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Augusto Cesar
Sandino
Born: 1895 (Niquinohomo, Nicaragua)
Executed: 1934
Augusto C. Sandino fought
against the American troops occupying Nicaragua in the late 1920s and
early 1930s. He was acclaimed in revolutionary circles and volunteers
from many countries rushed to join him in his fight. One such a man
was Salvadorean-born Augustín Farabundo Martí (1893-1932),
a persuasive law-school drop-out who became a trusted advisor and Sandino’s
personal secretary.
A farmer and a mining
engineer, Sandino joined the liberal revolution (1926) against the conservative
government headed by Adolfo Díaz and Emiliano Chamorro. He protested
against the new U.S. intervention in Nicaragua in 1926 and rejected
the Stimson-Moncada agreement for the elections of 1927. On this score
Sandino broke with the liberal leader, José María Moncada,
and conducted vigorous guerrilla campaigns (1927–33) against the
occupying U.S. Marines. Never captured but finally reconciled after
the withdrawal of the marines, he headed a cooperative farming scheme.
In 1934 he was invited to meet with Gen. Anastasio Somoza, and when
he did so, he was seized and executed. It is from his name that the
Nicaraguan revolutionary group, the Sandinistas, derives its name.
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