Honduras was originally inhabited by many indigenous peoples when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. The western-central part of Honduras was inhabited by the Lencas, the central north coast by the Tol, the area east and west of Trujillo by the Pech (or Paya), the Maya and Sumo-Tawakah and the South by the Chorotegas. These autonomous groups traded with each other and with other populations as distant as Panama and Mexico. Honduras has ruins of several cities dating from the Mesoamerican pre-classic period that show the pre-Columbian past of the country.
The Spanish founded new settlements such as Trujillo, Comayagua, Gracias, and Tegucigalpa. Starting in the colonial era, the territory of what is today Honduras was part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, which was also a kingdom integrated into the Viceroyalty of New Spain, dedicated to harvesting, mining, and ranching. After its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, Central America joined the First Mexican Empire for a very short time. It fell in 1823 and the Federal Republic of Central America was created, which fell in 1839. After that, the Honduran territory became an independent nation.
There were other attempts to form a new Central American union, though they yielded no results; nevertheless, Honduras remained a relatively closed nation until the Liberal Reform, which drove a series of economic changes, expanded trade and diplomatic ties, and introduced new technologies. The country was heavily influenced by fruit companies that maintained enclaves along the north coast. Honduras remains an independent republic with a presidential system.
Pre-Columbian era
Early Precolumbian history Archaeology has demonstrated that Honduras has a multi-ethnic precolumbian history. The oldest evidence of human organizations can be seen in La cueva del Gigante and Talgua caves archeological sites. The ancestors of these peoples were the migrants who crossed the Bering Strait and began to populate the Americas; upon arriving in Honduras, they started establishing tiny, semi-nomadic settlements.
Mesoamerican Honduras
As part of Mesoamerica, Honduras was home to complex settled societies that developed over several thousand years, as in other parts of the region. It is clear that neighboring Maya societies and more distant Central Mexican societies were a major influence on Honduran communities, both through trade (especially with the Maya civilization, and, during the Formative Period, and the Olmec civilization) and occasionally migration.
For example, during internal conflict in the late Toltec Empire around 1000 to 1100 AD, Nahuatl speakers migrated from Central Mexico and dispersed into different parts of Central America, including Honduras, especially Chapagua. In present-day El Salvador, they became the Pipil and founded Kuskatan, and in Nicaragua, they became the Nicarao.
Arrival of the Lencas and early cities
It is not known exactly when the ancestors of the Lenca people began arriving in Honduras, although it is said that this may have started around 2000-1500 BC; upon settling and becoming a sedentary society, they began establishing settlements and were influenced primarily by the Olmecs in terms of architecture.
Los Naranjos north of Lake Yojoa, and Yarumela in the Comayagua valley are ones of the most known settlements built by the ancestors of the Lenca people, some of this during the pre classic period almost 1000 years before the Mayan cities. Over time, their ceremonial centers and urban landscape began to achieve greater complexity.
Thanks to locations that made them active centers of commerce, with access to both the Caribbean and the Pacific. The prosperity of this early Lencas is evident in their structures which some measuring approximately 100 long by 70 meters width; these also demonstrate a hierarchical social organization dating back to very early times, as well as wealth derived from commercial activity linking the two cultural regions that converge in Honduras.Yarumela: Revalorizando un sitio arqueológico en el valle de Comayagua Ornar Aquiles Valladares, 2008
Imports of merchandise from Guatemala and central Mexico, and traces of products that came from other areas of South America through trade routes have also been found.Evans, Susan Toby, ed. (27 November 2000). Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America. Routledge. The Lencas dominated most of western and central Honduras, and had several villages in the valleys. The Lenca were the biggest and most well organized society in terms of military organization by the time of the conquest in the early 16th century.Newson, Linda The Cost of Conquest: Indian Decline in Honduras Under Spanish Rule. Dellplain Latin American Studies; No. 20, Westview Press, Boulder
Mayan arrival
An important part of the precolumbian honduran history was the Mayan presence around Copán a large portion of western Honduras near the Guatemalan border, a major Mayan city that began to flourish around 150 A.D. but reached its zenith in the Late Classic period (700–850 A.D.). It has left behind many carved inscriptions and stelae. The ancient kingdom, named Xukpi or Oxwitik, existed from the 5th century to the early 9th century, and had antecedents going back to at least the 2nd century, a period named "predynastic Copán".
Mayan culture extended from what today are the departments of Copán, Ocotepeque, north Santa Barbara and several villages around these territories, especially near the Ulua river. Other Mayan archeological sites in Honduras are El Puente, a smaller city that initially was independent for a period, but maintained a close alliance with the political and administrative center of Copán, and Rio Amarillo, believed to have been a crossing between the valleys of El Florido in Honduras and El Motagua in Guatemala.
The Rastrojón archeological site, shows the construction styles of the residences of the upper or noble class of the Mayan society. The arrival of the Maya and especially the founding of Copán marked a profound shift in the power centers within the territory that is now Honduras, as the city and its vassal settlements became the region's primary hubs of power and influence, an influence that extended further south.
Mayan decline The Mayan civilization began a marked decline in population in the 9th century, but evidence shows people still living in and around the city until at least 1200.Paine, Richard R and Freter, AnnCorinne 1996 "Environmental Degradation and the Classic Maya Collapse at Copan, Honduras" Ancient Mesoamerica 7:37–47 Cambridge University Press The precise reasons for the fall of the city of Copán remain unknown, though most experts agree it resulted from a combination of factors such as continuous warfare, the influx of refugees from other collapsed cities, new diseases, and agricultural issues that played a significant role in its decline and eventual abandonment; this left smaller Maya cities in western Honduras unprotected and vulnerable.
The collapse of Maya civilization in Honduras created a power vacuum during the Epiclassic period; the Lenca people of central Honduras sought to fill this void by founding the city of Tenampúa around 750 AD. However, filling the gap left by the Maya proved difficult, and it was not until the arrival of the Postclassic period marked by the establishment of new chiefdoms that the region achieved greater relative stability.
By the time the Spanish came to Honduras, the once great city-state of Copán had been overrun by the jungle, and the surviving Ch’orti' were isolated from their Choltian linguistic peers to the west.
The Isthmo-Colombian peoples
Although most Honduran great urban areas belonged to the Mesoamerican cultural area, La Ciudad Blanca is the major exception. It lies on the very fringe of Mesoamerica and is better described in relation to the Isthmo-Colombian area. This civilization thrived from 500 A.D to 1000 A.D, and included sophisticated management of the environment in accordance with large urban centers.
Despite being outside the Mesoamerican area, studies reveal that the city had mesoamerican elements, like a ball game, and some pyramidal structures similar to the ones found in western Honduras. Studies in the area show huge structures in the city, and one had a ceremonial area where they performed rituals to kings and gods.
Another example of the Ithsmo-columbian peoples is the Pech settlements on Guanaja Island; although the Bay Islands served as a site of interaction between the two cultural areas, the Pech established settlements there, sharing the islands with other groups passing through.
One example is the Plan Grande site, a ceremonial center on the island built between the 600-900 AD that was of great importance to travelers arriving there to trade. Groups such as the Tawahka and Miskito also established smaller settlements, although they led a more semi-nomadic lifestyle; they engaged extensively in fishing and hunting, and traded their catch and game with other peoples via trade routes.
Conquest period
Early attempts Honduras was first sighted by Europeans when Christopher Columbus arrived at the Bay Islands very close to the island of Guanaja on 30 July 1502 on his fourth voyage. On 14 August 1502 Columbus landed on the mainland near modern Trujillo. Columbus named the country Honduras ("depths") for the deep waters off its coast.
First official campaigns
In January 1524, Hernán Cortés directed captain Cristóbal de Olid to establish a colony in Honduras named "Triunfo de la Cruz", the modern town of Tela. De Olid sailed with several ships and over 400 soldiers and colonists to Cuba to pick up supplies Cortés had arranged for him.
There Governor Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar convinced him to claim the colony he was to found as his own. De Olid sailed to the coast of Honduras and came ashore east of Puerto Caballos at Triunfo de la Cruz where he settled and declared himself governor. Cortés got word of De Olid's insurrection however, and sent his cousin Francisco de las Casas with several ships to Honduras to remove De Olid and claim the area for Cortés. De Las Casas, however, lost most of his fleet in a series of storms along the coast of Belize and Honduras. His ships limped into the bay at Triunfo, where De Olid had established his headquarters.
When De Las Casas arrived at De Olid's headquarters, a large part of De Olid's army was inland, dealing with another threat from a party of Spaniards under Gil González Dávila. Nevertheless, De Olid decided to launch an attack with two caravels. De Las Casas returned fire and sent boarding parties to capture De Olid's ships.
Under the circumstances, De Olid proposed a truce. De Las Casas agreed, and did not land his forces. During the night, a fierce storm destroyed his fleet and about a third of his men were lost. The remainder were taken prisoner after two days of exposure and no food. After being forced to swear loyalty to De Olid, they were released. But De Las Casas was kept prisoner, and soon joined by González, who had been captured by De Olid's inland force.
Arrival of Cortés The Spanish record two different stories about what happened next. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, writing in the 17th century, said that De Olid's soldiers rose up and murdered him. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his book named Verdadera Historia de la Conquista de Nueva España, says that De Las Casas captured De Olid and beheaded him at Naco. In the meantime Cortés marched overland from Mexico to Honduras, arriving in 1525.