Ubico y Castañeda, Jorge (1878–1946)

Jorge Ubico y Castañeda (b. 10 November 1878; d. 14 June 1946), military figure and president of Guatemala (1931–1944). Born in Guatemala City, Ubico was educated at schools in the United States before entering the military academy in Guatemala (1894), where he remained for three years. He entered the military in 1897, and fought in the border war with El Salvador in 1906, attaining the rank of colonel by the age of twenty-eight.

Ubico served as governor of two states, and, beginning in 1922, as minister of war under President José María Orellana until 1926. The regime of General Ubico remains controversial in spite of considerable economic accomplishments, due to his repressive methods and the popularity of the 1944 revolution that overthrew his regime. Coming to power as president by unanimous election during the turbulent years of the Great Depression, Ubico promoted economic stabilization through frugal policies that restricted government spending while imposing law and order through a restrictive and harsh security apparatus.

Ubico's primary legacy to his nation was the establishment of a systematic infrastructure network, which constituted the basis of the modern Guatemalan economy. By constructing the nation's first highway and telegraph networks, he brought about national unity by linking previously remote parts of the republic with the central core. Ubico considered the Petén highway his greatest accomplishment. Though never quite reaching that distant frontier region, this highway extended the first links from the capital into the northern highlands and the Verapaz region in central Guatemala. The caudillo left the nation with 6,330 miles of road, almost five times the amount that existed when he assumed office. Most were dirt roads constructed by hand.

Ubico's extensive public-works projects included the first paved streets in Guatemala City, the capital, with accompanying sewers, and facilities to house government offices. Construction during his tenure included virtually all the ministry buildings, the National Palace, the Presidential Palace, the legislative building, the Supreme Court building, the post office, and the telegraph office. His efforts extended to a sports stadium, racetrack, public bandstands and parks, public bathhouses, and an aqueduct to bring fresh water to the capital.

Significantly, Ubico's program extended into the nation's smaller cities and remote hamlets. The effort provided virtually all provincial capitals with government buildings, telegraph offices, and military barracks, while extending limited water and electricity service into small towns throughout the nation, following the newly built roads. This marked a clear departure from practices of previous central governments. As a result, the regime and the caudillo enjoyed considerable popularity in the countryside. Construction, however, was done primarily by hand by poorly paid laborers. These efforts promoted economic revival and expansion, while serving to facilitate control from the capital.

Ubico directed a personalista regime in which all government actions required his personal approval and all officials took their orders directly from the chief executive. Those in remote regions received authorizations via telegraph. Military officers held key government positions, and his Progressive Party controlled all aspects of government and the legislature, conducting two plebiscites that reelected Ubico without opposition.

Ubico's regime used harsh methods to maintain internal order. Security forces kept a watchful eye on the populace, and political opposition was ruthlessly suppressed. The government controlled the only radio stations and carefully monitored the press. The only facilities to receive external news reports were housed in the National Palace.

Ubico sought to revive agriculture by promoting the cultivation of unused land and to integrate the Indians into the mainstream of the national economy by drawing them from subsistence agriculture into commercial farming. The Vagrancy Law of 1934 abolished debt peonage and substituted a labor obligation to the state, under which all citizens who did not cultivate their own plot of land of a minimum size were considered vagrant unless they were employed for a minimum of 150 days per year. While this constituted the first change in the rural labor system since colonial days, the requirement was long enough to supply labor for the harvesting and planting of export crops. Ubico sought to promote crop diversification, and the highway system enabled an expansion in food production by opening new areas to cultivation and linking once remote regions to the national market.

Ubico sought to promote Guatemalan dominance in Central America, conducting a diplomatic rivalry with his counterpart in El Salvador and seeking to reassert Guatemalan claims to British Honduras (Belize). Ubico maneuvered carefully to influence domestic politics in Nicaragua and Honduras. While his efforts were initially directed toward promoting the rise of the Liberal Party in neighboring nations, he later sought to promote stability in the isthmus through rapprochement with the incumbent regimes of the other Central American countries. Although this was a time-honored policy, it produced rumors of a so-called Dictators League during the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Belize question also resulted in an acrimonious and protracted dispute with Great Britain.

The advent of World War II proved particularly trying, given the importance of the large German community that constituted a significant part of the Guatemalan economy. Until the mid-1930s most Guatemalan coffee was sold on the Hamburg market. Though attracted by German investment and the strong centrist policies of national socialism, Ubico remained a staunch nationalist, rejecting outside influence. Ubico supported the United States as soon as it became involved in World War II, despite his dispute with England regarding Belize, and he supplied agricultural products, such as quinine, to the United States to offset the loss of Asian sources.

The Ubico regime was overthrown in 1944 by a revolt led by students, junior military officers, and disgruntled members of the urban middle class who felt his policies favored the landowners. Ubico went into exile to the United States, where he died.

See alsoDebt Peonage; Guatemala; World War II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kenneth J. Grieb, "The Guatemalan Military and the Revolution of 1944," The Americas 32, no. 4 (1976): 524-543.

Kenneth J. Grieb, Guatemalan Caudillo: The Regime of Jorge Ubico, Guatemala, 1931–1944 (1979).

Chester Lloyd Jones, Guatemala: Past and Present (1940).

Carlos Samayoa Chinchilla, El dictador y yo (1967).

Additional Bibliography

Dosal, Paul J., and Oscar Guillermo Peláez Almengor. Jorge Ubico (1931–1944): Dictadura, economía y "La tacita de plata." Guatemala: Ediciones CEUR-USAC, 1996.

León Aragón, Oscar de. Caída de un régimen: Jorge Ubico—Federico Ponce: 20 de octubre de 1944. Guatemala: FLACSO, 1995.

                              Kenneth J. Grieb