In 1912, the United States invaded Nicaragua and began what would become the longest US occupation in Latin American history. The occupation would birth both a dictatorship and one of Latin America’s most important revolutionary heroes: Augusto Sandino.
Sandino would wage a six-year-long guerrilla insurgency to rid Nicaragua of the US Marines. And he would win. The United States finally pulled out in 1933, the year before Sandino was assassinated by the forces of the man who would take power and rule for decades.
In this episode, host Michael Fox takes us on the trail of Augusto Sandino. We visit his hometown and then speak with University of Pittsburgh historian Michel Gobat about Sandino’s life, the US occupation, and how it set the scene for everything that would come decades later, including the 1979 Sandinista Revolution.
Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present.
In each episode, host Michael Fox takes us to a location where something historic happened — a landmark of revolutionary struggle or foreign intervention. Today, it might look like a random street corner, a church, a mall, a monument, or a museum. But every place he takes us was once the site of history-making events that shook countries, impacted lives, and left deep marks on the world.
Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.
This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.
Guests: Michel Gobat
Edited by Heather Gies.
Sound design by Gustavo Türck.
Theme music by Monte Perdido and Michael Fox
Other music from Blue Dot Sessions.
Follow and support journalist Michael Fox or Under the Shadow at https://www.patreon.com/mfox
For background, see Michel Gobat’s book Confronting the American Dream: Nicaragua under U.S. Imperial Rule (2005, Duke University Press)
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Michael Fox:
Hi folks. I’m your host, Michael Fox. So before we begin, I want to say that today’s episode is going to be a little different. As usual, I’ll begin by taking you to a spot that’s important for understanding this moment in history. This week, I’m looking at the longest US occupation in Latin American history, but most of the episode after this is centered on one interview. Similar to the updates I’ve released in recent months, I decided this was the best way to highlight this story. I’ll return to the regular sound immersive style for the coming episodes and the remainder of the series. Okay, here’s the show.
I’m in the central plaza of this small town named Nimo. It’s kind of on the backside of Messiah. They’re heading south out of Managua and it’s very kind of homemade and grassroots. They’ve got these small little parks for the kids, the little chunk of gyms and overlooking everything is a huge statue of Sandino, who of course is the main revolutionary figure here in Nicaragua. And there’s statues of Sandino in many different towns across the country. Flags of course from the FSLN, Ente, Sandinista ion, and Nicaragua flags. But this plaza and this statue is important because it sits just across the street from Sandino’s birthplace. This is his hometown and the little house in the corner, the blue and white house in the corner is where he grew up,
Kind of. Nicola Sandino was born in 1895. The so-called illegitimate son of a wealthy coffee grower and merchant, and his indigenous servant Margarita Caldron. As a young boy, Sandino lived with his mother.
Michel Gobat:
When he’s young, he sometimes also helps his mother work out in the coffee harvest in working on large coffee estates owned by the wealthiest elites of Nicaragua Regional elite of Nicaragua, which is just a bit south of Messiah. So I think that also leads to develop some kind of sense of social consciousness.
Michael Fox:
That’s historian Michel Goba. We’ll hear a lot from him in this episode. He’s the author of Confronting the American Dream, Nicaragua under us Imperial Rule. It’s about the two decade long occupation of Nicaragua by the US Marines from 1912 through 1933. The focus of this episode, it was a time when the United States was intervening not just in Nicaragua, but up and down Central America and the Caribbean, fighting what would become known as the banana wars in defense of US interests and profits for US businesses in the region. But for now, back to Sandino. At around the age of nine, he goes to live with his grandmother and eventually his father, the coffee grower and merchant. And that is when he comes to this house on the corner, just across the street from the main square in Nimo. I walk over to it. The home is preserved like it would’ve been when Sandino lived here and it’s really well done. Tiled floors, wooden furniture from the period. The walls are all painted, this cream color with details doors and the baseboards. In Baby Blue
Otto Estrada:
Sandino
Michael Fox:
Otto Estrada runs the place and gives the tours. He’s tall and passionate about Sandino and what he means today. Sandino is a light for freedom, which we admire. He says, Otto walks me through Sandino’s house, pointing out the details, walking me into the past. Sandino is larger than life here in Nicaragua, think George Washington, but with way more humble origins. And instead of fighting for the independence of the United States, he was fighting against the US occupation for the true independence of Nicaragua. As we will look at in depth in this episode, hung around the home are iconic images of Sandino. But back in the day, he was just a teenage kid who worked for his dad. He supported his father a lot. Otto, his father bought and sold coffee. The train passed only two blocks away and Sandino helped him, and then Sandino started buying and selling on his own, and that’s how he was able to buy his mother’s property.
Michel Gobat:
Contrary to what people now think of him, he was also a pretty successful small time entrepreneur because he also becomes, at that time a successful merchant of basic grains, beans and rice. At that time that he sells, he uses the railroad in part to sell these beans.
Michael Fox:
But then in his mid twenties something happens. He ends up in a dispute over a business deal. Otto says he shoots the thief but then has to flee because being born outside of wedlock means others might respond by trying to kill him or locking him up. He travels to Honduras and then Guatemala. He works for United Fruit. Remember the huge US banana company that we talked about in episode two that would later overthrow the Democratic government there?
Michel Gobat:
The most important thing, he ends up in Mexico in Tamico, which is an oil producing region close to Vera Cruz and works for us owned oil companies. And there, this is the time of the Mexican revolution, the 1920s. He then encounters these militant labor groups. Some of them are anarchists, and I think that really shapes his political views and that’s where he is when the Civil War breaks out in Nicaragua 1926. And he must be in touch with his family because he’s aware of what’s going on, and he goes back and joins the liberal army and becomes a general
Michael Fox:
When the Civil War ends in 1927 with a US imposed agreement and a continued US occupation, Sandino is one of the only liberal generals who refuses to lay down his weapons. He has 29 men, I will not sell out, nor will I give up. He says, I want Patria a free country or death.
Michel Gobat:
He already controls troops and is in a position to wage this anti US insurgency. And his political views have also been very much shaped, partly because of his liberal upbringing, but also very much shaped by his experience in Mexico where he encounters radical leftist ideologies from socialism, anarchism, communism, and also there’s also a very strong sense of anti imperialism in Mexico at that time,
Michael Fox:
I follow Otto out into a breezy courtyard and a garden behind Sandino’s colonial style. Childhood home in Sandino fought against imperialism Otto. He fought against the US intervention, but to understand who he really was, he was a campesino who fought for rights, who looked for opportunities. He looked for truth. He says, in the middle of the garden, there’s this life-sized statue of Sandino tall laced boots a gun in a holster around his waist. Big cowboy hat determines stare. Someone has draped a black and red bandana around his neck of the Sanda, national Liberation Front or FSLN. That’s the insurrectionary movement and later political party named after Sandino that led the 1979 revolution against a US backed dictator. What surprises me most about Sandino is his size.
Otto Estrada:
Wow,
Michael Fox:
Five feet tall says Otto Small. Yes, he was small. You are small. Otto points at me. He was only up to here though he says that’s why he wrote, my greatest honor is to come from the bosom of the oppressed. It is the soul and the mind of the indigenous peasant race says Otto. He was proud. Proud to be an indigenous campesino, only five feet tall, small but powerful.
It’s fascinating to be here to walk in Sandino’s footsteps to step into the past. It’s also fascinating to see old celebratory images of the US Marines shipping off to Nicaragua. Remember, this is the 1910s in the 1920s, the early years of film, but you can actually find a lot of these old videos online on YouTube. They’re all silent, or I’d be playing them for you. Here sound only began accompanying film in the late twenties and early thirties. The movies show rows and rows of US marines in uniform marching with rifles and bayonets or boarding ships being sent off for their tour of duty in far away Nicaragua by large exuberant crowds. Thousands of us Marines would invade Nicaragua and be stationed there over the more than two decades that the US would occupy the country.
Otto Estrada:
Nicaragua,
Michael Fox:
Basically Nicaragua for the United States. They look at it as their backyard says Otto, and they felt they could do what they wanted with it. They had their eyes on our natural resources. We don’t have oil, we don’t have a lot of gold. But they saw that our resources would be important in the future. They wanted to dominate, and they’ve been invading since the mid 1850s. William Walker, then bananas, they didn’t come here to help. They came to appropriate our resources. What we have in large quantities is water. And they came always with their boots. Nicaragua always under the boot of the United States, he says, but unfortunately, they saw that the children of Sandino remain and we would not let the US have what they wanted because as Sandino said, my cause is the cause of my people, the cause of the oppressed people in Nicaragua and across Latin America. It is impossible to understand what comes later. The Samosa dictatorship, the 1979 Sista Revolution, without grasping the role of the United States in its longest occupation in Latin American history and the independent struggle of Al Sandino that in a minute.
This is under the shadow, an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time to tell a story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. This podcast is a co-production in partnership with The Real News, Ann Nala. I’m your host, Michael Fox, longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist, the producer and host of the podcast Brazil On Fire. I’ve spent the better part of the last 20 years in Latin America. I’ve seen firsthand the role of the US government abroad and most often sadly, it is not for the better invasions, coups, sanctions, support for authoritarian regimes politically and economically. The United States has cast a long shadow over Latin America for the past 200 years. In each episode in this series, I will take you to a location where something historic happened, a landmark of revolutionary struggle or foreign intervention. Today, it might look like a random street corner, a church, a mall, a monument, or a museum.
But every place I’m going to bring you was once the site of history, making events that shook countries, impacted lives and left deep marks on the world. I’ll try to discover what lingers of that history today. In the last episode, I retrace the steps of US filibuster William Walker as he invaded Nicaragua and took over the country. Today, I look at the country a half century later amid the longest US occupation in Latin American history and how it birthed both a revolutionary icon and a devastating dictator. This is under the shadow season one Central America, episode nine, Nicaragua Sandino. So as I mentioned at the start of this episode, today I’m going to walk back in time with Professor Michel Goba. He’s a professor of Latin American history at the University of Pittsburgh. His focus is on US intervention in Central America, and in particular the Central American response to US intervention. We heard from him a lot in the last episode on William Walker, and he’ll be with us for the rest of today. Michel, thank you so much for joining. I’m really excited to have you on.
Michel Gobat:
Thanks for having me.
Michael Fox:
Michel. First off, when we mentioned the longest US occupation in Latin America, most people probably would never imagine that this was Nicaragua. They just don’t know that moment. And it’s also one of the longest like US occupations in the world. If we’re looking back historically 21 years, I mean that’s longer than Afghanistan, it’s longer than Vietnam. Of course those were wars. This is an occupation a little bit different, but still, I just think it’s fascinating. This is a period that we just don’t remember.
Michel Gobat:
Yeah, I was struck when I started teaching as a history professor, this was my first job was at the University of Iowa. And so the first courses I taught was before the US invasion of Iraq in when was that? 2003, four or five. I don’t even remember anymore. And my students, my undergraduates were shocked to hear that the US occupied other countries. So I think from that generation, I mean that generation was totally oblivious to the fact that the US actually occupied other countries for a lengthy period. I think if I had talked to undergraduates probably in the 1980s would be a bit different because Reagan’s anti-communist crusade, that was mainly in Central America, and it was certainly on people’s mind. You had a strong central American peace movement and solidarity movement in the us. But prior to then, yes, I think Nicaragua was certainly not on people’s mind.
And now it’s probably, if it’s on people’s mind, it’s maybe more because of immigration or because of the political situation in Nicaragua. But I think you’re right, people nowadays also don’t remember this. But in the moment in the 1910s, particularly in the 1920s, a lot of large sectors of the US public was actually aware of the US occupation of Nicaragua because that triggered an early solidarity movement in the US. If we’re talking about the late 1920s that turned the leader of an anti-US insurgency in Nicaragua, that is the one led by Augusto Sandino that turned the leader sandino into arguably one of the world’s first major anti-imperialist heroes of the era. So at that moment, people would have known, yeah,
Michael Fox:
Wow. So he was like the che Ada of the 1920s, 1930s.
Michel Gobat:
Well, if you want to put it that way, that might be a nice way to sell a biography of things. Yeah, that’s right. But just to give you a sense, I mean, when the Chinese nationalists, when they were waging their own war in the late twenties against a pro Japanese puppet regime that based in Beijing, when they marched into Beijing, they marched with huge placards of portraits of sandino. They in fact, also also named one of their battalions after sandino. Wow. Keep in mind, this is before we have internet, before we have the web. And so there were sandino movements throughout Latin America in the us, in Europe, and also apparently parts of Asia.
Michael Fox:
Wow, that’s fascinating.
Michel Gobat:
But people, historical memory come and go.
Michael Fox:
That’s right. That’s right. Before we dive into Nicaragua, I want to talk about the us the context of the US role in the region at that time, right? Because it wasn’t just the Nicaragua occupation, which we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes, but you also had the US invading, sending Marines all across the region, right? 19 year occupation in Haiti, eight year occupation, Dominican Republic, occupation invasions, Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Panama. And all of this comes obviously in the wake of the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, which basically puts Monroe on steroids giving the US justification. But can you talk about this larger context of the United States at that time in the US role in the region?
Michel Gobat:
Right. Well, it begins with many people would say begins with the war of 1898, right? When the US invades Cuba officially to help Cubans who are waging their own war of independence liberate the island from Spanish colonial rule. That began early on in the 15 hundreds onward. And then quickly that war expanded into the Pacific. And with the US triumph over Spain, the US acquired territories not just in the Caribbean, mainly Cuba, well basically Cuban Puerto Rico, but then also in the Pacific, mainly Philippines and Guam. There are different interpretations. Some scholars or many scholars in the US for a long time saw this sort of as an accident. This is sort of an, there’s an un-American thing to go out and acquire territories. And largely they saw this as a response to what the European imperialists were doing at that time. So there’s the so-called scramble for Africa.
You got, and in Asia too. And so a lot of historians believe that the US was forced to play this what Mark Twain called the un-American game and as a way to defend national security. In other words, if the US did not do this, the Caribbean would really be consolidated as a European lake, and that would threaten US national security. And that’s why someone like Roosevelt could invoke the Monroe doctrine because the Monroe Doctrine many ways is all about keeping Europe out of the Americas as a way of defending US national security. And so that’s how he could turn invoke the Monroe doctrine to basically justify even more blatantly than Monroe US intervention in Latin America. A very different way of looking at is that this is not at all un-American. This is part of the DNA of US political culture. And so these are scholars like Walter Lafe who would say this is a new form of manifest destiny.
So they call this the era of new manifest destiny. In other words, this is continuation of manifest destiny, expansion of the mid 19th century that was cut short by the US Civil War and that it took the US a couple of decades to recuperate from the destruction wrought by this war. And that by then 1890s, the US was again ready to expand. And not coincidentally, it certainly expanded towards first Hawaii In 1892, there was a pro US coup that overthrew the monarchy and there was already talk about annexing Hawaii then that didn’t occur until 1898 and then moving further towards China. But it’s not coincidental that the main thrust was south into Latin America, which also happened in the mid 19th century. And so for them, the idea is that this is just a natural evolution of US history that was cut short by the occupation.
And there’s a third group that basically says that it was essentially for economic reasons and that the US expanded, this is a moment, the 1890s where you have a major economic crisis plaguing the us. And so the idea was that the US would sort of try to solve its economic problem by creating new markets abroad for US products. So this is often associated with the open door policy. And so those are three main. So the point here is that these are, one is more geostrategic that the US is a reluctant imperialist. The second is that this is sort of part of US political culture. And the third is more that this is, sees this more as an economic terms, but whatever, it shows that the US is interested in Latin America, particularly in the Caribbean as a region. So you’re right that the US occupation, Nicaragua should not be seen as an isolated incident, but it’s important to connect that US occupation with other interventions in the area.
And that’s why some scholars don’t like the term intervention because intervention sort of suggests that these are isolated incidents that are not connected with each other. And so there are scholars who argue that the more appropriate term is to use the concept of imperialism because then you can see how the US is trying to create what some scholars would argue is that sort of an informal empire because it’s an empire based on US control of independent nations, largely by turning them into protector, but not turning them into formal colonies. But the exception of Puerto Rico, in other words that these territories are not formally incorporated into the us, they remain independent, but clearly they are the US exerts extraordinary influence over their internal affairs. And of course with each country you have different interests at play. Some countries more economic interests predominate in others, it’s more strategic. So there are obviously differences, but I think it’s important to see the connections among them all
Michael Fox:
Completely. So let’s dive into Nicaragua. Take us back to that moment kind of in the beginning, in the lead up to the occupation. Why did the US occupy Nicaragua for 21 years? What was happening at the time?
Michel Gobat:
Well, in the case of Nicaragua, I would argue that it’s largely strategic interests. Some people would argue that this is part of dollar diplomacy where diplomacy dollars, in other words, that the US government is sort of doing the bidding of US corporations. And when we’re talking about a place like Nicaragua, we’re talking about central America. Often scholars think we’re talking mainly about fruit companies like the United Fruit Company that was established in 1899 and quickly came to control or establish large banana plantations throughout Central America, mainly on the Caribbean coast from Guatemala all the way down to Panama. And there were certainly banana plantations in Nicaragua, not as large as let’s say, Guatemala, Honduras, or in Costa Rica, but they were certainly there. But the main reason why the US was so interested, or the US government was so interested in Nicaragua had to do with the canal that Nicaragua has often been seen as together with Panama as the ideal site for a canal.
And the need for a canal for the US to control a canal through Central America became even more urgent with the war of 1898 when battleships that were in the Pacific had to go all the way around the tip of South America to reach the Caribbean. So it became even more urgent. But US dreams of a central American canal go all the way back to the founding of the United States, or already Thomas Jefferson was talking about the need to create a canal. So they’re longstanding US plans to create a canal in Central America. And at the end, it was Panama, right? The US construction on the Panama Canal began in 1904 and lasted for 10 years of 1914, it was opened, but for a long time up to 1904, Nicaragua was seen as the So-called America route. That means the United US government was mainly interested in Nicaragua, not Panama.
Panama was more associated with European initiatives particularly. Oh, interesting. And it wasn’t until very end, I mean even in 1903 when US Congress decided to finally decide to construct a canal in Panama, I forgot exactly what month that vote was, but a few months earlier, if I’m not mistaken, they took a vote again on the canal and it was Nicaragua, that one. So up to close to the very end, it seemed like the US was going to build the canal through Nicaragua and not Panama. But in the end it went for Panama in part because it had also a lot to do with the fact that Nicaragua was an independent country, which Panama at that time was still a province of Columbia. And the US is able to help Panamanian separatist gain their independence from Columbia. So US control of Panama was greater than in the case of Nicaragua.
But Nicaragua at that time was ruled by a liberal dictator by the name of Jose Santo who came to power in 1894. And nowadays, Nicaragua is seen as very much of an anti-US nationalist hero. But up to the moment when the US decided to build a canal through Panama rather than Nicaragua, Sali was arguably the most pro US president in Nicaragua in history. He really wanted the US to construct the canal through Nicaragua, gave him unprecedented concessions. But then once the US turned or decided to do the canal in Panama, he then tried to get other powers to create an alternative canal through Panama courting mainly European power seemed very interested, but then he also was courting the Japanese. Japan was becoming an imperial power at that time, and the US really did not, wasn’t very fond of his efforts. In fact, they saw that as a strategic threat to their control of the Panama Canal and really didn’t want a rival canal to be built just north Nicaragua was not that far away from Panama.
And that’s how the US then turned against Aya essentially forced this ouster. And that’s why SAI now is seen as such an anti-US nationalist. And the US tried to install a pro-US public government that only created greater unrest in the country. That led to the outbreak of a civil war in 1912. And that triggered the first major US military intervention Nicaragua in the 20th century that after the Walker episode of 1850s, and that’s when really the occupation begins. Although US military intervention already began in 1910 when US warships played a key role, the presence of US warships off the Caribbean coast played a very key role in the overthrow of Selia and also in the downfall of a successor government led by a liberal who enjoyed great support in Nicaragua was seen as a democratic alternative to this dictator. But the US just lumped all liberals in the same boat and just saw this liberal as another, as a mini and was adamantly opposed to him and installed essentially a conservative government. And that government wasn’t able to control things. Things just got worse. And that’s how you get that outbreak of the Civil War. That’s essentially the beginning of the US military occupation that lasted until 1933.
Michael Fox:
Wow. So there’s two fascinating things that you just mentioned, the liberals, because I remember at first the liberals, that’s who William Walker invited him to come to the country. That was his people. So now you see this kind of shift over the 60 years where the liberals are no longer who the US wants to work with, right? So it’s an interesting transition. Walk us through Michel the occupation. What does this look like? How many troops are on the ground? What’s the reality and why is the United States there so long?
Michel Gobat:
So you have the invasion force so that the Civil War breaks out May, June, something like that. And there are various things happening including a hunger crisis. People are clamoring for food imports and the government is opposed to importing food because it would then increase the government debt. And the US was really gung-ho about making sure that the government debt would decrease the belief that the great problem in a place like Nicaragua was financial instability. What you have are these irresponsible elites fighting over the national treasury. So what the US did after 1910 was have Wall Street bankers take over the National Treasury of Nicaragua. And with the support of these US officials, the conservative government is blocking the import of food. But there’s this famine going on, and that also leads to a lot of unrest. In any case, you have this US military invasion in September, and I think ultimately the invasion forced totals about 2,500 troops, I’m not quite sure.
And they are able to defeat the rebel army that is essentially a liberal conservative alliance. So that’s part of the reason why you have the Civil War. The liberals are ostracized by the us so they’re not able to participate politically. But what triggers the civil wars, a conflict among conservatives and an important sector of the conservatives take up arms against the conservative government and then the liberals join them. So that’s important to keep in mind because a lot of people think it’s just the liberals that oppose the us. But no, it’s a liberal, conservative joint army that opposes the us, which I would argue these two groups enjoy. Public support then is the case with the conservative government. In fact, they also control more seats in the Congress, but the US is opposed to them and quickly is able to defeat this rebel army. And after they’ve defeat, the vast majority of US troops are withdrawn.
So what you have then is what’s called a litigation guard. It’s a small guard, I forgot exactly how many men, maybe about 200 who are based in the capital of Managua. They basically defend the litigation that is what back then was called the US Embassy. It’s more symbolic presence as long as litigation is Nicaraguans know that if they ever try to overthrow the government, the US will quickly intervene with a much larger force. And that lasts mainly until another civil war breaks out in 1926. Again, you have, it’s a civil war triggered by a liberal conservative alliance that’s opposed to a conservative government. And the US intervenes, again, probably a similarly size force, I forgot exactly what, but 2,500 maybe or 3000 troops. And unlike the first time however, they intervene, but the solution is no longer to prop up the existing conservative government but to promote free elections.
And so for the first time, you really have free elections in Nicaragua in the sense that they’re competitive. And that’s elections that are won by the liberals? Well, they’re in power until the end of the US occupation, 1933. It’s the liberals and a small sector of the conservatives that constitute the rebel army in the Civil War of 19 26, 27. That triggers the second major US invasion. And nearly all liberal generals support the US invasion because they now believe that the US is sincere in allowing them to come back to power through free elections. Except for one general, this is Sandino, and he refuses to support this new form of US protectorate, and he refuses to lay down his arms and goes to this northern corner borderlands area with Honduras called the Segovia and starts as insurgency. It starts with very small, but then obviously becomes a very potent insurgency that the US occupiers ultimately aren’t able to put down. Can you
Michael Fox:
Talk about his gorilla war against the Marines once the civil war ends?
Michel Gobat:
I think for a while people were not quite clear what is the social basis of his army. Some people think that these are minors because this region, this isolated region, this frontier region of Nicaragua OSA’s US owned mines, and some of his earliest attacks are against these US owned mines. He attacks them, is able to gain recruits there and also funds, things like that. But in the end, the people who studied the sandino’s rank and file most closely come to the conclusion it’s largely a peasant based army. And it matters because if you think that his army, his gillo army is mainly consists of minors, then you would think that they would promote a socialist agenda. If they’re mainly peasants, then the idea is that they maybe would have, they’re defending different interests, but they’re essentially a Gia army and their home base is large in the Segovia, but eventually they’re able to carry out attacks or offensives that go well beyond their home base.
So they go at one point from their home base all the way to the Atlantic coast where they attack some US owned plantations, but they’re also able to go southwest towards Lake Nicaragua. And at one point it seems like they’re even threatening to attack the capital of Managua. So they do spread, but their main theater of operations is in the Sigal. Yes. And they’re classic illa army. I mean, at the very beginning, he waged these more like open field battles, but the US used airplanes. It was very easy for them to decimate, is that the word? You’re in English sandino’s troops. And then after that, he wages classic, embraces classic gdia strategy. So small troops, small groups of soldiers that attack more like a hit and run tactic. And they often also don’t wear uniforms, so they bleed more easily into the civilian population. But that said, he does try to create an alternative state in the s, he names authorities.
He even has letterhead and official stamps. So there is this idea that he’s trying to create a new Nicaragua or new liberated Nicaragua liberated from, it’s not just from the US occupation, but also us hegemony. He becomes very critical of the Americanization of popular culture. He’s opposed to, I don’t think he’s opposed to baseball, but he’s opposed to, for example, the modern woman, the flappers. He sees that these are degenerated nicarag ones are not really true nicarag ones, which is very different than what his brother, his brother ate, who is Oso support of Sandino is the legitimate son of his father. So he’s a couple years younger. He actually goes to the US when the Civil War breaks out, lives there for two years in Brooklyn and becomes really enamored of US lifestyle, flappers and all that. But eventually he also hooks up with his brother and is killed with his brother in 1934 when they’re assassinated.
Michael Fox:
Wow. So I want to get to his assassination in a second, but there’s a couple things that I want to kind of dive into in the meantime. One of them, when I was in Panama recently, I found a 1951 copy of a book titled The Story of the US Marines by Major George P. Hunt. And I picked it up on purpose. I wanted to see what he was saying about the marines and occupations in Central America and the Caribbean at the time. It’s interesting because he literally describes Sandino as quote a wily Nicaraguan Bandit sandino. That’s his description. And while he’s describing kind of the episode that you’re talking about, how the planes, it was like the first time that US planes are used to support ground troops and close air support and whatnot. But it’s fascinating that he’s referred to as a bandit, even though he’s Nicaragua and meanwhile the United States is an occupying army. Could you explain that a little bit more? And also how is he seen in Nicaragua by Nicaraguans at the time?
Michel Gobat:
Well, the Bandit thing is a typical US trope, right? I mean, they also saw Pancho Villa with a Pershing expedition in Chihuahua in 19 16, 17. Via was also seen as a bandit, even though at one point he was the leader of arguably the largest revolutionary army in modern Latin American history. So Sandino is also seen as a bandit, both by the US but also by the US Nicaragua government, and one of the key goals of his brother. So Sandino, when he’s in the US for a while, he doesn’t publicly identify with his brother. You have very quickly, once Sandino starts attacking us, truth, the US occupies, he becomes a hero among anti-imperialist in the us. And the anti-imperialist movement is based in New York. And so Socrata is well known among people who know him because of his brother, but he doesn’t publicly identify with the solidarity movement because for fear of deportation.
But then for whatever reason, he does decide to support the pro sandino solidarity movement and makes these talks big speeches like the very first speech he gives in Irving Hall, I think it’s called in New York, an audience of about a thousand, 2000 people. So a lot of people are hearing him, and one of the main goals is to defend his brother’s reputation, saying, no, he’s not a band. He is a patriot just like George Washington or Simon Oliva, because a lot of people in the audience are Latinos, recent immigrants from Latin America. And so it was very important to him to underscore that his brother was not a band and more like a liberator. And you can see also that that’s some very important to the Sanda propaganda at that time. How they explained themselves we’re not bandits, but reinforcing his bandit images. Like anybody participating in the war, there was a lot of violence going on and not just against the US occupiers, but also against the local population, particularly those who were seen to be collaborating with the US occupiers.
And that goes to your other question, what was Sandino’s image in Nicaragua? I mean later when another revolution triumph in Nicaragua in 1979 is seen as the quintessential Nicaragua hero, and that would’ve been very hard to imagine that nicarag ones would have a post sandino at the time, except for elites who were in the pocket of the us. These are so-called in Spanish called the term is Patria. People who sell out their country, they sell their country ndi patria. But in fact, it was more complicated. There’s a US historians done great work on this, Michael Schroeder, who shows that before the Sandino insurgency or rebellion began, the RIS is a place played by a lot of conflict among, I think he calls ’em gangs, but these are armed groups for whatever reason are fighting against each other. So there’s quite a lot of violence there. And so people who have that experience sort of see Sandino, if they’re not on his side, they see him as part of his gang warfare and outside of the sig, yes, for a while, Sandino is because of the way the newspapers report about him.
He’s often seen as a bandit or as someone who is promoting a lot of political violence. But it’s interesting that some of his greatest supporters outside of the SE are not people that are usually identified with his cause. Sandino for a while enjoyed strong support from the Communist international, so he’s often associated with leftist groups, but leftist groups in Nicaragua, outside the Svia, like artisan groups or the labor movement, they had ambivalent relationship with Sandino. Towards the end. Some of his greatest supporters actually were members of the most conservative sector of the elite. These oligarchs from Ada, who would then often go out at night spray pro sandino slogans on the walls of their hometown ada, or they would go out on horseback and shout pro sandino slogans. And this is something that most scholars have sort of overlooked, but it’s an odd, it seems like a paradoxical convergence between sandino and these oligarchs, often very young, who then later become embrace quasi fascist ideals.
But what brings ’em together is this hatred for the US occupiers, this belief that Nicaragua needs to be rejuvenated and also to sort of expel the American way of life out of the popular spirit of Nicaragua. So there are things that bring them together, but in the end, there’s no real alliance between them, but they’re some of his greatest supporters. And that also affects the, in which maybe more leftist Nicaragua would view Sandino because they would see that kind of quasi alliance between Sandino and these reaction, and they call themselves reactionaries, to put it mildly with suspicion. Wow,
Michael Fox:
Fascinating. So
Michel Gobat:
He is at the time, a complex, I mean, Nicaragua’s view of him are contradictory. Yeah,
Michael Fox:
Yeah. I want to dive in real fast to talk about this kind of complicated relations. You mentioned kind of the quote, the American way of life. The title of your book is Confronting the American Dream, Nicaragua Under US Imperial Rule. In fact, you mentioned the paradoxes in your book, which I want to dive into a second, but I love the title. It raises so many questions. It’s like the American Dream is supposed to be inside the United States. What is it doing in Nicaragua? What are we talking about? Can you talk about where does that come from and why does that make sense within this context for Nicaragua?
Michel Gobat:
Well, the title of the book is sort of a play on an important book that came out, oh God, when did that come out? Probably in the 1980s, I think, by Emily Rosenberg called Spreading the American Dream. She focuses on this time period, the 1890s to about the 1920s, if I’m not mistaken, where she argues that there are various ways in which the US spreads its way of life. One way is through businesses, US government too. But a key promoter of the American way of life at this time is Hollywood with a dramatic expansion of Hollywood, the film industry in the 1920s. So confronting the American dream is because the book focuses on this, the wealthiest regional elite of Nicaragua, the ones based in Ada, who for a long time admire the American way of life, many of them actually go to the US to study.
And we’re not just mainly young men, but also women. Young men tend to go to the US to go to college or maybe get a medical degree, something like that. Women often are going more to high schools, like finishing schools, but a lot of ’em go to the us. And so there’s this one family, it’s the family, and one of the most prominent members of this family is Jose Corona Tcho, who then becomes a very important intellectual in 20th century Nicaragua conservative upbringing. He’s one of these reactionaries who supports Sandino. Then later he supports basically the person who ordered Sandino’s assassination, Anastasia Samosa becomes the dictator of Nicaragua, and then Corona experiences also the triumph of the Sanda Revolution, 1979, and becomes one of its main supporters. So he’s a great person to see all these changes over time. But he wrote this really interesting essay explaining the Americanization of his family, how everybody, when he was growing up in the early 20th century, how everybody in the family spoke English, admired the American way of life, and he himself spent time with his mother in San Francisco.
Think in 19 25, 26, he was there and then comes back to Nicaragua and becomes a prominent, even though he is young, but because of his elite status, he becomes a prominent journalist and literary figure, and he then turns against the American dream. So he then believes that the problem of Nicaragua is that it’s too Americanized, that it’s not just undermining Nicaragua’s sovereignty, but it’s also creating all these conflicts among Nicaragua’s, and that’s facilitating, that’s just helping the US control the country. So he becomes one of Sandino’s main supporters at the very end. So I use him and his group to show how nicarag ones were not always, I mean, this group were not always opposed to the American way of life. On the contrary, they embraced it and are seen as the main promoters or the main symbols of the American way of life in Nicaragua, but then they turn against it.
And so what I wanted to show is that how a US occupation can promote this tension between anti-Americanism and Americanization, that the relationship between these two, the complicated, so some of the main opponents of the US occupation were highly Americanized liberals who never abandoned the American dream. They supported the American dream, but they believed that Raglans were not able to realize the American dream precisely because of the US occupation. Very similar to the role highly Americanized Cuban young Cubans played in radicalizing the Cuban Revolution that triumph in 1959. Nowadays we see that essentially as a communist revolution, and it did become a communist revolution, and communism often seen as the very opposite of the American dream. But at the beginning was these highly Americanized Cubans who believed that the reason why Cubans couldn’t experience the American way of life is because of the strong influence, the strong influence the US exerted over the island. So you have something very similar in Nicaragua. Wow.
Michael Fox:
How ingrained in the US occupation of Nicaragua 1912 to 1933 was the goal of Americanizing Nicaragua turning it into a little United States.
Michel Gobat:
You mean by the US government? Yes,
Michael Fox:
Exactly. Exactly. I
Michel Gobat:
Think the US government was just mainly interested in stability in Nicaragua. Again, its main goal was to make sure that no foreign power would, that political instability would open the door to foreign power, be it Germany or Japan, to build a canal. And it was looking for the least expensive form of control, and that was dollar diplomacy. So it basically wanted to have a pro-US government in place. This would be the conservatives. And since it believed that the main source of political instability in Nicaragua was infighting among elites, particularly with the National Treasury, it turned essentially Nicaragua into financial protectorate. So Wall Street bankers control the National Treasury as well as the railroads and things like that. But their goal was not really to, it wasn’t trying to Americanize the country, unlike maybe with other more deeply rooted US occupations that not only were great presence of US troops, but also the goal of the US was really very different.
I’m thinking, for example, the US occupation of Germany or Japan after World War ii, where the US probably did have a goal of americanizing those societies to, in many ways, to get rid of fascism. You didn’t have that in Nicaragua. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t agents of the US occupation that try to promote Americanization. Some of the greatest promoters of Americanization were US missionaries during the occupation. You have a Protestant missions that set foot in various parts of Nicaragua, and so they are trying to promote Americanization in many ways and sometimes in unintended ways. They’re going against the Nicaragua ideals of patriarchy, and they’re trying to educate young women, particularly in the country side. A lot of Nicaragua men see this as a threat that these Protestant missionaries are trying to liberate local women and turn them into, so-called modern women, even though it’s more complicated, but that’s what they were thinking was happening. And so you have quite a bit of violence meted out against these Protestant missionaries, a number of them who were actually women. So I would argue it’s those kind of agents, US citizens who go to Nicaragua who are the ones more gungho about promoting Americanization than the US government. Right.
Michael Fox:
How much of an influence did the occupation have on local ticks itself, particularly in those final years? And do we have a sense of how much support the United States and the Marines had
Michel Gobat:
Until the second Civil War breaks out in 19 26, 27? The main political impact of the US occupation was that until about 19 23, 24, it basically blocked liberals from participating in national politics. So the liberal party, even though one could argue it was the main political party in it was ostracized. It was prescribed by the us so that allowed the conservatives to stay in power at the local level. However, elections were a bit more competitive, in part because sometimes liberals participated or the conservative party itself was not a homogeneous group. You had different factions. And so it was a bit more competitive. Things really changed and became, I would argue, more democratic with the second major US invasion in 27 when the US decided that the main source of instability in RAG was no longer financial conflicts of the National Treasury, but rather of the issue of free and fair elections.
And so what the US then did was have the US military US troops together with troops from a newly formed Nicaragua army, the so-called National Guard or in Spanish squad, and that was recreated in 1927 and was led by US officers. So the rank and file on Nicaragua, but the officers are US Marines, this new Nicaragua Army, Nicaragua quotation marks and US troops then controlled or supervised elections that occurred between 1928 and 1932. And so you have the national election, the presidential elections of 28 and 32, and then you in 1930, you also have regional elections and congressional elections. And so they’re all controlled by what’s called the US electoral Mission. And the idea was to make them free and fair. For example, US troops would man the voting booths. They’re called meas electoral tables. They would prohibit local strong, and the so-called EOS from sort of manipulating the local vote.
And I studied that pretty carefully, and I would argue that they weren’t completely free and fair because the US would also prescribe third parties. This is the US model of democracy. That democracy you have to have can only be two parties, and in this case, the liberals and conservatives. And there were other parties that the US basically prevented from participating in the elections either more radical or more nationalistic. But for Nicaragua circumstances, these were pretty free and fair elections. And this is even acknowledged by some prominent leftists who could hardly be seen as sort of lackies of US imperialism. But the unintended consequence was that it gave the local military a lot of political clout. Essentially, what the US was trying to do by controlling these elections was not only to guarantee free and fair elections, but also to undermine the power of these local strongmen.
The so-called kdi. They believed that the big problem RA was SMO and that these are irresponsible anti-modern backward looking regional strongmen who treated the poor essentially that they would hurt them as sheep into the voting booth and things like that. And you have some really powerful quotes from US officers at the time who were part of the electoral mission, who really believed that they’re promoting democracy at the local level. But in doing so, what they did was essentially have the Nicaragua military, which was led by US officers at that time. Then the guardian Naina take over the role of the caio, so indirectly laying the foundations for the military dictatorship that emerged in Nicaragua shortly after three years after the withdrawal of the last US troops in 1933. That’s the samosa dictatorship that lasts all the way until 1979. A lot of scholars or people n belief that this was an intended consequence of the US occupation, that the US wanted samosa to create this military dictatorship.
And there were certainly US officials that supported some also including the US Ambassador, but I would argue that this was more an unintended consequence of the way in which the US tried to use the military to promote democracy. And so it points to the perils of, more generally, to the perils of US democracy promotion at the point of bays, which became a very important mode of US democracy promotion in the 20th century, particularly including after the end of the Cold War. I think the Nicaragua experience just shows that we have to take into account the issue of unintended consequences to get a better understanding of the perils of US democracy promotion via the military.
Michael Fox:
I love this Michel because this is such that is the ideal. Every president the United States, oh, we’re going to spread democracy to the world, our democracy, not any other style, but our democracy of the world. And this is such a great example of how it can go terribly wrong. Michel talk about Sandino’s capture and his assassination, and then what happens that then leads to the samosa dictatorship in the following years.
Michel Gobat:
Well, he’s not actually captured, so 1933, the US troops withdraw, and the question is what’s going to happen to Sandino’s troops up in the Segovia? Because obviously they are a powerful force. The US occupies, were not able to defeat this insurgency. And so Sandino travels couple of times to Managua from the Svia to create a new political party. And he’s not successful, but it’s on one of his last trips to Managua. He’s there, he’s actually meeting with the president of the time Scaa, who’s a liberal. And it is after that meeting when he and a couple of his closest advisors, including his brother, they’re leaving Presidential Palace, they’re driving away from it, and then they’re a Guardia patrol that is, and by now the Guad, the Nicaragua military force that was established during the US occupation and initially led by US officers, it’s not been totally Nicaragua, was the term they would use then that is, it’s now led by Nicaragua officers who don’t have any formal military training.
And so the leader is Samosa. He’s a former liberal politician who then becomes the head of this Nicaragua army, and he orders Quada troops to capture, to arrest Sandino. And what they do is they kill ’em all. And then what they do is the GIA then goes up to the north and essentially commits this massacre against Sandino’s followers. He has this camp up in, we really up in the north, and that is the beginning of the dictatorship. I mean, for a while there’s outrage in Nicaragua. Samosa is able to sort of survive this political outrage, and in 1936, he feels comfortable enough to overthrow S casa the president, and then there are elections that are anything but free and fair and he becomes the president. But essentially he’s the dictator and is assassinated by a young leftist in 1956, and that’s when his eldest son takes over. What was his name again?
Michael Fox:
Luis Samosa. Luis,
Michel Gobat:
Thank you. Yes, Luis, yeah. Who actually studied agricultural engineering or something like that at LSU in the US and under Luis, so it’s in 1956. He dies from a heart attack in 67. There’s a sense that maybe there’s some kind of political opening, maybe a way out of the dictatorship. This is also the era of the Cuban Revolution. But then his younger brother, after he dies, his younger brother, Tcho, Anastasia Dele, who is a graduate of West Point and is the head of the Go Di Nasion, takes over and clearly is opposed to any attempts to promote democratization. He’s the one who’s overthrown by the Sanda Revolution in 1979. Wow.
Michael Fox:
What would be a good summary of those 43 years of dictatorship under the samosas and particularly the Anastasia Samosa in the following? Is this what we just envision of a brutal blood thirsty, no democratic rights style dictatorship through over four decades?
Michel Gobat:
Yeah, I think that’s for a long time. I think that was the dominant view, that this was essentially a brutal military dictatorship that from day one to the 1936 to the last day July 19th or July 17th, 1979, that it was essentially the same thing. I think that would be a mistake. In many ways, our views of the dictatorship are colored by the last years, particularly the third, the head of the National Guard who is essentially uses the US’ paranoia of communism to squash any efforts to promote democracy in Nicaragua and becomes very violent. I mean, it’s a bit more complicated. Also, the guard also becomes much more of a pretorian force, so like a family army. And so for a long time, I think scholars or the general view of the Somoa dictatorship was that they turned Nicaragua into sort of their family estate, their family hacienda.
What gets lost is that the original Somo had a form of, was a bit of a populist, and that the National Guard, the Army for a while, and this is, maybe you can see this is sort of a legacy of the US occupation, the National Guard, and some of its officers had a very strong elite streak. Not all of them, but some of them, especially those who were trained by the us. And so they would help peasants wage their battles over land against local landlords, especially if the landlords were conservatives. Then Samoa, he’s a liberal, had no problem supporting this. So a, there’s a scholar by the name of Jeffrey Gould who showed in his first book how there’s a populist basis to the dictatorship that often gets overlooked and helps us better understand why it lasted for so long. Interesting. But that all started collapsing in the 1960s, and it’s still unclear why, but I would argue that had a lot to do with the way in which the Guardia officers who until that moment were military officers, but also occupied important either formerly or former local political positions.
They then becomes quasi-military entrepreneurs. They take advantage of this second agro export boom that dramatically transforms Nada in the sixties and seventies. The main product here is not coffee, but it’s cotton. You get the expansion of the cotton industry and this is where they become then landlords and then essentially no longer are supporting the peasants. So this is where the Somosa dictatorship starts dramatically losing its populous support, particularly in the countryside. And what you have are, because of the expansion of cotton, you have a lot of land conflicts. You have peasants losing their land, they’re migrating to the cities. This helps the revolutionary movement that was established in the early sixties, the National Sandinista Liberation Front recruit followers, and the GU becomes much more of a pretor force beholden to some, become much more become brutal. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that now these military officers have also become important economic actors, and so they have a lot to lose if they start supporting the opposition to the samosa dictatorship.
Michael Fox:
Right. Wow. Michel, thank you so much. Is there anything else that you think is important to talk about in terms of legacy or that we haven’t touched on about the longest US occupation in Latin America there 1912 to 1933, and why it’s important to remember today?
Michel Gobat:
That’s a big question. I don’t like to draw lessons from history. History doesn’t repeat itself, but I do think this military occupation, particularly the end and the weight, so what you have is the lengthiest US military occupation is shortly followed by the lengthiest military dictatorship in modern Latin American history. And a lot of people see this as a natural outgrowth, as I mentioned earlier, so that the US occupation produces this dictatorship. Again, I think it’s really important to see this more as an unintended consequence, and I think if you don’t take for example, the US efforts to promote democracy via the military. Seriously, you don’t really see the perils of it. And I think the Nicaragua case shows neatly that the dangers of US democracy promotion.
Michael Fox:
Absolutely. It’s so powerful, interesting. To be able to weave through all these things and to harken back to other stuff mentioning, oh, this is where we’re headed with 1980s contra war stuff. And then look back at William Walker and understand how one thing leads to another. And like you said, the democracy promotion stuff is so key, but also understanding just when a country is occupied for 21 years, that leaves a mark that has a profound impact. It’s not just like, oh, they’re there and, oh yeah, we’ll leave now and it’s all fine. That means something, and that legacy remains. Right.
Michel Gobat:
But that legacy, you’re right. But that has not been, we still need to know a lot more the impact on local society. So there’s a graduate student, a Nicaragua and Emil Castillo at the University of Michigan who’s now working more on the impact the US occupation had on local society, particularly in terms of gender relations. And so, because a lot of Latin Nicaragua women were prostitutes or married US military personnel, I mean, how did that affect their relations with their families? It’s that kind of Americanization at the local level that as said, must have left a deep imprint on local society. That’s really hard to get at. Yeah,
Michael Fox:
And baseball is this, when baseball becomes an important sport in Nicaragua is around that same time.
Michel Gobat:
A lot of people think that, and baseball is the most popular sport in Nicaragua, which stands out in Central America. It’s usually soccer. A lot of people think it’s because of the US occupation, but actually baseball becomes popular or is already popular before the US occupation begins 1912. It’s imported mainly by students, elites. These elites from ADA who go to the US and study and they bring back baseball and baseball then becomes quickly very popular. And I would argue that certainly by the early years of the US occupation, baseball probably replaces cockfighting as the most popular sport in Nicaragua. It’s often seen as a sport that promotes civilization. It’s a team sport and it’s, it’s regulated. Not like cockfighting that’s seen as bloody, but actually at the very beginning, baseball games were pretty bloody because you didn’t have stadiums, so there was no separation between the spectators and the players, and you had teams from competing towns play against each other, and sometimes they got really violent. I mean, the blood was spilt then just like in a cockpit, but the blood spillt was not animal blood. It was human blood. Wow. I think also it might be a bizarre way, but I think that underscores the popularity of baseball, that it could play such a prominent role in these local conflicts between towns.
Michael Fox:
Right. And cock fighting was the main sport before baseball then That was like
Michel Gobat:
That. Yeah. You see that in the walker period. Just how critical cock fighting is. Yeah.
Michael Fox:
Oh my gosh, Michel, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Michel Gobat:
Thank you. I’m looking forward to your next podcast on Cock Fighting.
Michael Fox:
Absolutely. Oh my gosh.
That is all for episode nine of Under the Shadow. Next time we fast forward into 1980s, Nicaragua to an insurgency that overthrew a dictator to US, attempts to stymie its success by any means necessary and the scandal that ensued.
Speaker 7:
We hold these hearings because in the course of the conduct of the nation’s business, something went wrong, seriously wrong.
Michael Fox:
That’s up next on Under The Shadow. If you’re enjoying this podcast series, you can really help us out by spreading the word. Share it with a friend, follow, subscribe, like it, rate It, or leave a review on Spotify, spreaker, Google Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I’m placing some of the links in the show notes. Finally, as always, if you like what you hear, please check out my Patreon page, patreon.com/m FO X. There you can also support my work, become a monthly sustainer or sign up to stay abreast of all. The latest on this podcast and my other reporting across Latin America. Under the Shadow is a co-production in partnership with The Real News and Nala. The theme music is by my band Monte Perdido. We’ve just finished a new album and it should be available for streaming in the coming weeks. This is Michael Fox. Many thanks. See you next time.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
