Agustín Guzmán
| Agustín Guzmán | |
|---|---|
General Agustín Guzmán, comandante general del ejército
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 Army Commander in Chief Los Altos |
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In office March 2, 1838 – March 19, 1840 |
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| President | Marcelo Molina Matta |
| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | None |
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Acting President Los Altos |
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In office August 26, 1848 – October 5, 1848 |
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| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | Fernando Antonio Martínez |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Virreinato de Nueva España,  Spain
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| Died | Guatemala City, Guatemala |
| Political party | Liberal of Central America |
| Residence | Quetzaltenango, Los Altos |
| Occupation | Military |
| Religion | Roman Catholic and then Positivism |
| Nickname(s) | Héroe altense |
Agustín Guzmán was a Mexican military officer, who was appointed as Army Commander in Chief of Los Altos when this new State was formed as part of the Central American Federation on 2 March 1838. He was defeated by Rafael Carrera on 19 March 1840, the same date on which the Los Altos State ceased to exist. Trying to create Los Altos once again while Carrera was briefly in exile in 1848, he tried to occupy Guatemala City along with rebel leader Agustín Reyes, and after setting fire to Carrera's house, he was killed by enemy fire in the Plaza de Armas.
Agustín Guzmán arrived in Guatemala as part of Vicente Filísola's army in 1822, when Central America was annexed to the Mexican Empire of Agustín de Iturbide; after Filísola and his forces left, he decided to remain in Guatemala and settled in Quetzaltenango.
In 1837 the revolts started against the Federal President Francisco Morazán; the Central American Federation then comprised Guatemala, Comayagua, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The leader of the peasant revolt against the Guatemalan governor Mariano Gálvez was Rafael Carrera. In early 1838, José Francisco Barrundia, a Guatemalan liberal leader, was appalled at the atrocities that Galvez regime was doing to stop the peasant revolt and decided to negotiate with Carrera to overthrow Gálvez by bringing the revolution leader to the capital city of Guatemala. At that time, Carrera already was showing signs of the leadership and military genius that would be his characteristics later on.
On April 2 1838, in the city of Quetzaltenango, a secessionist group founded the independent State of Los Altos which sought independence from Guatemala. The most important members of the Liberal Party of Guatemala and liberal enemies of the conservative regime moved to Los Altos, who no longer had to emigrate to El Salvador, having a pro-liberal state practically in his country agglutinated Interim Governor Valenzuela, in office after Gálvez had excused himself, could not do anything to stop this and the Central American Federation approved the sixth state on 5 June 1838 with a provisional junta formed by Marcelo Molina Matta, José M. Gálvez and José Antonio Aguilar, with Agustín Guzmán as Army commander in chief. In December 1838, Molina Matta was formally elected as Governor of Los Altos and set to work immediately on developing the roads and infrastructure of a port on the Pacific Ocean and to improve his relationship with the federal government in El Salvador. The natives of the region, on the other hand, went to Guatemala City to complain about the liberal criollos that were running the state, specially Totonicapán Mayor Macario Rodas, and Agustín Guzmán, who had set extraordinary taxes, had kept the native personal tax that Gálvez had established and Guatemala had eliminated after he was deposed, and had confiscated unilaterally most of the Indian common territories. When Guzman and the rest of Los Altos leaders learned about the complains, they incarcerated the natives who had gone to Guatemala City.
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Wikipedia