A history of Nicaragua — notes from a lecture by Aynn Setright
Nicaragua is divided into three regions, the Miskito coast in the Caribbean named for indigenous people who live there, the central region and the Pacific coast.
1503 — Christopher Columbus came to Nicaragua and the Conquistadores came down from Mexico in search of gold. 75 percent of the indigenous population was wiped out by smallpox, war and slavery, as was the Pacific culture. The current Mestizo population is a combination of Spanish, indigenous, and African. The country gained its connection to Catholicism from the Spanish as well.
The next 300 years represented a period of Spanish colonization and a futile system run by “lords” and serfs who were allowed to work for the lords. In 1831 Nicaragua gained its independence from Spain along with other Latin American countries.
In 1856 Nicaragua earned another Independence Day by overthrowing William Walker. William Walker was from Tennessee and built the Vanderbilt highway, which allowed people to go from New York City to Nicaragua, down a river to Lake Granada and then to the Pacific and California — all in thirty days. Walker was hired by the Nicaraguan liberals to defeat the conservatives. After he did that he defeated the conservatives and declared himself president of Nicaragua. This united both the liberals and conservatives against him and they defeated him.
In 1894 President Zelaya annexed the Miskito coast and the Pacific coast as part of Nicaragua.
1903 — Zelaya decided to build a canal across Nicaragua, but the U.S. created Panama so that they could build the canal.
1909 — Zelaya decided to build a canal too, but the U.S. Saw this as a threat to their economic gain and started a Marine occupation of Nicaragua that lasted until 1934. During this time Sandino fought against the U.S. Marines. The Marines created the National Guard of Nicaragua so that they could leave, and when they left Sandino felt like he had won. He ran for president, was elected and then immediately assassinated. His troops were also killed.
1934 — Sandino was assassinated and Samosa was elected as president. This began a military dictatorship that lasted until 1979 and spanned two generations and three Samosa dictators, a father and his two sons. Samosa maintained his power by giving himself 60 percent of the votes and letting the conservatives have 40 percent of the votes, thereby giving them a little bit of power, which was better than no power, and ensuring their support.
1972 — earthquake in Managua. Samosa stopped giving the economic elite 40 percent of the profit in rebuilding the city, and this was the beginning of his end.
1979 — Jimmy Carter stopped supporting Samosa and he was overthrown by the FSLN army (the Sandinista National Liberation Front). The revolution created social programs like free healthcare, literacy programs, and education reform. During the literacy campaign the illiteracy rate in Nicaragua went from 52 percent to 12 percent in 8 months.
1980 — the Cold War caused Reagan to believe that Nicaragua was a Communist country, and he funded the Contras in Honduras to overthrow the Sandinistas and the FSLN army. 50,000 Nicaraguans died in this war.
1989 — the Berlin Wall fell, ending the Cold War and the U.S. involvement in Nicaragua. However the Sandinistas lost their support from Russia and lost the elections. Instead Violetta won the election and formed an alliance with the Sandinistas by making one of them Vice President. However, she gave economic power to the World Bank, which created privatization and a free market economy. This caused an exploitation of the work force to provide the cheapest labor for products sold in North America. Social programs were no longer free like they were during the revolution. The gap between the rich and the poor widened with economic growth at the top.
1996-2006 — a corrupt president was in power and after 9/11 the U.S.-associated Daniel Ortega and the FSLN as terrorists.
2006 — Daniel Ortega won the election.
Current situation — Ortega is now one of the economic elite and controls the people by giving them things like materials to build houses, food, scholarships so they people will feel in debt to him. Now he has unchecked power. On Easter Sunday when we arrived we followed 500 city buses to the beaches. The buses drove through the poor neighborhoods picking people up for a day at the beach. But this also meant that there were no buses left in the city to take people to work. It seems that slowly an authoritarian government is forming, and this has people concerned. Our bus driver was a Sandinista fighting the Contras, and while he still votes for Ortega he is moving in a direction of not voting for anyone.