A Central American Odyssey, 1861-1937 Alejandro Miranda translated, edited and annotated by Stuart Witt with a historical essay by Jordana Dym illustrated by John Ashton Golden © 2005 Full Quart Press 2 Table of Contents (Page numbers are originals which appear in brackets [#] within the text.) (Boldface type indicates the change of countries in Alejandro's travels.) Maps E.G. Squier 1851 E.G. Squier 1860 Pim 1869 K. Sapper 1900 CIA 1982 (showing Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador) Illustrations by John Ashton Gordon [11] Holy Week: St. John's chalice [54] Matagalpa: The Indian War [87] A night at the ball [148] Down with Gapuchins in El Salvador! [175] The Mason becomes a locomotive engineer Notes Following page [198]. * * * * * I First Years: Chontales, Nicaragua (1861-1868) The alligator, [2] The rooster, 3 "Come when I call you!" 4 Siguanábana, the Water Witch, 5 II Life with Father (1868-1876) Juigalpa, school, and the 1869 revolution, 6 The dirty old man on the hacienda, 6 Juigalpa and father's iron mold, 8 Holy Week, St. Peter's sword, and St. John's chalice, 9 To León, 12 Biting a Gringo en route to El Salvador, 14 La Unión, El Salvador (1872-1876), 15 Scholar and altar boy, 16 Esquipulas, Guatemala, pilgrimage 16 Deviltry and perversion, 18 The British Consul's wife, 19 Venereal disease, 20 III Breaking Away (1876-1881) The peddler and his family, 21 3 Drifting to Costa Rica (1879), 23 Railroad gang in Guatemala, 28 Stevedore heroics in Acajutla, El Salvador, 29 Suspected revolutionary in San Salvador, 33 La Unión asylum and return to Nicaragua, 33 Corinto, Realejo, the Gringo, and gonorrhea 33 The Realejo Mayor's assistant, 35 León, the cure, and father's pardon, 36 Juigalpa and the love of Cornelia, 38 Breaking away for good (1880), 39 Carrying the National Mail, 40 Telegraph school and bartending in Managua, 41 IV Matagalpa, the Indian War, and the Telegrapher (1881) Bad connection, 44 Signs and rumors of war, 45 Volunteer soldier, 49 Jesuits and Indians, 49 The Battle of Matagalpa (August 8-10, 1881), 50 The Genocide (August to December, 1881), 54 Love at first sight: Claudina (1882), 55 The peddler shoots the bull, 56 Love's loss (1883), 59 Off to Honduras and El Salvador, 61 Telegrapher of Usulutan, 62 President Zaldívar's birthday greeting, 62 Telegraph line repair problems, 64 San Salvador and Nejapa telegraphy, 67 Smallpox: love and fear, 68 Ennui in indigenous Panchimalco (1884), 70 Return to León, Nicaragua, 70 Matagalpinos' outing in Corinto, 70 Telegraphy and jaundice in Managua and Masaya, 72 Adjutant to U.S. Minister and revolutionary courier, 73 Telegraph nostalgia at San Pedro de Lóvago (1885), 74 Rice merchant in El Salvador, 77 Retail merchant in La Concordia, Nicaragua (1886) 77 Political campaign costs, 78 San Rafael del Norte and the costs of love, 80 Jinotega progress (1887), 81 To Guatemala with García (1888), 81 V Journalism, politics, war, revolution, and prison (1888-1895) From teacher to newspaperman in Guatemala, 82 A night at the ball, and the falling star (1888-89), 86 Fighting for friend and principle, 88 4 Government accountant, visit to mother (1890), 91 Report to the President and wars of sword and word, 93 Philip IV and the eagles, 95 J. Martín Barrundia assassination, 96 The editor v. the Church (1891), 98 Catiline and Aída, 99 Totonicapan Court secretary and Revenue accountant,102 Morazán birthday speech, October 4, 1892, 103 Columbus Day 400th anniversary speech, 105 The price of local satire in Quetzaltenango (1893) 108 Revolution and counterrevolution in Nicaragua, 109 Zelaya and government press censorship, 112 Covering the Constituent Assembly, 114 Bonilla's War in Honduras (Dec. 1893-Feb. 1894), 120 Nicaragua State Liquor Agency, 121 Rewriting history and La Semana Comica, 121 Coffee farm and the Diriamba Social Club (1895), 124 Journalistic integrity, island imprisonment,128 Swimming with sharks, 131 Homecoming, 136 VI Rough and tumble (1895-1897) Corruption on a Guatemala hacienda, 138 Free press in Guatemala? You bet your life. (1896), 143 Arribe Cuba! Down with Gapuchins in El Salvador! 146 Down and out in Costa Rica, 150 VII Settling down in exile in Honduras (1897-1899) Official approval in Tegucigalpa, 152 Shootout with José María Moncada, 156 Accountant, Auditor of the Mint, Judge of Waters, 159 VIII Unraveling (1899-1904) Wedding bells, death, and transfiguration (1899-1902), 161 Ballots and bullets (1902), 162 San Pedro Sula, El Periodoco del Norte (1903), 166 Reunion soured, 167 IX Railroading in Cuba (1904-1907) Havana high to Cárdenas low, 168 The Mason becomes a locomotive engineer, 171 The Mason becomes a station master, 177 New York City interlude (1905), 180 From Camagüey to Panama for Zelaya, 181 X Repose in Panama (1907-1912) 5 The House of Benedetti, 183 Revolutionary sympathy; hostility to intervention (1909), 184 XI Return to Nicaragua (1912) In Granada for Mena against Díaz and the Yankees, 186 Corporate democracy in Managua, 191 Terrorist conspiracy against Díaz, 191 The Singer in Matagalpa (1913), 194 Eulogy for a turtledove (1914), 195 Singer's sad song leads to heresy in León, 196 XII Between Life and Death (1915) Completely out of balance, 198 6 REFLECTIONS OF MY LIFE∗ (Rough Sketch of an Autobiography) Alejandro Miranda Moreno (1861-1937) Leon, Nicaragua (1921-1937) "ALEJANDRO MIRANDA Espíritu aventurero, carácter recto, acerado y sin dobleces. Demócrata ciento por ciento; honesto y honrado." F. G. Miranda Morales= -- I -- First Years: Chontales, Nicaragua (1861-1868) Perhaps it is vanity (not literary vanity, to be precise, since I am not a lettered man nor have I ever pretended to be) that impels me to write these memories of my life; but the truth is that today, April 24, 1921, on my sixtieth birthday, I got out of bed cheerful and spry, my spirit brimming with desire to reminisce about the past. [1] I was born in an indigenous pueblo of Chontales, Nicaragua, called Lovillisca, which long ago was destroyed by the inhabitants, as they told me when I was a boy. They burned it because of local feuds. Afterwards, some went to found the pueblo of San Pedro de Lóvago and others Santo Thomás, both of which exist today. My parents were Don Canuto Miranda and Andrea Moreno. The shadow of a social stigma has surrounded me since birth: I am a bastard son. I do not believe I have any responsibility for that. The memories that I have of my youth are very vague. For example, when I was two years old, they took me from my mother and brought me to my paternal grandmother who lived on her hacienda El Despoblado, which was relocated a little after my arrival to a place called La Unión, situated in a valley coursed by a rushing river. There I spent the first years of my [2] life tending calves, milking cows, and killing birds in the fields. My aunts Raimunda and Gregoria taught me to stutter the first letters of the alphabet. ∗ Translated by Stuart Witt. © 2005 Full Quart Press =Alejandro’s nephew, son of Alejandro's brother Francisco, who typed the manuscript in the 1930's. 7 Three other boys, cousins more or less my age, lived on the hacienda, and I played and made mischief with them. In that time, 1864-1868, my father was employed in one of the ministries in the capital of the Republic, and about 1868 he was named Tax Collector for Chontales with his residence in Juigalpa, the departmental capital. I only remember two or three episodes from my time on my grandmother's hacienda. Because of the impression they made on me, I still retain the memory of them. One day after a torrential rainstorm I went with the other boys to see the river rising. We came to the bank, and the river course was so completely full, it seemed to threaten to disgorge its water onto the valley flats. With childish joy we began to throw stones at the wooden planks which were channeling the current. A little upstream from us there was a very deep hole, where we often used to swim; we were good swimmers. Some large guabo trees spread their branches over the hole. As the river rose, the current there was not very strong; we saw the rapids only in the middle, looking like a crest. We were cocky and having fun in our play: "Here comes an alligator," I said. "No," said [3] another, "It's not an alligator; it's a plank of wood." I said to them, "Let's go and look a little closer. Let’s hurry and take our clothes off, climb one of the guabos, and from a branch we can see what’s going on below. And if you’re up to it, we’ll be riding on its back!” No sooner spoken than done: a monkey couldn't climb the tree any better. I hung from the end of a branch far out over the water and tried to grab the "alligator" without making a sound. When the reptile passed near my feet, I let myself fall alongside it into the gush. Without a doubt, the animal was terribly frightened, since it immediately plunged. I let go of it and began to swim back to shore. I got out some twenty yards downstream, and when I went to put on my clothes, I felt a painful heat on my buttocks. The spines on the back of the crocodile caused a chafing that bothered me for some time. The animal was some four or five yards long. On another occasion I had a dispute with a rooster, in which I was defeated.