"A chosen people": religious discourse and the making of the Republic of Guatemala, 1821-1871.
No clearer testimony evidenced the social upheaval and shifting political landscape in Guatemala in February 1838 than the graphic narrative by the traveling United States' diplomat, John Lloyd Stephens. Recently arrived in the capital for the first time, Stephens witnessed the insurrectionary triumph of the military caudillo, Rafael Carrera, and his “tumultuous mass of half-naked savages, men, women, and children, estimated at ten or twelve thousand.” Stephens described how Carrera's indigenous followers, upon entering the abandoned plaza and within earshot of the terrified white elite shouted “Long live religion and death to foreigners!” Carrera's political uprising incited by religious concerns had laid siege to the power structure inherited from colonial times.