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Honduras Colonial Society, Economy, and Government
Although mining provided much of the limited revenue
Honduras
generated for the Spanish crown, a majority of the
inhabitants were
engaged in agriculture. Attempts to promote agricultural
exports
had limited success, however, and most production remained
on a
subsistence level. If anything, the province became more
rural
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a
result of
economic declines or foreign attacks, several town
governments
simply ceased to function during this period.
The cattle industry was probably the most important
agricultural
activity. Much of the cattle industry was on a small
scale, but by
1714 six ranchers in the areas of the present-day
departments of
Yoro and Olancho owned over 1,000 head of cattle each.
Some of the
cattle were driven to Guatemala for sale. Such sales,
however,
occasionally produced meat shortages in Honduras and led
to
conflicts between Guatemalan and Honduran provincial
officials.
Much of the Honduran interior remained uncolonized and
outside
of effective Spanish control during the colonial era. The
Jicaque,
fleeing into the hills, managed to retain considerable
cultural
autonomy. Other indigenous groups, however, were
increasingly
brought under Spanish influence and began to lose their
separate
identities. This assimilation was facilitated by
occasional
expeditions of government and church officials into new
areas. One
such expedition into Yoro in 1689 found forty villages of
native
people living outside of effective Spanish control.
By the end of the seventeenth century, governing
Honduras had
become a frustrating, thankless task. Only Comayagua, with
144
families, and Tegucigalpa, with 135, had over 100 Spanish
settlers.
The province boasted little in the way of education or
culture. The
lack of good ports, especially on the Pacific coast,
limited
contacts with the outside world. Whenever possible, the
Spanish
colonists forced native people to move to the Tegucigalpa
area,
where they were available for labor in the mines. However,
illegal
resettlement and corruption in the mining industry--where
every
available ruse was used to avoid paying taxes--created a
constant
series of problems for colonial authorities. Smuggling,
especially
on the Caribbean coast, was also a serious problem.
Early in the eighteenth century, the Bourbon Dynasty,
linked to
the rulers of France, replaced the Habsburgs on the throne
of Spain
and brought change to Honduras. The new dynasty began a
series of
reforms throughout the empire designed to make
administration more
efficient and profitable and to facilitate the defense of
the
colonies. Among these reforms was a reduction in the tax
on
precious minerals and in the cost of mercury, which was a
royal
monopoly. In Honduras these reforms contributed to a
revival of the
mining industry in the 1730s. Efforts to promote the
Honduran
tobacco industry as a royal monopoly proved less effective
and
encountered stiff local opposition. The same was true of
plans to
improve tax collection. Ultimately, the Bourbons abolished
most of
the corrupt local governmental units, replacing them in
1787 with
a system of intendencias (the name of the new local
unit and
also its administrator, a royal official who supervised
tax
collections and commercial matters, controlled prices and
credit,
and exercised some judicial functions).
Data as of December 1993
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