The Battle Of Coyotepe Hill

The Battle of Coyotepe Hill marked a major conflict in the United States’ occupation of Nicaragua, spanning from August to November 1912. This clash was part of the insurrection led by General Luis Mena Vado, the Minister of War, against President Adolfo Díaz Recinos’ administration. Coyotepe is an ancient fortress perched atop a 500-foot hill, commanding a view of the strategic railway line near Masaya, situated approximately halfway between Managua and Granada in Nicaragua.

Adolfo Díaz Recinos was born on July 15, 1875, in Alajuela, Costa Rica, and he served as the President of Nicaragua from May 9, 1911, to January 1, 1917, and once more from November 14, 1926, to January 1, 1929. A native of Costa Rica to Nicaraguan parents, he was employed as a secretary by the La Luz y Los Angeles Mining Company. This American enterprise, incorporated in Delaware, owned extensive gold mines near Siuna in Eastern Nicaragua. Díaz Recinos played a pivotal role in directing funds to the insurrection against Liberal President José Santos Zelaya, who had angered the United States through his negotiations with Germany and Japan regarding the revival of the Nicaragua Canal project.

Luis Mena Vado, born in 1865, served as the President of Nicaragua from August 27 to 30, 1910, following the collapse of General José Santos Zelaya’s government. He subsequently assumed the role of acting President during a rebellion. A conservative, Mena Vado was a member of the coalition government alongside liberal Juan Jose Estrada and fellow conservatives Emiliano Chamorro and Adolfo Diaz Recinos.

From October 2 to 4, 1912, Nicaraguan rebels commanded by General Benjamín Zeledón held positions at Coyotepe and Barranca fort, strategic locations overlooking a vital railway line, and refused to surrender to the forces of President Adolfo Díaz Recinos. Major Smedley Butler of the US Marines, who had previously clashed with Zeledón’s forces on September 19th, led his battalion back from their recent victory in Granada, Nicaragua, on October 3rd and bombarded the insurgents’ stronghold at Coyotepe.

In the pre-dawn hours of October 4th, Butler’s battalion, along with two Marine battalions and another from the USS California under the command of Marine Colonel Joseph H Pendleton, coordinated an assault from various positions to seize the hill. Zeledón was killed in the conflict…most likely by his own troops. With the capture of León, Nicaragua two days later by US Marines and the recapture of Masaya by Nicaraguan government troops, the Nicaraguan revolution of 1912 was essentially over. During the Somoza dictatorship the fortress was used as a prison. Occasionally, various dissidents are imprisoned there would be taken from the fortress in a helicopter and dropped into a nearby volcano.