Guatemala: Independence Movement

For nearly 300 years, the territory that is now Guatemala formed part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, a Spanish colonial administration based in Antigua Guatemala that also encompassed present-day El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. By the early nineteenth century, movements for independence were spreading across Spanish America, spurred in part by Napoleon's occupation of Spain and by the successful independence campaign of Mexico under Agustín de Iturbide.

On September 15, 1821, a council of notables convened in Guatemala City, led by figures including Captain General Gabino Gaínza and the criollo leader Mariano Aycinena y Piñol, and declared the independence of Guatemala and the wider Central American region from Spanish rule. The declaration was achieved with little armed conflict, but it papered over real disagreements among the provinces, some of which favored union with Mexico while others sought outright separation from Guatemala City's authority.

The new territory's independence proved short-lived as a unified entity: it briefly joined the First Mexican Empire in 1822 before a liberal assembly declared the independence of the United Provinces of Central America on July 1, 1823. That federation adopted a constitution in 1824, though it too eventually splintered, setting Guatemala on the path toward separate nationhood.