This translation of Severo Martinez Pelaez's "La Patria del
Criollo," first published in Guatemala in 1970, makes a classic,
controversial work of Latin American history available to
English-language readers. Martinez Pelaez was one of Guatemala's
foremost historians and a political activist committed to
revolutionary social change. "La Patria del Criollo" is his
scathing assessment of Guatemala's colonial legacy. Martinez Pelaez
argues that Guatemala remains a colonial society because the
conditions that arose centuries ago when imperial Spain held sway
have endured. He maintains that economic circumstances that assure
prosperity for a few and deprivation for the majority were altered
neither by independence in 1821 nor by liberal reform following
1871. The few in question are an elite group of criollos, people of
Spanish descent born in Guatemala; the majority are predominantly
Maya Indians, whose impoverishment is shared by many mixed-race
Guatemalans.
Martinez Pelaez asserts that "the coffee dictatorships were the
full and radical realization of criollo notions of the patria."
This" patria," or homeland, was one that criollos had wrested from
Spaniards in the name of independence and taken control of based on
claims of liberal reform. He contends that since labor is needed to
make land productive, the exploitation of labor, particularly
Indian labor, was a necessary complement to criollo appropriation.
His depiction of colonial reality is bleak, and his portrayal of
Spanish and criollo behavior toward Indians unrelenting in its
emphasis on cruelty and oppression. Martinez Pelaez felt that the
grim past he documented surfaces each day in an equally grim
present, and that confronting the past is a necessary step in any
effort to improve Guatemala's woes. An extensive introduction
situates "La Patria del Criollo" in historical context and relates
it to contemporary issues and debates.
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