Guatemalan Adoptions, NFP. - Guatemalan Adoptions

Guatemalan History

Maya civilization arose in the highlands of Guatemala over 2000 years ago. The Maya formed thriving city-states and a trading network that stretched over a wide area. They had a distinctive architectural style that featured temples, pyramids, and plazas. They also developed sophisticated scientific knowledge, a complex calendar, and a hieroglyphic writing system.

After Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire in Mexico in 1519, he sent his lieutenant, Pedro de Alvarado, to invade Guatemala in 1524. Alvarado found the native Guatemalans engaged in civil war and already suffering from diseases introduced by Europeans. By 1528 he had established Spanish rule over the region.

Independence movements in Spain's American colonies began in the early 1810s, when Spain was occupied by French troops during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1821 a council of notables in Guatemala City declared independence from Spain and formed a government that assumed jurisdiction over the entire kingdom. Two years later a Central American convention formed the United Provinces of Central America, a federation that included Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.

Dissension plagued the federation, and the elite class was divided into competing liberal and conservative factions. In 1829 liberal forces commanded by Honduran general Francisco Morazan took power. Morazan instituted policies that took land from the church, indigenous people, and rural communities and turned it over to private owners and foreign investors for commercial agriculture. Liberal officials also made major changes in the educational systems, encouraged foreign immigration, and introduced trial by jury and other judicial innovations. These actions alienated large sectors of the Guatemalan clergy, legal profession, and rural peasants.

Taking advantage of the widespread dissatisfaction, Rafael Carrera, a conservative and a former army officer, led the peasants in a successful guerrilla war, and the federation collapsed. Carrera dominated Guatemala from 1840 until his death in 1865, ruling almost as a dictator. Under his rule, Guatemala formally declared itself a sovereign republic in 1847. The Catholic clergy regained much of its power, and foreign influence declined.

Carrera's successor, General Vicente Cerna, continued conservative rule until 1871, when liberals took power. Led by a series of strong dictators, Guatemala stayed under liberal rule until 1944. During this time, Guatemala's economy grew substantially, largely from exports of coffee and other crops. An elite class benefited most from the economic success, and the gap between wealthy growers and rural laborers grew larger.

Although coffee was the main economic force, bananas also became important. The crop was controlled primarily by the United Fruit Company (UFCO), which was owned by U.S. interests. In the 1930s the worldwide economic collapse known as the Great Depression brought severe economic decline to Guatemala; coffee and banana exports dropped dramatically. Jorge Ubico Castaneda took office as president in 1931 and remained in power until 1944, when growing opposition and ill health forced him to step down. General Jorge Ponce Vaides became president, but a group of military officers and civilians soon forced him to resign.

Ubico's ouster began a decade of dramatic social, economic, and political change in Guatemala, referred to as the Guatemalan revolution or Ten Years of Spring. Under the presidencies of Juan Jose Arevalo (1944-1951) and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman (1951-1954), the government gave more attention to the grievances of middle- and lower-class Guatemalans. It began to restrict the privileges and power of the elite class and foreign capitalists. The land reform law of June 1952, which attempted to take unused agricultural land from large-scale property owners and give it to landless rural workers, was aimed directly at the United Fruit Company's huge banana plantations.

United Fruit's propaganda campaign against the Guatemalan revolution influenced the U.S. government. In 1954 a group of Guatemalan exiles, armed and trained by the U.S. government and commanded by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, invaded Guatemala. Arbenz was forced to resign, and Castillo Armas became president.

For the next 30 years military officers dominated Guatemala. Many of the reforms begun during the revolution were reversed. Land was returned to property owners; Marxist parties were outlawed; and other political parties, labor groups, and rural organizations were banned or severely restricted. With strong U.S. military and economic assistance, the governments during this period were intensely anti-Communist and stifled free political activity. With no peaceful way to seek political or social change, some Guatemalans turned to violence. In 1982 General Efraín Ríos Montt assumed control as a dictator, initiating a brutal campaign against the guerrillas. The next year, the military ousted Ríos Montt and began a period of conciliation.

In 1985 Marco Vinicio Cerezo won election as Guatemala's first civilian president in 31 years. Although the military still exercised ultimate control, civilian leaders continued to govern Guatemala in the 1990s. By the middle of the decade, a wider spectrum of groups was allowed to participate in politics, and negotiations began to end the civil war. In 1992 Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Quiche woman from Guatemala, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of human rights for the poor and indigenous people of the country. A peace accord between the government and guerrilla forces was finally signed in 1996.

Guatemalan Adoptions, NFP
307 Henry Street, Suite 211
Alton, Illinois 62002

phone: (618) 462-4477
fax: (618) 462-8585
click here to email us

Guatemalan
Adoptions, NFP.
307 Henry Street,
Suite 211
Alton, IL 62002

phone: (618) 462-4477
fax: (618) 462-8585
email us now

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Serving the Southern Illinois area for all International Guatemalan Adoptions.

John D. Stobbs, II
ATTORNEY AT LAW
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Rosario Stobbs
INTER-COUNTRY COORDINATOR
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