Spain, in its exploration and exploitation of the New World, finds an outlet for the crusading energies that the war against the Muslims had stimulated.

Portuguese mariners are opening a route around Africa to the East in the fifteenth century.

At the same time as the Castilians, they have planted colonies in the Azores and in the Canary Islands (also Canaries; Spanish, Canarias), the latter of which have been assigned to Spain by papal decree.

The conquest of Granada allows the Catholic Kings to divert their attention to exploration, although Christopher Columbus's first voyage in 1492 is financed by foreign bankers.

In 1493 Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, a Catalan) formally approves the division of the unexplored world between Spain and Portugal.

The Treaty of Tordesillas, which Spain and Portugal sign one year later, moves the line of division westward and allows Portugal to claim Brazil.

New discoveries and conquests come in quick succession.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches the Pacific in 1513, and the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition complete the circumnavigation of the globe in 1522.

In 1519 the conquistador Hernán Cortes subdues the Aztecs in Mexico with a handful of followers, and between 1531 and 1533 Francisco Pizarro overthrows the empire of the Incas and establishes Spanish dominion over Peru.

In 1493, when Columbus brought fifteen hundred colonists with him on his second voyage, a royal administrator had already been appointed for the Indies.

The Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias), established in 1524, acts as an advisory board to the crown on colonial affairs, and the House of Trade (Casa de Contratacion) regulates trade with the colonies.

The newly established colonies are not Spanish but Castilian.

They are administered as appendages of Castile, and the Aragonese are prohibited from trading or settling there.

Pedro Arias Davila (Pedrarias), the governor of Panama, appoints Francisco Hernández de Córdoba to lead the Nicaraguan conquest effort.

Córdoba leads an expedition in 1524 that succeeds in establishing the first permanent Spanish settlement in Nicaragua.

He quickly overcomes the resistance of the native peoples and names the land Nicaragua.

To deny Gonzalez's claims of settlement rights and prevent his eventual control of the region, Córdoba founds the cities of León and Granada, which will later become the centers of colonial Nicaragua.

From León, he launches expeditions to explore other parts of the territory.

Pedrarias, while the rivalry between Hernández de Córdoba and González rages, charges Córdoba with mismanagement and sentences him to death.

González leaves for Mexico soon thereafter, and the Spanish crown will award Pedrarias the governorship of Nicaragua in 1528.

Pedrarias will remain in Nicaragua until his death in July 1531.

Nicaragua's Caribbean coast is first seen by Spanish explorers in 1502.

It is not until 1522, however, that a formal military expedition, under Gil Gonzalez Davila, leads to the Spanish conquest of Nicaraguan territory.

Gonzalez launches an expedition from Panama, arriving in Nicaragua through Costa Rica.

After suffering both illness and torrential rains, he reaches the land governed by the powerful chief Nicoya, who gives Gonzalez and his men a warm welcome.

Nicoya and six thousand of his people shortly embrace the Roman Catholic faith.

Gonzalez continues his exploration and arrives in the next settlement, which is governed by a chief named Nicaragua, or Nicarao, after whom the country is named.

Chief Nicaragua receives Gonzalez as a friend and gives him large quantities of gold.

Perhaps to placate the Spanish, Nicaragua also converts to Roman Catholicism, as do more than none thousand members of his tribe.

All are baptized within eight days.

Confident of further success, Gonzalez moves on to the interior, where he encounters resistance from an army of three thousand Niquirano, led by another of their chiefs, Diriagen.

Gonzalez retreats and travels south to the coast, returning to Panama with large quantities of gold and pearls.

Christopher Columbus travels to the Gulf of Honduras during his fourth voyage in 1502.

A few years later, two of his navigators, Martín Pinzon and Juan De Solis, sail northward along the coast of Belize to the Yucatan.

Hernan Cortes conquers Mexico in 1519 and Pedro Arias Davila founds Panama City.

Spain soon sends expeditions to Guatemala and Honduras, and the conquest of the Yucatan begins in 1527.

There are settlements of Ch'ol-speaking Manche in the southwestern corner of present-day Belize when Cortes passes through this area in 1525.

The Spanish will forcibly displace these settlements to the Guatemalan highlands when they "pacify" the region in the seventeenth century.

The Spanish launch their main incursions into the area from the Yucatan, however, and encounter stiff resistance from the Mayan provinces of Chetumal and Dzuluinicob.

The indigenous inhabitants of preconquest Honduras (before the early 1500s), although divided into numerous distinct and frequently hostile groups, carry on considerable trade with other parts of their immediate region as well as with areas as far away as Panama and Mexico.

It appears that no major cities are in existence at the time of the conquest, but the total population was nevertheless fairly high.

Estimates range up to two million, although the actual figure is probably nearer to half a million.

The Pipil are a determined people who stoutly resist Spanish efforts to extend their dominion southward.

The first such effort by Spanish forces is led by Pedro de Alvarado, a lieutenant of Hernan Cortes in the conquest of Mexico.

It meets with stiff resistance from the indigenous population.

Alvarado's expeditionary force enters El Salvador—or Cuzcatlan, as it is known by the Pipil—in June 1524.

The Spaniards are defeated in a major engagement shortly thereafter and are forced to withdraw to Guatemala.

Two subsequent expeditions are required—in 1525 and 1528—to bring the Pipil under Spanish control.

It is noteworthy that the name of the supposed leader of the native resistance, Atlacatl, has been perpetuated and honored among the Salvadorans to the relative exclusion of that of Alvarado.

In this sense, the Salvadoran ambivalence toward the conquest bears a resemblance to the prevailing opinion in Mexico, where Cortés is more reviled than celebrated.

The nearly simultaneous invasions of Honduras in 1524 by rival Spanish expeditions begins an era of conflict among rival Spanish claimants as well as with the indigenous population.

The major initial expeditions are led by González Dávila, who hoped to carve out a territory for his own rule, and by Cristóbal de Olid, who is dispatched from Cuba by Cortés.

Once in Honduras, however, Olid succumbs to personal ambition and attempts to establish his own independent authority.

Word of this reaches Cortés in Mexico, and to restore his own authority, he orders yet another expedition, this one under the command of Francisco de Las Casas.

Then, doubting the trustworthiness of any subordinate, Cortés sets out for Honduras himself.

The situation is further complicated by the entry into Honduras of expeditions from Guatemala under Pedro de Alvarado and from Nicaragua under Hernando de Soto.

Expeditions from Mexico, Panama, and the Caribbean begin to move into Central America while Cortés is completing his conquest of the Aztec.

Part of an expedition headed by Gil Gonzalez Davila in 1523 discovers the Golfo de Fonseca on the Pacific coast, naming it in honor of Bishop Rodriguez de Fonseca.

Four separate Spanish land expeditions began the conquest of Honduras the following year.

Cortes returns to Mexico in April 1526, and the remaining Spaniards resume their strife.

Some order is again restored in October of this year when the first royal governor, Diego Lopez de Salcedo, arrives.

Lopez de Salcedo's policies, however, drive many indigenous people, once pacified by Cortes, into open revolt.

His attempt to extend his jurisdiction into Nicaragua results in his imprisonment by the authorities there.

After agreeing to a Nicaraguan-imposed definition of the boundary between the two provinces, Lopez de Salcedo is released but does not return to Honduras until 1529.