HISTORY:
San Rafael del Norte
Where Augusto Met Blanca

by Pat Werner, originally published in Nica News 21 (March 1999)

	Blanca Arauz, the beauty from San Rafael del Norte who won the heart of the General of Free Men Augusto César Sandino while he was sending his many wires from the telegraph office where she worked for her father.

When speaking of "the north" in Nicaragua, the first thought is of Matagalpa, called the Pearl of the North in Spanish. That city, however, is really closer to the geographical center of the country, which is near the town of Matiguas, to the east of Matagalpa. The "real north" is found in the mountains and valleys to the north (naturally) of Matagalpa, where it is cool, a pleasant change from the blast furnace heat of Managua. Some interesting towns are found there, one of which is San Rafael del Norte.

Located in a small, narrow mountain valley, San Rafael del Norte is one of those picturesque places that tourists rarely visit. It is a bit off the beaten track and has little to entertain the tourist who wants to sit and be amused. (See article of this issue for more details.)

It has, however, been the site of history in the making during two conflicts this century. The exact date is unknown, but the town was probably founded in the late 18th or early 19th century. It first came to prominence when a Liberal, or Constitutionalist, who later became a general, found it a handy place to obtain men and marshal his forces. That was Augusto César Sandino in the civil war of 1926-1927.

From atop Yucapuca

By February 1927, while ostensibly serving under the Liberal General José María Moncada, Sandino established his base on Yucapuca, a flat-topped mountain just outside of town. 400 soldiers loyal to then-President Emiliano Chamorro, a Conservative, attacked Sandino's position in early March 1929. It was a bad move on their part. Sandino and his 100 followers defeated them handily. The Conservatives retreated and Sandino moved into San Rafael del Norte, setting up residence in the home of Pablo Arauz, the owner of the local telegraph office.

Mr. Arauz's 19-year-old daughter Blanca could tap out the Morse code with the best of them and got to know Sandino while sending the cables drafted by the prolific and literary rebel leader. One thing led to another, and romance entered the stuffy confines of the telegraph office. Blanca remained loyal to Augusto while he directed his "crazy little army" in the field.

Sandino continued his military exploits, attacking and defeating a Conservative garrison in the town of Jinotega. Returning to San Rafael on May 18, 1927, his 32nd birthday, he did two things that shaped his life. First, he broke with the leader of the Liberal army, José María Moncada, in a public announcement branding Moncada as a traitor. Second, he married Blanca Arauz at two in the morning. Sandino wore his usual uniform of coffee colored khaki, sporting his trusty Smith and Wesson revolver; Blanca was dressed in the more traditional white.

After a two-day honeymoon, Sandino left San Rafael to attack the U.S. Marine barracks in Ocotal, the scene of one of his greatest defeats (see NicaNews, July '98). Sandino headed back to San Rafael, where he was interviewed by American journalist Carleton Beals on February 3, 1928.

That interview, published in a series of articles in The Nation, won Sandino international recognition, greatly helping his cause. In the four years that followed, San Rafael was not the scene of fighting, with most battles and skirmishes taking place in such far flung towns as Puerto Cabezas, San Francisco del Carnicero, and El Sauce.

In January 1933, with the withdrawal of the Marines from Nicaragua, Sandino decided to quit the good fight and sent his wife Blanca, then four months pregnant, to San Rafael to make arrangements for a peace conference with Liberal president Juan Bautista Sacasa, who Sandino supported. As soon as Blanca arrived in San Rafael, she was arrested by a one-armed National Guard Captain, Policarpo Gutiérrez, who the following year took part in the coordinated campaign to wipe out Sandinismo in Nicaragua.

The war with Sandino was over, and his army laid down their weapons in San Rafael del Norte on February 22, 1933. Some weapons, however, were kept in reserve due to concerns of a possible National Guard coup against the Sacasa government.

On February 21, 1934 Sandino was murdered by National Guardsmen on the outskirts of Managua after attending a dinner engagement called by Anastasio Somoza García to celebrate the recent peace pact.

Somoza gave orders to wipe out the large agricultural cooperative Sandino had set up in Wiwilí and to kill his daughter. Blanca had died in childbirth and their baby girl was several months old when Augusto was killed. Luckily, Blanca's family hid the daughter (some say inside a religious statue) while the Guard searched for her with death in their eyes. She survived and is still alive today. The epoch of Sandino was over, but the fighting around his name would break out once again in the northern hills in the 1980s.

San Rafael, because of its location and historical importance, became a natural place for contra activity during the war in the eighties. Though it is difficult to pinpoint the exact start of the Contra War, one incident helped spark it. In May 1980, a campesino from Quilalí decided to rise up against the Sandinistas and was killed just outside of Quilalí in San Bartolo by one of his best friends in a trap set up by the Sandinista People's Army, or EPS. The north country became the scene of war with the formation of contra squads -made up by former members of the National Guard and local anti-Sandinista dissidents- and the defense efforts by the EPS, which included compulsory military service starting in mid-1984.

Fighting soon covered most of the mountainous regions, extending to the rest of the remote areas of the country in the following years. Inevitably it reached San Rafael del Norte.

The Battle of 1984

	A dapper Augusto César Sandino was a real lady killer from all accounts, but he decided to raise a family with Blanca. They were married at 2 a.m. on May 18, 1927, his 32nd birthday.

In 1984, a combined Contra assault overran Sandinista positions in San Rafael del Norte and for about a day, the town was controlled by the Contras. It was the scene of a number of bloody skirmishes as the Sandinistas sent in reinforcements to retake the town. One particularly dangerous place was the bridge at the town's entrance.

The Contra forces included fighters from Quilalí, the town where the outspoken campesino had been killed in 1980. The Talavera brothers, who later became the most successful re-contra guerrilla band in the 1990s, took part in the multiple ambushes on the Sandinista troop carriers. San Marcos native Danilo Salazar, now working at the University of Mobile in San Marcos, was an EPS officer and on the receiving end of those ambushes, and he lived to tell the tale.

For him, he says, it was the worst moment of the war, and he still doesn't know how he survived the explosions and the shrapnel from the RPG-7 rockets that destroyed so many troop carriers. He also notes that 600 men from the San Marcos area were drafted into the EPS and fought in all of the major battles, ending with the invasion of the Bocay River in April 1988. Thirty returned alive to San Marcos.

Today, San Rafael del Norte, the site of so many historical events that had an impact on Nicaragua's recent history, is again a sleepy, attractive mountain town by the banks of the Rio Viejo. About 45 minutes out of the city of Jinotega along a good gravel road, it beckons the traveler who has tired of the Managua-Granada tourist circuit and wishes to see the site of a bit of real history.

The local folks are very helpful and will point out the church where Sandino was married, the house where Sandino lived and met Blanca Arauz -the major love of his life- and the bridge where so many men died last decade. It is well worth a visit on a Sunday afternoon and is a good place to contemplate the quality of peace in Nicaragua after so much strife.