File No. 817.00/2121.
The American Minister to the Secretary of State.
Managua, October 24, 1912.
Your telegraphic request of October 211 for a report on the activities of the Mena insurrectionists.
Granada has a population of about 25,000. It claims to represent the intelligence, wealth and purest Spanish blood of Nicaragua. Its principal building is the church of San Francisco, of great size, thick walls and commanding position. Because of these qualities General Mena converted it into a combined storehouse, prison and fortress, and placed his son Daniel in command.
On July 29th Mena attempted his coup d’état. Within an hour Daniel Mena began to arrest prominent citizens in order to extort money. These prisoners were bound and locked together in a small filthy cell without toilet conveniences. For three days they were without water or food. When almost spent, food and drink was sold to them at 1000 pesos per plate. Martin Bernard, was taken to the police station, stripped, forced to walk naked to the church prison, and locked up; he was suffering intensely from kidney disease and soon went into hysterics. Another wealthy prisoner became temporarily insane.
On July 30, Daniel began sending troops with wagons to seize stocks of goods, and presently the soldiers took to looting on their own account. These acts continued almost two months and when Major Butler took possession of the church he found inside about 200 cattle and horses, and a large stock of silks, laces and other goods of little or no military use.
Women and children hid themselves; when captured, these wives and daughters of well-to-do citizens were forced to pay contributions. The young girls in the French school were kept in constant terror by squad after squad of soldiers. The Directress, Mile. Eugénie Angevin, told me that the girls’ dormitory was entered by troops who, under pretext of looking for Government [illegible] disguised as women, compelled the occupants of the beds to prove their sex.
The sufferings of the poor were even worse, on account of the system of reconcentration begun within a week after the outbreak, whereby the people were compelled to remain in the town. Farmers who ventured to bring their products to the market were so constantly robbed by the soldiers that they ceased to come at all, and the poor reconcentrados walked by hundreds from door to door begging for something to eat. The young children in particular suffered from lack of nourishment, death resulting in a few cases. On the day of the arrival of the marines a woman with five young children was planning to take them in a boat on the lake to drown them all in preference to the lingering death of starvation. This condition continued more than six weeks.
But this was not the only method of oppression of the common people. Mena’s troops revived the Zelaya system known in Nicaragua [Page 1060] as “palos y grillos,” or flogging and chaining. There was also frequent shooting, and the cannon planted on top of the church were fired at night when no military purpose could be served other than to increase the terror of the populace, just as Managua was bombarded with a like barbarous intent.
Mena was appealed to for permission for the women and children to leave town, and although this would have lightened the food problem for his soldiers and would have bettered his military position, he refused. He next issued an order that in case Granada should be attacked, the women and children of Government sympathy should be banked around his fortress.
If the motives of the rebels had been political, instead of criminal, American and other foreigners would not have been attacked. An Italian, Antonio Cassinelli, makes affidavit that his house was broken into and robbed on September 11, by a squad of Mena soldiers who committed all manner of abuses, entering his wife’s room and jeopardizing her life and that of her new-born babe; that he complained to Mena thereof and two days later at midnight a mounted guard came to his place, cut down the flag and fired at the house. Two other Italians, Folletti and Bagontano, complain of the looting of their store. A Colombian, Pedro Arceyuy, deposes that he was robbed of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise on August 9. G. A. Argüello states that he was imprisoned in August and again in September and held for a ransom of 50,000 pesos; that his store was robbed on five occasions; and that certain barbarities of an unmentionable nature were committed. An American citizen, Emil Downing, states that he was arrested and imprisoned on three occasions, although he showed his citizenship papers, and was held on a demand for 5,000 pesos, being finally released by Major Butler; his house, over which Mrs. Downing had displayed the American flag, was twice entered with violence, once at night when the family were in bed; her eldest son was arrested and imprisoned. An American citizen, Mrs. Inez Étienne, widow, with daughter and niece and several children, states that her house was entered and robbed at night by soldiers, and such perishable food as they could not use was destroyed. There being no men in the house, the daughter went for relief to Mena’s headquarters, where she was jeered by the soldiers; on another occasion one of the officers made an insulting proposal that she see Daniel Mena. On September 24 the mother was held up on the streets and robbed by soldiers.
Major Butler entered the city and, without firing a shot, disarmed the troops and restored order. Red Cross provisions were distributed to the hospitals, schools and poor people. This work was begun immediately by the Legation clerk, who reports pitiful and heartrending sights. Three thousand additional rations were issued by Major Butler; the American colony in Managua gave a carload of supplies; and the enlisted men of the Marine Corps shared their own meals with the poor who crowded their camp. Eight thousand were fed. The prompt action of Major Butler in disarming the troops saved the city from an even greater terror, for 400 hungry and desperate soldiers, just arrived after a ten days’ march, had threatened to pillage and burn the town. The meaning of such a threat may best be realized [Page 1061] from the indescribable horror and bloodshed accompanying the destruction of Masaya a few days later.1