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Honduras SPANISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT
The Initial Explorations
European contacts with the indigenous population of
Honduras
began with the final voyage of Christopher Columbus. In
1502
Columbus sailed past the Islas de la Bahía (Bay Islands)
and
shortly thereafter reached the mainland of Central
America. While
at one of the islands, Columbus discovered and seized a
large canoe
loaded with a wide variety of trade goods. Evidence seems
to
indicate that the canoe's occupants were Mayan traders and
that
their encounter with Columbus marked his first direct
contact with
the civilizations of Mexican and northern Central America.
Despite
the fact that the canoe had been observed coming from the
west,
Columbus turned east and then south, sailing away from the
civilizations and doing little exploring on the Honduran
coast. His
only direct legacy was the assigning of a few place names
on the
Caribbean coast, notably Guanaja for one of the Islas de
la Bahía,
Cabo Gracias a Dios for the eastern extremity of Honduras,
and
Honduras (depths in Spanish) for the overall region. The
latter
name suggests the deep waters off the northern coast.
Little exploration took place for the next two decades.
Spanish
navigators Juan Díaz de Solís and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón
probably
touched on part of the Honduran coast in 1508 but devoted
most of
their efforts to exploring farther north. Some expeditions
from the
islands of Cuba and Hispaniola may have reached the
mainland and
certainly began to decimate the population of the Islas de
la Bahía
in the second decade of the century, but otherwise the
Honduran
Caribbean coast was a neglected area.
Interest in the mainland was dramatically revived as a
result of
the expedition of Hernán Cortés to Mexico. While Cortés
was
completing his conquest of the Aztec, expeditions from
Mexico,
Panama, and the Caribbean began to move into Central
America. In
1523 part of an expedition headed by Gil González Dávila
discovered
the Golfo de Fonseca on the Pacific coast, naming it in
honor of
Bishop Rodríguez de Fonseca. The following year, four
separate
Spanish land expeditions began the conquest of Honduras.
Data as of December 1993
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