Home
Home
1895
Born in the village of Niquinohomo, Nicaragua. His full name
was Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino.
1921
Sandino shoots Dagoberto Rivas, son of a Conservative prominent citizen.
In order
to avoid punishment, Sandino flees to the Pacific coast in Nicaragua, and
later goes
to Hondouras where he is employeed at a sugar processing plant.
1922-1926 Sandino becomes involved with many different spiritualist
groups including
Seventh Day Adventists, Yoga masters and the Freemasons The Masonic lodges
acquaints Sandino with radical revolutionary ideas such as anti-imperialism,
anti-clericalism, anarchism, communism as well as "liberalism," socialism,
and the
glorification of his Indian heritage.
1926
May: Sandino returns to Nicaragua after the Statute of Limitations on his
attempted
murder charge expires. Dagoberto Rivas prevents Sandino from returning
to his
home village and opening a business. Sandino then moves on to the city
of León.
June: Sandino meets up with a troop of migrating workers and travels North
to the
mining areas, finally finding work at the San Albino mine in July. Sandino
is behind
a movement by the miners to commit sabotage and theft.
November: After receiving guns from Honduras, Sandino and a band of miners
unsuccessfully attack the garrison at El Jícaro. Sandino realizes
that he needs better
weapons and travels to Puerto Cabezas to bargain for men and weapons with
rebelling Liberal troops against the US-backed Conservatives. December:
The
Liberal rebel Commander General José María Moncada denies
Sandino weapons
and a military commission. Fortunately for Sandino he was able to obtain
some
weapons from the fleeing Conservative rebels.
1927
April: Sandino begins to have visions of himself entering the Managua victorious.
May: The United States force the warring parties to come to an agreement
(The
Espino Negro Accords). Sandino accepts the agreement and convinces Moncada
he
will lay his guns down once he reaches Jinotega in the North, then changes
his mind
and complained that he had not been consulted for the agreement. He declares
the
agreement a betrayal of the fatherland.
June: Sandino new condition for his surrender is the establishment
of an honorable
Liberal government. He receives no response. Sandino begins to act as constituted
authority in the region, appointing civil authorities, and renames El Jícaro,
site of
his failed attack after himself, Ciudad Sandino (Sandino City).
July: Sandino issues his first two political manifestos in which he claims
a mystical
tie with the Indian race and his intention to shed the blood of others
for the sake of
his cause.
September: Sandino calls his troops The Army in Defense of the National
Sovereignty of Nicaragua, and creates guidelines for his fighters. He also
changes
his name to Augusto "César" Sandino.
November: Sandino issues a decree identifying those he calls the "traitors
to the
motherland." Anyone who does not follow Sandino is his enemy.
1928
January: Sandino demands the evacuation of the American Forces and the
resignation of President Adolfo. He also wants supervised elections.
October: Sandino organizes a Junta to take power with three marginal political
factions and the opportunist Nicaraguan exile Pedro J. Zepeda. Sandino
also has
himself declared Generalissimo and uncontested military authority of the
Republic.
November 4: Elections take place. Moncada wins the presidency. Sandino
orders
his loyal personal representative abroad to join efforts with Zepeda in
Mexico.
1929
January: Sandino writes to Mexican President requesting an audience to
announce
his "far-reaching projects" for Latin America.
January 6: Sandino declares Moncada's government unconstitutional and that
his
peasant army is the only source of legitimacy in the country. Sandino again
demands
the withdrawal of the US troops.
February: Sandino confronts the European nations for not coming to his
aid against
the United States. He then threatens the lives of European nationals
in Nicaragua.
March: Sandino writes to all the Presidents of the Continent seeking support
and
announces that Nicaragua has been chosen to shed its blood for the rest
of Latin
America. Moncada organizes a force of "volunteers" to fight Sandino.
June: Sandino travels to Mexico. He receives a stipend from the Mexican
government, who keeps him under surveillance. Sandino believing that the
Mexican
government has set him up becomes withdrawn and depressed.
1931
Sandino reiterates to Pedrón that he is the Incarnation of God and
his wife Blanca
is the incarnation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. In his Manifesto Light
and Truth,
Sandino predicts the end of the world and proclaims Nicaragua the seat
of the
judgement against the unjust. His messianic calling emerges with renewed
strength.
December: Sandino prepares to take over Nicaragua.
1932 August 31: Sandino plans to disrupt the upcoming election.
1933
January 1: Juan Bautista Sacasa is President; Anastasio Somoza is appointed
Hea
of the National Guard.
January: Sandino is no longer receiving supplies The president plagued
by internal
problems, named Sandino sympathizer Sofonías Salvatierra as negotiator.
Persuaded by his pleading wife, Sandino accepted to meet the presidential
envoy.
February: Sandino announced at dawn that he has to make peace or
he will kill
himself. In the peace accords, Sandino pledged his loyalty to President
Sacasa and
the surrender of his weapons, Sandino's men were granted amnesty for the
crimes
they committed since 1927 and were allowed to settle in the Rio Coco basin,
where they would establish an "agricultural cooperative."
August 16: Sandino proclaims the Union of the Central American Republics
and
establishes what he calls the Autonomist Army of Central America two days
later.
Sandino allocated ministry portfolios to each country and outlined electoral
rules to
choose the new entity's president. He declared himself Supreme Commander
of the
new army and "Supreme Moral Authority of Central America." He travel led
to
Managua to relieve tensions.
1934
February: Sandino reached an agreement with the President: the size of
the National
Guard would be reduced within three months, and a Sandino sympathizer would
be
placed in charge of the northern departments. As Sandino and his entourage
made
their way out of the presidential compound, they were rounded up by Somoza's
men
and executed. The next day, the National Guard descended on the northern
commune razing the cooperative and killing most of its members.