Aycinena, Mariano de (1789–1855)

Mariano de Aycinena (b. 15 September 1789; d. 22 January 1855), chief of state of Guatemala (1827–1829). Aycinena was a leading figure in Central American independence. A younger son of Juan Fermín de Aycinena, first marquis of Aycinena, he was a patriarch of Guatemala's most prominent and powerful family in the late colonial and early republican era. As síndico (attorney general) of the ayuntamiento of Guatemala City, he helped lead the movement for independence. Afterward he promoted the annexation of Central America to the Mexican empire of Agustín de Iturbide, with whom he had corresponded prior to independence. He became a leader of Central American conservatives in the early republic and an officer of the Consulado de Comercio while managing his family's international trading firm. He was involved in the negotiations that resulted in a British loan to Central America in 1824, the proceeds of which some contemporary politicians and later historians accused him of appropriating.

As chief of state of Guatemala during the presidency of Manuel José Arce, Aycinena was a central figure of the civil war that disrupted the United Provinces of Central America from 1826 to 1829. Aycinena's faction was ultimately defeated by the forces of the Honduran general and unionist hero Francisco Morazán. Exiled after the war, he returned to Guatemala in the late 1830s and lived there for the rest of his life. Although not a prominent participant in Guatemalan government during that time, he enjoyed informal influence through his family, whose members dominated government and society in the Conservative era (1838–1871).

See alsoGuatemala .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Modern assessments of Aycinena's role in the era of independence are in Mariano Rodríguez, The Cádiz Experiment in Central America, 1808 to 1826 (1978); and Miles Wortman, Government and Society in Central America, 1680–1840 (1982). Guatemalan historian Ramón Salazar provides a bitter view in his Hombres de la independencia (1899).

                                Richmond F. Brown