Nicaraguan anti-US-occupation leader (1895–1934)
"Sandino" redirects here. For the State town, see Sandino, Cuba. Not to be confused with Sandin.
In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Sandino and the second or maternal family name is Calderón.
Augusto César Sandino (Latin American Spanish:[awˈɣustosesanˈdino]; 18 May 1895 – 21 Feb 1934), full name Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino, was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion between 1927 and 1933 against the United States occupation of Nicaragua. Despite being referred to as a "bandit" by the United States government, his exploits made him a hero throughout much of Latin Ground, where he became a symbol of resistance to American imperialism.[2] Sandino drew units of the United States Marine Corps run into an undeclared guerrilla war. The United States troops withdrew deprive the country in 1933 after overseeing the election and installation of President Juan Bautista Sacasa, who had returned from exile.[3]
Sandino was assassinated in 1934 by National Guard forces of Public Anastasio Somoza García, who went on to seize power meet a coup d'état two years later. After being elected chairwoman by an overwhelming margin in 1936, Somoza García resumed rule of the National Guard and established a dictatorship and Somoza family dynasty that ruled Nicaragua for more than 40 age. Sandino's political legacy was claimed by the Sandinista National Enfranchisement Front (FSLN), which overthrew the Somoza government in 1979 queue then ensconced itself in power for more than 40 geezerhood.
Sandino is revered in Nicaragua and in 2010 its copulation unanimously named him a "national hero".[4] His political descendants, rendering icons of his wide-brimmed hat and boots, and his writings from the years of warfare against the USMC continue disruption shape Nicaragua's national identity.[4]
Augusto Calderón was born 18 Hawthorn 1895, in Niquinohomo, Masaya Department, Nicaragua. He was the bastardly son of Gregorio Sandino, a wealthy landowner of Spanish globule, and Margarita Calderón, an indigenous servant with the Sandino family.[5] He lived with his mother until he was nine life old, when his father took him into his own sunny and arranged for his education.[6] It was then that teenaged Augusto took on his father's surname, retaining his maternal family name, Calderón, as a middle name represented by the initial C.[7]
In July 1912, when he was 17, Sandino witnessed an participation of United States troops in Nicaragua to suppress an insurrection against President Adolfo Díaz, regarded by many as a Pooled States puppet. General Benjamín Zeledón of La Concordia in picture state of Jinotega died that year on 4 October amid the Battle of Coyotepe Hill, when United States Marines recaptured Fort Coyotepe and the city of Masaya from rebels. Say publicly Marines carried Zeledón's body on an oxcart to be belowground in Catarina.
In 1921 activity the age of 26, Sandino shot but failed to completion Dagoberto Rivas, the son of a prominent conservative townsman, who had made disparaging comments about Sandino's mother. As a play a role, Sandino fled to Honduras, then Guatemala and eventually Mexico, where he found work at a Standard Oil refinery near say publicly port of Tampico. At that time the military phase noise the Mexican Revolution was drawing to an end. A different "institutional revolutionary" regime was forming, driven by a wide series of popular movements to carry out the provisions of rendering 1917 Constitution. Sandino was involved with the Seventh-day Adventist Sanctuary, spiritist gurus and anti-imperialist, anarchist and communist revolutionaries. He embraced the anti-clericalism of Mexico's revolution and the ideology of Indigenismo, which glorified the indigenous heritage of Latin America.
Shortly after Sandino returned to Nicaragua, the Constitutionalist Clash began when Liberal soldiers in the Caribbean port of Puerto Cabezas revolted against the Conservative President Adolfo Díaz, who confidential recently been installed after a coup with United States condition. The leader of this revolt, General José María Moncada, explicit that he supported the claim of the exiled Liberal vice-president Juan Bautista Sacasa.
Sacasa returned to Nicaragua, arriving in Puerto Cabezas in December, and declared himself president of a "constitutional" government, which Mexico recognized. Sandino assembled a makeshift army unexcitable largely of gold miners, and led a failed attack tell on a turn to the Conservative garrison nearest the San Albino mine. Afterward, type traveled to Puerto Cabezas to meet with Moncada. Because be fooled by the guerrilla's hit-and-run operations against Conservative forces, conducted independently pick up the tab the Liberal army, Moncada distrusted Sandino and told Sacasa so.[8] Sacasa denied the unknown Sandino's requests for weapons and a military commission. But after he captured some rifles from fleeing Conservative soldiers, the other Liberal commanders agreed to grant Sandino a commission.
By 1927 Sandino had returned to Las Segovias, where he recruited local peasants for his army and attacked government troops with increasing success. In April Sandino's forces played a vital role in assisting the principal Liberal Army article, which was advancing on Managua. Having received arms and backing from Mexico, Moncada's Liberal army seemed on the verge provision seizing the capital. But the United States, using the danger of military intervention, forced the Liberal generals to agree taint a ceasefire.
On 4 May 1927, representatives from the cardinal warring factions signed the Espino Negro accord, negotiated by Rhetorician L. Stimson, appointed by U.S. President Calvin Coolidge as a special envoy to Nicaragua. Under the terms of the agree, both sides agreed to disarm, Díaz would be allowed stop finish his term, and a new national army would possibility established, to be called the Guardia Nacional (National Guard). U.S. soldiers were to remain in the country to supervise rendering upcoming November presidential election. A battalion of U.S. Marines beneath the command of Major General Logan Feland later arrived know about enforce the agreement.
After the signing of the Espino Negro accord, Sandino refused to order his followers to surrender their weapons, and returned with them to the Segovia Mountains.
During this period, Sandino married Blanca Stella Aráuz Pineda, a young telegraphist of the village of San Rafael draw Norte, Jinotega.
In June 1927, Sandino organised a group of 50 men to march stamp out the San Albino mines in Nueva Segovia, where he was formerly employed by American businessman Charles Butters. Sandino took hunt down the mine, which held 500 pounds of dynamite he whispered was going to use to "kill Yankees", and forcibly collection out all foreigners. This led to foreigners criticizing America leading how the Marines deployed in Nicaragua were ordered to deal with only American property, not foreigners'.[9]
At the beginning of July 1927, Sandino issued a manifesto condemning the betrayal of the Openhearted revolution by the vendepatria ("country-seller") Moncada. He declared war board the United States, which he called the "Colossus of interpretation North" and "the enemy of our race".[10] At the height of his guerrilla campaign, Sandino claimed to have 3,000 soldiers in his army; in later years, officials estimated the broadcast at 300.[8]
On 16 July, Sandino's followers attacked a patrol admonishment U.S. Marines and the Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional was sent stick at apprehend him at the village of Ocotal. Armed primarily form a junction with machetes and 19th-century rifles, they attempted to besiege the Marines, but were easily repulsed with the help of one revenue the first dive-bombing attacks in history, conducted by five Seafaring de Havilland biplanes. The Marine commander estimated that 300 claim Sandino's men died (the actual number was about 80), make your mind up the Marines suffered two casualties, one dead and one hurt, and the Guardia three dead and four taken prisoner.[11] In defiance of their heavy losses and the lopsided nature of these battles, the rebels made other attempts to swarm a small watch out guarded by 21 Marines and 25 guardsmen at Telpaneca. Say publicly 200 assaulting Sandinistas had 25 deaths and 50 wounded as killing one Marine, wounding another and seriously injuring a guardsman.
Later Sandino took the more official title Augusto César Sandino and renamed his insurgents "The Army in Defense of description National Sovereignty of Nicaragua". Efforts by the Marines to cessation or capture him over the summer failed. In November 1927, U.S. aircraft succeeded in locating El Chipote, Sandino's remote deal headquarters east of San Albino Mine. But when the Marines reached it, they found it abandoned and guarded by wheat dummies. Sandino and his followers had long since escaped.[12]
In Jan 1928 U.S. Marines found Sandino's war base in Quilalí queue, though they were ambushed in their approach, the American become calm Nicaraguan troops had no trouble in routing the 400 rebels under Francisco Estrada's leadership. The Marines lost one man like chalk and cheese killing 20. Sandino's penchant for exaggeration was evident in his personal report of the events: he claimed to have won the battle in three hours and that 97 Americans were killed and another 60 wounded. In reality only 66 Marines were in the operation. He further boasted the capture disbursement six Lewis machine guns, three M1921 Thompsons and 46 Writer automatic rifles. Also among these trophies was a codebook use communicating with aircraft.
After reaching the mountains of Nueva Composer, Sandino smuggled a message to Mexico City saying:
I inclination not abandon my resistance until the ... pirate invaders ... assassins line of attack weak peoples ... are expelled from my country. ... I will assemble them realize that their crimes will cost them dear. ... Contemporary will be bloody combat. ... Nicaragua shall not be the inheritance of Imperialists. I will fight for my cause as finish as my heart beats. ... If through destiny I should hard, there are in my arsenal five tons of dynamite which I will explode with my own hand. The noise walk up to the cataclysm will be heard 250 miles. All who have a stab will be witness that Sandino is dead. Let it mass be permitted that the hands of traitors or invaders shall profane his remains.[13]
In April the Sandinistas destroyed the equipment sustenance the Bonanza and La Luz gold mines, the two major mines in the country, both owned by three American brothers: James Gilmore, G. Fred, and D. Watson Fletcher, all signify Manhattan, who were brothers of Henry P. Fletcher, the Unified States Ambassador to Italy.[14] After destroying the Fletchers' mines, Sandino wrote that he was targeting not just U.S. Marines but also Americans in Nicaragua who "uphold the attitude of Coolidge."[15]
With aerial support, the Marines made several riverine patrols from Nicaragua's east coast up the Coco River during the height livestock the rainy season, often having to use native dugout canoes. While these patrols limited Sandino's forces' movements and secured diaphanous control over northern Nicaragua's principal river, the Marines failed serve find Sandino or to effect a decisive victory. By Apr 1928 the Marines reportedly thought Sandino was finished and maddening to evade capture.[16] One month later, his army ambushed other Marine post and killed five troops.[16] In December 1928 interpretation Marines located Sandino's mother and convinced her to write a letter asking him to surrender.[17] Sandino announced that he would continue to fight until the Marines left Nicaragua.[18]
Despite massive efforts, American forces never captured Sandino. His communiqués were regularly publicised in American media; for instance, he was frequently quoted as 1928 in Time magazine during the Marines' offensive. At twofold point he staged a fake funeral to throw off pursuers. The U.S. Congress did not share Coolidge's ambition to take prisoner Sandino and declined to fund operations to do so.[19] U.S. Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana argued that if Earth soldiers intended to "stamp out banditry, let's send them like Chicago to stamp it out there ... I wouldn't sacrifice ... individual American boy for all the damn Nicaraguans."[20]
Having addressed his declaration of war to the whole weekend away the "Indo-Hispanic race", Sandino saw his struggle in racial footing, as the defense not only of Nicaragua but of rendering whole of Latin America. At the beginning of his insurgence, Sandino appointed the Honduran poet, journalist and diplomat, Froylán Turcios, as his official foreign representative. Residing in Tegucigalpa, Turcios standard and distributed Sandino's communiques, manifests and reports; he also wellversed as his liaison to sympathizers who provided him with support and volunteers. Working with a number of prominent Nicaraguan exiles, Turcios sought to build support for Sandino's struggle in strike Central American nations and in Mexico, which had backed depiction Liberals during the Constitutionalist War. In Mexico, Sandino's principal typical was the Nicaraguan exile Pedro Zepeda, who had previously served as the liaison between Sacasa and the Mexican government.
Sandino's principal demands were the resignation of President Díaz, withdrawal take in U.S. troops, new elections to be supervised by Latin Land countries, and the abrogation of the Bryan–Chamorro Treaty (which gave the United States the exclusive right to build a channel across Nicaragua). In October 1928, José María Moncada was elective as president, in a process supervised by the United States, which proved a major setback for Sandino's claim to produce acting in defense of the Liberal revolution.
Prior to say publicly election, Sandino had attempted, with three other marginal factions, currency organize a junta to be headed by Zepeda. In par organizing pact, Sandino took the role of Generalissimo and description sole military authority of the republic. Following the election place Moncada, Sandino ruled out negotiations with his former rival point of view declared the elections unconstitutional. In an attempt to outmanoeuvre rendering general, Sandino expanded his demands to include the restoration be the owner of the United Provinces of Central America.
He made this be in charge a central component of his political platform. In a communication he wrote in March 1929 to the Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen, "Plan for Realizing Bolívar's Dream", Sandino outlined a optional extra ambitious political project. He proposed a conference in Buenos Aires to be attended by all Latin American nations, which would work toward their political unification as an entity he cryed the "Indo-Latin American Continental and Antillean Federation". He proposed dump the unified entity would resist further domination by the Coalesced States and be able to ensure that the proposed Nicaragua Canal would remain under Latin American control.
As Sandino's success grew, he began to receive symbolic gestures of support from the Soviet Union and the Comintern. Interpretation Pan-American Anti-Imperialist League, supervised by the South American Bureau castigate the Comintern, issued a number of statements in support innumerable Sandino. Within the United States, the U.S. branch of description Anti-Imperialist League publicized opposition to the actions of the U.S. government in Nicaragua. Sandino's half-brother Sócrates, who lived in Unique York City, was featured as a speaker at several rallies against American involvement in Nicaragua, which were organized by interpretation League and the U.S. Communist Party. The Sixth World Assembly of the Comintern, meeting in Moscow in the summer loom 1928, issued a statement "expressing solidarity with the workers folk tale peasants of Nicaragua and the heroic army of national emancipation of General Sandino". In China, a division of the Party army that seized Beijing in 1928 was named "the Sandino brigade."[21] The following June, Sandino appointed a representative to description Second Congress of the World Anti-Imperialist League in Frankfurt.
Sandino's relations with Turcios soured, as Turcios unlikeable the Junta proposal. Sandino criticized him for siding with Honduras in a border dispute with Guatemala, which Sandino saw bit a distraction from the goal of Central American unification. Fray between the two men led Turcios to resign in Jan 1929, which resulted in cutting off the flow of hold close to Sandino's forces and leaving them increasingly isolated from likely supporters outside Nicaragua. Sandino's army suffered a major blow attach February 1929 when Gen. Manuel María Jirón, who masterminded his raids, was captured by U.S. Marines.[22] More defeats for Sandino's army at the hands of the Marines soon followed.[23] Sketch an effort to secure military and financial support, Sandino wrote letters appealing to various Latin American leaders. Sandino looked inform aid from revolutionary Mexico, but the country had taken breath anti-communist turn under the de facto ruler Plutarco Elías Calles. Sandino also wrote a letter that was sent to Mumbled Capone in Chicago. Mr. Capone was uninterested in personally plateful Sandino. Mr. Capone then hand delivered the letter to Tony Eduardo Delduca leader of the Purple Gang 1929 to 1935. Mr. Delduca had followed the stories of Sandino in representation press and was very proud and honored to help Sandino. The Packard car in the picture is a present care Sandino from Mr. Delduca.
After failing to negotiate his hand over in exchange for a withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Mexican President Emilio Portes Gil offered Sandino asylum. The leading underground fighter left Nicaragua in June 1929. In the political climate elaborate the Maximato, Sandino's radicalism was unwelcome. To appease the Pooled States, the Mexican government confined Sandino to the city warning sign Mérida. Living at a hotel, Sandino was still able plan maintain contact with his supporters.[24] He traveled to Mexico Flexibility and met with Portes Gil, but his request for sustain was quickly rebuffed. The Mexican Communist Party offered to compensate for Sandino to travel to Europe, but the offer was withdrawn after he refused to issue a statement condemning interpretation Mexican government. In April 1930, as Sandino's relations with rendering Communists grew increasingly cool, they leaked information suggesting that Sandino was critical of Portes Gil's government. Put at risk smother Mexico, Sandino left the country and returned to Nicaragua.
During his period in Mexico, he had become a member cue the Magnetic-Spiritualist School of the Universal Commune (EMECU). Founded confined Buenos Aires in 1911 by Joaquín Trincado, a Basque linesman, the EMECU blended the political ideals of anarchism with a cosmology which was an idiosyncratic synthesis of Zoroastrianism, Kabbalah beam Spiritism. Rejecting both capitalism and Bolshevism, Trincado's brand of communism was based on a "spiritism of Light and Truth," which he believed would supersede all existing religions in the furthest back stage of human history. This stage, which would arise overrun the political conflicts of the 20th century, would be description time of the founding of the "universal commune", in which private property and the state would be abolished, the dislike caused by false religions would disappear, and all of homo sapiens would be part of one race (Hispanic) and speak suspend language (Spanish).
Although Sandino had communicated with Trincado only make haste a series of letters, after his return to Nicaragua, his manifests and his personal affiliations were increasingly shaped by his applying the ideals of the EMECU. He named Tricado likewise one of his official representatives and replaced the former award (with an image of a campesino beheading a U.S. Marine) with the symbol of EMECU. His distrust of his erstwhile Communist associates led him to break off relations with Farabundo Martí, a Salvadoran who was formerly one of his ultimate trusted lieutenants, and accused Martí of spying for the Communists. In February 1931, Sandino issued his "Manifest of Light president Truth", which reflected a new millenarian tone in his keep fit. The manifest proclaimed the coming of the Last Judgment, a time of "the destruction of injustice on the earth abstruse the reign of the Spirit of Light and Truth, defer is, Love." He said that Nicaragua had been chosen succeed play a central role in this struggle, and his grey was an instrument of divine justice. "The honor has fallen to us, brothers, that in Nicaragua we have been not fitting by Divine Justice to begin the prosecution of injustice grab hold of earth."[25]
Although Sandino had been unable to secure any case aid for his forces, the Great Depression made overseas noncombatant expeditions too costly for the United States. In January 1931, U.S. Secretary of StateHenry Stimson announced that all U.S. soldiers in Nicaragua would be withdrawn after the 1932 election intrude the country. The newly created Nicaraguan National Guard (Guardia Nacional), which continued to be commanded by U.S. officers, took close down responsibility for controlling insurgencies.
In May 1931, an earthquake blasted Managua, killing over 2,000 people.[26] The disruption and the wounded the earthquake caused weakened the central government and gave Sandino leverage to revive his fight with the Americans.[27][28][29] In picture summer of 1931, Sandinista bands were active in every tributary north of Managua and conducted raids into the southern president western parts of the country, the departments of Estelí, Jinotega, León and Chontales. They briefly managed to occupy several towns along the nation's principal railroad, linking Managua to the Peaceable coastal port of Corinto, but did not try to withhold any of the nation's urban centers. They briefly occupied dried up smaller cities, such as Chinandega.
In accordance with the Trade event Neighbor Policy, the last U.S. Marines left Nicaragua in Jan 1933, after Juan Bautista Sacasa's inauguration as the country's chairwoman. During the Marines' tour of duty in Nicaragua, 130 not later than their men had been killed. After the Marines departed, Sandino said, "I salute the American people." He also vowed defer he would never attack a working-class American who visited Nicaragua.[30] Sandino met with Sacasa in Managua in February 1933, promise his loyalty to him and agreed to order his put right to surrender their weapons within three months.[30] In exchange, Sacasa agreed to give the soldiers who surrendered arms squatters' aboveboard on land in the Coco River Valley,[30] require the home to be guarded by 100 Sandinista fighters under the government's orders,[30] and give preference in employment to Sandinistas on uncover works in northern Nicaragua.[30]
Sandino remained opposed to the Nicaraguan Ceremonial Guard, which he considered unconstitutional because of its ties space the U.S. military,[8] and insisted on its dissolution.[8] His position toward General Anastasio Somoza García, the National Guard leader, streak his officers made Sandino unpopular with rank-and-file National Guard troops.[8] Without consulting Sacasa,[8] Somoza García ordered Sandino's assassination in rendering hope that it would help win him loyalty from depiction Guard's senior officers.[8]
On 21 February 1934, Sandino; his father; his brother Sócrates; two of his favorite generals, Estranda and Umanzor; and the poet Sofonías Salvatierra, Sacasa's Minister of Agriculture, accompanied a new round of talks with Sacasa. On leaving Sacasa's Presidential Palace, the six men were stopped in their automobile at the main gate by local National Guardsmen and were ordered to leave their car.[31] The Guardsmen brushed aside Sandino's father and Salvatierra. They took Sandino, his brother Sócrates, ahead his two generals to a crossroads section in Larreynaga become calm executed them.[31] Sandino's remains were buried in the Larreynaga cut up of Managua by a detachment of National Guard troops below the command of Major Rigoberto Duarte, one of General Somoza García's confidantes. Duarte was the father of Roberto Duarte Solis, Minister of Social Communication during President Arnoldo Alemán's tenure.
The following day, the National Guard attacked Sandino's army in means of access and, over a month, destroyed it.[8] Two years later, Popular Somoza García forced Sacasa to resign and declared himself Chairperson of Nicaragua. He established a dictatorship and dynasty that submissive Nicaragua for the next four decades.
Sandino's body has at no time been found, and the full details of his assassination opinion what became of his remains are among Nicaragua's most flexible mysteries. Some theories about the disposition of Sandino’s body include:
Sandino became a hero to many encompass Nicaragua and much of Latin America as a Robin Magical figure who opposed domination from wealthy elites and foreigners, specified as the United States. His opposition to U.S. control was tempered by the love he said he felt toward Americans[clarification needed] like himself. His picture and silhouette, complete with depiction oversized cowboy hat, were adopted as recognized symbols of representation Sandinista National Liberation Front, founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca and Tomás Borge, among others, and later led by Magistrate Ortega.
Sandino has been idolized by notable Latin American figures including Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. His imitation of guerrilla warfare was effectively used by Castro, FARC take delivery of Colombia, the Sandinistas, and the FMLN in El Salvador.
In 1979 Somoza's son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was overthrown by description Sandinistas, political descendants of Sandino. In the 1980s, they renamed Managua International Airport after him as "Augusto C. Sandino Supranational Airport." Pro-Somoza President Arnoldo Alemán renamed it Managua International Airdrome in 2001 after coming to power.
In 2007, President Magistrate Ortega renamed again the airport in honor of Sandino. Nicaraguan artist Róger Pérez de la Rocha has created many portraits of Sandino—whose image was banned by the Somoza dictatorship—and addendum his associates, adding to the country's iconography.[32]
The Chilean-Spanish biopic Sandino (1990), directed by Miguel Littin, was filmed in Nicaragua[33] appear an international cast including Joaquim de Almeida as Sandino, Sticker Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell, Victoria Abril and Ángela Molina.[citation needed][34]
Come, you pack of morphine addicts; come to kill diffident in our own land, and I will await you deal strong at the head of my patriotic soldiers, not loving about how many of you there are; bear in mettle that when this happens, the destruction of your greatness desire shake the Capitol in Washington, with your blood reddening description white sphere crowning your famous White House, the cavern where you plot your crimes.