José Rafael Carrera y Turcios (24 October 1814 – 14 April 1865) was the president of Guatemala from 1844 to 1848 and from 1851 until his death in 1865, after being appointed president for life in 1854. He ruled during the establishment of new Central American nations and William Walker's invasions, liberal attempts to overthrow him, Mayan uprisings in the east, the Belize boundary dispute with the United Kingdom, and conflicts in Mexico under Benito Juárez. Carrera is seen as a caudillo, a term that refers to Latin American charismatic populist leaders of military background, sometimes among indigenous people.
Carrera became a dominant figure in Guatemala for three decades. He led a major revolt against the liberal government of Mariano Gálvez that marked the dissolution of Federal Republic of Central America.In Spanish: Republica Federal de Centroamérica. After the liberals came back to power in Guatemala in 1871, Carrera's character and regime were dismissed and demonized, making him look as an illiterate who could not even write his own name manipulated by the anti-liberal faction. Over the years, even Marxist writers who wanted to show how the native Guatemalans have been exploited by elites completely ignored Carrera's support of them and accused him of racism and being a "little king".
Early life Carrera was born on 24 October 1814 in the Candelaria barrio of Guatemala City towards the end of the Spanish colonial period. He was of humble origin, a mestizo and illiterate. He first worked as a farmhand. He enlisted in the army during the civil war, which lasted from 1826 to 1829. In 1835, he left the army and moved to Mataquescuintla where he married Petrona García and worked as a swineherd.
Rise to power By 1837, rural masses were voicing numerous grievances against the liberal government of Guatemala that led to an uprising. A cholera epidemic added to the frustration and helped Carrera rally the peasants into an armed resistance that was strongly supported by clerics of the Catholic Church, with Carrera becoming de facto ruler of much of Guatemala, leading both indigenous and poor peasants of mixed race in the east and south of the country, an area that was known as The Mountain. The movement was strongly pro-Catholic and wanted to restore part of the colonial traditions that the liberals had abandoned. Francisco Morazán repeatedly drove Carrera's forces out of cities and towns, but Carrera's followers would retake places as soon as Morazán's army left. Carrera became a respected military commander in the decade that followed.
Although conservatives criollos from the Aycinena Clan like Juan José de Aycinena y Piñol distrusted him, they decided to support Carrera in an attempt at reversing some of the liberal gains of 1829 after Morazán's invasion of Guatemala.
Battles with Morazán
Carrera is often portrayed as a "guerrilla" leader but an analysis of his military campaigns between 1837 and 1840 shows that they were closer to hybrid warfare. While his soldiers were not well equipped, their training in the local militias, going back to colonial times and the civil war that followed independence from Spain, enabled them to successfully fight conventional battles against the numerically superior forces of the Guatemalan and Federal governments.Visoni-Alonzo, G.,"Hybrid Warfare: The 1837 Revolt of Rafael Carrera in Guatemala" in G. Visoni-Alonzo & F. Jacob, eds. Latin America's Martial Age. Warfare and Conflict in the Long Nineteenth Century. (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2017), 77-97. In 1838 the liberal forces of Morazán and José Francisco Barrundia invaded Guatemala and reached San Sur, where they executed Pascual García, Carrera's father-in-law. They impaled his head on a pike as a warning to all followers of the Guatemalan caudillo. On learning this, Carrera and his wife Petrona – who had come to confront Morazán as soon as they learned of the invasion and were in Mataquescuintla – swore they would never forgive Morazán even in his grave; they felt it impossible to respect anyone who would not avenge family members. After sending several envoys, whom Carrera would not receive – especially Barrundia whom Carrera did not want to murder in cold blood – Morazán began a scorched earth offensive, destroying villages and taking away their few assets. The Carrera forces had to hide in the mountains . Believing that Carrera was totally defeated, Morazán and Barrundia marched on to Guatemala City, where they were welcomed as saviors by the state governor Pedro Valenzuela and members of the conservative Aycinena Clan, who proposed to sponsor one of the liberal battalions, while Valenzuela and Barrundia gave Morazán all the Guatemalan resources needed to solve any financial problem he had. The criollos of both parties celebrated until dawn that they finally had a criollo caudillo like Morazán, who was able to crush the peasant rebellion.
Morazán used the proceeds to support Los Altos and then replaced Valenzuela by Mariano Rivera Paz, member of the Aycinena clan, although he did not return to that clan any property confiscated in 1829; in revenge, Juan José de Aycinena y Piñol voted for the dissolution of the Central American Federation in San Salvador a little later, forcing Morazán to return to El Salvador to fight to save his federal mandate. Along the way, Morazán increased repression in eastern Guatemala, as punishment for helping Carrera. Knowing that Morazán had gone to El Salvador, Carrera tried to take Salamá with the small force that remained, but was defeated, losing his brother Laureano in the combat. With just a few men left, he managed to escape, badly wounded, to Sanarate. Under conventional warfare conditions, this defeat would have ended Carrera's military campaign. However, by this time the young commander had already become accustomed to disassemble and regroup, not just after defeats but also after victories. Carrera's pursuit of a military approach that combined alternately guerrilla and conventional warfare enabled him to reconstitute his forces while keeping some degree of pressure on the government. Without any permanent means of financing the struggle, Carrera was able to bring together large forces for significant operations, and then send his soldiers back to their farms after engagement. The government, on the other hand, had to spend precious resources fielding permanent forces.For a detailed analysis of Carrera's approach to warfare see Visoni-Alonzo, G. The Carrera Revolt and "Hybrid Warfare" in Nineteenth Century Central America (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). After recovering to some extent, he attacked a detachment in Jutiapa and managed to get a small amount of booty which he handed to the volunteers who accompanied him and prepared to attack Petapa – near Guatemala City – where he was victorious, though with heavy casualties. In September of that year, he attempted an assault on the capital of Guatemala, but the liberal general Carlos Salazar Castro defeated him in the fields of Villa Nueva and Carrera had to retreat. After an unsuccessful attempt to take the Quetzaltenango, Carrera was surrounded and wounded, and he had to capitulate to the Mexican General Agustin Guzman, who had been in Quetzaltenango since the time of Vicente Filísola's arrival in 1823. Morazán had the opportunity to shoot Carrera, but did not because he needed the support of the Guatemalan peasants to counter the attacks of Francisco Ferrera in El Salvador; instead, Morazán left Carrera in charge of a small fort in Mita, and without any weapons. Knowing that Morazán was going to attack El Salvador, Francisco Ferrera gave arms and ammunition to Carrera and convinced him to attack Guatemala City.
Meanwhile, despite insistent advice to definitely crush Carrera and his forces, Salazar tried to negotiate with him diplomatically; he even went as far as to show that he neither feared nor distrusted Carrera by removing the fortifications of the Guatemalan capital, in place in since the battle of Villa Nueva. Taking advantage of Salazar's good faith and Ferrera's weapons, Carrera took Guatemala City by surprise on April 13, 1839; Castro Salazar, Mariano Gálvez and Barrundia fled before the arrival of Carrera's militia men. Salazar, in his nightshirt, vaulted roofs of neighboring houses and sought refuge; reaching the border disguised as a peasant. With Salazar gone, Carrera reinstated Rivera Paz as Head of State of Guatemala.
Invasion and absorption of Los Altos
On April 2, 1838, in the city of Quetzaltenango, a secessionist group founded the independent State of Los Altos which sought independence from Guatemala. The most important members of the Liberal Party of Guatemala and liberal enemies of the conservative regime moved to Los Altos, leaving their exile in El Salvador. The liberals in Los Altos began severely criticizing the Conservative government of Rivera Paz; they had their own newspaper – El Popular, which contributed to the harsh criticism. Moreover, Los Altos was the region with the main production and economic activity of the former state of Guatemala; without Los Altos, conservatives lost much of the resources that had given Guatemala hegemony in Central America. Then, the government of Guatemala tried to reach to a peaceful solution, but altenses,Altenses is how people from Quetzaltenango are known in Guatemala. protected by the recognition of the Central American Federation Congress, did not accept; Guatemala's government then resorted to force, sending Carrera as commanding general of the Army to subdue Los Altos.
Carrera defeated General Agustin Guzman when the former Mexican officer tried to ambush him and then went on to Quetzaltenango, where he imposed a harsh and hostile conservative regime instead of the liberals. Calling all council members, he told them flatly that he was behaving leniently towards them as it was the first time they had challenged him, but sternly warned them that there would be no mercy if there was a second time. Finally, Guzmán, and the head of state of Los Altos, Marcelo Molina, were sent to the capital of Guatemala, where they were displayed as trophies of war during a triumphant parade on February 17, 1840; in the case of Guzman, shackled, still with bleeding wounds, and riding a mule.
Morazán Second Invasion of Guatemala