Honduras
Uploaded by q_bert on Sep 24, 2001
The Republic of Honduras is a comparatively large country in Central America. Its area is at 112,088 km2, and has about 13,000,000 people in which about 60% are literate. Honduras is the 2ed largest country in Central America. Their national holiday is their Independence Day and they celebrate this on the 15th of September, although it is not the only time they gained their independence, it is the only time they celebrate. The nation also escaped from the United Provinces of Central America. The capitol of this mainly Spanish and English speaking nation is Tegucigalpa.
The history of the country begins when Columbus saw the country, but he generally stayed farther north. Spain began to settle the country in 1524. The two men in charge of the colony were Davila and Orid. The country was largely unprosperous until 1536 when Gold was discovered in the city of Gracias. The discovery of gold got new settlers to come and also created more demand for miners to mine the gold. The indigenous peoples were forced into this job. One year later in 1537 an uprising occurred and it was led by Lempira, who the national currency would be later named after. His base was on a hill known as Pe»ol de Cerqu¡n and successfully defeated all efforts to subdue him until the year 1538. In 1538 other native groups began following his example and started small uprisings. Lempira was ultimately killed while negotiating with the Spaniards. The fighting was greatly weakened but continued for 3 more years.
The defeat of Lempira’s revolt accelerated the decimation of the indigenous peoples. In 1539 there was approximately 15,000 people and two years later there was approximately 8,000. Most of the remaining peoples were divided into encomiendas, a system that left the native people in their villages, but placed them under the control of Spanish settlers. Under the terms of the system the Spanish were to provide the natives with religious instruction and collect tribute for the crown. In return, the Spaniards were entitled to a supposedly limited use of indigenous labor. The more the indigenous population declined the more ruthlessly they were treated until no one could protect the few remaining.
In the 1540’s silver joined gold as a major resource. The new mines led to the even further decimation of the indigenous peoples and soon led to the introduction of African slavery. By 1545...