Resurrection in El Salvador:
In 1492, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue
In 1524, the Spaniards arrived in El Salvador. They killed people, burned villages, and named the place Our Savoir. Enslaving the locals — branding them with hot irons like cattle — those first conquistadors established a pattern that persists to this day.
Land long used to grow corn (the local staple) now grew indigo (a better cash crop for export). As indigo needed flat land, locals were sent into the hills. Later, when the development of artificial dyes wiped out the indigo trade, coffee became El Salvador's top cash crop. Coffee needed to be grown on the hillside. The people were displaced again.
Rebellion after rebellion was put down as the land was Christianized. Making religion the opiate of the masses, Priests preached, "Don't question authority. Suffer quietly. Heaven awaits." The same theme is big today in the new textbooks (published with US help after 1991). Even today, when labor organizers try to mobilize workers against structural poverty they hear, "No, our struggles are God's will." Those promoting the left wing people's party (the FMLN) report their challenge is to teach that it's okay to get political and vote for change.
El Salvador won its independence from Spain in 1821. The victors were not the indigenous people but the descendants of those first conquistadors. They wanted to continuing harvesting El Salvador…without sharing with Spain. The real Salvadorans gained nothing from "independence."
After the popular uprisings and massacres of 1932, to be indigenous was to be communist. Local language speakers were killed. Traditional dress was outlawed. While people are allowed to have indigenous physical features, there is no indigenous culture in El Salvador. Today, the word "indigenous" means illiterate, ignorant, savage.
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