British and United States interests in Nicaragua…

British and United States interests in Nicaragua grow during the mid-1800s because of the country's strategic importance as a transit route across the isthmus.

British settlers seize the port of San Juan del Norte—at the mouth of the Río San Juan on the southern Caribbean coast—and expel all Nicaraguan officials on January 1, 1848.

The following year, Britain forces Nicaragua to sign a treaty recognizing British rights over the Miskito on the Caribbean coast.

Britain's control over much of the Caribbean lowlands, which the British call the Mosquito Coast (present-day Costa de Mosquitos), from 1678 until 1894 is a constant irritant to Nicaraguan nationalists.

The start of the gold rush in California in 1849 increases United States interests in Central America as a transoceanic route, and Nicaragua at first encourages a United States presence to counterbalance the British.