Page 17 - Marlie Burton Roche : Landscape and Bread

IMPERIALISM:

A DEVASTATING ENTERPRISE

EL

SALVADOR

indigenous Pipil called their land Cuzcatlan, self-sufficient modern

The meaning, “land of richness.” It was a domain federation. The goal was to
of abundant volcanic soil and lush vegetation, blessed with a create a sovereign state, ruled
natural water system of lakes and rivers. Individual or privatized as a federated republic rather

ownership of land was unheard of and all socio-economic life in than by an economic elite. But

Cuzcatlan was based on free access to land and produce. the libertarians lacked any real
economic base. The primary
Cuzcatlan’s name and destiny were changed forever with the power source was in land,

onslaught of the Spanish invasion. From inception, El Salvador and the land was owned by an

was characterized by war and genocide as massacres, rapes, and oligarchy intransigent in its
plunder were used to dominate and extinguish the Pipil, Lenca, opposition to the political ideas
and Pokoman. Their ‘land of richness’ was confiscated for use by of liberalism.

the Spaniards. Proprietorship of land and enslavement of human

beings came to be the rule of the day, giving rise to privatized When England and the United
estates and El Salvador’s first export commodity, indigo. States combined forces with
the reactionary landowners

With independence from Spanish domination, progressive to build the Panama Canal,

libertarians, exemplified by Simón Bolívar, attempted to create a the liberal vision of a modern
Central American confederation. They envisioned an independent confederation disintegrated and
Central American republic extending from Panama to Guatemala Central America was divided

and functioning as a crossroads for the world, linking Europe, into the five quasi-republics

America, and Asia. Francisco Morazan led a succession of wars that remain, to this day,
of liberation against the established oligarchy in the first half the economically dependent on
nineteenth century in an attempt to construct an economically external powers. The ‘land of

LANDSCAPE & BREAD MARLIE BURTON-ROCHE 13