INDIANS, THE MILITARY AND THE REBELLION OF 1932 IN EL SALVADOR

This study challenges the widely held belief that the peasant rebellio n of 1932, and the massive military response to it, marked the demise of Indian ethnic identity. Working from documents that have become ava ilable only recently, we demonstrate that the Indian population was no t decimated by the military repression. The percentage of Indians in t he population remained steady and in some regions even increased. We s how that the bedrock of Indian identity, the cofradias and the communi ties, survived the repression as well. We propose that these survivals are due, ironically, in part to the military. Despite their willingne ss to employ violence on a colossal level, military leaders believed t hat order in the countryside was to be achieved through reform as well as repression. The military's reformist ideology and reform programme worked to defend individual Indians and Indian communities from ladin os anxious to avenge their losses in the uprising.