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

State and elite sectors of Nicaraguan society changed their attitudes towards the
countryside during the liberal period of the mid 1800s. Indigenous lands that were once
deemed too remote and untamed to be worthy of national economic efforts were
subsequently subjected to them. This shift in economic and productive activity redefined
the state’s relationship with the Indian communities, which had redefined themselves
previously along the axis of resistance to expansion of the state. “During this time, the
state established the legal mechanisms necessary, using force and instruments of coercion
to stop the growth of indigenous lands, limit their development, dismember them,
privatize parts and liberate the rest to the open market” (Téllez 1999:160).
During the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the neo-
liberal development discourse has shifted to include small-scale, rural agriculturalists that
were once relegated to the margins of the regional economy. New, socially and
ecologically sustainable models for agricultural production have arrived from
international, urban, and educational centers. Often, however, the proponents of these
development alternatives seek to alleviate immediate concerns without much
consideration for historical or ethnic contexts of local communities, which are of
paramount importance to the successful execution of alternative forms of development
(Hale 1994; Gould 1997; Field 1999).
The next chapter continues the foregrounding of how political and military
activities in 20 th century Las Segovias helped to create a regional identity and informs the
manner in which economic development takes root in this region. Sandino’s rebellion
against the U.S. Marines, the U.S. supported Somoza dictatorship, and the eventual
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