León Leon Nicaragua
Related Events
Showing 10 events out of 16 total
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.
…the founding of León at a location west of Lake Managua.
Córdoba soon builds defenses for the cities and fights against incursions by other conquistadors.
Hernando de Soto was born in Jerez de los Caballeros, in the current province of Badajoz, to parents who are hidalgos of modest means in Extremadura, a region of poverty and hardship from which many young people look for ways to seek their fortune elsewhere.
However, three towns—Badajoz, Barcarrota and Jerez de los Caballeros—claim to be his birthplace.
He had spent time as a child at each place, and he stipulated in his will that his body be interred at Jerez de los Caballeros, where other members of his family were interred.
The age of the Conquerors had come on the heels of the Spanish reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from Islamic forces.
Spain and Portugal were filled with young men seeking a chance for military fame after the Moors were defeated.
With discovery of new lands to the west (which they thought at the time to be East Asia), they were attracted to whispers of glory and wealth.
De Soto had sailed to the New World with the first Governor of Panama, Pedrarias Dávila, participatin in 1520 in Gaspar de Espinosa's expedition to Veragua, and in 1524, he takes part in the conquest of Nicaragua under Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba.
Here he will acquire an encomienda and a public office in León.
Pedro Arias Davila had been a party to the original agreement with Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro which brought about the discovery of Peru, but had withdrawn in 1526 for a small compensation, having lost confidence in the outcome.
In the same year he had been superseded as Governor of Panama by Pedro de los Ríos, and retired to León in Nicaragua, where he was named its new governor on July 1, 1527.
Here he will live for the rest of his life until he dies on March 6, 1531.
He leaves an unenviable record, as a man of unreliable character, cruel, and unscrupulous.
Through his foundation of Panama, however, he had laid the basis for the discovery of South America's west coast and the subsequent conquest of Peru.
De Soto, having become a regidor (a member of the municipal council) of León, Nicaragua, in 1530, had led an expedition up the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, searching for a passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean to enable trade with the Orient, the richest market in the world.
Failing that, and without means to explore further, de Soto, upon Pedro Arias Dávila's death, leaves his estates in Nicaragua to join Pizarro in his planned expedition to Peru.
Trade restrictions imposed by Spain, natural disasters, and foreign attacks devastate the economy of the Captaincy General of Guatemala throughout the seventeenth century.
The local government neglects agricultural production; powerful earthquakes in 1648, 1651, and 1663 cause massive destruction in the Province of Nicaragua; and from 1651 to 1689, Nicaragua is subjected to bloody incursions from English, French, and Dutch pirates.
In 1668 and 1670, these buccaneers capture and destroy the city of Granada, center of the province's agricultural wealth.
The Captaincy General of Guatemala is generally neglected by Spain.
Within the captaincy general, the Province of Nicaragua remains weak and unstable, ruled by persons with little interest in the welfare of its people.
Nicaragua had been part of the audiencia (audience or court) of Panama, established in 1538, but it is transferred to the Viceroyalty of New Spain when Spain divides its empire into two viceroyalties in 1543.
The following year, the new audiencia of Guatemala, a subdivision of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, is created.
This audiencia extends from southern Mexico through Panama and has its capital first at Gracias, Honduras, and then at Antigua, Guatemala, after 1549.
In 1570, the audiencia is reorganized and reduced in size, losing the territory of present-day Panama, the Yucatan, and the Mexican state of Tabasco.
During most of the colonial period, the president of the audiencia held the additional titles of governor and captain general (hence, the alternative name of Captaincy General of Guatemala) and is charged with administrative, judicial, and military authority.
The governor, or captain general, is appointed by the Spanish king and is responsible to him; in fact, the colony is sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Guatemala.
Leon is the capital of the Province of Nicaragua, housing the local governor, the Roman Catholic bishop, and other important appointees.
An elite of creole (individuals of Spanish descent born in the New World) merchants controls the economic and political life of each province.
Because of the great distance between the centers of Spanish rule, political power is centered with the local government, the town council or ayuntamiento, which ignores most official orders from the Spanish crown.
The Miskito, who live in Nicaragua's Caribbean lowlands, begin to be exploited by English "filibusters" (irregular military adventurers) intent on encroaching on Spanish landowners.
In 1687 the English governor of Jamaica names a Miskito who is one of his prisoners, "King of the Mosquitia Nation," and declares the region to be under the protection of the English crown.
This event marks the beginning of a long rivalry between Spanish (and later Nicaraguan) and British authorities over the sovereignty of the Caribbean coast, which will effectively remain under British control until the end of the nineteenth century.
The Spanish, after more than a century of exploiting the mineral wealth of the New World, realize that activities other than mining can be profitable.
The Province of Nicaragua now begins to experience economic growth based on export agriculture.
By the early 1700s, a powerful elite is well established in the cities of Leon, Granada, and, to a lesser extent, Rivas.