Indian Massacre: Central America Essay

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“Indian Massacre” Are there still Indians in El Salvador? Do they still exist? The answer is yes. Even though they do in fact exist today, why is there this misunderstanding? Why do so many question their existence? In San Salvador, the capital city, there is a commonly held notion that there are no longer any Indians in the country. Many people are informed that the indigenous culture is long lost and has been abandoned for years. So if they do exist, then why is it that many think they do not? The truth is, the Indian population existing today in El Salvador is barely at one percent of the countries population and of that population, most of them live their lives invisible. In the mid-twentieth-century the Indian population was closer to twenty percent or about 80,000 people. The population has dropped dramatically since then because of political repression after the peasant (Indian) uprising that took place in 1932. This revolt killed many Indians as well as people who were seen as Indian because of the color of their skin, the language they spoke, or the clothes they wore. After this horrific event, many Indians saw the racially motivated repression and chose to avoid distinctive Indian clothing or Indian customs, they started to become invisible. 1 Before the peasant rebellion in 1932 took place, social unrest began to spring up around 1920 in El Salvador. A major reason for the tension was from the abuse of the political classes and the obvious social inequality between landowners and the peasants. Part of the mistreatment of peasants by landowners was because of the policies of the latifundia. A latifundia is a huge piece of property run by a landowner who brought in peasants to do forced labor. Many latifundias in El Salvador specialized in agriculture that they planned to have exported. In the case for El Salvador, their major crop at the time was

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