ABSTRACT

During most of a century after independence in 1823, Liberal elite controlled El Salvador. El Salvador's nineteenth-century economy revolved around the production, extraction, and export of indigo dye. By the mid-nineteenth century, cheaper European chemical dyes sharply cut international demand for the deep blue colorant, forcing El Salvador's elite to turn to coffee production, best cultivated on the higher, volcanic terrain previously disdained by large landowners. The development model followed by the Salvadoran state under the Central American Common Market increased overall production as well as the share of wealth controlled by the national capitalist class. The Salvadoran working classes became not only relatively but absolutely and markedly poorer during the 1970s. The Salvadoran conflict evolved into a bloody stalemate during the 1980s. The rebels held their own against increasingly powerful and sophisticated military pressure until 1984–1985. The 1992 peace agreement changed Salvadoran politics by establishing a civilian democracy that allowed participation by groups across a broad ideological spectrum.