Office of the Historian

Consul Olivares to the Secretary of State.1

[Telegram—Paraphrase.]
American Consulate,
Managua, August 21, 1910.

Mr. Olivares reports that at 11 o’clock a.m. the vanguard of the army of the revolution, consisting of about 250 cavalry and infantry commanded by Agustin Chamorro Bolanos, entered Managua without opposition and later in the day were followed by about 500 additional revolutionary troops, which are now quartered in the barracks of the national military school, and that more revolutionary forces are expected to arrive at any time.

Mr. Olivares says that in the afternoon Jose Dolores Estrada, who is also a national deputy, issued a decree of which the following is a literal translation:

The Deputy President, in charge of the executive power of the Republic, employing the faculties with which he is invested, and taking into consideration that there is peremptory necessity of putting an end to the civil war which stains us with blood and annihilates us decrees:

  • First. To recognize the Provisional Government of Nicaragua, proclaimed by the revolution of Bluefields, the 10th of the month of October of the year last past, in charge of its Provisional President, Gen. Juan Jose Estrada.
  • Second. To appoint a peace commission, in charge of Drs. Rafael Cabrera, Salvador Castrillo, Hildebrando A. Castellon, Gen. Jose Leon Costillo, and Messrs. Tomas [Page 760] Martenez and Salvador Costillo, in order that they proceed to the revolutionary camp to notify the military chiefs of this decree, covenanting with them a sufficient armistice, pending the arrival at this capital of the chief of the revolution and Provisional President of Nicaragua.
  • Third. If the commissioners meet Gen. Estrada they may sign with him a preliminary peace agreement, strictly according to this decree; requesting, besides, an immediate conference with the present Chief Executive at such place as they may be pleased to designate.
  • Fourth. In case Gen. Estrada is still at any distant point of the scene of military operations, commissioners may propose, besides the armistice, that the revolutionary chiefs [confer] for the purpose of choosing a person who, in the name of the revolution, will proceed to this capital to associate himself with the present custodian of the executive power, organizing with him a provisional council of government, which will have in its charge the supreme control of the Republic pending the arrival of the President, Juan Estrada.
  • Fifth. Gen. Juan Jose Estrada will previously promise to order the holding of entirely free elections for President of the Republic, in accordance with the conventions of the two great political parties into which the country is divided, provided such time shall in no case exceed six months.
  • Sixth. If one or more of the commissioners should find it inconvenient to accept the patriotic and highly humane mission that is intrusted to them, the vacancy will be filled by means of election which the commissioners will perform in a written act, of which they will make due testimony in order that it may serve as a sufficient credential.

Done at Managua the 21st day of the month of August, 1910.

Jose D. Estrada.

Adds that Gen. Juan Estrada is reported to have left Acoyapa for Managua.

  1. Transmitted through the American legation at Tegucigalpa.↩