity that resulted in the divisive, yet evocative, political labels that only imper-fectly characterized the two groups. Valle’s party won the first elections underthe restored Spanish Constitution of 1812 by “calling itself the popular party,for it took as a pretext and a goal to combat the aristocracy, or what from thatpoint was called the spirit of the Family [Montúfar’s italics].”13 Neither groupwas technically popular, for both drew their primary support from the upper-class Creoles and Spaniards. Nevertheless, it had been the radical cacos’ tem-porary alliance with the oligarchy that gave Valle the opportunity to employthe term aristocracy or Family as a pejorative, a development that particu-larly irks Montúfar.

The growing trend toward political polarization in Central America wasinflamed by the failed annexation to Mexico (1821–23). Promoted by the Aycinena oligarchy, the enterprise found support from a wide range ofleading figures, including Mariano Gálvez and José del Valle. However,Montúfar and the more fervent pro-independence cacos remained in opposition. When the Mexican Empire collapsed, its supporters found them-selves temporarily discredited and the task of political reorganization wasassumed by Molina’s radicals, who dominated the provisional governmentthat was organized in July 1823. Describing the fierce debates within theassembly over the constitution and nature of the new Central Americannation, Montúfar relates how the struggle for political power destroyed oldalliances, forged new ones, and stereotyped the resulting parties so much thatcompromise, tolerance, and constructive, nonpartisan policies became all butimpossible:

The fiebres held the majority in the beginning; the serviles, through the con-version of many deputies, dominated the remaining sessions to the close ofthe assembly. Imperialists, Mexicanists, and anti-independence exaltadostransformed themselves into frenetic, accusatory fiebres and enemies of thosewho had always been republicans and absolute supporters of independence; andthe latter for their part accused the fiebres of demagoguery, disorganization, andanarchism. The adoption of this [federal] form of government branded theparties and divided them even more between federalists and centralists. Themost intimate friendships ceased to exist, and new ones were formed throughthe bond of political opinion.14

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13Ibid., 61.

14Ibid., 82.

While one’s background, regional identity, economic status, and positionon independence and annexation to Mexico could tell a great deal about polit-ical persuasion, with the promulgation of the Constitution of 1824 politicalclassification was effectively determined by the issue of federalism. Liberalsargued from a strong states’ rights position, taking the view that a decentral-ized system would be more progressive, more considerate of local and indi-vidual liberties, and more of a defense against the powerful interests of theGuatemalan oligarchy, which they saw as intrinsically reactionary, powerhungry, and anticonstitutional. While there were undoubtedly some membersof the Family who longed for a return to colonialism, Montúfar was only oneof many fervent constitutionalists and centralists among the Guatemalan elite who held legitimate concerns about the viability of a federal form ofgovernment.

Convinced that the new constitution of the Central American Federation“would have seemed a code of anarchy even to a society of angels or pas-sionless men,” due to its framers’ excessive idealism and dependence onforeign inspiration, Montúfar argued that the federal system it set up wouldbe incapable of solving the problems of divisiveness, regionalism, and appealsto emotion so characteristic of national politics.15 In his account, however, hedoes not ignore the great achievements of this first constitutional assembly:

With the decree of July 1, 1823, the foundation of a popular, representative formof government was established; legal equality, separation of powers, and unlim-ited freedom of the press; religious tolerance established through privateworship; the abolition of slavery and the manumission of slaves; liberal immi-gration laws; commercial tariffs and mercantilist franchises to strengthen andprotect them; the regulation of national finance; the designation of federalincome and the separation of that of the states; experimentation with a poll taxand a just foreign loan; the Nicaraguan canal project; open and formal diplo-matic relations with the European nations and many of those of America; theinitiative for the American Congress in Panama; setting the foundations for theestablishment of public credit and arranging many of the branches ofthe administration under the provisional government and the Constitution; allthis resulted from the first experience of the Central Americans in the difficultenterprise of constituting a nation and giving it laws.16

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15Ibid., 97.

16Ibid., 98–99.

Montúfar favored a strong, centralized government for Central America, pri-marily to combat the centrifugal nature of society and politics that threatenedto pull the new nation apart at the seams. However, as a child of the Enlight-enment, he recognized as well as his Liberal, federalist opponents the im-portance of individual and economic freedoms, constitutionalism, andmodernization. In the actions of some of the leading nation builders at thetime, most notably José Francisco Cordova, Montúfar saw the outlines of amovement that attempted to strike a similar balance between the hardeningLiberal and Conservative positions, one that

wanted moderation and order, prepared, gradual, and non-alarming innova-tions: [these moderados] hoped that before the new was created all of the oldwould not be destroyed. They hoped that, while the new laws took effect andwon respect by establishing interests and customs and the old laws were ren-dered useless, the moral authority of religion would not be broken in the inter-est of destroying abuses. . . . They did not advocate either persecutions, oroutrages, humiliating memories, or exclusive ones at any time after the organi-zation of the independent nation.17

The first national elections under the Constitution of 1824 and the irreg-ular victory of Arce in the race for president quickly dashed any hopes thatthe political parties would retreat from their intense competition, however.Although elected with considerable Liberal support, Arce was in fact a mod-erate who found it difficult to promote radical Liberal reforms and thereforebegan to turn to the Guatemalan Conservatives for advice and assistance.Despite the new president’s readiness to act as a moderator between the twoparties, neither side, according to Montúfar, was willing to compromise. Infact, Montúfar suggests that Arce’s efforts to reach out to both parties onlyexacerbated their mutual hostility, thereby precipitating the descent into civilwar in 1826. The president,

striving for impartiality in public affairs, spoke to each party the language oftheir interests in private. This position was as delicate as it was false, becauseone can only walk a certain distance with each foot in diverging paths; ingeneral, Arce had a difficult task in managing the exaltados and the moderados.

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17Manuel Montúfar,“Recuerdos y anécdotas,” in Memorias para la historia de Centro Americapor un guatemalteco (Jalapa, Mexico, 1832 and 1837), 51–52.

. . . The exaltados abandoned him, because they wanted to possess and domi-nate him exclusively, and because the parties operated according to the princi-ple that “he who is not my friend is my enemy . . .”18

Following a detailed military account of the Civil War, a conflict presentedas an anticonstitutional assault on federal powers in favor of state sover-eignty, Montúfar turns again to his primary theme, the evils of factionalism,in his review of the postwar reconstruction. As the all-powerful leader of theLiberal cause and the man best positioned to restrain the vindictiveness,rancor, and self-interest of the conquering army, Francisco Morazán comesunder intense criticism in the Memorias. Montúfar regards Morazán as aleader of great potential, noting that the Honduran general had a rare oppor-tunity to rebuild the federation on a stronger foundation in 1829 with theactive assistance of both parties. Instead, Montúfar writes that the conquerordisplayed the worst signs of partisanship by filling the provisional Liberaladministration with corrupt, self-serving followers who had cultivated an intense hatred of Conservatives and were intent on creating a governmentof vengeance. By allowing the sack of Guatemala City, Morazán unleashedthose who “believe in taking revenge on those guilty of oppressing the countryby impoverishing it; proving therefore that they did not take up arms either for liberty or for the law, but rather in order to destroy all its riches, allits fortunes.”19

Through his reputation and supreme military command Morazánmanaged to stabilize the political situation in Central America for a shorttime, although, as Montúfar points out, even his election as president in 1830failed to provide a solution to the federalist/centralist controversy or bringunity to political life:

The deeply-felt sentiment concerning the insufficiency of the political institu-tions began to be an object of discussion . . . The military victory had put anend to the war, but regional and local hatreds could not be extinguished as longas the States which triumphed over Guatemala and the Guatemalans who helpeddefeat their own countrymen remained unsatisfied, and those who resisted theinvasion but were subjugated remained unpersuaded.20

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18Montúfar, Memorias, 1:105.

19Montúfar, Memorias, 2:202.

20Ibid., 278.

With the states victorious in the efforts to establish sovereignty within thefederal system, the federation as it had been organized in 1824 ceased to beviable. Despite his belief that Central America, out of all the former Spanishcolonies, offered the fewest obstacles to “the establishment of a free, econom-ical, and moderate political organization,” Montúfar makes a powerful argu-ment in the Memorias that the potential of independence had beencompromised by a poorly directed revolution and a weak constitution, whoseframers had become too concerned with partisan conflicts to promote thenational interests.21 In a blanket condemnation of the nation-building processthroughout Latin America, he writes:

It is a calamity common to all the Hispanic-American republics that the con-gresses which come and go are not considered representative of the nation butrather of the party which dominates them. . . . Our assemblies are frequentlypreoccupied with repealing whatever their predecessors had accomplished. . . .The omnipotence of the congresses is the primary cause of the evils which afflictthe Spanish republics, for the tyranny of the legislature alternates with thetyranny of the military during turbulent times. The political constitutions havenot been founded on customs or traditions, but on general theories acceptedwithout examination and by the force of the prevailing interests of the moment.22

From Montúfar’s perspective, the inability of the Liberals to move beyondpartisan politics threatened the long-term survival of the Central AmericanFederation. With remarkable foresight, six years prior to the rise of RafaelCarrera and the Revolt of the Mountain, which marked the beginning of theend of the federal experiment, he writes:

The results of the manner in which Central America ended its Civil War havenot produced any advantage except the temporary suspension of hostilities thatsooner or later will be renewed. The victors believed themselves secure with theexpulsion and impoverishment of all who could oppose them; but they can’tprotect themselves from each other; they don’t consider the opinion of thepeople of the State of Guatemala, who, say what you may, find themselves in aviolent situation, recognize what they have lost, and do not see the happinesswhich they have been promised. The personal well being of the public official

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21Ibid., 282.

22Ibid., 288–89.

does not correspond to the well being of the people; these are the ones whoresent the evils of war and the poverty inherent in their means of subsistence.The people can eat neither theories nor beautiful principles; they rememberother times, they cry for them, and when they see a banner of opposition beingraised they run to it hoping it will bring back to them what they have lost.23

In the end, searching for an alternative to such a dire fate, Montúfar pro-poses to the Liberal-dominated government of Central America that the com-peting parties unify according to their many shared interests, for

no administration composed exclusively of one of the two parties can benational, nor cease to be vengeful and persecutory; at the individual level just,equitable, and generous sentiments can be found; but the group fosters exclu-sivity and exclusive sentiments cannot be national nor produce the peace andorder sought by all. . . . In order to remain in power, those who at present dom-inate the republic need to reform the laws, be truthfully tolerant, and notpretend that what has never endured in any country is in fact eternal—that is,a party that, by democratic means, hopes to exclusively govern a nation full ofdiverse opinions and interests. . . . This would truly be the triumph of reasonover passion.24

Yet, the nature of the political struggle in Guatemala caused the Gálvezadministration to view Montúfar’s Memorias as a direct challenge to its legit-imacy rather than an insightful analysis of the destructiveness of partisan pol-itics. In response Gálvez made a Liberal-oriented history of the IndependencePeriod a priority of his government. Although the resulting Bosquejo históricoby Alejandro Marure did not in fact help solidify Liberal rule in CentralAmerica, by carrying the political battle with the Conservatives deep into the realm of history it did contribute to the long-term discrediting of the Conservative cause in general and Montúfar in particular.

While Marure lacked the prestige of familial ties to the Guatemalan nobil-ity, he nevertheless was born into an upper-class Creole household ofGuatemala City on 28 February 1806.25 The son of a prominent intellectual

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23Ibid., 293.

24Ibid., 296–97, 299.

25Thomas, Biographical Dictionary, 241–43; Ernesto Chinchilla Aguilar, prologue to Bosquejohistórico de las revoluciones de Centroamérica, desde 1811 hasta 1834, by Alejandro Marure,

and victim of the independence struggle, Marure was a dedicated student and scholar who received a degree in philosophy from the Seminario Concil-iar and who studied law at the Universidad de San Carlos. Following inde-pendence he entered government service at the Ministry of Foreign Relationsand served under José Francisco Córdova, before resigning at the outbreak of the Civil War. A Liberal supporter, Marure was elected to the NationalAssembly in 1831 and, a year later, was made chair of universal history at theAcademia de Estudios of Guatemala City. Increasingly involved in the imple-mentation of liberal reforms under the Gálvez administration, he received thecommission to write the Bosquejo histórico in 1834 and saw the first editioncome out three years later. With the fall of the federation in 1839, Marure mod-erated his political beliefs and became a close advisor to the popular caudilloand president of Guatemala, Rafael Carrera, serving on his Council of Stateuntil 1849. Primarily a scholar, however, he continued to publish numeroushistorical and legal treatises on Guatemala that earned him recognition as “theloftiest practitioner of the Guatemalan historiographical tradition” and “themost sublime representative of the cultural atmosphere in Guatemala duringthe first years of the republic.”26

The challenge of the Memorias de Jalapa animates the Bosquejo históricofrom beginning to end. Marure prefaces his history with an indirect responseto Montúfar’s introduction in which he contradicts the assertion that con-temporary histories are invariably full of prejudice and therefore unreliable.While recognizing the effects of political partisanship on daily life and notingits impact on his own career, Marure remains convinced of his own objectiv-ity and by extension that of his Bosquejo. Unlike other efforts, which herefrains from naming, this work bases its impartiality on its close ties to themajor figures and documents of the period:

As long as the interests and passions that have produced the revolution stillremain strong, it would be far too presumptuous and rash of me not to writewith circumspection. . . . I have not proposed for myself any other goal inundertaking this work than that of forming a methodical and fastidious extractof a multitude of documents compiled after much expense and energy, and

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(Guatemala, 1960), 1:5–23; R. L. Woodward, Rafael Carrera and the Emergence of the Republicof Guatemala, 1821–1871 (Athens, 1993), 186–88; see also Joanne Weaver, “Liberal Historian orConservative Thinker? Alejandro Marure and Guatemalan History, 1821–1851” (master’s thesis,Tulane University, 1975).

26Chinchilla Aguilar, prologue to Bosquejo histórico, 1:5, 22.

which, after a few more years, would perhaps have been impossible to recover.And I declare that I have not undertaken it without first striving to rid myselfof all affectations of friendship or hostility toward specific individuals. . . .Furthermore . . . my personal situation during the oscillations of the revolutionand my relationships with many of the individuals who have served at the upperlevels of the parties, have placed me at the level of events and within reach ofthe causes and interests that have produced them: I refer, then, to events whichI have seen without actually taking part in them, and I speak of people whomI have dealt with intimately, or whom I have observed very closely. These cir-cumstances give my narrative a degree of certainty superior to that whichothers, whose pens are vividly affected by the spirit of partisanship, can hopeto achieve.27

The central theme of Marure’s monumental work is the inevitability of theLiberal cause, which he describes as a great wave of freedom and liberty thatbegan to flow south from the United States into Hispanic America after theAmerican Revolution. Sustained and amplified by the French Revolution, thismovement crossed into Central America only to be met by the forces ofrepression and superstition.28 Suppressed for a time by the despotic laws ofSpain, these liberal ideas were sustained by men such as Marure’s martyredfather until the oppressed colonies won their independence. Liberalism thenguided the early nation builders in the creation of the Central American Federation, a work that remained under attack by the forces of tyranny untilthe Liberal victory in the Civil War.

The fluidity of the political attachments that characterized the first yearsof independence proved difficult for Marure to reconcile with his thesis as hedescribed the formation of what would become the Liberal and Conservativeparties. According to Marure, a major factor in the survival and propagationof liberalism was the development of a free press following the restoration ofthe Cádiz Constitution in 1820. He specifically cites Molina’s El editor consti-tucional as the newspaper where “the eloquent language of patriotism wasspoken without disguise, the rights of Americans were defended, and the vicesof the previous administration were criticized.”29 Yet at the same time hespecifically ignores the role Montúfar played as an active member of the

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27Marure, Bosquejo histórico, 1:34–35.

28Ibid., 41–46.

29Ibid., 58.

pro-independence cacos who united behind this paper. Although somemembers of the aristocracy, including Montúfar, preferred complete inde-pendence for Central America, Marure focuses on the fact that some of theFamily’s most prominent spokesmen advocated separation from Spain inorder to join with Mexico as a way to marginalize them all as imperialists.The “true patriots,” on the other hand, were those who

promoted independence because they hoped to raise upon its foundation anentirely new social structure, create a government according to modern princi-ples, remove outdated errors, and search out the stale marks and vain distinc-tions which formed the patrimony that Spain left us in exchange for our riches.Who wanted to restrict the abusive privileges of the clergy and wrest from themthe ill-fated power they held over the multitude? Who proposed to remove thepeople from their humiliating servitude in which they have been maintained bytheir oppressors, give them influence, and elevate them to the same level as thosewho had subjugated them? In a word, those who hoped to establish a demo-cratic government under the auspices of equality.30

Marure’s goal was not to promote the positive or appealing side of the Conservatives, or even acknowledge an alternative viewpoint. It was to estab-lish, within the confines of documented history, the preeminence of theLiberal cause in the formation of a sovereign, independent, and modernCentral America. To this end, Marure minimized the role of the moderados inthe writing of the Constitution of 1824 and presented the Conservatives solelyas obstacles to national development:

The Liberals, distinguished subsequently by the labels fiebres or Anarchists,because of the passion with which they gave their opinions and promoted theirreforms, were comprised, for the most part, of those who had been opposed tothe union with Mexico, though there were some who were not; the Moderates,who were more generally known as the serviles and the Aristocrats, comprisedthe noble families and almost all who had become addicted to the imperialsystem; that is to say, most of the peninsular Spaniards, the military and civil-ian officials, the clergy, and the most ignorant members of the population. Thisgroup was enlarged by certain republican capitalists who feared the growth ofthe provinces and hoped to retain for the metropolis its traditional influenceand prestige. Dissimulation and hypocrisy characterized this party.31

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30Ibid., 71.

31Ibid., 122–23.

In this manner Marure played upon all the prejudices of the colonial period to vilify and isolate the Conservatives. By associating them with Spanish officials, mercantilists, superstitious clergy and peasants, andprivileged aristocrats, while reserving for the Liberals the support of the supposed enlightened, progressive, reformist “majority,” he allowed his historical scholarship to become a political weapon. The construction ofsuch obviously partisan characterizations of the two parties in place of a more complex and historically accurate assessment of goals, ideology, andsupport belies Marure’s claim that he could write impartial contemporaryhistory.

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of Marure’s account of the processof political factionalism and the resulting Civil War is the manner in whichhe places Montúfar at the center of events. Although he acknowledges thegeneral issues that led to the military confrontation between the Liberals andConservatives, he personalizes the war to the degree that it appears as adispute between Mariano Gálvez and José Francisco Córdova, on the onehand, and Montúfar and José Francisco Barrundia, on the other. Gálvez andCórdova are presented as the distinguished representatives of the competingpolitical interests. Montúfar and Barrundia are those who “without showingtheir faces or presenting themselves in the arena worked quietly and accu-mulated secretly the combustibles that produced the 1826 explosion.”32 Withrespect to Montúfar, he continues:

[A] man of great talents, and a delicate, clean, and intriguing touch, Montúfaris cultured and amiable; but a certain reserve and timidity, which does notinspire confidence about his sincerity, can also be noted. . . . Montúfar hasalways pertained to the anti-popular party and is one of the most bitter aristo-crats; as a result he has never done anything other than work according to hisown beliefs and among his own compatriots, all of whom are connected to theFamily, of which he is a prominent member. During his present adversity,Montúfar has discovered a malicious and implacable spirit; he has forgotten theconsiderations owed by a man to his native land, regardless of his situation inlife; and he has supported himself by writing from the refuge of a neighboringand rival state in order to dishonor his country and, perhaps, revive old andunjust pretensions.33

530 THE HISTORIAN

32Ibid., 223.

33Ibid., 224.

Montúfar’s response, which came in a publication entitled Recuerdos y anéc-dotas (Memories and anecdotes), was swift and scathing, but could not undothe damage this negative characterization caused his personal and profes-sional reputation:

From the beginning of the revolution, the party that in Guatemala is calledLiberal has seen its country only through partisan eyes, to the extent that onlythose who have dominated and directed the party deserve to be representativesof the nation: all else is considered foreign. . . . As a result, in addition to theLiberals’ view of the nation as a reflection of the party, it has become dogma tothem to consider any writings against their supporters or against the represen-tatives of the party as discrediting the nation. . . . This is all nothing more thansectarianism, miserable vulgarity, and the accusations of angry children. . . .One either writes history or one sees the men in the revolutions as always justin the methods which they employed, always conforming like angels to pure anddispassionate principles, and always conscious of their goals—If, however, thiswere not all true, and if it became necessary to refer to the truth of events andtheir causes, no one would be able to write the history of their country withoutbeing accused of discrediting it; otherwise, one would be obligated to write fairytales instead of history, creating heroes, giants . . . and divinities.34

If long-term influence is the ultimate judge of success, then Marure deci-sively won the historical debate with Montúfar, despite the fact that theLiberal-dominated federation that he promoted survived the 1837 publicationof the Bosquejo histórico by only two years. During the long Conservativedomination of the isthmus that followed the collapse of the union, CentralAmericans did not develop an alternative historiographical tradition tocompete with that established by Gálvez. No heir to Montúfar emerged after the exile’s death in Mexico City in 1844. However, Marure’s defection tothe Carrera government and accommodation with the new Conservativeregime ensured that the legacy of the Bosquejo histórico would survive hisdeath in 1851. And, when the 1871 Revolution in Guatemala rehabilitated the Liberal cause, its advocates found in Marure both a historical justificationfor their efforts and a national identity suppressed by three decades ofConservative dictatorship. A new generation of historians simply picked upwhere Marure left off, summarizing his arguments and reinforcing his con-

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34Montúfar, “Recuerdos y anécdotas,” 16–17.

clusions about the nature of the nation-building process.35 With the Bosquejohistórico serving as the standard-bearer for a revived Liberal movement thatlasted well into the twentieth century, the Memorias de Jalapa was effectivelydiscredited and discarded as a reliable historical source for the first decade of independence.

Although Marure and Montúfar were both influenced by the Enlighten-ment, their historical philosophies were distinct. As an idealist Liberal—atleast during the 1830s—Marure believed in a progressive, civilizing, andactivist history, in which the historian served primarily as a teacher andmoralist. This perspective justified a strident assault, based on long-standingprejudices and divisions, on what was seen by the Liberals as an anti-Enlightenment, antireform, anticonstitutional, and antinational Conserva-tive threat to the federation. The high regard with which Marure’s Bosquejohistórico has been held over the last 150 years must be attributed in part tothe continuing popularity of these liberal ideals. Montúfar, on the other hand,as a consummate realist, had little faith in the uplifting power of history. Hedid not even consider himself a historian, stating baldly that “I do not believethat a contemporary can write history . . . even less do I believe that I canwrite as a historian having belonged to a political party, or while the woundsof the Civil War remain fresh.”36 Instead, he wrote to defend himself againstthe political passions that sent him into exile, and for posterity, so that futurehistorians might have his perspective when accumulating material for a truehistory of the times.37 Although the Memorias suffered from a lack of docu-mentary corroboration, it was not designed to be the official or last word onthe Independence Period, as Gálvez obviously hoped the Bosquejo would be.Instead, it was the work of a moderately conservative intellectual who con-tributed much to Central American independence, wrote a personal and cred-ible account of the period, and, as a consequence, presented an alternate pathto national development that, because of its rejection of Liberal policies,

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35One can trace the enduring impact of Marure’s interpretation in the following works of theLiberal Reform era: Lorenzo Montúfar, Reseña histórica de Centro-America (Guatemala,1878–79); Agustín Gómez Carillo, Estudio histórico sobre la América Central (San Salvador,1884); Rafael Aguirre Cinta, Lecciones de historia general de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1899);Antonio Batres Jáuregui, La America Central ante la historia (Guatemala, 1920); Ramón Salazar,Historia de veintiún años: La independencia de Guatemala, 2d ed. (Guatemala, 1956).

36Ibid., 5.

37Ibid., 73.

quickly disappeared into the storm of partisan recriminations and abuses. Insuch an atmosphere, history was little more than another political tool. AsMontúfar writes:

Is it so new for men who have recently managed to dominate their country anddictate laws to its legislature to then attempt the conquest of the countrythrough its history? And is this conquest not easier in Guatemala than in anyother civilized nation? Who in my country can defend the supremacy of truthat the present time? Who wants to, is able to, or does not consider it imprudentto write against the nation’s masters and their supporters?38

In the end, as Montúfar suggests, in the struggle for power, influence, andcontrol over national development, the Guatemalan Conservative and Liberalelites chose to exaggerate their differences by politicizing their past. Thisemphasis on the political and propagandistic value of history during the for-mative period of national consolidation had tragic consequences for CentralAmerica, for it made it more difficult for future generations to surmount par-tisan perspectives regarding the past, the present, and the future and to createbinding national myths. As both progenitors and victims of such polariza-tion, Manuel Montúfar and Alejandro Marure in many respects personify thechallenges still facing Central America, an area of uncertain identity thatremains divided by region, class, race, and ideology.

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38Ibid., 70–71.