THIS IS THE HOMEPAGE for "Miscellaneous Documents" (M-Docs) that shed light on the formation & development & activities of the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua from its failed "non-partisan constabulary" precursor under Colonel Carter (1925-26) through the formation of the "new" Guardia Nacional in May 1927, the war against Sandino (1927-1934), and afterward. It is a big subject that speaks to a host of broader themes of great relevance in the world today.

     The US imperial effort to create the Guardia Nacional was smaller in scale, but no different in kind, than the ongoing efforts to create a workable national army in Afghanistan.  The same is true of Iraq, Vietnam, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and other places the USA has invaded, occupied, and worked to create a viable non-partisan national military & police forces so US forces could withdraw, leaving behind a stable, secure US ally.  In Nicaragua, the intersection of pre-existing local & national political cultures & ways of practicing politics with a new national army imposed from outside set in motion all kinds of interesting institutional & cultural dynamics. 

     Repeatedly in these pages we see violence-making capacities displacing upward toward the level of the national state, with the Guardia agressively disarming the populace & enforcing laws against unlicensed firearms.  Supression of rural political gangs and outlaws went hand-in-hand with disarmament & amnesty campaigns and the war against Sandino's EDSN.  We also see that this was not a linear process, with many fits & starts & experiments & hybrids, like the Voluntarios, the Auxiliares, the Cívicos, and others.  We see culture conflict, most powerfully in the ten Guardia "mutinies" against their North American Guardia-commissioned superiors.  We see cultural adaptations & borrowings from both sides, in everything from sports to sexuality.  We see ambiguous legal spaces & oddly overlapping jurisdictions. The Nicaraguan case offers many fascinating variations on these broader themes, as we see here unfolding in fine-grained detail.

     The bulk of the documents presented here are housed in Record Group 127 in the main US National Archives building in downtown Washington D.C.  In addition to military reports they include newspaper stories, State Dept. despatches, judicial proceedings, personal letters & diaries, and other kinds of evidence.  These pages are mostly empty for now, but keep an eye peeled because they will soon be 'populated' with some pretty fascinating 'content'.