NICARAGUA. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - It is the largest state (148,000 sq. km.), but the least densely populated (1.2 million inhabitants; 7.8 per sq. km.) of isthmian America.
The territory, comprised between Honduras and Costa Rica, is divided into two unequal parts by the long tectonic trench in which the two great Lakes of Managua (1134 sq. km.) and N. (8400 sq. km.) lie: to the E. is a declining plateau with a gentle slope onto the marshy and deserted coast; to the W. a narrow strip of mountains and plains, in which the population is concentrated. At the narrowest point, between Lake N. and the Pacific, the two slopes of the mountainous (volcanic) diaphragm that crosses the country (running NW-SE) are separated by a threshold barely 51 m. high: it would be relatively easy there to build a new interoceanic canal, which moreover has been considered several times. The climate is tropical, hot, uniform, with copious rainfall; differences in altitude nevertheless give rise to noticeable local variations. The humid eastern regions are covered with dense forests (about 1/3 of the total surface), rich in precious woods (mahogany, cedar, rosewood); the zones along the Pacific give way to crops, among which coffee, cocoa, tabasco, sugar cane and bananas predominate. Of the minerals the only one exploited is gold (6-7 thousand kg. annually), which heads the exports. The population is composed half of mestizos, one third of Amerindians and one tenth of blacks. The main centers, all on the eastern slope, are Managua (150,000 inhabitants), which is the capital, and León (40,000 inhabitants), both seats of universities.
Independent since 1821, N. is constituted as a republic, with a president and a bicameral congress, elected and in office for 6 years.
Bibliography3 works
Giuseppe Caraci
II. HISTORY
Discovered by Christopher Columbus on his fourth American voyage, on Nov. 12, 1502 (when he sighted the Nicaraguan coasts), Nicaragua began to attract the attention of the Spaniards only on Jan. 21, when Gil Gonzales de Avila (or Davila), having set sail from the Island of Pearls, in the Gulf of Panama, landed on the coasts of Nicaragua and began a methodical exploration of it. On June 1, 1527, Nicaragua was organized with its own governor.
The Spaniards had not occupied the coastal region inhabited by the Miskito Indians (= Mosquito Coast); on it the English, in the 17th century, attempted some occupations, but because of the hostile attitude of the natives they limited themselves to placing the entire coast under their protectorate. This situation continued until 1848. Then in 1860, with the Treaty of Managua, England recognized the full and absolute sovereignty of Nicaragua over the Mosquito Coast on the essential condition of the complete autonomy of these tribes.
As in the other Central and South American regions, the will for independence also manifested itself in Nicaragua, but on Sept. 15, 1821, following the Mexican insurrection of A. de Iturbide, Nicaragua was occupied by the Mexican general Filisola, and only on Apr. 8, 1826 did Nicaragua manage to free itself from Mexican subjection and give itself a truly independent constitution.
From that year, the internal life of Nicaragua would have many points of contact with that of the other Spanish-American States: internal uprisings, dictatorships, periods of economic depression, years of more or less lengthy tranquility. In the second half of the 19th century, in order to put an end to the continuous and often bloody antagonisms, the entire population decided on the founding of a new capital, Managua, on the area of an ancient Andean settlement, in a central position equidistant from the two Oceans; a city that in a short time corresponded perfectly to the purpose for which it had been conceived.
When the First World War of 1914-18 broke out, the United States, with the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty of 1914, ratified in 1916, obtained from the Republic, in exchange for the payment of three million gold pesos, the exclusive right to construct an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua (Rio S. Juan-Lake of Nicaragua-Brito), the lease, for ninety-nine years, of some Nicaraguan islands in the Caribbean Sea, and the right to organize a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca. With this Treaty the Republic practically lost its independence, becoming a North American protectorate. After the First World War, José María Moncada having been elected new president in 1928, he, despite the continued presence of North American armed forces, initiated a period of good government: in Dec. 1932 the United States withdrew its troops from the region, while in Jan. of the following year (1933) the new president, J. B. Sacasa, managed to obtain the cessation of the internal insurrection, re-establishing in the country conditions of life less tense than in the past. When the Second World War broke out, Somoza sided with the United States, declaring war, in Dec. 1941, on Germany, Japan, and Italy. The supplies for the North Americans, as well as the intensification of cultivation and the increased demands for labor, neutralized the agricultural crisis, so that Nicaragua's situation improved rapidly.
Bibliography5 works
Nardo Naldoni
III. EVANGELIZATION
On Nov. 3, 1534, Paul III established the diocese of N. and of León, as a suffragan of Mexico: its first bishop was Diego Alvarez. Benedict XIV made it dependent on Guatemala. The most valiant missionaries of N. were the Franciscans, who in 1575 founded the province of St. George of N., which by the end of the 16th century already counted 12 houses. To the Franciscans were later added the Dominicans and other religious Orders, which were expelled in 1872. Pius X on Dec. 2, 1913 reorganized the hierarchy by establishing the ecclesiastical province of N., with the archbishopric of Managua and two suffragans, León and Granada, and furthermore the apostolic vicariate of Bluefields. On Dec. 19, 1924, the diocese of Matagalpa was established and likewise subjected to Managua.
The vast majority of the population is of the Catholic religion, which is the religion of the State, according to the Concordat of 1861, ratified in 1862. Freedom of worship is recognized. The main mass of the population is made up of mestizos, who constitute 50% of the inhabitants, who number about 1,500,000. The apostolic vicariate of Bluefields, erected by decree of the Consistorial Congregation of Dec. 2, 1913, also includes the islands belonging to the country and is entrusted to the Capuchins of the province of Catalonia.
For literature, v. ISPANO-AMERICANA, LETTERATURA.
Bibliography4 works
Nicola Kowalsky
IV. LEGAL STATUS OF THE CHURCH
Art. 8 of the Constitution in force (issued on Nov. 1, 1950) sanctions the principle of the separation of Church and State, which recognizes no official religion.
Art. 110 guarantees freedom of conscience, the manifestation of every belief and the practice of all cults, insofar as they do not conflict with morality, good customs and public order. Those cults that are incompatible with the life or the physical integrity of the human person are excluded. In the same article the promulgation of laws that favor or restrict particular cults is explicitly forbidden. There is no lack, however, of favorable provisions, though these concern all religious confessions. Art. 84, in fact, exempts from taxes the places destined for worship; it forbids the State to convert them and the objects of worship to other purposes; churches, confessions and religious institutions of any cult, which enjoy legal personality, have over their property the same rights that private persons have.
Art. 95, in dealing with the rights of workers, recognizes weekly rest as obligatory, but does not recognize Catholic religious holidays, including Sunday.
Even more pronounced is the laicism in the provisions concerning the school and marriage. As for the former, art. 100, which reproduces art. 88 of the Constitution of 1939, says that primary education is obligatory, and that imparted by the State and by public corporations is free and lay. In theory, according to an authentic declaration, inserted in the official acts of Parliament under the previous Constitution, "Lay teaching does not prevent ministers of religion from imparting their doctrines in the schools, because the State does not prohibit it"; in practice, that declaration never had effect, and with the promulgation of the new Constitution it must be considered lapsed. Religious teaching in public schools remains officially abolished; and it is imparted in some schools thanks to the good will of teachers and to the authorization given by President Somoza to the Catholic Action of the Republic in 1942. Also noteworthy, and not without sad effects, has been state interference in the private Catholic schools, numerous and flourishing, which in Sept. 1949 united in a national federation, affiliated with the inter-American one of Bogotá (C.I.E.C.).
Nicaraguan legislation permits divorce. In June 1941, moreover, a law was promulgated which prescribes, with severe penalties, the precedence of the civil act over religious marriage. The Constitution, in art. 80, further establishes for parents the same obligations toward legitimate children and those had outside marriage.
The Constitution does not, finally, recognize a religious character for public cemeteries, in which the ministers of all cults may practice their respective rites (art. 112).
The Republic of N. maintains diplomatic relations with the Holy See, through the Apostolic Nuncio resident in Managua and the minister plenipotentiary accredited to the Supreme Pontiff.
Ippolito Rotoli