Resistance and claims against the “bad government” ―The riots of November 1811 in San Salvador―

Abstract

This text presents a study of the revolts of November 1811 that occurred in the San Salvador intendancy, which contrasts with the interpretations made by patriotic and academic historiography about these movements, which state that they were led by Creoles and that the reasons for these uprisings they were in support of persecuted and imprisoned clergymen, and for fiscal demands. Based on the analysis of archival documentary sources, this research proposes that these movements had a character of popular resistance, and were led by leaders of indigenous, ladino and caste neighborhoods, and organized because of political unrest and demands and economic events that detonated in the context of the crisis and changes that impacted the entire Spanish-American monarchical world, which occurred in 1808. The resistance movement was against the abuses of authority of the mayor, the city council of San Salvador and other towns, against the imprisonment for crimes of fidelity, against the fiscal charges, for the concealment of the authorities of the elimination of the tribute by the Courts, and by the dire situation of famine, shortages and unemployment that existed in those years due to the plagues of locusts that devastated the crops. Such situations led the population of neighborhoods and towns to a social explosion, in the face of which the response of the local Spanish authorities was not one of prosecution of the movement and nor of leadership as the historiography has maintained, but of disapproval, persecution, imprisonment. and submission.