HISTORY. Extensive ruins of cities, temples, and aqueducts found in all parts of Guatemala testify to the existence of a highly developed people before the advent of Europeans. The most careful study of these ancient remains, however, has as yet failed to reveal anything of the history of this prehistoric race, which was probably allied to, if not identical with, the Toltecs of Mexico. The country was conquered by the Spaniards, under Alvarado. between 1522 and 1524, and in no province of Spanish America were the natives so mercilessly oppressed as in Guatemala. Las Casas states that in the' first fifteen or sixteen years of Spanish misrule be tween four and five millions of Indians perished. The province was governed as a captaincy-gen eral under the viceroyalty of New Spain down to the declaration of independence in 1821. In 1822 Guatemala was declared annexed to Itur. bide's Mexican empire, a status which lasted for fifteen months, and was followed by the creation of the Confederation of Central America, con sisting of the five States of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador, and Costa Rica. In 1825 a federal constitution was adopted, and the con federation thus formed endured until 1838 or 1839. The new State of Guatemala then adopted a liberal constitution, and plunged into a condi tion of chronic warfare with its neighbors. Under the firm guidance of Rafael Carrera the country successfully withstood an attempt made by Gen eral Merazan in 1842 to establish an autocratic Government in Central America. In 1850 the republics of Honduras, Salvador, and Nicara gua endeavored to force Guatemala into a new confederation, but were decisively defeated at Arada. Since that time there has been an ever present tendency to resolve the office of Presi dent into that of dictator, from the attempt of Carrera, who was made President for life in 1854 and maintained himself in office until his death in 1865, to Josi Maria Reg,na Barrios, who installed himself as dictator in 1897, and was assassinated in the following year. Nor has
Guatemala been able to resist the temptation of effecting by force of arms a new union of the Central American States, and in 1885 Rufino Barrios, who had come into power in 1873, fell in battle against the republics of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Salvador, which had formed an alliance for the preservation of their inde pendent existence. The movement toward federa tion by peaceful means, instituted in 1895, came to naught after two years of negotiations. Since 1899 Manuel Estrada Cabrera has been Presi dent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Froebel, Aus Amerika (Leipzig, Bibliography. Froebel, Aus Amerika (Leipzig, 1857-58) ; Marr, Reise nach Central-America (Hamburg, 1863) ; Squier, The States of Central America (London, 1868) ; Gonzalez, Geograf la de Centro-Americana (Salvador, 1877) ; Fuentes y Guzman, Ilistoria de Guatemala (Madrid, 1882) ; Stoll, Guatemala: Reisen and Schilderungen aus den Jahren 1878-83 (Leipzig, 1886) ; Brigham, Guatemala: the Land of the Quetzal (London, 1887) ; Bernouilli, "Reise in der Republik Guate mala," in Petermann's Mitteilungen (Gotha, 1873) ; Child, The Spanish-American Republics (London, 1891) ; United States American Repub lics, Bureau of Commercial Directory (Washing ton, 1897) ; Sapper, Das nordliche Mittel-Amer ika, Reisen and Studien 1885-95 (Brunswick, 1897) ; Maudslay, A Glimpse at Guatemala (Lon don, 1899) ; Seler, Auf alien Wegen in Hexiko and Guatemala 1895-97 (Berlin, 1900) ; Bib liogralia de la imprenta en Guatemala en 108 siglos XVII y XVIII (Santiago, 1897).