José María Moncada Tapia

Jose Maria Moncada Tapia
José María Moncada in 1910
President of Nicaragua
In office 1 January 1929 – 1 January 1933
Vice President	Enoc Aguado Farfán
Preceded by	Adolfo Díaz
Succeeded by	Juan Bautista Sacasa
Personal details
Born	(1870-12-08)December 8, 1870 Masatepe, Nicaragua
Died	February 23, 1945(1945-02-23) (aged 74) Managua, Nicaragua
Political party	Liberal Party

José María Moncada Tapia (8 December 1870 – 23 February 1945) was the President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1929 to 1 January 1933.

Moncada was a member of the Liberal Party. In 1910 José Santos Zelaya from the Liberal Party stepped down from government. In 1925 his continuing opposition to Conservative control of the Nicaraguan government forced him to flee to Costa Rica, where he continued to build support for a return of the Liberals to power.

After President Adolfo Díaz was re-elected in 1926 after a coup by General Emiliano Chamorro (following the withdrawal of the Marines) failed to win U.S. support, Liberal forces rebelled in an attempt to overthrow his government. Moncada was one of the leaders, together with Juan Bautista Sacasa and Augusto César Sandino. The United States provided military support for the Díaz government and the Liberal forces were on the verge of seizing Managua when the U.S. forced the warring parties to accept a power-sharing agreement, the Espino Negro accord. Moncada and Sacasa made peace, but Sandino refused and continued the fight and waged a guerrilla war against the U.S. Marines. But in 1928, after elections supervised by the Marines, Díaz was replaced as president by Moncada.

Moncada's children included the late Óscar Moncada, who served as the President of the National Assembly of Nicaragua from 1999 until 2001.

For many years, conflict brewed between the Liberal and Conservative Parties in Nicaragua. The Liberal Party, which “advocated manhood suffrage, separation of Church and State, and the advancement of the material wealth of the country”, held power between 1893 and 1909 under the control of President José Santos Zelaya. In 1909, the Conservative Party launched a US-supported revolution, with most Americans “aid[ing] the revolutionary party because of Zelaya’s oppressive acts” and a “[desire] to see the concessions cancelled so that they could get in on the lands and make ‘denouncements’ for mining and agricultural purposes’”. Further American intervention led to the deployment of US troops in Nicaragua from 1909-1933, with a brief exception during 1925 that set the stage for the Nicaraguan Civil War.