Panzós () is a town with a population of 22,068 (2018 census) and a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
in the
Guatemala
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and ...
.
On 29 May 1978, the village of Panzós was the site of a
massacre
A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...
in which between 30 and 106 local inhabitants (figures vary) were killed by the army.
The name Panzós means "place of the green waters" in reference to the nearby
Polochic River
The Polochic River () is a river in eastern Guatemala. The 194 kilometers long river flows eastwards through a deep valley and flows into Lake Izabal at . The river is navigable for to Panzós. It was used many years ago to transport coffee and ...
and swamps full of alligators and birds.
History
The
Polochic river
The Polochic River () is a river in eastern Guatemala. The 194 kilometers long river flows eastwards through a deep valley and flows into Lake Izabal at . The river is navigable for to Panzós. It was used many years ago to transport coffee and ...
valley was originally inhabited by Q'eqchi' and Poqomchi' peoples. The first Spanish settlement, according to Domingo Juárez, was founded there on 11 October 1825; however, other historians specify 11 October 1861 as its foundation date. Later on, government decree #38 of 1871, in which all Guatemalan municipalities were asked to elect representatives to the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...
, shows Panzós a town in District 35. In 1891, Panzós became part of
Alta Verapaz Department
Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, an ...
.
After the Liberal revolution of 1871, president
Justo Rufino Barrios
Justo Rufino Barrios Auyón (19 July 1835 – 2 April 1885) was a Guatemalan politician and military general who served as President of Guatemala from 1873 to his death in 1885. He was known for his liberal reforms and his attempts to reun ...
(1873-1885) started granting land to German settlers in the area. By Decree #170 (or Census Decree), the government allowed confiscation of Indigenous land that had remained protected up to that point to make it easier for the Germans and liberal military officers to get land of their own. Since then, the main commercial and agricultural activity in the region has been
coffee
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
,
cardamom
Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genus (biology), genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indon ...
, and
bananas
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called pla ...
. The main characteristics of the productive system of those years was the accumulation of land by a few owners and a sort of "hacienda servitude" based on the legal exploitation of the natives.
In the 1880s, Panzós had become a very important commercial river port heavily used for coffee exports. The finished product was carried by
oxen
An ox (: oxen), also known as a bullock (in BrE, British, AusE, Australian, and IndE, Indian English), is a large bovine, trained and used as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castration, castrated adult male cattle, because castration i ...
carts over poorly kept roads or on small boats through creeks to the port, and from there it was loaded into larger ships and sent to the
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
and then on to
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
or other destinations. This archaic system changed drastically in the 1890s, once the Verapaz Railroad was built.
Verapaz Railroad
The construction of the Verapaz Railroad began on 15 January 1894 with a contract for 99 years between Guatemala, then ruled by president
José María Reina Barrios
José María Reyna Barrios (December 24, 1854 – February 8, 1898) was President of Guatemala from March 15, 1892 until his assassination on February 8, 1898.
He was a moderate of Guatemala's Liberal Party, who worked to solidify the less ...
, and Walter Dauch, representative of the Verapaz Railroad & Northern Agency Ltd. The contract settled the rules for the construction, maintenance, and exploitation of a 30-mile railroad line between Panzós and Pancajché. Passenger service travelled twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays, mail arrived by ship every Wednesday and cargo came from Livingston, Izabal. Besides, there were train stops in Santa Rosita, Santa Catalina La Tinta, and Papalhá.
In 1898, it was reported that given the coffee prosperity in
Cobán
Cobán (), fully Santo Domingo de Cobán, is the capital of the department of Alta Verapaz in central Guatemala. It also serves as the administrative center for the surrounding Cobán municipality. It is located 219 km from Guatemala City.
A ...
, which was the third largest city in Guatemala, the railroad was to be extended to that city. The railroad was in operation until 1965, when it was superseded by truck and highways.
Image:Ferrocarrilverapaz1895.jpg, Verapaz Railroad maiden voyage in 1894.
Image:Vaporferrocarrilverapaz1898.jpg, Verapaz Railroad steamboat sailing the
Polochic river
The Polochic River () is a river in eastern Guatemala. The 194 kilometers long river flows eastwards through a deep valley and flows into Lake Izabal at . The river is navigable for to Panzós. It was used many years ago to transport coffee and ...
.
Image:Vaporpolochic1898.jpg, Coffee transport.
Image:Ferrocarrilverapaz1900.jpg, Verapaz Railroad engine in the 1900s.
Franja Transversal del Norte and Panzós massacre
The Northern Transversal Strip was officially created during the government of General Carlos Arana Osorio in 1970 by Legislative Decree 60-70 for agricultural development. The decree stated: "It is of public interest and national emergency, the establishment of Agrarian Development Zones in the area included within the municipalities: Santa Ana Huista, San Antonio Huista, Nentón,
Jacaltenango
Jacaltenango is a town and municipality situated in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. It is located in a valley surrounded by the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Jacaltenango serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same na ...
Huehuetenango
Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American Hi ...
Uspantán
Uspantán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. It is one of the largest municipalities of El Quiché and stretches from the mountainous highlands in the South to the tropical lowlands in the North. The municipal seat is ...
Chisec
Chisec is a town and municipality in the north of the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz that was founded in 1813. It is situated at 230 metres (755 ft) above sea level. The municipality covers a territory of 1,244 km2.
The 2018 cens ...
,
San Pedro Carchá
San Pedro Carchá, usually referred to as Carchá, is a town and a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. The municipality covers an area of and is situated at 1,282 m above sea level.
At the 2018 census, the population of th ...
Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and ...
and the entire department of Izabal."
On 27 May 1978, when natives from San Vicente (in Panzós) went to work the land on the shores of the
Polochic river
The Polochic River () is a river in eastern Guatemala. The 194 kilometers long river flows eastwards through a deep valley and flows into Lake Izabal at . The river is navigable for to Panzós. It was used many years ago to transport coffee and ...
, the sons of a local landlord showed up with several armed soldiers and intimidated the natives to stop demanding land for themselves. The same day, the military detained two peasants in La Soledad and roughed up several more. There was a small disturbance and one of the peasants was killed.
On 28 May, peasants from La Soledad and Cahaboncito presented a document previously prepared by FASGUA to mayor Walter Overdick Garcia in order for him to read it out loud. In that document, FASGUA asked the mayor to mediate "for the peasants' sake and try to solve the problems they had".
On 29 May 1978, to pressure the authorities for their land demands and to protest against the abuses of landlords and military and civil authorities, peasants from the settlements of Cahaboncito, Semococh, Rubetzul, Canguachá, Sepacay, Moyagua, and La Soledad decided to protest in downtown Panzós. Hundreds of native men, women, and children went to the central square, bringing along their machetes and other agricultural instruments. One of those who participated in the demonstration later recalled: "the idea was not to fight anybody, we only wanted to clarify the land situation. People came from various locations and they did not have firearms with them". That same day, after an unclear provation, the army massacred the peasants who had gathered peacefully.La masacre de Panzós artículo de M. Escalante Herrera en el sitio web PBase. An unclear number of people died under the fire of machine guns.
Climate
Panzós has a
tropical monsoon climate
An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate subtype that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ' ...
(
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
: ''Am'').
Geographic location
See also
*
Alta Verapaz Department
Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, an ...