On a Day like Today: The Battle of El Bramadero

During the Calvin Coolidge administration, the United States sent its marines and soldiers to occupy Nicaragua ostensibly to protect American lives and property. In effect, the U.S. presence in the Central American country served the interests of American businesses and allied Nicaraguans. U.S. marines and soldiers were resisted by rebels led by Augusto Cesar Sandino, a relatively unlettered mechanic and artisan who counted Nicaraguan native peoples as his ancestors.

Sandino had become celebrated throughout Latin America for his exploits in pitting 3,000 poorly-equipped Nicaraguans and internationals against the 7,000 troops put in position by the U.S.  The conflict was marred by atrocities. One of the bloodiest days came when aviators of the US Marine Corps bombed and strafed the village of Ocotal on July 16, 1927 resulting the the deaths of 300 Nicaraguans. The affray was denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate, while President Coolidge dubbed it "heroic." Governor Edward Dunne of Illinois wrote, "In all of U.S. history there has been no action of such indecency as we now see in Nicaragua."

Using guerrilla tactics of his Spanish and indigenous Nicaraguan ancestors, Sandino and his compatriots adroitly used their intimate knowledge of the terrain of their native country while also relying on a sympathetic peasant population that served as his intelligence-gathering operation. His sharpshooters and scouts launched raids in which U.S. marines and soldiers were cut down in group engagements or as individuals. In some instances, U.S. troops when felled by the Sandinistas were beheaded post mortem and their heads placed on their corpses as silent witnesses. Frustrated by sniper attacks and a restive population, U.S. troops and the Nicaraguan constabulary resorted to bloody tactics as well. Sandinistas who were captured were frequently subjected to what became known as the 'vest cut': the severing of arms for having hefted weapons against the occupiers.

Sandino himself kept a record of his military exploits, much of which was overshadowed by newspaper reports controlled by the Associated Press and the New York Times that were sympathetic to the Nicaragua's ruling government. He recorded an affray his Sandinistas had with U.S. forces on February 27, 1928 that became known as the Battle of El Bramadero:

"By now graduate students of Yankee tactics, we emplaced our machine guns in strategic positions and sat down to wait. The whole brigade was on hand at the appropriate site. The moment came, our guns chattered till they seemed ready to melt with the heat, and the unhappy Yankees fell like grasshoppers. It was the greatest slaughter I ever saw. In desperation they fired wickedly like madmen. They climbed trees and fell from them perforated with bullets. They tried to attack the places our fire was coming from but couldn't make it. In full view of our men, they offered an admirable target. Their weapons - the ones that the bishop of Granada had blessed - were of no use to them. Our triumph was complete. Beneath the vast acreage of wind-dried sugarcane that was the battlefield lay hundreds of dead and wounded. We set fire to the dry cane at the four corners of the field. The vermin had to be cleaned out! The flames mounted fast, fanned by the wind. A smell of burning flesh filled the air. and in the chronicle of our struggles, this is know as the battle of Bramadero."

It took the Great Depression for the U.S. to remove its soldiers and marines from Nicaragua in 1933 following the election of President Juan Bautista Sacasa. While Sandino vowed never again to kill any working-class American stepping foot in Nicaragua, he and the Sandinistas continued to fight Nicaragua's National Guard, which they regarded as unconstitutional. Ultimately, Sandino was betrayed by fellow Nicaraguans in February 1934 when he was enticed to negotiate a truce. Sandino, along with his brother Socrates and two of their generals, were executed by members of Nicaguara's  U.S.-backed National Guard after discussions with President Sacasa.

It was General Anastasio Somoza Garcia who gave the orders to kill Sandino and companions. Somoza Garcia himself became president in 1937 and continued until his assassination in 1956. He was the father of two succeeding chief executives: President Luis Somoza Debayle and President Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The latter of the two was assassinated in 1979 after being overthrown by latter day Sandinistas.