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Honduras COLONIAL HONDURAS
The Spread of Colonization and the Growth of Mining
The defeat of Lempira's revolt, the establishment of
the
bishopric (first at Trujillo, then at Comayagua after
Pedraza's
death), and the decline in fighting among rival Spanish
factions
all contributed to expanded settlement and increased
economic
activity in the 1540s. A variety of agricultural
activities was
developed, including cattle ranching and, for a time, the
harvesting of large quantities of sasparilla root. But the
key
economic activity of sixteenth-century Honduras was mining
gold and
silver.
The initial mining centers were located near the
Guatemalan
border, around Gracias. In 1538 these mines produced
significant
quantities of gold. In the early 1540s, the center for
mining
shifted eastward to the Río Guayape Valley, and silver
joined gold
as a major product. This change contributed to the rapid
decline of
Gracias and the rise of Comayagua as the center of
colonial
Honduras. The demand for labor also led to further revolts
and
accelerated the decimation of the native population. As a
result,
African slavery was introduced into Honduras, and by 1545
the
province may have had as many as 2,000 slaves. Other gold
deposits
were found near San Pedro Sula and the port of Trujillo.
By the late 1540s, Honduras seemed headed for relative
prosperity and influence, a development marked by the
establishment
in 1544 of the regional
audiencia (see Glossary) of
Guatemala with its capital at Gracias, Honduras. The
audiencia was a Spanish governmental unit
encompassing both
judicial and legislative functions whose president held
the
additional titles of governor and captain general (hence
the
alternative name of Captaincy General of Guatemala). The
location
of the capital was bitterly resented by the more populous
centers
in Guatemala and El Salvador, and in 1549 the capital of
the
audiencia was moved to Antigua, Guatemala.
Mining production began to decline in the 1560s, and
Honduras
rapidly declined in importance. The subordination of
Honduras to
the Captaincy General of Guatemala had been reaffirmed
with the
move of the capital to Antigua, and the status of Honduras
as a
province within the Captaincy General of Guatemala would
be
maintained until independence. Beginning in 1569, new
silver
strikes in the interior briefly revived the economy and
led to the
founding of the town of Tegucigalpa, which soon began to
rival
Comayagua as the most important town in the province. But
the
silver boom peaked in 1584, and economic depression
returned
shortly thereafter. Mining efforts in Honduras were
hampered by a
lack of capital and labor, difficult terrain, the limited
size of
many gold and silver deposits, and bureaucratic
regulations and
incompetence. Mercury, vital to the production of silver,
was
constantly in short supply; once an entire year's supply
was lost
through the negligence of officials. By the seventeenth
century,
Honduras had become a poor and neglected backwater of the
Spanish
colonial empire, having a scattered population of
mestizos, native
people, blacks, and a handful of Spanish rulers and
landowners.
Data as of December 1993
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