THE FIVE REPUBLICS OF CENTRAL AMERICA [Illustration: CENTRAL AMERICA] UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA THE FIVE REPUBLICS OF CENTRAL AMERICA THEIR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THEIR RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES BY DANA G. MUNRO A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 WEST 32ND STREET LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY 1918 COPYRIGHT 1918 BY THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE, WASHINGTON, D. C. THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N. J. AUTHOR’S PREFACE By many persons in the United States, Central America is conceived of chiefly as a land of revolutions, bankrupt governments, and absconding presidents, and a haven for fugitives from justice from more settled countries. The progress of the people of the Isthmus since their declaration of independence, and the significance of this progress in view of the difficulties with which they have had to contend, are rarely recognized. The fact is too frequently overlooked that the greater part of the people of the five republics, except in Costa Rica, are descendants of the semi-civilized aboriginal tribes whom the _Conquistadores_ enslaved in the sixteenth century, and that these Indians still remain, for the most part, in a condition of dense ignorance and economic dependence. Even the white upper classes were prevented for three centuries from making any advance in civilization by the restriction of intercourse with other countries and the centralization of authority in the hands of foreign officials under the Spanish colonial system; and they were unable to set up a stable political system when they obtained their independence, because of their lack of experience in self-government, and because of the absence of political institutions upon which a stable system of government could be based.