This study challenges the widely held belief that
the peasant rebellion
of 1932, and the massive military response to it, marked
the demise of Indian
ethnic identity. Working from documents that have become
available only
recently, we demonstrate that the Indian population was
not decimated by the
military repression. The percentage of Indians in the
population remained steady
and in some regions even increased. We show that the
bedrock of Indian identity,
the cofradías and the communities,
survived the repression as well. We propose
that these survivals are due, ironically, in part to the
military. Despite their
willingness to employ violence on a colossal level,
military leaders believed that
order in the countryside was to be achieved through
reform as well as repression.
The military's reformist ideology and reform
programme worked to defend
individual Indians and Indian communities from ladinos
anxious to avenge their losses in the uprising.