The Cost Of Conquest

Indian Decline In Honduras Under Spanish Rule

Linda Newson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367306526
• eBook ISBN: 9781000315677
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

At the time of the Spanish conquest, Honduras was inhabited by two distinct social systems, which defined the boundary between the cultures of Mesoamerica and South America. Each system was administered in a different way, and subsequently the survival of each civilization varied markedly. This study examines the nature of each culture at the time of Spanish conquest, the size of the populations, and the method of colonization applied to each. Particular attention is focused on Spanish economic activities and the institutions that directly affected the Indian way of life. Dr. Newson bases her findings on extensive archival research conducted in Spain, Guatemala, and Honduras and on archaeological, ethnographic, and linguistic evidence found in secondary sources.

Part I Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9780429309816-1

1 Patterns of Conquest and Indian Populations

DOI: 10.4324/9780429309816-2

The conquest and colonization of Honduras was disastrous for its Indian population. In common with Indians in other parts of the New World, those of Honduras suffered a dramatic decline from which they have never fully recovered. Although Dobyns has suggested that the Indian population of the subcontinent declined by about 95 percent between the time of Spanish conquest and its population nadir,¹ it is clear that there were considerable regional variations in the decline and recovery of different Indian groups. Some groups became extinct at an early date, whilst many suffered a sharp decline followed by a slow recovery, and others continued to decline into the nineteenth century.

1 H.F. Dobyns, “Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate,” Current Anthropology 7 (1966):415.

DEMOGRAPHIC PATTERNS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Demographically Central America is a microcosm of colonial Spanish America. There are areas where the Indian population declined dramatically at an early date, with any remaining Indians being gradually absorbed into an expanding ladino population. In geographical terms these areas comprised the Pacific coast south from Soconusco to Nicoya, as well as the lowlands of the Gulf of Honduras. In Soconusco and Zapotitlán the Indian population was reduced to about one-twentieth of its preconquest size by the 1570s, when its continued decline was checked by immigration from the highlands.² Here intense economic activity, associated with cacao production, contributed to the rapid decline in the Indian population, whereas further south in El Salvador, Choluteca and Pacific Nicaragua similar activity focused on the cultivation of indigo, which largely supplanted that of cacao. The other major factor that contributed to the decline in the lowlands, particularly in the Caribbean lowlands of Honduras, the Bay of Fonseca, Pacific Nicaragua and Nicoya, was the Indian slave trade, which resulted in the latter two regions alone losing up to one-half million Indians.³ By the end of the sixteenth century, Indian populations in Pacific Nicaragua and Nicoya had been reduced by over 97 percent, a depopulation ratio of nearly 40:1. Subsequent increases in the Indian population in the lowlands were retarded by miscegenation and later, particularly on the Caribbean coast, by tropical diseases, but some increases were registered in Soconusco and Pacific Nicaragua in the eighteenth century.⁴

2 M.J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History, 1520–1720 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1973), pp. 71, 77–78; idem, “An Outline of Central American Colonial Demographics: Sources, Yields and Possibilities,” in The Historical Demography of Highland Guatemala, eds. R.M. Carmack, J. Early, and C. Lutz (Albany: SUNY, 1982), p. 7; P. Gerhard, The Southeast Frontier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 169–70, suggests an aboriginal population of 80, 000 for Soconusco, which fell to 1, 800 tributaries in 1569 and 800 in 1684. 3 L.A. Newson, “Demographic Catastrophe in Sixteenth-Century Honduras,” in Studies in Spanish American Population History, ed. D J. Robinson (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1981), pp. 227–28; and idem, “The Depopulation of Nicaragua in the Sixteenth Century,” JLAS 14 (1982):270–75. 4 J. Gaseo, “Demographic Trends in the Soconusco, 1520–1970” (Paper presented at the 44th International Congress of Americanists, Manchester, 1982); L.A. Newson, Indian Survival in Colonial Nicaragua (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press) (in press).

In general the scale of depopulation in the highlands was lower than in the neighboring lowlands. In the highlands of Guatemala depopulation ratios calculated from population estimates for Totonicapán by Veblen and for the Cuchumatán highlands by Lovell for 1520 to 1570–80 are 8.1:1 and 5.5:1 respectively,⁵ but if they are calculated to their respective nadirs in the late seventeenth century, the corresponding figures are 13.5:1 and 16.1:1. These figures are fairly comparable with those estimated for the central Mexican highlands. Cook and Borah have estimated that between 1532 and 1608 the depopulation ratio for the plateau of central Mexico was 13.2:1 and for the coast, 26:1.⁶ Furthermore, in common with the central Mexico plateau and in contrast to the lowlands, Indian populations in the highlands of Central America generally experienced a sustained recovery. However, in most areas this increase did not begin until at least the middle of the seventeenth century and even then it was punctuated by epidemics.

5 T.T. Veblen, “Native Population Decline in Totonicapán, Guatemala, ” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67 (1977):484–99; W.G. Lovell, “The Historical Demography of the Cuchumatán Highlands, Guatemala, 1500–1821,” in Spanish American Population, ed. Robinson, pp. 195–216. 6 S.F. Cook and W. Borah, The Indian Population of Central Mexico, 1531–1610, Ibero-Americana 44 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1960), p. 48.

A number of authors have drawn attention to the significant difference between the levels of decline in the highlands and lowlands, often attributing it to differences in the impact of disease, and in particular to the added impact of tropical fevers in the lowlands. Although the validity of this assertion can be questioned, other factors such as the Indian slave trade and the greater intensity of economic activity clearly contributed to the higher level of decline in the lowlands. In fact the simple division between highlands and lowlands masks regional variations with these broad areas. Clearly Indian populations in areas that attracted few outsiders, such as Totonicapán, the Chuchumatán highlands and Verapaz, declined at a slower rate and became less ladino in character than other areas where commercial agricultural and mining enterprises were established.⁷ This generalization does not hold true for areas of sparse Indian population, such as Costa Rica and the eastern Caribbean lowlands, where colonization, often initiated by missionaries, was delayed and the Indian population declined slowly through the colonial period. Meanwhile, at the subregional scale Indians located near major towns and ports also experienced a more rapid decline, which, although sometimes mitigated by Indian immigration from more remote areas, continued as the Indians were gradually absorbed into the growing population of mixed races.

7 For similar ideas see M.J. MacLeod, “Ethnic Relations and Indian Society in the Province of Guatemala, ca.1620-ca.1800,” in Spaniards and Indians in Southeastern Mesoamerica: Essays on the History of Ethnic Relations, ed. M.J. MacLeod and R. Wasserstrom (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska, 1983), pp. 203–205; and L. A. Newson, “Indian Population Patterns in Colonial Spanish America, ” LARR 20 (1985):62–65.

FACTORS INFLUENCING DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

From the time of Spanish conquest to the present day, the changing size of Indian populations during the colonial period has been attributed to a variety of factors, the relative importance of which has varied over time with the availability of evidence and interpretation of observers and researchers. Early commentators stressed the ill treatment and overwork of the Indians in explaining the rapid decline of the Indian population, but more recently researchers have emphasized the importance of disease.

Sixteenth-century observers blamed the rapid decline of the Indian population on the overwork and ill treatment of the Indians by conquistadors and colonists. There is no doubt that the Black Legend was a reality in the Caribbean, where the Indians became virtually extinct within a generation. Particularly important in Central America was the Indian slave trade, which resulted in the coastal regions of Pacific Nicaragua and to a lesser extent Honduras, being rapidly depopulated. The rapid decline of the Indian population and the concerned representations to the Crown, particularly by the Dominicans, resulted in the New Laws being introduced in 1542. Although the New Laws were often infringed, by banning Indian slavery, moderating personal service and calling for the regulation of tribute payments, they did lead to a general improvement in the treatment of the Indians. Since Central America was effectively colonized before the introduction of the New Laws, its Indian population received little legal protection from exploitation, such that overwork and ill treatment probably contributed more significantly to the decline in the Indian population there than it did on the South American mainland where colonization largely followed their introduction. But, as has already been demonstrated, different regions within Central America experienced different levels of decline and these cannot be satisfactorily explained by differences in Crown policy or in the activities of its officials. It was the Crown’s intention that laws and institutions formulated in Spain should apply uniformly to all parts of the empire. Whilst laws might be inteipreted differently by different administrators, officials were constantly changing and it is doubtful if personnel in any one area interpreted the laws consistently in a manner that might account for a smaller or larger decline in the Indian population in some areas than in others. Any spatial variations in Spanish-Indian relations that emerge are better interpreted as reactions to local conditions than as expressions of differences in government policy or its interpretation by its officers.

Most recent writers on the historical demography of Latin America agree that disease was a major factor in the decline of the Indian population.⁸ The most notable killers were smallpox, measles, typhus, plague, yellow fever, and malaria. In the documentary record there are numerous accounts of the populations of villages and whole areas being reduced by one-third or one-half as a result of epidemics, particularly of smallpox and measles. The devastating impact of these diseases on previously noninfected populations has been corroborated by historically more recent epidemics.⁹ It is often assumed that the greater decline in the Indian population of the tropical lowlands was due to the greater impact of disease, mainly yellow fever and malaria, which only occur in climates where the mean temperature is over 20°C, and possibly due to the greater virulence of diseases in warmer climates. There are a number of difficulties with these proposals. First, it seems likely that malaria and yellow fever were relatively late introductions to the New World. It is generally held that malaria was introduced into the New World about the middle of the seventeenth century and the first agreed upon epidemic of yellow fever occurred in Yucatán in 1648, although a few would argue for its presence at an earlier date.¹⁰ Hence, the early decline in the Indian population cannot be attributed to these diseases. Second, although it is true that intestinal infections are more prevalent in the tropics and, although not contributing directly to the mortality rate, would have increased the susceptibility of Indians living there to more deadly diseases,¹¹ a number of other diseases introduced from the Old World were equally if not more virulent in the highlands. Smallpox and pneumonic plague thrive in cool, dry climates, where unhygienic conditions are created that also favor the spread of typhus.¹² Furthermore, the concentration of population in large nucleated settlements in the highlands would have enabled and facilitated the spread of disease, whereas in the tropical lowlands its spread was generally hindered by the dispersed character of the population and settlements.¹³ Despite these comments, it is important to recognize that many tropical coasts earned early reputations for being unhealthy, and it may be that there were other tropical diseases, as yet unidentified, which may have contributed to the higher mortality rate there. At present, however, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that the lower level of Indian survival in the tropical lowlands can be accounted for wholly in terms of the greater impact of disease. Whilst disease was clearly a major factor in the decline of Indian populations, the pattern of its impact is likely to have been much more complex than sometimes suggested, with the spread of diseases dependent not only on altitude and climate, but on a whole variety of other factors, including the presence of vectors for transmitting the disease, population density, the degree of interpersonal contact, subsistence patterns, sanitation, and immunity.¹⁴

8 S.F. Cook, “The Demographic Consequences of European Contact with Primitive Peoples,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 237 (1945):108–109; J. Vellard, “Causas biológicas de...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Abbreviations
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Honduras on the Eve of Spanish Conquest
• Part III Spanish Conquest, 1522 to 1550
• Part IV Western and Central Honduras, 1550 to 1821
• Part V Eastern Honduras, 1550 to 1821
• Part VI Demographic Change, 1550 to 1821
• Part VII Conclusion
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index
• List of Dellplain Latin American Studies