Tag: El Salvador stamp

Several times in the 19th century, Central America attempted to unite politically. It in some ways made sense, it was how the area had been administered by the Spanish, and independence theoretically would give a greater voice to the indigenous peoples that were the majority in Central America. Unless of course tiny El Salvador can unite their 14 Spanish families. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist

This stamp shows President Pedro Jose Escalon. The transfer of power to him and then from him had been peaceful. That hadn’t happened in El Salvador in quite a while. If only he could have managed to not invade his recently united neighbors, he might deserve a stamp.

Todays stamp is issue A65, a 50 Centavo stamp issued by El Salvador in 1906. This was a 12 stamp issue in various denominations. There are imperforate versions of this issue, also overstamp versions to reflect currency devaluations. There are versions with President Escalon’s face blotted out after he left office. There is a later reprint in a different size. Anything they could think of to sell a few more copies on the world market. According to the Scott catalog, my original version is worth 35 cents unused.

The 19th century saw power consolidate in 14 large landowning families whose main export product was coffee. The many updates of the constitution insured that the large landowners had the majority of seats in the legislature set aside for them they were also well represented in the upper ranks of the Army. This took power away from the indigenous majority in the country. It also left El Salvador hopelessly poor. The other countries of Central America were in the same boat. Perhaps if the example of the former united administration could be emulated by new institutions uncorrupted by the powers that be, a larger, stronger entity could make things better.

In 1896, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua agreed to form the Greater Republic of Central America. The capital was Amapala in Honduras. Guatemala and Costa Rica were invited to join but hadn’t yet ratified the union. The United States recognized the new entity.

The landowning families of El Salvador saw this as a threat to their power. In 1898 there was a military coup and General Tomas Regalado was put in charge and  quickly pulled El Salvador out of the Greater Republic of Central America. In an effort to put a better face on what they had done the powerful arranged an election and a peaceful transfer of power to President Escalon, a former General. By now the spirit of union in central America was gone and El Salvador invaded Guatemala. The war went poorly and General Regalado, who was still Minister of War, even managed to get killed.

You might think this silly war like behavior might end the power of the 14 families. Indeed the USA intervened and it was the beginning of the USA Marines being used to keep in line the banana republics. This however only helped the 14 families as Americans were soon investing heavily in the various agricultural operations that the 14 families controlled.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering if Central America could have done better united. Perhaps not, people probably get the leaders they deserve. Well there was always William Walker, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/27/costa-rica-remembers-the-the-drummer-boy-that-saved-central-america-from-an-american-manifest-destiny/ . Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

In 1932 there was a peasant uprising. It was quickly put down but Pipil Indians were blamed and severely repressed. That might not be approved of by outsiders such as the USA. Thus this stamp, printed in America was a bit of a deception implying everything was fine. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp today is a farm out stamp from if not a banana republic, more precisely a coffee republic. Therefore when the home country is having problems with their Pipil Indians who were the coffee plantation workers, why not put out stamps for America that show happy productive Indians. I find myself having some respect for the deception. Stamps should be used to put forth a countries best self. The displaying of the ideal also reinforces that it is indeed the way things should be.

The stamp today is issue A137, a 5 centavo stamp issued by El Salvador in 1938. It is part of a nine stamp issue in various denominations that display various aspects of Pipil Indian life. According to the Scott catalog, it is worth 25 cents used.

El Salvador received independence from Spain in 1821. At first it was feared that El Salvador and the other central American areas would be absorbed by Mexico. To avoid this, A Federation of the Central American states was started and El Salvador even petitioned to become an American state. Luckily the petition was ignored and Mexico decided that they would not press claims in Central America. The Federation dissolved in 1837 and the states went forward alone. At first the main crop was indigo with the then numerous Pipil Indians engaged in subsistence farming on reservations. With the decline in indigo, coffee became the cash crop. More land was needed and Indian land was taken under newly passed vagrancy laws and the Indians themselves set to work the coffee plantations for a days pay that only covered 2 tortillas and a few beans that had to be bought at the plantation store.

A coup lead to a new regime lead by Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez that stabilized the government and was favored by the wealthy landowners. The new regime allowed previously exiled Communists such as Farabundo Marti to return. Marti started signing up members and organizing a peasant uprising. He was educated and personally secure but managed to win some support from the Indian peasantry. An uprising occurred during Holy Week while the government was off. Indians attacked landowners with machetes and communist officers in the Army took briefly the radio station. Once Hernandez Martinez was back in place he rallied loyal army units to put down the rebellion. Marti was captured and quickly shot. He became an important figure in El Salvador and both the eighties left wing rebellion and the current El Salvadoran left of center party use his name in their title.

More importantly, Hernandez Martinez began to heavily go after the Pipil Indians. The Indians had to stop wearing there traditional dress and stop speaking their language to avoid trouble with Hernandez’s troops. There is very little left of the Pipil Indians in El Salvador today. Hernandez Martinez was into the occult. Once during a small pox epidemic he had colored lights hung around the capital believing this a cure. He also thought it worse to kill an ant than a men as a man would be reincarnated while the ant was just finished. After he was in power for about 15 years he finally resigned when a student strike went national and paralyzed the country. He went into exile. As an old man living in Honduras in the 1960s, Hernandez Martinez was assassinated by his chauffeur. It seems the driver’s father was killed in the uprising 30 years earlier. What goes around comes around.

Well my drink is empty. Today there are myriad stamp issues from all over gushing about a minority. I wonder if in the fullness of history they will seem as being as fraudulent as todays stamp. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

El Salvador in the 70s-80s was a warlike place. How does a patriotic young Salvadoran do his bit without getting himself killed in all the foolishness. Hm….. check your mailbox. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Stamps that honor a countries military service also have the unsaid second job of military recruiting. This stamp is perhaps the most effective example of that I have ever seen. This ship makes no pretense whatever of being a warship. It is a patrol craft whose most important job is to show the flag. It’s summertime and the living is easy. Beats fighting your neighbor over footballs and land reform or gearing up for an endless left-right civil war. Join the Navy!

Todays stamp is issue A210, a 50 Centavo airmail stamp issued by El Salvador on May 7th, 1970. It was part of a 5 stamp issue in various denominations that honored the armed services. There is an overprinted version of this stamp from 1971 that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the El Salvadoran Navy.

El Salvador and Honduras were and still are desperately poor countries as can be seen by the recent mass migration north out of both countries. What more graphic indictment could there be of a failed state. In 1970 Salvador had a much higher population while Honduras had a much greater land mass. The 1960s saw a migration with Salvadorans squatting on Honduran land becoming over 20 percent of Honduras’s population. In 1962, Honduras passed a land reform plan  that intended to evict the Salvadorans and return the land to the large banana growers. This greatly angered El Salvador.

Into this anger came football (soccer). In a three game qualifier, Honduras faced  El Salvador. Honduras won the first match in Tegucigalpa. There was much violence in the stands and it shocked the country how many locals were not for the home team. There was then a second match in San Salvador won by El Salvador and again marker by anti Honduran violence. El Salvador broke diplomatic relations with Honduras after Salvadoran peasants began to be forcibly evicted from Honduras by citizens without the government lifting a finger to stop it, land reform being the law of the land. El Salvador won the third match in Mexico City and attacked Honduras. The armies fought on the ground but the interesting fighting was in the air where ancient American F4 Corsairs piston fighters handed out freely and stupidly by America to both air forces fought each other. America through the Pan American Union, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/01/08/el-savador-1940-celebrating-the-pan-american-union-a-league-of-nations-that-actually-worked/ .quickly put a halt to the war after 100 hours and finally started an arms embargo. This was the last war where piston engine fighters fought each other. Both countries amazingly enough found some money in their pockets and bought out of date French jets from Israel, Oragons for Salvador and Super Mysteres for Honduras. Advantage Honduras.

The patrol boat on the stamp was given second hand by the British. In the 80s they were replaced by American made patrol boats that previously served as service craft for offshore oil platforms. That sounds a little less yacht like=fail. The Navy also uses an ex USA coast guard cutter given in 2002. It was built in 1942! The Navy  has 870 personnel and has ordered bigger, new build!, Chilean patrol boats. We will see if they can actually pay for them at delivery time.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the sailors of both El Salvador and Honduras. Just remember if you see a boat in the drug trade, sail the other way, that way the living will always be easy. Wait, you already knew that. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

With migrant caravans heading north from Central America, it is hard to argue that tiny nations such as El Salvador are anything but sad failures. That does not mean there was not a style, even a grandiosity. When that was lavished on an organization that actually worked, what a great stamp. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

In 1940, El Salvador celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Pan American Union. An angel smiles down on the Western Hemisphere’s half of the globe while a big modern airliner speeds our mail from place to place. The angel holds a fig leave conferring peace on the blessed below. The stamp was printed by the American Bank Note Company in America. I wonder if their designers did a double take when they heard what the Salvadorans wanted.

Todays stamp is issue C71, a 30 Centavo airmail stamp issued by El Salvador on May 22nd, 1940. It was a two stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. If a stamp this dramatic is still only worth the nominal value for any stamp at nearly 80 years old, I suggest the Salvadorans leave their stamp collections behind when they pack up to head north.

The Pan American Union was first suggested by Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar at a conference in Panama City, Gran Columbia in 1826. He imagined a Western Hemisphere with a united foreign policy and military and a legislature drawn from all the member states. USA readers will understand how such a thing would favor small states over big ones like the Electoral College and the Senate. This is by design because how else to get small states to join just to be dominated by larger neighbors. The idea went nowhere as soon Latin America was breaking apart with civil wars and instability.

In 1890 a new conference was organized in Washington with more modest goals of international cooperation and conflict arbitration. Thus the Pan American Union was founded and a headquarters building was built in Washington out of the generosity of Andrew Carnegie. The true genius of the organization  came in when it was agreed that a conflict between two members would see the neutrality of the rest. Thus avoiding the real prospect of  alliance continental wars that the League of Nations was not able to prevent in Europe.

Post World War II, the Pan American Union was refashioned as the Organization of American States and took on an added goal of fighting communism. This was at the instruction of the USA, and probably had some people in the smaller states pining for Simon Bolivar’s electoral college. At age 80, the OAS continues, still in Carnegie’s Pan American Union Building. The current leader is Luis Almagro, a Uruguayan diplomat who is active in promoting migration and by extension economic equalization. This potential conflict with USA President Trump might prove an interesting test as to whether big states or small states currently  hold sway at the OAS. That presumes of course that the OAS even has a seat at the table.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the grandiosity of 1940s El Salvador. Sometime even if the reality is something less, it is worthwhile to dream big. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

A new country has to start from square one. That mean institution building. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp today offers a formal portrait of an early leader of the first university in El Salvador. From it one does not get a sense of what an undertaking it was. That is understandable. As the national university, it is important to provide a sense of a rich academic history. Even if that is not the case.

Todays stamp is issue A154, a one Centavo stamp issued by El Salvador in 1947. It features Isidiro Menendez, and early leader of the University of El Salvador. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Initially the central American states formed a federation after independence from Spain. They were trying to stem the ambitions of Mexico and Gran Columbia on their territory. The federation was short lived, Latin America was breaking apart due to the petty squabbles of politicians and military men. The new countries were not working fast enough to make life better for their people so it was easy to stir up a mob to throw the bums out.

With the end of the federation of central America, it became necessary for the individual countries to try to set up institutions that a country processes. In El Salvador, the first President Juan Lindo tried to improve the educational situation. He ordered that every village over a hundred and fifty people set up a school that mandated attendance. To try to make this actually happen, he imposed fines on local officials that did not comply.  Notice I have made no mention of a system to produce quality teachers. He also founded the first university in the capital of San Salvador. He appointed Isidro Menendez as it President. It should be noted that Lindo was himself Honduran and both him and Menendez were themselves educated in Guatemala. These tiny countries really had no tradition of education outside the ruling class and the Church.

Lindo went later to serve as President of his native Honduras and in cahoots with his successors in El Salvador launched a disastrous war with Guatemala. He and is El Salvador ally were forced to leave office but unlike his El Salvadoran ally, he was allowed to retire and not assassinated.

With the poverty and tumult, it is understandable that the University of El Salvador is more known as a hotbed of politics than an educational institution. Despite being founded by a right wing leader with much Church cooperation. The university quickly became a center of left wing agitation. This is understandable. The people in the school would be mainly from the better families. Those without an automatic opportunity upon graduation would find the education offered lacking and the opportunities opened up by the education lacking. This situation is common throughout the third world. Why wouldn’t the students blame the government?

Isidiro Menendez has another claim to fame beside his postage stamp. His name graces a soccer team to this day in El Salvador.

Well my drink is empty so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.