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Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is
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the Studia's Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin
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American history. Sometimes it's horrible and deals with heavy topics
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like cracism, corruption, and genocide. But more than i it's
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also about resistance, power and community. And that's what today
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is about, resistance, power and community. Resistance. Oh cool, Yeah,
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I'm I'm excited for this episode. So we'll just yeah,
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jump right into this. All right. I'm gonna start with
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a little little saying here for you. Salvadorans are born fighters.
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Have you heard our father say this to us? No?
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Has he said it to you? Yeah? Especially after having
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my kids. Oh, I'll tell them like one of them
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is like fighting the other because one of them took something.
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And he's like, well, fighting is in their blood of course.
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Oh yeah, okay, so this is like a thing. He
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of course is also a fighter, as we know from
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his many childhood stories of him fighting or when we
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got in fights or I got in fights. For you,
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he would say the same thing, and yeah, this is
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the thing people say, Salvadorians are fighters. No, no, that
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you said, I'm like, oh yeah, okay, okay, yeah, And
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if you if you look past like the US or
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the American perception of the Salvador, where it's like people
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are only seen in the context of being refugees of
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the Civil War or victims of the gangs, or like now,
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you know, trying to survive a dictatorship, which some people
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don't view as a dictorship. But right, moving past that someone, Yeah,
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moving past that, like when you look at you know,
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the history of the country. Yeah, resistance is part of it.
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Resistance is in So we have talked about the civil
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War the events before it, like La Matanza, but there
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are so many periods of resistance that we have not
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talked about. But before we get into today's topic, which
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is someone named Anastasio Aquino, I have some context. Okay,
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So I don't know if we have talked about this
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time period yet, but if not, hopefully it's not like
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repeaterd information. But again I didn't remember a lot of
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this myself. So before the Spanish colonizers, the Pipil had
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lived in Couscatlan for over four hundred years, and Custan
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is what we know in Sara like as today. That
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was Couscatlan, and the Pipil lived in mostly the western
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and central part of the country. And they are not
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the only indigenous group. Indigenous too in Salavadada. Of course,
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there's also the Lenka who are now in Usuli Don,
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San Miguel, Morassan and laou Leon. There's also the Kakawira
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who are also in Morosan, and then there's also Maya
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Chorti who are in the department of Aua Chapan. This
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is near Guatemala, Okay. And today the biggest concentration of
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Pipil is in sont Ate, especially Nawisalco and Isalco, also
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Ajua Chapan, La Liberta, Santa Ana and pan Chi Malco,
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which is just outside of San sal Vado. Before colonization,
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the Pipil traded as far as Teyoti Wacan, which is
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Mexico City today. Hello. Hello, this is Christina from the
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Future editing Christina, I'm as spoke here. Teyoti Jacan is
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actually forty kilometers northeast of what we call Mexico City today,
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so twenty five miles northeast of Mexico City. Okay, back
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to the episode, and so yeah, just to say it
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was a thriving, you know area. The pp themselves are
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said to have come from a split between like one
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now we speaking group that was like originally from Mexico
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and like made their way down to what is in Sarvalord. Now,
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oh I didn't know. Yeah, and part of like like
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this happened like years ago before all that. But yeah,
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just all this to say it was, you know, it
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was thriving until the Spanish came in June of fifteen
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twenty four ruined everything. Yeah, from up north. The Spanish
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ventured into Central America from Mexico. And this expedition was
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led by Pedro de Alvarado, a lieutenant of Ednan Cortes.
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He had thousands of Claxcala and Chicuel forces with him.
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And of course, like these groups have always been either
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living together or fighting and then figuring out how to
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live together. That was always a thing. Like before someone says, oh, well,
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before they were all fighting, they were eating each other
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moments shut up, right, and so and we know like
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places that have like quote unquote conquered other places, Well,
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then those people have no choice but to join armies
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or they make alliances that they don't know what's going
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to happen in the future. Of course they didn't, they
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didn't expect a colonization, genocide. They were just surviving. They
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were just living it. Yeah, because I know people are
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always like, oh, well, the Trakskala people helped the they
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were the downfall of like the Aztecs too. Like people
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will like always like point to the allies that helped
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the Spanish. But it's like people were just trying to survive.
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So anyway, this initial force that like arrived in June
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of fifteen twenty four, they were forced back into Whatatemla
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when they met fierce resistance in the Sara and they
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can they had to come back with their army two
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more times and fifth teen twenty five and fifteen twenty
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eight because they kept losing and the Nawai leaders at
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La cat and a tonale And I thought you were
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going to say something about that battalion. Yeah, I said
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it with my face sounds like yeah. Carmen made like
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a little frowny face because if anyone remembers the Atlatte
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battalion from was responsible. We talked about it the last
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episode and they've come up before. But this was the
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special forces of the Salvador during the civil War, who
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were responsible for killing so many people, so many people
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so like what and I don't know if ironic is
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the right word, but like this battalion named after at
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La cat who was this fierce indigenous peers in finding
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back the oppressive forces, they went on to a massacre
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the indigenous people and the what oh in the civil
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war in the civil war, yeah, which yeah, so what
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a what a strange strange thing. Anyway, So some people
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say that at Laka and Aal are not real and
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that it is only a myth because there is no
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contemporary mentions like so, no new like no new writings.
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There was no surviving codexes either from like Thesalvador, like
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Guatemala has surviving codexes, and so does Mexikoba and does not.
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And so the only mentions of at Lakat is in
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this book or this collection called the Annals of the Keels,
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which is a manuscript written Inchkel, which is Mayan from Guatemala.
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And this manuscript describes legends of the people. And so
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it's like believed to be myth and legends like the
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you've heard the woman. Yeah, but it's at least part
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of it is factual because it ends with the factual
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account of colonization and so, yeah, Atlacatte could be very
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much real because part of this of this manuscript is
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one hundred percent real, and it provides an indigenous respective
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to the conquest quote unquote conquest, and I don't like
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using that same so according to this book. According to legend,
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the first time the Spanish arrived in Couscatlan, Pedro de
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Alvarado found the city partially abandoned. The people had fled
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to the mountains. Pedro de Alvarado sent a message demanding
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their surrender, but when he received a reply, it was
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the opposite. The message read quote if you want our arms,
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you must come get them from the mountains. End quote
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come again, a bitch. Basically yeah, and this was this
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message was said to be sent by atlacat himself. And
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the Spanish tried attacking the people in the mountains, but
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they were forced to retreat they could. They kept losing,
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but over time, over the years, the Spanish did gain
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more and more territory. Within two years of that initial fight,
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the Spanish had already set up a base at Santa Vador,
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where they continued to fight the pepel and so Diego
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de Alvarado was back two years so fifteen twenty six,
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and it was during this battle that the majority of
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the Nahuat pipele were defeated. But before he could be captured,
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at Laca jumped into a volcano and so he was
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never captured. He was like, I'd rather die than be
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part or be what's called not conquested, because that's not
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a word conquered, conquered. Oh my god, Oh my god,
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I feel so dumb. And even though their fears leader
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at Lacat was gone, the pipe continued to resist for
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another fifteen years. Wow, it would be another fifteen years
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before they could say the quote unquote conquest was over.
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And they did this without guns, without horses and cannons,
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all of which the Spanish had. Eventually, the Spanish colonized
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Guzgatlan and forever changed the land before I forget to
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say Guzgatlan means the land of the jewels in Naguat.
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Oh I didn't know that. Oh, well now you do. Cool,
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I don't know again the irony because to the Spanish
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this would be land that would give them, like they
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would take and take from the land and destroy it,
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you know. But they got their exports because course Caatlan
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became in and that once fertile and diverse land became
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a colony of export crops. And like we said way
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back in episode one, the first export crop was indigo,
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and then after that cacao, and then after that coffee. Yeah,
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in the late eighteen hundreds. And it's in this time
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period when Anastasio Aquino was alive and led his rebellion.
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So we're now in the late eighteen hundred no, no, no, oh, sorry,
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when it was indigo. Oh yeah, that wasn't clear, No, okay,
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And it was in the time period before coffee that
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was alive, Yes, time period, I yess. And so Anastasio
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Aquino was born April fifteen, seventeen ninety two in Santiago, Nonalco,
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and he was born into a family of titis, or
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chiefs among the Nonalco, a tribe of the people nation.
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And back then when he was born, and Sara Relodo
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was not in San Rolodo yet it was part of
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the Federal Republic of Central America. After Mexico's War of
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Independence from Spain, and Sara Lodo was briefly part of Mexico,
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and a lot happened in Mexico after the War of
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Independence and this would need to be an own series
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of episodes. But basically, after the War of Independence ended
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in eighteen twenty one, from eighteen twenty one to eighteen
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twenty three, Agustin de Iturbide was Mexico's emperor. Then he
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was dethroned in eighteen twenty three. And when he was
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dethroned in eighteen twenty Threejuate, malal Hoduras, Nicaraguay, and Costa
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Rica declared independence from Mexico and they became the Federal
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Republic of Central America. And this Federal Republic lasted until
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eighteen forty. It's not very long. And I mean keeping
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these five like the places, five different disease countries with
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their own cultures one nation was very difficult from the beginning, Yeah,
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very tumultuous from the start. And during this government the
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money was so scarce, and to raise money to support
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the federation, even more land was taken from the indigenous
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of course, because for a long time, even after colonization,
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indigenous people were allowed to farm in lands that were
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not occupied by aciendas. But it was in this time
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period that then aciendas began to began to expand and expand,
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and with that expansion forced labor in these aciendas and
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mines they continue to grow. It was mostly the indigenous
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populations that were forced to do that, forced labor who
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were forced to work. Like we talked about in episode one,
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the same stuff was happening with indigo before it happened
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with coffee. Naturally, this led to uprisings because the people,
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of course, they're going to demand rights and to be
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treated like people. Yeah, the people are gonna they're gonna
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want people to people will resist the people, yes, exactly,
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the people will always resist. And so one of these
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uprisings was led by Anastasia Jachino. It was late eighteen
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thirty two in Santiago Nonualco, and Anastasio was a worker
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on an indigo plantation and for some unknown reason, his
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brother was arrested by the assenda were owner and this
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could be any reason like it could be, and it
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probably was something under bullshits like reason, right of course,
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And when this happened, when his brother was arrested, Astasio
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said it was enough, this was enough, and now it
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was time to fight back. And a lot of people
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felt the same way when he said this, and the
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workers joined him. They began to attack army posts. First,
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as it went from place to place, they recruited more
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people and then they you know, they were burning assendas
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along the way. Okay, And by the end of January
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eighteen thirty three he had an army and again this
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number is what a difference, but this is the number
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I found. But he had an army of two thousand
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to five thousand men, oh wow, who were mostly armed
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with lances, a spear like weapon with what is it
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called a lance? Like you know the lance? Yeah, because
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you said like lances, so it was im plural because
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they had more than one. I wasn't sure what you
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were saying. Oh I see, yeah, lances. Anyway, so they
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started in Ascienda in Santiago Nonualco and made their way
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along the Comalapa and Limpa rivers, and it was there
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where General Juan Josseu's man tried to suppress the uprising,
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but he was defeated two times in a row and
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then he fled. I guess he's like, I'm not losing anymore,
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I'm leaving serves him right, yeah, And this left Colonel
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Joaquin the San Martin in charge. So at the time,
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at the same time that this was happening that that
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other general fled and now the colonel is in charge.
235
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The military was like, no, we're not okay with this,
236
00:15:58.159 --> 00:15:59.919
we want the other guy. The other guy abandoned a
237
00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:03.759
and so then they all abandoned San Salvador. They're like,
238
00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:06.759
we're not fighting without the other guy. Yeah, and then
239
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the colonel, Colonel Joaquin, the San Martin, he had to