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Peace Through Disunion: Father Juan José de Aycinena and the Fall of the Central American Federation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

David Chandler
David Chandler*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
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Extract

In 1821 Central Americans who had united to throw off the control of Spain, found themselves hopelessly divided on issues concerning the nature of the political and social institutions of the nation they had created. Confidently the Liberals challenged authority and tradition, condemned the past and its institutions and strove to construct a new world of freedom, equality, democracy and progress. Conservatives feared the rashness and the uncertainty of that new world. They thought it both foolish and unnecessary to destroy the old in order to build the new. The confrontation between Liberals and Conservatives was to be lengthy and violent. Both groups aspired to political control and, lacking practical experience in government or statesmanship, each sought political power as a vehicle for ensuring its own ascendancy and imposing its views upon the nation. One of the most troublesome issues on which they clashed was the form of government. And one of the most central figures in that conflict was Father Juan José de Aycinena.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , October 1989 , pp. 137 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1989

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References

1 Salazar, Ramón A., Mariano de Aycinena (Guatemala, 1952), p. 24 Google Scholar; Strobeck, Susan Emily, “The Political Activities of Some Members of the Aristocratic Families of Guatemala, 1821–1839,” (M.A. thesis, Tulane University, 1958), p. 5.Google Scholar

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64 Gaceta Oficial (Guatemala), July 3, 1842, 205.

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