i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

The Indigenous Revolt of 1881 and Its Aftermath
The events surrounding the Matagalpa Indian uprising of 1881 reflected a continued
disdain for indigenous Nicaraguan culture. Indians recognized the threats to land,
community, and culture once the national government abolished communal landholdings
and forced privatization of ancestral indigenous lands. On August 9, 1881, the Indian
forces took over the city of Matagalpa. They entrenched their positions and awaited the
national infantry. The military response to this uprising was brutal. Plans to “pacify the
natives” escalated into a prolonged and “generalized extinction” (Wheelock 1980: 114).
Those who fought in the 1881 indigenous uprising rejected the abolition of
indigenous communities and the privatization of their lands. Following their defeat laws
were passed to recruit “voluntary” workers and servants for the coffee plantations. Those
unwilling were delivered over to military authorities. “Laws, evictions, expropriations,
ladino arrogance, forced labor on the coffee plantations, and the installation of the
telegraph line all fueled the rebellion” (Rocha 2001:1–2). “Progress came to the people of
the rural north on the backs of the Indians and was established against the Indians”
(Téllez 1999: 103)
Nicaraguan historian and Sandinista Agrarian Reform director Jaime Wheelock
attributes the demise of the northern indigenous communities and their subsequent
assimilation into the Nicaraguan mestizaje to the governmental repression after the
Indigenous Revolt of 1881. Wheelock writes,
The War of the Communities was a natural response generated by material
conditions and the struggle for subsistence. Again, they had to retreat to the
mountains. The oligarchic avalanche invaded swallowing up giant bites of
thousands of hectares. [The Indians] were defeated and the cycle of contradictions
came to a close in a bitter synthesis (1980:117).
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