Sandino: The Testimony of a Nicaraguan Patriot, 1921-1934

by Augusto C. Sandino, Sergio Ramírez (Editor)

Overview

"Washington is called the father of his country; the same may be said of Bol!var and Hidalgo; but I am only a bandit, according to the yardstick by which the strong and the weak are measured."—Augusto C. Sandino.

For the first time in English, here are the impassioned words of the remarkable Nicaraguan hero and martyr Augusto C. Sandino, for whom the recent revolutionary regime was named. From 1927 until 1933 American Marines fought a bitter jungle war in Nicaragua, with Sandino as their guerrilla foe. This artisan and farmer turned soldier was an unexpectedly formidable military threat to one of the succession of regimes that the United States had imposed on that country beginning in 1909. He was also the creator of a deeply patriotic language of protest—eloquent, often naive, sometimes cruel, and always defiant. The documents in this volume, presented chronologically, constitute a spontaneous autobiography, a record not only of Sandino's adventurous life but also of a crucial and often overlooked aspect of the relationship between Nicaragua and the United States.

Emblematic of the deep-rooted U.S. entanglement in Nicaraguan affairs is the fact that Anastasio Somoza, who assassinated Sandino in 1934, was the father of the Somoza overthrown by the Sandinistas in 1979. By 1933 Sandino's guerrilla army had at last forced the departure of the American Marines from Nicaragua, and in that same year he had negotiated a peace agreement with the new president, Juan Bautista Sacasa. Sacasa granted Sandino and a hundred followers a large tract of government land to establish an agricultural cooperative, and Sandino agreed to partial disarmament of of his men. But a year later he was seized near the presidential mansion by solders of Somoza's National Guard and assassinated with two of his generals. The National Guard then attacked and destroyed his cooperative.

Both before and after Sandino's brutal assassination, Somoza tried to discredit the idiosyncratic blend of political, religious, and theosophical ideas through which Sandino inspired his soldiers. Included among the documents here are expressions not only of Sandino's military preoccupations and of his philosophy but also of his practical concerns about worker organization and legislation, the rights of women and children, the protection and development of Nicaragua's Indians, Central American unification, construction of a Nicaraguan canal for the benefit of Nicaraguans and the world in general, Indo-Hispanic cooperation, and land reform. This work, which is based on the two-volume Spanish edition compiled by Sergio Ramirez, includes an introduction by Robert Conrad setting Sandino's life in historical context.

Originally published in 1990.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691609140
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/14/2014
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1094
Pages:	556
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 1.10(d)

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Sandino

The Testimony of a Nicaraguan Patriot 1921â?"1934

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By Sergio Ramirez, Robert Edgar Conrad

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1990 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-07848-9

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CHAPTER 1

LETTER TO THE HONDURAN POET FROYLÁN TURCIOS, APRIL 1, 1928

In view of the interest that our independent brothers of the Americas have shown in learning something accurate about the life of the soldier, Augusta C. Sandino, and obligated by the slanderous campaign that cowardly sellouts have unleashed against me in my own country, which I am seeking to liberate while accepting every sacrifice, I take this opportunity to send you in brief form some facts about my early life, which you may use as you see fit.

I was born at four o'clock in the morning on the 18th of May, 1895, in the town of Victoria, department of Masaya, Nicaragua. Two youngsters less than eighteen years of age were my parents. I studied my first letters in the public schools opened by General J. S. Zelaya, the constitutional president of that period.

At the age of twelve I left my parents and set off in search of adventure. I traveled through the principal cities of Central and North America, as well as in the most important industrial centers, remaining the longest time in Mexico.

I have in my possession many letters of recommendation offering proof of my honorable conduct from the companies for which I worked. The profession of mechanic was the one in which I distinguished myself.

During my long absence from my country there was never any tranquility in my soul, because when I got to know a place, I longed to find myself in a better one, everywhere suffering disappointment by imagining myself superior to the reality that I was beginning to know. Likewise I confess that in our profane world I never found happiness, and for this reason, and because I was in search of spiritual consolation, I read mythological books and searched for teachers of religion, the last one of which was the honorable gentleman, Justino Barbiaux, who lives in Álamo, Veracruz, Mexico.

I have always been inclined to read everything that in my opinion is moral and instructive. One of the things I have concluded, according to my latest observations and way of thinking, is that the men to whom God has granted great minds often become conceited, and I can't figure out why they forget that they are mortal human beings, falling into the unpardonable crime of trafficking with justice and human flesh as if people were a herd of pigs. In this way the degradation of ninety-five percent of my fellow citizens has come about.

I have also realized that good doctrines are both condemned and invoked by unscrupulous men, merely to achieve advantages, without a true regard for Humanity or for God.

In short, from the knowledge I have acquired I have concluded that humanity can never live in dignity as long as it deviates from sound reason and the laws that honor requires.

Thus, seeing that the United States of North America, with the sole right granted by brute force, would deprive us of our Fatherland and our Freedom, I have accepted the unjustified challenge that tends to throw our sovereignty to the ground, imposing upon my acts my responsibility before History. To remain inactive or indifferent, like most of my fellow citizens, would be to add myself to the rude crowd of mercenary assassins of their own country.

Thus my acts will justify me, since my ideal feeds upon a broad horizon of international opinion.

I love Justice and for it I will sacrifice myself. Material treasures do not exercise any power over my person; the treasures I long to possess are spiritual.

CHAPTER 2

THE BOY FROM NIQUINOHOMO: SANDINO'S CHILDHOOD AS TOLD TO JOSÉ ROMÁN IN 1933

Socially the Sandino family occupies one of the most prominent places, perhaps the most prominent, in Niquinohomo and in the history of the town going far back into the past.

A certain Señor Sandino arrived in Nicaragua from Spain, and he belonged to the same family as two other Sandinos who had also emigrated from Spain, one to Colombia and the other to Campeche, in Mexico. The one who came to Nicaragua managed to make some money, got married, and had several children, among them: José María, Ofreciano, and Santiago. This last in turn married a pure Indian girl named Agustina Múñoz, with whom he had the following children: the girls Asunción, Cayetana, and Isabel, and the boys Pedro, Cleto, and Gregorio, who was my father. My father was born on March 12,1869, in Niquinohomo, in the hereditary family home, where the family has resided until this day. He inherited some money, coffee farms, and houses, and he is still the richest man in the place.

My father is short and strong. In him predominates the blood of his mother, because he is markedly of the Indo-Hispanic type and a man of good manners and sober behavior. From early youth he dedicated himself to the cultivation of his inherited property, and he married Doña América Tiffer, with whom he had the following children: Asunción, América, and Sócrates, who is the oldest and was born in October 1898. As can be seen, I am not the son of that marriage, but rather I was born four years earlier, in 1894.

My mother's name is Margarita Calderón, and she was a worker on one of of my father's farms. I am, then, Román, the son of love, in other words a bastard, according to social conventions. After I came into the world my father forgot the woman who was the mother of his first child, because she was a farm worker, and he married Doña América Tiffer, a member of the provincial bourgeoisie.

And so I opened my eyes in misery and was brought up in misery, without even a child's necessities, and while my mother picked coffee I was left to myself. From the time I could walk I did so on the coffee plantations, helping my mother to fill her basket in order to earn a few centavos. I was badly dressed and fed even worse in those cold Cordilleras. That was how I grew up, and maybe that was why I didn't grow. When it wasn't coffee they sent us out to harvest, it was wheat, corn, or other cereals, with wages so minimal and the work so hard that living was sorrow for us, true sorrow! And, yet, to be permitted to work we had to get registrations—which my mother and I never stopped paying for. And, aside from that, keep in mind that my mother often gave birth, which further aggravated our situation. Believe me, it's terrible to remember all that, but it's the simple truth.

There were times when just to eat we had to hock some trinket for a few centavos. And there were days, many days, very many days, in fact, when, with my mother completely disabled, I had to go out at night to steal on the plantations so that I wouldn't have to let her die of hunger. And this is how I grew toward manhood, standing up to a cruel and merciless life and the will of destiny by means of a fierce and tenacious effort. Fortunately, nature endowed me with thought and willpower. Very early I began to understand the great tragedy of my life, which gnawed at my innermost self with my recognition of my awful misery. Misery and powerlessness at my tender age. I didn't depend at all on my father, and it was I myself who had to take care of my mother.

When once, by chance, my half brother Sócrates met me on the street, he gave me an old piece of clothing that I exchanged for my rags. When I compared my brother's situation with my own, I was infuriated by the injustices of life. Even though I was such a hard worker, what could a creature less than ten years old earn in a place where even adults' wages were only a few centavos a day? I was at a period in life when I needed—not, let's say, the most basic things for the comfort of the body—but rather what was even more essential, the warmth of a home for spiritual peace and the formation of character and personality. I lacked both of these, and the worst of it was that I was entirely conscious of my situation.

Now, Román, I'm going to relate a specific detail I'll never forget. Something terrible happened that made my life even worse. My mother and I worked on a farm that belonged to the village mayor, my father being the judge. She had received an advance payment of a few pesos, but since she got an offer of better pay on another coffee plantation, she decided to accept that offer, to be able to pay her debt back even sooner, but the mayor, fearing he would lose his advance, ordered her arrested. And so one fine afternoon some soldiers appeared and put us in the local jail. My mother's grief and the cruel mistreatment she had received caused her to abort, which brought on a copious hemorrhage that nearly killed her. And it was left to me, all by myself, to care for her. All by myself! In that cold dirty village prison. As biological secrets, which were unknown to me until then, since I was hardly nine years old, were revealed to me, my mother's groans and the fact that she was near death restrained my anger. And though I was only a child, with my mother already asleep and I unable to sleep, I lay down beside her on that bloody floor and thought of a thousand atrocious and fierce acts of revenge. I clearly remember how, as I understood my own lack of power, I began to ponder over things with my childish philosophy.

Why would God act like this? Why do people claim that authority is the right arm of the law? And what kind of law is that? If, as the priest says, law is the voice of God intended to protect the people, why is it that authority, instead of helping us poor people, favors society's drones? Why does God love Sócrates more than he loves me, if I have to work and he doesn't? Then God damn it, I thought to myself, God and life are pure shit. It's only us poor people who are getting screwed!

Soon after that my mother went off with a man to Granada and I refused to follow her. Since I've always been a person with a decisive character, I went to live with my maternal grandmother, who was extremely poor and did any kind of work she could get.

Alone I continued my hand-to-mouth struggle with life. Knowing that my mother was far away with a string of children and that my father, on the other hand, was married to a woman who couldn't even see me, with my childish reasoning and my sentimental heart, I began to think that life didn't make any sense, that I had no reason to exist, because the same people who had brought me into the world treated me like this, and I wasn't in any way to blame. [...]

What's certain is that when I might have become a vagabond or a criminal, I decided to make myself into somebody. The fact is that one day, hungry, dressed in rags and carrying some packages in order to earn a few centavos, I met my father on the street entirely by chance. I put the packages down on the ground, walked up to him and, crying but with spirit, asked him, "Listen, sir, am I your son or am I not?"

And my father answered, "Yes, son, I am your father."

Then I replied: "Sir, if I'm your son, why don't you treat me the way you treat Sócrates?"

Tears appeared in the old man's eyes. He took me into his arms. He kissed me and hugged me hard and long. And he took me to his house. I was almost eleven at the time.

Despite my young age, by hard work and good behavior I made myself indispensable in my paternal home. They sent me to school, but instead of attending regularly, Sócrates and I and some other boys went off to play war. With stones, lemons, and green oranges. And if it happened that we were surprised by the police, because in the period when General Zelaya was president education was compulsory, we had even more fun annoying them and making fun of them and then running for safety inside the school. I was a very bad student, because I spent almost all my time making wax soldiers with which we fought real battles in miniature, which were witnessed by neighborhood friends. Since my ignorance was well known in the entire school and since there was a little girl whom I had settled my eyes on, one day when leaving class she came up to me with a book in her hand and, as a way to torment me, asked me to read it to her. My first impulse was to admit my ignorance, but I made up some excuse and saved myself from shame.

When I got home I decided I would never again find myself in such a situation, and I devoted myself to study with a stubborn tenacity, though I didn't boast about it. Soon I was one of the most diligent students in the school. I remained studious, and as I grew older I assisted my father more with the management of his business. I was even able to establish a little business of my own, dealing in grains. With my help my father eventually controlled the bean business in that whole region, and he doubled his capital. [...]

The first trip I ever made was on foot to Costa Rica. I worked as a mechanic's assistant in the Ceilán hacienda near the border, which was the property of a relative of yours, Don Pablo Jiménez Román, a great gentleman who treated me with affection and decency. When I arrived there I deposited a large sum of money with Don Pablo, and during the four months I worked for him, I didn't touch a penny of my wages, so that I was able to increase what I'd brought with me. I left Ceilán for Rivas and Rivas for San Juan del Sur. There, in that port, I signed onto a ship, also as a mechanic's assistant. I wandered for a long time, changing ships, and I learned the machinist's trade. I traveled to many countries, indeed half the world. I saved my money, and then I returned to Niquinohomo near the end of 1919. My cousin Mercedes attracted me like a magnet. Not for a single day had I stopped thinking about her, although she of course didn't know that.

In Niquinohomo I went into the grain business, independently of my family. I traded with the villages and with Managua and Granada. Because I didn't have any vices and practiced orderly habits, my small capital grew constantly. And, aside from that, the people I did business with soon put their trust in me.

At last, after a long romantic history, in 1921, a month before I was to marry my cousin Mercedes, I experienced an incident of great importance to my life, since it sent my destiny in another direction. Dagoberto Rivas was an individual of my same village with whom I had always had a good friendship and even some business dealings. One day Dagoberto heard that a sister of his, a widow, appeared to be involved with me in an amorous relationship, or at least it was popularly rumored that she was. A neighbor of Dagoberto, a man who liked to make trouble, was the person who spread this bit of gossip. One Sunday in June, without any knowledge of any of this, when I arrived for mass unfortunately I sat down on a bench behind Dagoberto and several of his friends. When they noticed my arrival, Rivas and his friends began to whisper various personal insults at me, while all the time I remained impassive. Interpreting my calm manner as cowardliness, Rivas got more and more upset, and at the very moment that the priest began to elevate the host, Rivas turned halfway around and struck at my face, which, though I was able to deflect it, resulted in a blow to my forehead. In a spontaneous and thoughtless act, I took out my revolver and shot him, fortunately only wounding him in the leg.

Naturally, Román, as you can imagine, this was a scandal of the kind that epic tales are made of in a village like Niquinohomo. Bullets in the church during mass and at the moment of the elevation of the host! To avoid a trial and other undesirable results, despite being about to get married, I left at once for the Atlantic coast, taking only the money I had in cash. I spent a month on the coast, using another name, and from there I left for La Ceiba, Honduras, where I worked at the Montecristo sugar plantation. In La Ceiba, in the hotel where I was staying, another Nicaraguan also lived, a young man named Montenegro, with whom I developed a very good friendship. Years later, wandering about in life, Montenegro joined the United States Marine Corps and it was his fate to come to fight against me in Nicaragua, and he was wounded. I was always a good friend of Montenegro.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Sandino by Sergio Ramirez, Robert Edgar Conrad. Copyright © 1990 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• CONTENTS, pg. v
• ILLUSTRATIONS, pg. xv
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, pg. xvii
• NOTE ON THE ORGANIZATION AND EDITING OF THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION, pg. xix
• MAPS, pg. xxi
• TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION, pg. 1
• CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, pg. 23
• 1926-1927, pg. 39
• 1928, pg. 149
• 1929, pg. 213
• 1930, pg. 285
• 1931, pg. 359
• 1932, pg. 393
• 1933, pg. 429
• 1934, pg. 485
• BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 503
• INDEX, pg. 507

Editorial Reviews

Based on the expanded 1984 edition of Sandino's writings published in Managua under the title El pensamiento vivo. Translated and edited, with an introduction and additional selections by Conrad. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews