# Assassination of Santos Guardiola (1862)

URL: https://allhistories.com/honduras/timeline/1862-assassination-of-santos-guardiola
Location: Comayagua, Comayagua, Honduras
Themes: main-event

José Santos Guardiola, born in Tegucigalpa in 1816, was a conservative general who had been chosen president by Congress in February 1856 after the fall of Cabañas and re-elected in 1860. Despite his conservative affiliation, his government was regarded as one of the more liberal of its time, granting freedom of the press and regularising church–state relations; it took part in the war against Walker and negotiated the return of the Bay Islands and Mosquitia. His agreement to religious tolerance in the islands and his conflict with the clergy created powerful enemies. On 10 January 1862 the head of the presidential guard, Hipólito Zafra, was murdered, and his replacement, Pablo Agurcia, changed the guards around the president. At about five o'clock the next morning, 11 January 1862, Guardiola was woken by a commotion outside his room in Comayagua; when he opened the door he was shot by a member of his guard and died in the arms of his daughter. Guardiola is the only Honduran president assassinated in office. The killers were captured and, under the provisional government of José María Medina, sentenced to death. His murder opened a period of acute instability, with several short-lived presidencies and renewed civil and international war before Medina consolidated power in 1863–64. At this point in the timeline (11 January 1862), the Provisional President of Honduras was José Francisco Montes (11 January 1862 – 4 February 1862).

## Why it matters
Guardiola's murder, the only assassination of a sitting Honduran president, plunged the country into renewed instability.

Ruler at the Time: [José Francisco Montes](https://allhistories.com/honduras/rulers/jose-francisco-montes)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — José Santos Guardiola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Santos_Guardiola)
- [Spanish Wikipedia — José Santos Guardiola](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Santos_Guardiola)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Honduras history](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Honduras+history)
- [Library of Congress Country Studies — Honduras](https://countrystudies.us/honduras/)
- [Wikipedia — Conservatives, Liberals and Reform (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Honduras)