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The Enchanted Burro, Bayonets and the Business of Making Sugar: State, Capital, and Labor Relations in the Ingenio San Antonio, 1912-1926*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
Since the 1920s, the San Antonio sugar mill in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua has been that country's largest manufacturing establishment. The ingenio (the sugar mill along with the plantation) employed close to 2,000 workers in 1920, and has since consistently employed far more workers than any other single enterprise. The owners of San Antonio were—and continue to be—the most economically powerful group within the Nicaraguan elite, In contemporary Nicaragua, the above affirmations remain valid: San Antonio is still the largest employer and economically most powerful financial group in the country.
Any consideration of the development of Nicaraguan capitalism must take into account the history of the Ingenio San Antonio (ISA). In this article, I will examine the development of relations among labor, management, and the state in San Antonio from the 1890s until 1930 using archival and oral sources. Throughout this period, politics and economics were inseparable for the workers. Particularly after the U.S. Marines occupied Nicaragua in 1912 and bolstered the Conservative regime, the political Liberalism of the San Antonio workers was something of a popular revolutionary
- Type
- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1989
Footnotes
*
A preliminary version of this article, “Por su resistencia y pericia: Las relaciones laborales en el Ingenio San Antonio (1912-1936)” appeared in Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos 13:1(1987): 25-42. This version forms part of a book entitled To Lead as Equals: Rural Protest and Political Consciousness in Chinandega, Nicaragua 1912-1979, to be published in 1990 by the University of North Carolina.
References
1 U.S. State Department Archives, RG 57, 817.00/2013, September 3, 1912.
2 U.S. State Department RG57, 817.00/2059, October 4, 1912.
3 Interview with Alberto Cortez, November 1983, Chichigalpa, Nicaragua. Most of my informants, pensioned San Antonio workers, asked for anonymity. Respecting their wishes, I will cite “oral sources.” I will provide more details for research purposes.
4 Escritura Social de Nicaragua Sugar States Ltd., 1935, Granada, , Nicaragua, ; Escritura de Terrenos Ejidales, Municipio de Chichigalpa, 1895.Google Scholar
5 Censo de la República, 1920; Managua, ; Barreto, Mariano, Recuerdos de Chichigalpa, Corinto y Chinandega (Leon, 1921).Google Scholar
6 “Ingenio San Antonio, 1890–1953,” Nicaragua Sugar Estates Ltd., Granada, Nicaragua, 1953, p.5.; Playter, Harold, Nicaragua, A Commercial and Economic Survey, (Washington, 1927), p.35.Google Scholar
7 Libro de Cuentas del ISA, 1910–1918. The account book includes contracts with the colonos, wood and cane suppliers. The Liberal Party affiliation was derived by comparing the names with other sources. One colono, Fornos, had been mayor of Chichigalpa under the Zelaya regime.
8 Leon, Amoldo Silva, Cuba y el Mercado Internacional Azucarero, (Havana, 1975), p. 19–20 Google Scholar; “El Ingenio San Antonio” p.4.
9 Ibid., pp.4–6. Also see, Fernández, Felipe Neri, Geografía de la América Central, (Guatemala, 1976), p.376.Google Scholar
10 I extracted the above data from the personnel files of the Ingenio in Chichigalpa. The Departamento de Recursos Humanos kindly let me consult the fichas of retired workers. These cards contained birthplace and literacy data.
11 El Cronista, August 6, 1925.
12 Oral Sources.
13 El Cronista, 22 July, (924 and 6 January, 1926. Chinandegan cotton growers paid field hands more than one dollar a day, when ISA was paying its field labor forty cents a day.
14 On the one hand, field worker wages simply did not allow for the accumulation of savings, necessary to buy land or to make significant farming improvements. However on the other hand, the plantel was an excellent market for peasant goods. The “vivanderas,” the market women, sold directly to the mill workers.
15 Centro-America, VII:4 (October-December, 1915), p.633. In 1916 they built a playing field.
16 Interview with Hermogenes Solis, February, 1986, Chichigalpa.
17 Oral Sources.
18 Taussig, Consult Michael, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America, (Chapel Hill, 1980)Google Scholar and Palma, Milagros, Por los senderos míticos de Nicaragua, (Managua, 1984), pp. 124–131.Google Scholar
19 Memorias del Ministerio de Agricultura y Trabajo, 1934–1935, Managua, 1935; p.35.
20 Oral Sources, October 1984. A rough translation would be: “He was a real bastard.”
21 Ibid.
22 El Independiente (Leon), August 19, 1919.
23 El Cronista, August 1, 1924, and the Actas de la Central de Obreros, (1917–1929) in the possession of Toribio Muñoz, Chinandega.
24 U.S. State Department, 817.00/3769, report of August 25, 1926. According to Fernandez, Geografía de la America Central, ISA exported much of its annual production of one million liters of alcohol. It is doubtful that the entire year’s production was stockpiled.
25 Oral Sources; La Información (Chinandega), October 13, 1935.
26 See the Libro de Cuentas, 1912–1918.
27 La Gaceta, March 16, 1916 and March 23, 1916; Martín Benard was Ministro de Hacienda under Emiliano Chamorro (1916–1920). The Benards were the principal leaders of the Granada faction of the Conservative Party, which sometimes allied with, and at other times opposed the Emiliano Chamorro faction.
28 Leon, Silva, “Cuba y el mercado,” p.53 Google Scholar, and Belli, Pedro, “Prolegomeno para una historia económica de Nicaragua 1905–1966,” Revista del Pensamiento Centroamericano 30:146 (January-March, 1975), p.8.Google Scholar
29 “Memorias del Ministerio de Agricultura y Trabajo,” 1934–1935, p.34.
30 El Cronista, 22 January 1931: “San Antonio no exportara. Antes venderá en Nicaragua a precio fijo porque no tendra competencia.” Also consult, Belli, Pedro, “Prolegómeno para una historia económica de Nicaragua, 1905–1966,” p.6.Google Scholar
31 Memorias del Ministerio de Agricultura, 1934–1935, p.35.
32 Diario de Occidente, 8 March, 1929; Oral Sources. It should be stressed that the Benards did not support Chamorro’s coup, nor did they wish to go to war once he was in power. Nevertheless, it is likely that they financially supported the government effort against the revolutionaries.
33 Diario de Occidente, 20 March, 1929.
34 State Department, RG57, 817.00/6135. Letter dated 28 June, 1928 from Nicaragua Sugar Estates to the U.S. Embassy.
35 Consult for example, Diario de Occidente, 23 May, 1929; El Cronista, 8 January, 1931.
36 “Informe del Presidente de la Junta Directiva a la Junta de Accionistas,” (ISA), February, 1934; Memoria del Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito (Managua), 1925–1926, p.17. Playter, , “Nicaragua” p.62.Google Scholar
37 “Informe de la Junta Directiva del ISA; February 1944 and February 1946; Oral Sources; “Supplement to Commerce Reports” Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., no. 34 a, September 14, 1917; For a general description of the type of mill ISA purchased in 1916 see Rolph, George, Something About Sugar, (San Francisco, 1917), pp.22–33.Google Scholar
38 Oral Source.
39 Diario de Occidente, 21 March, 1929.
40 Ibid, p.8 March, 1929.
41 In the two electoral districts, which include the mill workers’ living quarters, the Liberals received 89 percent of the vote in the 1932 presidential election.
42 Interview with Martin Tercero, Chinandega, Nicaragua, November, 1984.
43 State Department, RG 57, 817.00/5045, 28 January, 1928.
44 America (Chichigalpa), 24 November 1931; Diario de Occidente, 24 November, 1931. Oral Sources.
45 U.S. State, 800B/810.5, November 28, 1931.
46 U.S. State, 800B.810.5, November 24, 1931.
47 Diario de Occidente, 20 April, 1929.
48 El Centroamericano, 12 February 1931 and 31 May 1931.
49 Nueva Democracia (Chinandega), June 16, 1929.
50 Nueva Democracia, 23 June, 1929.
51 Nueva Democracia, September Γ, 1929; El Centroamericano, February 12, 1931.
52 America, August 9, 1931.
53 Información (Chinandega), February 16, 1936; oral sources report that before the 1936 strike the field workers earned only twenty cents the “tarea” (task) and that they had to pay ten to fifteen cents a day for food in the “cocinas.”
54 Belli, , “Prologomeno” p.6 Google Scholar; “Report on Economic conditions in the Republic of Nicaragua, November, 1932” by Leach, L., Department of Overseas Trade, London, 1933, p.80.Google Scholar
55 “Report on Economic Conditions,” p.86.
56 Confidential U.S. Diplomatic Post Records (1930–1945), University Publications microfilms. February 18, 1936, Telegram 17. Ambassador Lane to the Secretary of State. Also see my Ph.D. dissertation, “To Lead as Equals: Rural Protest and Political Consciousness in Chinandega, Nicaragua, 1912–1979”, Yale University, 1988, pp.79–80.
57 See Gould, , “To Lead as Equals” pp.168–175 Google Scholar. Also see Información during the period January-July 1936, to see the transformation of the social democratic wing of the Liberal Party in Chinandega. Interviews with Domingo Ramirez, editor of the newspaper and Chinandegan political leader. 1984,1985 (Chinandega).
58 All of the fifteen informants from this period remember details about the life of Joaquin Cordero. On smallpox, see El Centroamericano, 28 August, 1931.
59 La Nueva Prensa, 24 May 1936 (union list); La Nueva Prensa, May 9, 1936 (Somoza support letter); Oral Sources.
60 “Informe de la Junta Directivadel ISA,” August, 1936; El Cronista, 7 July, 1936.
61 I arrive at this figure using data in the “Informe de la Junta Directiva del ISA,” February, 1936.
62 “Ingenio San Antonio, 1890–1953,” p.5.
63 “Informe de la Junta,” August 1936.
64 El Cronista, July 9, 1936.
65 El Eco de Managua, 12 July, 1936; La Noticia, 7 July, 1936; El Cronista, 7 July, 1936; Oral Sources; The implied or real use of force in strikes is a constant occurrence in Nicaraguan labor history. The union militants blockage of the train and their march from colonia to colonia is reminiscent of the late nineteenth century strikes in the U.S. According to David Montgomery, “This epoch was also the heyday of the strikers’ march, the moving torrent of men, women and children closing every workplace in its path. This contagious form of strike was very different than the deliberated, organized effort toward which union behavior was then evolving.” in “Strikes in Nineteenth Century America,” Social Science History 4:1 (February 1980), p.95. In the Nicaraguan cases that I have studied, realities and emotions of fear, danger and authoritarianism strongly influenced such forms of struggle.
66 La Noticia, 9 July 1936; Oral Sources.
67 “Informe de la Junta Directiva,” August 1936.
68 El Cronista, July 9, 1936.
69 El Cronista, 21 July, 1936; La Guardia Nacional, July, 1936; Oral Sources.
70 La Guardia Nacional, July, 1936.
71 Article, dated 1937, furnished to the author by Nicaragua Sugar Estates, Ltd. Managua. Alemán Bolaños had recently written Sandino. Un estudio completo del heroe de las Segovias, (El Salvador, 1932).
72 Oral Sources.
73 Oral Sources.
74 See Gould, , “To Lead as Equals,” pp.41–47.Google Scholar