Masaya - Coyotepe Fortress

Coyotepe Fortress

Coyotepe is an old fortress located on a sharp hill from where it takes its name which has now been converted into a museum. Built at the turn of the 20th century by President José S Celaya, this site witnessed a fierce battle on October 2-4, 1912, when a Nicaraguan rebel force led by General Benjamín Zeledón occupying Coyotepe and another hill overlooking the strategic rail line, Barranca, refused to surrender to government troops under President Adolfo Díaz. U.S. Marine Major Smedley Butler's marine batllion, that Zeledón's rebels had skirmished with on September, 19, returning from Granada, Nicaragua on October 3, shelled the rebel stronghold on Coyotepe. During the pre-dawn hours on October 4, Butler's battalion, in concert with two marine battalions and one from the USS California led by marine Colonel Joseph H. Pendleton converged from different positions to storm the hill and capture it. Dictator Anastasio Somoza rehabilitated the fortress in the late 30's as a prison where political opponents or anyone suspected of plotting received particularly cruel treatment or the death penalty. Also General Benjamín Celedón was killed by the age of 33 and his dead body dragged from a trotting horse to instill fear among the population and to prevent a potential uprising. But quite on the contrary, Celedón death was the spark that inspired Augusto C Sandino and other famous figures to fight for 7 years in the Segovias in the Northern Nicaragua mountains against the cruel invaders. For many years Coyotepe remained a military outpost but it was given away to the Boy Scouts Association by the 70's. The fortress has 43 jail cells, 28 of them on the upper floor, where windows let the air and sunlight in. Each of the upper floor cells could contain from 15 to 20 prisoners, sometimes even more. The basement cells, on the other hand, resembled a dungeon for they were dark, damp, stuffy, and cramped so prisoners would lose track of time and inevitably ended up with psychological trauma. In all, there were about 1,000 prisoners at any one time. Nevertheless as time went on, the site was abandoned from 1983 to 1992. During that period, there were rumours among the population that Coyotepe was used as a sanctuary for Satanic practices for there was no proper security. Finally, the new neoliberal governments that won the elections in 1990, finally returned Coyotepe to the Boy Scouts Association.