Augusto César Sandino

Augusto Calderón was born 18 May 1895, in Niquinohomo, Masaya Department, Nicaragua. He was the illegitimate son of Gregorio Sandino, a wealthy landowner of Spanish descent, and Margarita Calderón, an indigenous servant with the Sandino family.[5] He lived with his mother until he was nine years old, when his father took him into his own home and arranged for his education.[6] It was then that young Augusto took on his father's surname, retaining his maternal surname, Calderón, as a middle name represented by the initial C.[7]

In July 1912, when he was 17, Sandino witnessed an intervention of United States troops in Nicaragua to suppress an uprising against President Adolfo Díaz, regarded by many as a United States puppet. General Benjamín Zeledón of La Concordia in the state of Jinotega died that year on 4 October during the Battle of Coyotepe Hill, when United States Marines recaptured Fort Coyotepe and the city of Masaya from rebels. The Marines carried Zeledón's body on an oxcart to be buried in Catarina.

In 1921 at the age of 26, Sandino shot but failed to kill Dagoberto Rivas, the son of a prominent conservative townsman, who had made disparaging comments about Sandino's mother. As a result, Sandino fled to Honduras, then Guatemala and eventually Mexico, where he found work at a Standard Oil refinery near the port of Tampico. At that time the military phase of the Mexican Revolution was drawing to an end. A new "institutional revolutionary" regime was forming, driven by a wide array of popular movements to carry out the provisions of the 1917 Constitution. Sandino was involved with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, spiritist gurus and anti-imperialist, anarchist and communist revolutionaries. He embraced the anti-clericalism of Mexico's revolution and the ideology of Indigenismo, which glorified the indigenous heritage of Latin America.

Sandino (center) Tony Eduardo Delduca 1910–1985, representing the Purple Gang (right) Mr. Delduca's body guard, Joe (far right) en route to Mexico

Shortly after Sandino returned to Nicaragua, the Constitutionalist War began when Liberal soldiers in the Caribbean port of Puerto Cabezas revolted against the Conservative President Adolfo Díaz, who had recently been installed after a coup with United States involvement. The leader of this revolt, General José María Moncada, declared that he supported the claim of the exiled Liberal vice-president Juan Bautista Sacasa.

Sacasa returned to Nicaragua, arriving in Puerto Cabezas in December, and declared himself president of a "constitutional" government, which Mexico recognized. Sandino assembled a makeshift army composed largely of gold miners, and led a failed attack on the Conservative garrison nearest the San Albino mine. Afterward, he traveled to Puerto Cabezas to meet with Moncada. Because of the guerrilla's hit-and-run operations against Conservative forces, conducted independently of the Liberal army, Moncada distrusted Sandino and told Sacasa so.[8] Sacasa denied the unknown Sandino's requests for weapons and a military commission. But after he captured some rifles from fleeing Conservative soldiers, the other Liberal commanders agreed to grant Sandino a commission.

By 1927 Sandino had returned to Las Segovias, where he recruited local peasants for his army and attacked government troops with increasing success. In April Sandino's forces played a vital role in assisting the principal Liberal Army column, which was advancing on Managua. Having received arms and funding from Mexico, Moncada's Liberal army seemed on the verge of seizing the capital. But the United States, using the threat of military intervention, forced the Liberal generals to agree to a ceasefire.

On 4 May 1927, representatives from the two warring factions signed the Espino Negro accord, negotiated by Henry L. Stimson, appointed by U.S. President Calvin Coolidge as a special envoy to Nicaragua. Under the terms of the accord, both sides agreed to disarm, Díaz would be allowed to finish his term, and a new national army would be established, to be called the Guardia Nacional (National Guard). U.S. soldiers were to remain in the country to supervise the upcoming November presidential election. A battalion of U.S. Marines under the command of Major General Logan Feland later arrived to enforce the agreement.

After the signing of the Espino Negro accord, Sandino refused to order his followers to surrender their weapons, and returned with them to the Segovia Mountains.

During this period, Sandino married Blanca Stella Aráuz Pineda, a young telegraphist of the village of San Rafael del Norte, Jinotega.

In June 1927, Sandino organised a group of 50 men to march to the San Albino mines in Nueva Segovia, where he was formerly employed by American businessman Charles Butters. Sandino took over the mine, which held 500 pounds of dynamite he said was going to use to "kill Yankees", and forcibly drove out all foreigners. This led to foreigners criticizing America and how the Marines deployed in Nicaragua were ordered to protect only American property, not foreigners'.[9]

At the beginning of July 1927, Sandino issued a manifesto condemning the betrayal of the Liberal revolution by the vendepatria ("country-seller") Moncada. He declared war on the United States, which he called the "Colossus of the North" and "the enemy of our race".[10] At the height of his guerrilla campaign, Sandino claimed to have 3,000 soldiers in his army; in later years, officials estimated the number at 300.[8]

On 16 July, Sandino's followers attacked a patrol of U.S. Marines and the Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional was sent to apprehend him at the village of Ocotal. Armed primarily with machetes and 19th-century rifles, they attempted to besiege the Marines, but were easily repulsed with the help of one of the first dive-bombing attacks in history, conducted by five Marine de Havilland biplanes. The Marine commander estimated that 300 of Sandino's men died (the actual number was about 80), while the Marines suffered two casualties, one dead and one wounded, and the Guardia three dead and four taken prisoner.[11] Despite their heavy losses and the lopsided nature of these battles, the rebels made other attempts to swarm a small post guarded by 21 Marines and 25 guardsmen at Telpaneca. The 200 assaulting Sandinistas had 25 deaths and 50 wounded while killing one Marine, wounding another and seriously injuring a guardsman.

Later Sandino took the more official title Augusto César Sandino and renamed his insurgents "The Army in Defense of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua". Efforts by the Marines to kill or capture him over the summer failed. In November 1927, U.S. aircraft succeeded in locating El Chipote, Sandino's remote mountain headquarters east of San Albino Mine. But when the Marines reached it, they found it abandoned and guarded by straw dummies. Sandino and his followers had long since escaped.[12]

In January 1928 U.S. Marines found Sandino's war base in Quilalí and, though they were ambushed in their approach, the American and Nicaraguan troops had no trouble in routing the 400 rebels under Francisco Estrada's leadership. The Marines lost one man while killing 20. Sandino's penchant for exaggeration was evident in his personal report of the events: he claimed to have won the battle in three hours and that 97 Americans were killed and another 60 wounded. In reality only 66 Marines were in the operation. He further boasted the capture of six Lewis machine guns, three M1921 Thompsons and 46 Lewis automatic rifles. Also among these trophies was a codebook for communicating with aircraft.

After reaching the mountains of Nueva Segovia, Sandino smuggled a message to Mexico City saying:

I will not abandon my resistance until the ... pirate invaders ... assassins of weak peoples ... are expelled from my country. ... I will make them realize that their crimes will cost them dear. ... There will be bloody combat. ... Nicaragua shall not be the patrimony of Imperialists. I will fight for my cause as long as my heart beats. ... If through destiny I should lose, there are in my arsenal five tons of dynamite which I will explode with my own hand. The noise of the cataclysm will be heard 250 miles. All who hear will be witness that Sandino is dead. Let it not be permitted that the hands of traitors or invaders shall profane his remains.[13]

In April the Sandinistas destroyed the equipment of the Bonanza and La Luz gold mines, the two largest mines in the country, both owned by three American brothers: James Gilmore, G. Fred, and D. Watson Fletcher, all of Manhattan, who were brothers of Henry P. Fletcher, the United States Ambassador to Italy.[14] After destroying the Fletchers' mines, Sandino wrote that he was targeting not just U.S. Marines but also Americans in Nicaragua who "uphold the attitude of Coolidge."[15]

With aerial support, the Marines made several riverine patrols from Nicaragua's east coast up the Coco River during the height of the rainy season, often having to use native dugout canoes. While these patrols limited Sandino's forces' movements and secured tenuous control over northern Nicaragua's principal river, the Marines failed to find Sandino or to effect a decisive victory. By April 1928 the Marines reportedly thought Sandino was finished and trying to evade capture.[16] One month later, his army ambushed another Marine post and killed five troops.[16] In December 1928 the Marines located Sandino's mother and convinced her to write a letter asking him to surrender.[17] Sandino announced that he would continue to fight until the Marines left Nicaragua.[18]

Despite massive efforts, American forces never captured Sandino. His communiqués were regularly published in American media; for instance, he was frequently quoted during 1928 in Time magazine during the Marines' offensive. At one point he staged a fake funeral to throw off pursuers. The U.S. Congress did not share Coolidge's ambition to capture Sandino and declined to fund operations to do so.[19] U.S. Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana argued that if American soldiers intended to "stamp out banditry, let's send them to Chicago to stamp it out there ... I wouldn't sacrifice ... one American boy for all the damn Nicaraguans."[20]

Although Sandino had been unable to secure any outside aid for his forces, the Great Depression made overseas military expeditions too costly for the United States. In January 1931, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson announced that all U.S. soldiers in Nicaragua would be withdrawn after the 1932 election in the country. The newly created Nicaraguan National Guard (Guardia Nacional), which continued to be commanded by U.S. officers, took over responsibility for controlling insurgencies.

In May 1931, an earthquake destroyed Managua, killing over 2,000 people.[26] The disruption and the losses the earthquake caused weakened the central government and gave Sandino leverage to revive his fight with the Americans.[27][28][29] In the summer of 1931, Sandinista bands were active in every department north of Managua and conducted raids into the southern and western parts of the country, the departments of Estelí, Jinotega, León and Chontales. They briefly managed to occupy several towns along the nation's principal railroad, linking Managua to the Pacific coastal port of Corinto, but did not try to capture any of the nation's urban centers. They briefly occupied some smaller cities, such as Chinandega.

Somoza and Sandino in February 1933.

In accordance with the Good Neighbor Policy, the last U.S. Marines left Nicaragua in January 1933, after Juan Bautista Sacasa's inauguration as the country's president. During the Marines' tour of duty in Nicaragua, 130 of their men had been killed. After the Marines departed, Sandino said, "I salute the American people." He also vowed that he would never attack a working-class American who visited Nicaragua.[30] Sandino met with Sacasa in Managua in February 1934, pledged his loyalty to him and agreed to order his forces to surrender their weapons within three months.[30] In exchange, Sacasa agreed to give the soldiers who surrendered arms squatters' rights on land in the Coco River Valley,[30] require the area to be guarded by 100 Sandinista fighters under the government's orders,[30] and give preference in employment to Sandinistas on public works in northern Nicaragua.[30]

Sandino remained opposed to the Nicaraguan National Guard, which he considered unconstitutional because of its ties to the U.S. military,[8] and insisted on its dissolution.[8] His attitude toward General Anastasio Somoza García, the National Guard leader, and his officers made Sandino unpopular with rank-and-file National Guard troops.[8] Without consulting Sacasa,[8] Somoza García ordered Sandino's assassination in the hope that it would help win him loyalty from the Guard's senior officers.[8]

On 21 February 1934, Sandino, together with his father, his brother Sócrates, two of his favorite generals, Estranda and Umanzor, and the poet Sofonías Salvatierra, Sacasa's Minister of Agriculture, attended a new round of talks with Sacasa. On leaving Sacasa's Presidential Palace, the six men were stopped in their car at the main gate by local National Guardsmen and were ordered to leave their car.[31] The Guardsmen brushed aside Sandino's father and Salvatierra. They took Sandino, his brother Sócrates, and his two generals to a crossroads section in Larreynaga and executed them.[31] Sandino's remains were buried in the Larreynaga neighborhood of Managua by a detachment of National Guard troops under the command of Major Rigoberto Duarte, one of General Somoza García's confidantes. Duarte was the father of Roberto Duarte Solis, Minister of Social Communication during President Arnoldo Alemán's tenure.

The following day, the National Guard attacked Sandino's army in force and, over a month, destroyed it.[8] Two years later, General Somoza García forced Sacasa to resign and declared himself President of Nicaragua. He established a dictatorship and dynasty that dominated Nicaragua for the next four decades.

While Sandino's body has never been found, the full details of Sandino's assassination and what became of his remains are among Nicaragua's most enduring mysteries:

• Burial:[4] witnesses to the execution claimed to have seen the guardsmen force Sandino and the three other captives to the ground and shoot and bury them.[31] Sandino's followers are said to have later exhumed Sandino's body to rebury him in an undisclosed location.[31]
• Cremated: in 1944, ten years after Sandino's assassination, the remains that had been buried in the La Calavera pit were exhumed and taken near the south side of the Tiscapa lagoon to be burned, then their ashes thrown into Lake Xolotlán. This occurred due to the student protests of the Central University of Managua that took place that year, against the re-election of Somoza to the presidency.
• Trophy: according to Sandinista lore, Somoza's assassins decapitated and dismembered Sandino and delivered his severed head to the U.S. government as a token of their loyalty.[4]

Sandino's 59-foot silhouette at Tiscapa Lagoon in Managua is instantly recognizable by his emblematic broad-brimmed hat.

Sandino became a hero to many in Nicaragua and much of Latin America as a Robin Hood figure who opposed domination from wealthy elites and foreigners, such as the United States. His opposition to U.S. control was tempered by the love he said he felt toward Americans like himself. His picture and silhouette, complete with the oversized cowboy hat, were adopted as recognized symbols of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca and Tomás Borge, among others, and later led by Daniel Ortega.

Sandino has been idolized by notable Latin American figures including Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. His brand of guerrilla warfare was effectively used by Castro, FARC in Colombia, the Sandinistas, and the FMLN in El Salvador.

In 1979 Somoza's son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was overthrown by the Sandinistas, political descendants of Sandino. In the 1980s, they renamed Managua International Airport after him as "Augusto C. Sandino International Airport." Pro-Somoza President Arnoldo Alemán renamed it Managua International Airport in 2001 after coming to power.

In 2007, President Daniel Ortega renamed again the airport in honor of Sandino. Nicaraguan artist Róger Pérez de la Rocha has created many portraits of Sandino—whose image was banned by the Somoza dictatorship—and of his associates, adding to the country's iconography.[32]

The Chilean-Spanish biopic Sandino (1990), directed by Miguel Littin, was filmed in Nicaragua[33] with an international cast including Joaquim de Almeida as Sandino, Kris Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell, Victoria Abril and Ángela Molina.[34][35]

• In an address delivered on 1 July 1927 (now referred to as the San Albino Manifesto) to the people of Nicaragua and to the American armed forces stationed in Nicaragua at that time:[36][37]

  Come, you pack of morphine addicts; come to kill us in our own land, and I will await you standing strong at the head of my patriotic soldiers, not caring about how many of you there are; bear in mind that when this happens, the destruction of your greatness will shake the Capitol in Washington, with your blood reddening the white sphere crowning your famous White House, the cavern where you plot your crimes.

• Sandinista National Liberation Front
• Nicaragua
• Nicaragua v. United States

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Augusto César Sandino.

• Augusto C. Sandino, 1895–1934
• A.C. Sandino Biography (in Spanish)
• Article about Sandino (in Polish)
• WAIS Forum on Nicaragua Archived 2012-10-21 at the Wayback Machine at Stanford University
• Collection of articles and photos about Sandino
• The Sandino Rebellion in Nicaragua 1927–1934: a collection of primary documents
• Newspaper clippings about Augusto César Sandino in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW