AHC: Keep the UPCA from collapsing

The challenge for today ladies and gents is to find some way to keep the United Provinces of Central America from collapsing into its constituent states. If it can make it to 1900 at least, the challenge is a success. However, if it can make it to 1950, you get a giant cookie!
 
Brief History of Federation and Collapse

To get the UPCA to survive much longer is very challenging indeed, but not quite impossible. There are several promising PODs that could have happened that could have increased the chances of it surviving longer, but nothing is guaranteed. The lack of a common struggle against Spain/Mexico, the relative illiteracy and poor, mostly animal husbandry based economy that was a backwater of Latin America, and the final break of the Conservatives and Liberals would ultimately doom the federation.

One possible POD is for Central America to have to work for its freedom. While there was some increasing unrest, easily crushed uprisings, and fears of larger uprisings, especially amongst the indians, the Audencia of Guatemala didn't declare independence until Mexican troops showed up in 1821 and "encouraged" it do so and join the First Mexican Empire. Some unrest still remained and Mexico found it difficult to control the faraway country while focused on imperial difficulties. The governor called an assembly to try to shore up imperial authority in 1823, only to have Central America immediately declare independence from Mexico, with the exception of Chiapas. Locals paid for the cost of Mexican troops to leave, and so the troops left. Without a common struggle of troops from the various provinces uniting to fight off Spain and Mexico, Central American identity was very limited. Maybe a protracted, successful war of independence would have provided enough sense of unity and fear of the Spanish or Mexicans returning to cement the early bonds of union as it did during the fragile phase of the United States up to 1800.

The next POD is for Jose Cecilio del Valles to be allowed to win the first federal Presidential election. Though a member of the Honduran conservative faction and having a genuine support base to be able to win the election handily for them, other conservatives wanted a candidate easier to control and were able to defeat him by promoting multiple candidates. Without a majority, the election went to the congress who disqualified the vote on technicalities and gave the election to Manuel Jose Arce, a supposed Costa Rican liberal. Therefore the first administration of Central America was compromised by legitimacy concerns when in the greatest need of statesmanship.

The sad thing too is that this was in spite of their other recent accomplishments and would come back to bite them. For despite the constitutional assembly being dominated by conservatives, a liberal constitution modeled on the US was decided. Borders were negotiated to balance the states out, and to minimize Guatemalan dominance (which had about 1/3 of the federation's population at the time) a new state of Los Altos was carved out. A loan was negotiated with a London bank to start off the federal government.

A questionably legitimate government struggled to raise money when the constitution forced the federal government to rely on the states to provide revenue. Also, when the rival conservative and liberal cities of Granada and Leon in Nicaragua took arms against each other, the governor of El Salvador ignored the fed's desire to send a negotiator and instead put down the strife with Salvadoran troops answering to him only. This continued to lead to a power vacuum where regional interests, the Church, congressional deputies, and the president tested their limits including the latter two countermanding each others orders to military units. Guatemala did not like some federal laws and tried to intervene in the government to protect its state rights, so Arce moved the capital to San Salvador.

Honduras and El Salvador conspired to remove Arce, who sent troops to Honduras to arrest the governor. In response Salvadoran troops marched on the capital and civil war started. Costa Rica offered to negotiate a peace, but extreme conservatives and the church refused so the war went on. Too bad for them because the war went against them and in 1829 the last conservative stronghold fell to the liberal army of Honduran Francisco Morazan.

The next POD is for Francisco Morazan and the ascendant liberals to be more reconciling, more pragmatic and less extremist. He had most of the conservatives exiled, supporting clergy of the conservatives exiled and Church property confiscated. Idealistic, the liberals tried to pass mass education and economic development reforms in a country that desperately needed cash to even begin it. They promoted legal reforms of trial by jury in which most of the people did not speak Spanish. They promoted separation of church and state, continuing to piss off a wealthy and powerful institution in a devoutly Catholic country, and also broke up the mercantilistic merchant guild system in the towns, further alienating established interests. A well meaning desire to grant the indians full equality with citizenship backfired, as the indians mistook it as an attempt to take away their already minimal post-conquest community land rights by making it easier for criollos and mestizos to buy their land and force them into debt peonage while forcing them to pay a citizen head tax. By pushing too much too quickly, they set up the coalition that ultimately defeated them.

The next POD is again for Jose Cecilio del Valle to live after he wins the next Presidential election. The previously exiled conservatives kept angling for ways to get back in and affect the future of Central America. As stated above Jose Cecilio del Valle was a conservative statesman cheated out of the first election. Undaunted, he won again when he ran under the liberal ascendancy. But he died before the votes could be tallied. The election went to the runner-up, liberal Francisco Morazan who was running for reelection again and vocally planned on keeping up the same policies. Conservatives who had remained had their hopes dashed of having some influence in the future of Central America and unrest continued to grow. If del Valles lived, perhaps tensions could have diffused a bit to give the federation more of a chance to establish itself.

The last POD is for 1836/1837 to go much better or have the revolt be lead by someone less competent. Rafael Carrera, a devout, charismatic, fearless ladino pig-farmer, his parish priest encouraged him to rise up against the liberal governorship in Guatemala City. The federation had its revenue based on levies on the church and aristocrats, but when these revenues fell short in 1836, they created a tax where middle class and lower class were taxed directly. Indians took new land taxes as reminiscent of conquistador demands for tribute and were irate. When there was a cholera outbreak in 1837 in the highlands, the Church blamed the liberal government officials of poisoning the wells and indian and mestizo alike rebelled. While Morazan constantly fought Carrera's guerrilla warfare the federation broke apart at the seams. Conservatives grew more empowered as the guerillas backed the conservative agenda. In July 1838, the Central American congress voted to recognize each state as independent and conservative governments in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica seceded. No provision was made for future elections and congress mandated itself and the government to end at the end of Morazan's term in 1839. The Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Costa Rican armies allied with Carrera and won a decisive victory. Morazan fled to Costa Rica.

There would be future attempts to reunite but none came to fruition. A pattern of caudillos developed in each republic of which Carrera in Guatemala served as the rolemodel. Whenever liberals succeeded in taking power in one country, conservative elements in the others would intervene and replace it with a conservative government. Each republic grew used to being independent, though they gave lip service to restoring the union.

When liberals eventually took back power consistently in the late 19th century, they instead decided to focus on economic development and selling of cash crops as a precursor to increasing political participation. However in the process, they grew wealthy and became part of the aristocracy as well. They too sought power for their own ends and any future attempts to "restore the union" was a matter of one state trying to dominate the others. Sadly the pattern has continued to this day.

I only know so much about it because my wife is Honduran and so my love of history combined with for her led me to try to research its history. It is incredibly difficult to find Central American history books. I hope this helps for those who are curious of the history but didn't know much to comment.
 
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