For seventeen years Alvarado kept the Indians at work building a new capital on the site of their old one. Then came the earthquake which destroyed the place and buried nine-tenths of the inhabitants under the ruins. A new location was found, but again, in 1773, by the eruption of Santa Maria the capital was destroyed. This is the group of picturesque ruins now known as La Antigua. With the destruction of this capital a third and final movement to the splendid situation in the Hermit Valley was made and the new capital which is the Guatemala City of today was established. After years of struggle against the Spanish domination, beginning in 1811, Guatemala secured its independence, which was proclaimed September 15, 1821, when in place of the Kingdom of Guatemala there was established "A nation free and independent of every other nation." The history of subsequent years is interwoven with the events of other Central American countries. After many evolutions and disorders as well as revolutionary changes of government, the era known as the period of reform and the re-establishment of the liberties of the country began in 1871. CHAPTERS OF RECENT HISTORY. The events which led to the adoption of the liberal Constitution of 1879, which is today in force, do not need to be recounted here. General Justo Rufino Barrios, who had been the leading spirit in the Liberal revolution, was a pronounced advocate of the union of all the Central American States in a single federal republic. He endeavored to accomplish this against the opposition of Salvador and was killed at the battle of Chalchuapa in 1885. He was succeeded by General Manuel Lisandro Barillas, who exercised the government from 1887 to 1892. After him came General José Maria Reyna Barrios, who during the first four years of his administration gave a good government and worked much for the prosperity of his country. In the last two years, however, through the bad counsels of selfish advisers foreign to his government he sought to extend the term of his authority and was resisted by successive revolutions. He was assassinated by a personal enemy of European nationality in February, 1898, and Guatemala was then left in the midst of a most disastrous condition, both industrial and political.