1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre The 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre occurred on January 22 of that year , in the western departments of El Salvador when a brief peasant - led rebellion was suppressed by the government , then led by Maximiliano Hernández Martínez . The Salvadoran army , being vastly superior in terms of weapons and soldiers , executed those who stood against it . The rebellion was a mixture of protest and insurrection and ended in ethnocide , claiming the lives of anywhere between 10 , 000 and 40 , 000 peasants and other civilians , many of them indigenous people . Background . Social unrest in El Salvador had begun to grow in the 1920s , primarily because of the perceived abuses of the political class , and the broad social inequality between the landowner s and the peasants . The policies of the latifundia had left 90 percent of the country ' s land in the hands of 14 families , ' los catorce ' , who used the land for the cultivation of the cash - crop coffee . The unrest was only strengthened by the tremendous drop in the price of the coffee bean during the Great Depression accompanied by growing unemployment rates . The national coffee - growing industry arose from the accumulation of riches of a small group of landowners and merchants who had purchased large portions of land and employing a great number of peasants , many of them indigenous . Politically , El Salvador had been ruled since 1871 by Economic Liberal elites who had established what became known as the " Coffee Republic " , which had given the country a long period of comparative stability and a liberal constitution in 1886 . By World War I , the presidency rotated effectively between the Meléndez and Quiñónez families in quasi - dynastic succession . In 1927 , Pío Romero Bosque was elected President and embarked on political liberalisation that led to what was arguably the first free election in Salvadoran history in 1931 , won by the reformist Arturo Araujo . However , this period of pluralist democracy was not to last . The coup . Unrest spread among military officers . In December 1931 , with the collapse of coffee prices , the military ' s dissatisfaction peaked . A group of young officers , led by vice president Maximiliano Hernández Martínez , staged a coup and ousted Araujo . Araujo fled the country and Martínez assumed power . The uprising . Though Martínez ' s rule may have satisfied the military , popular discontent continued to build and the government ' s opponents continued to agitate . Within weeks , communists , believing the country was ready for a peasant rebellion , were plotting an insurrection against Martínez . However , the government learned of the plot and arrested most of the ringleaders . Nonetheless , actual fighting broke out on January 22 , 1932 . Rebels led by the communist party and Agustín Farabundo Martí , Mario Zapata and Alfonso Luna , attacked government forces with support that was largely from Pipil Indians in the western part of El Salvador . Within three days , they had succeeded in taking control of several towns , disrupting supply lines to many of the country ’ s towns and villages , and attacking a military garrison . With their superior training and technology , the government troops needed only a few days to defeat the rebels . While the rebels killed fewer than 100 people , the military retaliated with great force . The government responded to the uprising with great brutality with between 10 , 000 and 40 , 000 peasants , including Martí dying in the uprising . As the killings particularly targeted people of indigenous appearance , dress , or language , in the decades that followed , Salvadoran indigenous peoples increasingly abandoned native dress and languages from fear of further reprisals . The towns of Nahuizalco , Juayua , Apaneca and Izalco were assaulted by the army . Feliciano Ama , an Indian leader , was hanged and this event was shown on postage stamps of the time . Following the Matanza , from 1932 – 1979 , military officers held the presidency , with some presidents using more repression than others . Some of the perceived problems of El Salvador included unfair minimum wages , repression against student and general demonstrations , and election fraud .