CHAPTER IV

NICARAGUA

Points of Resemblance Between Nicaragua, Salvador, and Honduras--Peculiar Geographical Situation of Nicaragua--Factors Which Have Caused Disorder There--Rivalry Between Leon and Granada--History of the Republic--Economic Conditions--Means of Transportation--Relations with the United States.

Nicaragua, Salvador, and Honduras strongly resemble one another in many of their characteristics. They differ from the two other republics of the Isthmus in that there has been more mixture of races among their people than in those countries. The Indians did not remain a distinct ethnic entity, as in Guatemala, and were not exterminated, as in Costa Rica, but fused with the invaders into a fairly homogeneous half-breed population which adopted the language and religion of the Spaniards but in most places retained the Indian ways of living and cultivating the soil. The upper classes, especially in Nicaragua and Salvador, are for the most part of European ancestry, and the laboring population, although there is but a small part of it which does not also show an admixture of Spanish blood, is distinctly Indian in features and customs; but only in a few places is there a sharp line between either of these classes and the half-breed, or _mestizo_, element, which is perhaps the most numerous of the three. Social distinctions seem to some extent to coincide with, but they can hardly be said to depend upon, racial lines.

There is thus more homogeneity in the population and less inequality between the classes than there is in Guatemala. Although the greater part of the people are laborers on the plantations of the aristocracy which owns all of the best agricultural properties, they are free laborers, who receive fair wages and are not compelled to work unless they wish to. There is, furthermore, a somewhat wider distribution of land than in the northern Republic, and the rights of the small farmer are better protected than are those of the Guatemalan Indian.

The government, although in no sense democratic, is nevertheless dependent to some extent upon public opinion, for the lower classes are all too prone to revolt and overthrow a president with whom they are discontented. The political parties are led and directed by a wealthy and educated minority, but their sanguinary contests with one another are usually decided by the support of the common people, and especially of the people of the cities. Several causes lead artisans and laborers who otherwise have no interest in politics to take part in these civil wars. One of the most important is the rivalry between different towns and villages, the spirit of _localismo_, and another, which, however, is rapidly becoming less prominent, is the traditional division, based on no real opposition in principles or policy, into “Conservatives” and “Liberals.” Still a third is the disposition to be “against the government,” whatever its merits--a disposition which is by no means peculiar to the Hispano-Indian race. It is upon these factors that the political parties are built up. Each chief endeavors to secure a following among the artisans and laborers of his district by cultivating friendly personal relations with them and by playing on their prejudices, and to carry his followers with him in whatever line of action best suits his personal interests. The groups thus formed consequently represent petty prejudices and loyalty to individuals rather than political principles.

The presidents of these countries are therefore less absolute rulers than the chief executive of Guatemala usually is. Instead of an easily controlled army of ignorant Indians, who have little disposition to do anything but obey the commands of their officers, the government must depend on soldiers who, to some extent at any rate, think for themselves and take an interest in political affairs. It must not only retain the good will of its followers, but it must refrain from arousing hostility in the community at large, where the opposition is usually too numerous and too well-organized to be rendered harmless by killing or exiling its leaders and repressing its agitation. There is no public opinion sufficiently strong to prevent the party in power from dealing severely with its most conspicuous enemies, or from misusing its control of the machinery of the administration for the benefit of the officials and their friends, but there is at least an ever-present danger of revolution to make it cautious about alienating the sympathies of too large a proportion of the people at large.

Republican institutions cannot be said to flourish in any of the central republics, but there is a far more hopeful prospect of their eventually becoming a reality there than in Guatemala. It would be impossible, among the factious half-breeds of the Nicaraguan towns, to round up all classes of the population by military action and lead them to the polls to vote for the president, as was done when President Estrada Cabrera was unanimously re-elected in 1916, but it is not very difficult to control the election by other means. Under ordinary circumstances, there is no chance for any but the official ticket. The opponents of the government, and even those who are suspected of being lukewarm in their support of it, are excluded from the official lists of voters, with or without a perfunctory excuse, and opposition candidacies are discouraged by the imprisonment or the expulsion from the country of the rival leaders and of their chief supporters. Fraud and intimidation are generously employed to increase the government’s majority. The measures taken are usually sufficient to secure a result satisfactory to the faction in power, but occasionally they are unavailing because the opposition is strong enough to wring a compromise from the administration or to overthrow it by revolution. Elections, therefore, are often accompanied by more or less disorder and uncertainty, and a too violent attempt to impose an unpopular candidate on the people has not infrequently been followed by civil war. With the spread of popular education at the present time, there are grounds for hoping that elections will in the not very distant future become more nearly a real expression of the will of the people--a character which they have already assumed in Costa Rica.

The political and economic development of Nicaragua has been determined by forces similar to, but more marked than, those which have affected Salvador and Honduras, and a study of her history and institutions will therefore make it easier to understand the situation of the other two republics.

Nicaragua has always been an object of interest to the outside world because of her geographical situation. In her territory, the Central American _Cordillera_ is broken by a depression which extends across the Isthmus, forming the basin of the two great lakes and of the San Juan River, their outlet to the Atlantic. Lake Nicaragua, which is only 110 feet higher than the ocean, is separated from the Pacific by a range of small hills, the lowest passes of which are said to be but twenty-five or twenty-six feet above its surface and thus only 135 above that of the sea.[11] At the narrowest place this strip of land is less than thirteen miles wide. North of Lake Nicaragua, and connected with it by a small river, is Lake Managua, between which and the Pacific there is a distance of about thirty miles across the low plain of Leon. In colonial times, the route across the Isthmus through Leon to Granada on Lake Nicaragua, and from thence by water, was commonly used for the transportation of products from all parts of Central America to Spain; and much more recently it was one of the most popular ways of reaching California from the East Coast of the United States. It early attracted the attention of those who were interested in transisthmian canal projects, and came to be considered by many as the most practicable route for an interoceanic waterway. Diplomatic controversies for the control of the proposed canal, and the machinations of corporations desiring to secure concessions for its construction, which it would be impossible even to sketch here, have played a large part in the international relations of the Republic, and at times have not been without effect on her internal political conditions.

The people of Nicaragua, more than those of any of the other countries of the Isthmus, are dwellers in cities. About a fourth of all her inhabitants live in six important towns in the lake plains.[12] The Spaniards established their principal settlements in this region at the time of the conquest, in spite of the hot climate, in order the more easily to hold in subjection and to utilize the labor of the large Indian communities which had long since grown up there because of the fertility of the soil and the plentiful water supply. The concentration of the population in a few centers has intensified all of the conditions which have worked against peace in Central America, and has made Nicaragua the most turbulent of the five republics. The inhabitants of cities, since the beginning of history, have been more inclined to disorder and revolt than their brothers in the country, and this is especially true in Central America, because both _personalismo_ and _localismo_, with all their attendant evils, reach their most complete development in large communities, where the contact between individuals is closer and the number of persons interested in politics is greater than in rural districts. The _mestizo_ artisans, who are relatively more numerous and more influential in Nicaragua than anywhere else in the Isthmus, are always ready to drop their work and take up arms in the interests of their faction or of their _patron_, and even the ordinary laborers, in the towns at least, are Liberals or Conservatives, and followers of this or that chief. The common people are but little interested in the principles involved in the contests between the two great traditional political parties, but they follow their leaders partly from personal devotion and partly because they are united to them by the old local hatreds which have kept these parties alive in Nicaragua after they have become little more than names in other parts of the Isthmus. This rivalry between different towns has caused bloodshed at one time or another in each of the Central American republics, but in all except Nicaragua it has to a great extent died out at the present time, because the capitals have become more important than any of their rivals, and have drawn to themselves many of the wealthier and more influential provincial families. In Nicaragua, neither of the two cities established by the Spaniards at the beginning of the sixteenth century has been able to establish its supremacy, and the history of the country from the very beginning has been one long struggle, made more bitter by radical differences in the ideals and interests of their people, for the control of the government and the direction of the affairs of the nation.

Granada, at the western end of the Great Lake, has always been primarily a commercial center, since the days when it was the chief port for the trade between Central America and Spain by way of the San Juan River. Her leading citizens are not only landed proprietors, but merchants, who sell goods in person over the counters of their stores. Her great families form a coherent and powerful group, which has always been able, because of its wealth and social prestige, to exert an influence far out of proportion to its numbers, not only in its own city but in the country at large. The greater part of the fifteen or twenty thousand other inhabitants depend upon them as servants or employees, for the artisan class is small and relatively unimportant. There are few professional men of social prominence and few small landholders, for the rural districts roundabout are mostly given over to large, carelessly managed cattle ranches. The Chamorros, Lacayos, and Cuadras, with their relatives, have always considered themselves a sort of creole aristocracy, and even in colonial times they were restive under the control of the Spanish authorities at Leon. After the declaration of independence, they naturally joined the great families of Guatemala in the Conservative party, and they have since retained the name, if not the principles, of that organization.

The Liberal party, on the other hand, has its center in Leon, the capital of the province in colonial times, and today, with sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, the largest city of the Republic. There, the domination of political and social affairs until 1821 by officials sent over from Spain prevented the rise of a strong creole aristocracy, and the constant infusion of Spanish blood during colonial times, as well as the presence of many Peninsular Spaniards even after the declaration of independence, somewhat retarded the changes wrought in the white stock in other places by nearly four centuries of life in the torrid climate of the lake plains. The people of Leon have always shown an inclination towards intellectual and professional pursuits which is noticeably absent in Granada, and take great pride in their schools and their university. The most prominent lawyers and physicians of the Republic, even in Managua and the other cities, are for the most part _Leoneses_, just as the majority of the leading native merchants are related to the Granada families. Leon has a large and aggressive body of artisans and many small landholders, for the wide plain around the city is divided into a large number of little properties, worked either by the owner in person or under his immediate supervision. There are few families of great wealth. It was inevitable that such a community should take the side of the Liberals in the struggles which marked the early years of the Central American federation, for the character of its population made it radical just as the position of the great families of Granada made them conservative.

The other towns of the Republic, none of which until within recent years could compare in wealth or population with either of the two chief cities, are divided between these in their sympathies. Those which are dependent geographically upon one of the rivals have naturally followed it in politics. Others are split within themselves by feuds between their leading citizens and between different elements in their population. Since the development of the coffee industry has caused a great increase in the importance of Managua, Matagalpa, and some of the other towns, these places have of course acquired much political influence, but the various groups among their people have rather allied themselves to the already existing factions than formed new ones of their own. The Conservative and Liberal leaders in Granada and Leon still dominate the party councils, although their authority is sometimes questioned by their allies in the newer centers.

The jealousy between Granada and Leon found expression in armed conflict as soon as the authority of the mother country was removed. After the declaration of independence, the Spanish governor in Leon, like the authorities in many of the other provinces, refused to recognize the authority of Gainza, while the Granadinos joyfully accepted the new central government in Guatemala in preference to that of the mother country. As the result of this situation, an intermittent war began which lasted until General Morazán, on becoming president of the Federation, sent Dionisio de Herrera, as _jefe de estado_, to restore order. Under him the Liberal party was firmly intrenched in power. He was succeeded by a series of _jefes_ of the same faction, most of them under the control of a military leader named Casto Fonseca, who was _comandante de armas_. The destruction of the Liberal governments in the other republics, however, made the position of the authorities in Nicaragua precarious; and in 1845 their administration was overthrown by a Conservative uprising aided by armies from Honduras and Salvador, which wished to punish Leon for the asylum afforded there to the defeated followers of Morazán. After sacking the capital and slaughtering a large part of its inhabitants, the invaders moved the capital to Masaya and later to Managua, both small towns near Granada. A Conservative government, made up of the great families of the latter city, endeavored to establish order and repair the damage wrought by the civil wars which had continued almost without interruption ever since the federal government had grown too weak to maintain peace, but their efforts were of little avail. The new _comandante de armas_, Trinidad Muñoz, kept the country in a state of continual disturbance, by intrigue and conspiracy, in order to increase his own influence, and finally betrayed the party which had placed him in office and used the force intrusted to him to bring about the re-establishment of the capital at Leon. A new Conservative uprising aided by Honduras and Costa Rica overthrew him in 1851, and the seat of the government was again transferred to Managua. The Conservatives made a sincere effort to establish harmony between the two parties, but after their attempts to conciliate their opponents by giving them a place in the cabinet had proved a failure, they endeavored equally unsuccessfully to maintain order by severe measures which only made the Liberals the more bitter.

In 1854, the people of Leon, under the lead of Máximo Jeréz and Francisco Castellón, drove the forces of the government out of their city and attacked Granada. The Conservatives, who received timely aid from Guatemala, resisted determinedly. By the end of the year they were apparently gaining the upper hand, when the Liberals, in their attempts to turn the tide, called in the support of a band of North American filibusters. This was the origin of the “National War,” one of the most remarkable and most romantic events in the history of the Isthmus.

On June 16, 1855, William Walker landed at the port of Realejo, with fifty-seven other adventurers, ostensibly for the purpose of aiding the Liberal government at Leon, which had invited him to come to Nicaragua, but in reality with the intention of obtaining control of the entire country for himself. This he succeeded within a few months in doing. Carrying his force to San Juan del Sur by sea, he evaded a Conservative army sent to attack him there, sailed up the lake to Granada, and on October 13 occupied that city with little resistance. The force of the Conservative leaders was unimpaired, but they feared to attack the foreigners, who held their families as hostages. Corral, the head of the government forces, agreed therefore to a treaty of peace, signed on October 23, by which Patricio Rivas, a moderate Conservative, became president, Corral himself secretary of war, and Walker commander of the army. The native troops were for the most part disbanded, and the filibusters, or the “American Phalanx,” as they called themselves, were practically the only military force in the Republic.

Walker desired to establish a coalition government, under his own control, in which the leaders of both great parties should be represented. This proved impossible, because the native chiefs from the first showed signs of disaffection. Corral was discovered to be holding treasonable correspondence with the presidents of the other Central American republics, and was shot only a short time after the signature of the treaty of peace. Rivas, the new president, and Jeréz, the leader of the Liberals, deserted Walker in the following June, and began a revolution against him in Leon and the western departments. Walker thereupon had himself elected President of the Republic (June 29, 1856).

The adventure of the filibusters had meanwhile attracted much interest and sympathy in the United States, where the control of Nicaragua by an American was regarded as an offset to the encroachments of Great Britain on the eastern end of the proposed route of the interoceanic canal. The control exercised by that power over Greytown, at the mouth of the San Juan River, had not yet been given up, in spite of the provisions of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. The people of the South, moreover, who favored expansion in tropical countries in order to maintain the relative influence of the slave states in the Union, believed that they saw in the measures which Walker adopted early in his administration to aid Americans in acquiring land in Nicaragua, and to open the way for the introduction there of negro slavery, indications that his ultimate object was the annexation of the country to the United States as a new slave-holding commonwealth. This belief appears to have been erroneous, for Walker himself more than once expressed the intention of creating an independent nation, with himself at its head as military dictator;[13] but it at least gained for the adventurer a large amount of assistance.

It was therefore easy for Walker’s friends to secure large amounts of supplies and many recruits for his cause in the United States. The original force of fifty-eight was soon increased to several hundred, and the immense losses caused by disease and by fighting were made up with little difficulty. It is said that 2,500 men in all joined the “phalanx,” of whom more than one thousand died of wounds or of disease.[14] The government of the United States attempted to stop the recruiting of men and the fitting out of expeditions within its jurisdiction, but it was able to accomplish very little because of the deficiencies of its neutrality laws and the strong popular feeling in favor of the filibusters, which often prevented the federal officials from carrying out the orders of their superiors. The President and the Department of State themselves were by no means unfriendly to Walker’s enterprise while it still offered a prospect of success. The American minister in Nicaragua had throughout exerted his influence in favor of Walker, although in so doing he had greatly exceeded his instructions, and the Rivas government had been officially recognized by President Pierce on May 14, 1856. This recognition was not, however, extended to Walker after the latter had become president.

The most useful friends and the most dangerous enemies of Walker’s regime were the American financiers interested in the Accessory Transit Company, a concern which was at that time transporting many thousands of Americans each month from New York to San Francisco by way of the San Juan River, crossing from the Great Lake to the Pacific by a macadamized road from La Virgen to San Juan del Sur. When the filibusters arrived in Nicaragua, a contest was in progress in this company in which Morgan and Garrison, the agents at New York and San Francisco respectively, were striving to wrest the control from Cornelius Vanderbilt. Failing to achieve their purpose, Morgan and Garrison determined to make use of Walker to turn the tables upon their successful rival. They did much to aid him in securing control of the Nicaraguan government by supplying him with money and arms and by bringing him large numbers of recruits in their steamers from New York and San Francisco; and in return for these favors they prevailed upon him to revoke the concession of the old company and to grant a new concession to them. This action brought Walker into a conflict with Vanderbilt, who from that time on used every means to compass the filibuster’s destruction.

In July, 1856, Walker was practically supreme in southwestern Nicaragua, and had complete control of the Transit route. An army sent against him by Costa Rica a few months before had won two or three battles, but had soon been forced to withdraw by an epidemic of cholera. The hostile elements in Nicaragua itself, and the armies of Guatemala, Salvador, and Honduras, were however gathering at Leon, for all Central America had risen in arms against the foreign invader. In September the allies advanced on Masaya, where they inflicted a heavy defeat on a small force of Americans. In November they took Granada, the seat of Walker’s government, which the filibusters evacuated and destroyed on their approach. Walker then moved his army by water to the Transit road, which was the chief avenue by which he received supplies and recruits from the outside world.

The allies had thus far been unable to inflict a decisive defeat on the American leader. Although they had faced him for five months with forces which must have outnumbered his little command at least three to one, the quarrels between their leaders had made effective

## action impossible, and the diseases which had decimated both camps had

disheartened them far more than they had the intrepid “phalanx.” It is probable that they would soon have abandoned the campaign had not Costa Rica, instigated by Vanderbilt and encouraged by the government of Great Britain, again taken the field and struck Walker a decisive blow at his weakest point. In December a force from that country, directed by one of Vanderbilt’s agents, had descended the San Carlos River and seized the steamers on the San Juan and the Great Lake, thus cutting off Walker’s communications with New York, whence he had received the greatest part of his reinforcements. They then joined the allies who were confronting the filibuster force at Rivas. Walker was now no longer able to replenish his supplies or to fill the gaps in his ranks with new recruits. Although in desperate straits, he held out for several months, beating off the attacks of the Central American troops with great loss. The melting away of his small force through disease and desertion, however, finally made his position untenable. On May 1, 1857, he surrendered to Commander Davis of the U. S. S. St. Mary’s, who had interposed his mediation to put an end to the hostilities.

At the conclusion of the war there were six armies in Nicaragua, representing the four other Central American republics and the two factions in the country itself. Most of the foreign contingents were withdrawn by their respective governments, after some slight difficulties, but neither the Conservatives under General Tomás Martínez nor the Liberals under Jeréz were willing to allow the other party to take possession of the government. Another civil war would probably have been the result, had not the Republic suddenly been menaced by a new danger from without. Costa Rica, attempting to take advantage of the exhaustion of her neighbor, declined to evacuate the territory which she had occupied on the south bank of the San Juan River, and demanded the surrender of certain military posts there which would give her control of the greater part of the route of the proposed canal. As soon as the intentions of President Mora became evident, Jeréz and Martínez assumed a joint dictatorship and prepared for war. Hostilities were only averted by the sudden return of Walker, which forced the two countries to settle their differences and to prepare to resist a new invasion. Costa Rica had already withdrawn her claims when news arrived that the filibuster had been taken prisoner by the captain of an American warship on the East Coast before he had had time to reach the interior.[15]

Meanwhile the capital had been definitely and permanently established at Managua, and Tomás Martínez had taken charge of the presidency as the result of an election. With his accession began the first, and up to the present time the only, era of relatively stable and comparatively efficient government in the history of the Republic. Martínez held office until 1867, suppressing a Liberal revolt led by Jeréz in 1863, and was succeeded by a series of capable and honorable presidents belonging to the Conservative party.[16] These men were the leaders of a strongly organized and homogeneous group, which was able to maintain itself in office until 1893 because of its unity and its moderate and sagacious policy. Although thoroughly conservative in ideas as well as in name, striving to maintain the existing social order and the influence of the Church, the administrations of the “thirty years” nevertheless did much to promote the economic and social progress of the country. A railway was built from the Pacific port of Corinto to Leon and Lake Managua, and another from the city of Managua to Granada; agriculture was encouraged in many ways; and even the school system was enlarged and improved. Their most important achievement was the maintenance of peace during so long a period. There were few revolts of importance, and not one successful revolution between 1863 and 1893, notwithstanding the fact that the prolonged tenure of power by one political group, which allowed no real freedom of elections, was naturally distasteful to the opposition.

The methods by which the Conservatives were able to sustain their authority for so long should afford a valuable lesson for their successors. In the first place, the government was that of a group of men, rather than that of one absolute ruler. As each president at the end of his term turned over his office to one of his associates, instead of bringing about his own re-election, there was little jealousy between the leaders, and each in turn had the support of a united party. So long as there was no treachery within the administration itself, and so long as friendly relations were cultivated with the neighboring states, the government, with its control of the army and the forts, had little to fear from its enemies. The Liberals, on their side, showed little inclination to recommence the civil wars which had devastated the country from 1821 to 1863, for they profited by the maintenance of order, and were treated with far more fairness and generosity than usually falls to the lot of the opposition party in Central America. At the present time, after a quarter century of renewed party strife and mutual persecution, many members of both parties look back on the “thirty years” as the happiest period of the Republic’s history.

There were, however, dissatisfied elements which only awaited an opportunity to overthrow the Conservative regime. The Leon leaders were far from accepting the rule of their traditional rivals complacently, and they could rely upon the support of increasingly numerous groups of young men of the middle and lower classes in other parts of the country, who were beginning to take a prominent part in political agitation. The “Principal Families” were losing their prestige as they had already lost it in Guatemala and Costa Rica, and their political power was destroyed when the first serious dissension appeared in their ranks. In 1889 President Carazo died in the middle of his term, and was succeeded by Roberto Sacasa, one of the few Conservatives from Leon. When the new president attempted to give the people of his own city some of the more important public offices, the extreme partisans of Granada overthrew him in 1893. This act, which broke the unity of the Conservative party and thus weakened the government, was followed by a successful Liberal uprising in Leon some months later.

As the result of this revolution, the presidency was given to a young man from Managua, who was prominent among the younger generation of Liberals. José Santos Zelaya was the absolute ruler of Nicaragua for sixteen years. He was supported at first by the leaders at Leon, but in 1896, when it became evident that he intended to force his re-election for a second term, the western city rose against him. The administration was saved only by the intervention of the allied government of Honduras and by the aid of the Conservatives of Granada, who were willing to support even a Liberal president against their traditional enemies. This episode illustrates one of the chief sources of Zelaya’s power--his skill in playing off the members of the different factions against one another. When it became evident that it was impossible to overthrow him, the Leon chiefs again associated themselves with him, and even some of the wealthy _Granadinos_ accepted positions and favors from him.

During the Liberal administration, the railway system and the steamer service on the lakes were extended and improved, the development of the coffee districts was stimulated by generous subsidies, and the capital, Zelaya’s birthplace, was transformed from a rather primitive small town to the most progressive city of the Republic, which at the present time is ahead of Granada, and but little behind Leon, in population. Marked progress was made in the matter of public instruction, for schools were opened in all parts of the country, and many young men of special ability were sent abroad to study. It is to be regretted that the Conservative administrations which succeeded Zelaya have fallen far behind the Liberal dictator in this respect, and have abandoned many of the educational institutions which he opened.

Despite his progressive policy, however, Zelaya was a brutal and unscrupulous tyrant, who exploited the country for his own personal profit on a scale unprecedented in the history of the Isthmus. He and his ministers established monopolies of all sorts, and sold valuable concessions to foreigners or acquired them themselves, until there were few forms of agriculture or industry which did not pay a heavy tribute to some favored person. The silver currency disappeared before large issues of irredeemable paper money, and the requisitions of the government were paid for, not with cash, but with receipts which could be negotiated only at a loss and through the aid of persons having influence with the treasury department. Private persons enjoyed little protection in their property and personal liberty against abuses of power by the local and military officials, and the enemies of the government suffered not only exile and the confiscation of their property, but even torture and sometimes death in the prisons. The rich families of Granada, who were with some reason held responsible for the revolts which occurred almost every year, were treated with great brutality. The avarice and cruelty of the men in power, however, were felt most severely only by their irreconcilable enemies. The friends of the government prospered, and the people as a whole suffered comparatively little. In the country at large, in fact, the inflow of money resulting from the reckless sale of concessions created a sort of prosperity, for which the country has had to pay since Zelaya’s fall.

Zelaya raised Nicaragua to a position of influence in Central America which she had never before enjoyed. He fomented revolutions in all of the other four republics, and even in countries so far distant as Colombia and Ecuador, until by 1909 the only one of his neighbors who did not hate and fear him was the president of Honduras, whom he himself had placed in office by his invasion of that state in 1907. During the last three years of his administration, his attempts to re-establish the old federal union, with himself at its head, plunged all Central America into turmoil. His warlike activities and his systematic opposition to American influence in the Isthmus finally brought about an open rupture with the government of the United States, and did much to cause his downfall. The history of the revolution of 1909, and the history of the Republic since that date will be treated in