1839 - Independent Guatemala: The Early Years
The Conservative victories of 1838 had been led by an illiterate mestizo, José Rafael Carrera, who was only 23 years old at the time. A religious fanatic of strong will and messianic aspirations, Carrera preached that the cholera epidemic that broke out in 1837 was a sign of God's displeasure with the anticlerical Liberal governments of Guatemala and of the Central American Federation. Supported by the Conservatives and especially the church. which hoped to regain the prerogatives taken from it by the Liberals, Carrera also aroused passionate support from much of the country's Indian population. who were incited by their priests. Defeated in his early battles with Mor azán, Carrera persisted. overthrowing the Guatemalan provincial gov ernment in April 1838 and the federal government in 1840. After the Conservative triumph in Guatemala, the federal congress passed legislation allowing provinces to secede. which they did one by one. When Guatemala withdrew in March 1839, only El Salvador remained loyal to the federation.
The extraordinary Carrera, who only learned to write his name after becoming president, proved to be a brutal autocrat. Liberals were subject to all sorts of cruelties. and the president continually intervened militarily in the other countries of Central America to maintain or restore Conservative governments. By the end of his 27-year rule he had revoked all of the Liberal legislation of Morazán and Gálvez. Civil marriage was abolished, obligatory tithes to the church were reestab lished, monasteries were restored, and in 1844 the Jesuits were wel comed back. In 1852 a concordat was signed with the Vatican, the first such agreement with one of the newly independent Spanish-speaking republics; Carrera was decorated by the pope for services to the faith.
In addition to his labors on behalf of the church, landowners, and Conservatives in the other republics, Carrera built roads, reduced the public debt, and attempted to diversify agriculture by introducing new crops. He reconquered the secessionist departments of Quezaltenango, Sololá, Huehuetenango, and San Marcos, which had seceded during the Morazán years to form the independent state of Los Altos. He participated in the joint Central American invasion of Nicaragua to overthrow William Walker, the North American filibuster who had seized control there. In 1859 Carrera signed a treaty with Britain, recognizing British sovereignty over neighboring Belize, to be known as British Honduras, in return for a commitment from the British to build a highway from Guatemala City through the Petén region to the Caribbean. In fact, the road was never built, and the Guatemalans. arguing that the British had not kept their side of the bargain, later reasserted their claim.
In 1854 Carrera was elected president for life and was authorized to designate his successor. Shortly before his death he named General Vicente Cerna, another authoritarian Conservative who, after being confirmed in office by a vote of the legislature, was inaugurated in May 1865. Cerna continued the policies of his predecessor and was elected for a second term in 1869, but he was overthrown by the Liberals in 1871, in the last of a series of attempted rebellions against the Cerna regime.
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