In comparison with its neighbours to the north, in Nicaragua you often get the impression that history didn't begin until the arrival of the Spanish. Few traces of Nicaragua's pre-Conquest history remain; certainly there are
no major monuments
of the likes of Tikal or Copán, and historians and archeologists are doubtful whether cities of equivalent size and complexity ever existed here, though modern Nicaragua retains aspects of its ancient history in its language, food and customs.
Events far to the north in Mexico determined the future of the country that would come to be called Nicaragua. After the fall of the Aztec city of Teotihuacán in 1000 AD, displaced
Mexica
(Aztec) migrated southward through the isthmus on the strength of a prophecy that they were to settle where they saw a lake with two volcanoes rising from the water - which they found in the striking form of Isla de Ometepe in Lago de Nicaragua.
Two groups of pre-Columbian peoples settled on the shores of the lake. Roughly divided into the
Chorotegas
and the
Nahuas
, it is still possible to tell who settled where by place names - Momotombo, Masaya, Niquinohomo and Nandaime come from the Chorotegan language, while Managua, Masatepe, Tipitapa and Chinandega are Nahuatl words. The food - maize, beans, chillies and chocolate - and culture of these people continued to closely resemble that of the Aztecs, even after centuries of living far away from metropolitan Aztec culture.
These people called themselves the
Niquirano
and were governed by chief
Nicarao
, a rich
cacique
(chief) from near present-day Rivas who came to be called Nicaragua by the Spanish, giving the modern country its name. In 1522 Nicarao welcomed
Gil González de Avila
, an intrepid explorer who had made his way to Nicaragua on foot and by boat from Panamá and Costa Rica, becoming the first Spaniard to arrive in the area. Nicarao allowed his people to be baptized and to mix interracially with the Spanish conquerors.
The inhabitants of central Nicaragua, the
Chontales, Matagalpas
and
Populucas
, were a different ethnic group, related to the Maya of Honduras, and offered far more resistance to the Spanish, though their language and peoples did not survive the Conquest. On the Atlantic coast the pre-Miskito
Sumus
and
Ramas
(of whom little is known) made up the indigenous population. Nearly all the coastal peoples, except the Rama, mixed racially with the Afro-Caribbean population who came to its shores as freed or escaped slaves from British West Indian colonies.
The colonial era
Although the very first Spanish conquistadors glimpsed the eastern coast of Nicaragua as early as 1508, it was not until 1522, three years after Hernán Cortez landed on the coast of Mexico, that a Spanish expedition sailed up the Río San Juan into the...
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Independence
By the beginning of the nineteenth century Spain had begun to lose its grip on power in Nicaragua. As in other New World colonies, in Nicaragua only
peninsulares
- those born in Spain - could hold positions of influence. Fuelled by the...
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William Walker
William Walker
was an ambitious and megalomaniacal - or just plain mad, depending on your interpretation - American adventurer. A native of Tennessee, schooled in law and journalism, Walker had vast political ambitions. The Liberals of León...
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The US invasion
From 1857, for the next three decades, power see-sawed, not always peacefully, between Liberals and Conservatives. Even so, the period from 1857 to 1893 was one of such unusual stability and prosperity that Nicaraguan historians often refer to it,...
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The Somoza years
The long era of
Somocismo
, or Somoza-family rule, began in 1934. In his role as head of the country's National Guard,
General Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza García
ordered the
assassination of Sandino
, by then the...
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Growing opposition
At a few minutes past midnight on December 23, 1972, Managua was rocked by an incredible seismic disturbance, causing the near total collapse of the city. By the time the ground stopped rumbling - just thirty seconds later - some 10,000 people were dead...
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Revolution
As 1979 opened, Somoza's declaration that he would stay in power until 1981, two years past his mandate, sparked a national crisis. As guerrilla attacks by the opposition increased, the Nicaraguan economy nosedived. By now, though, the FSLN was in a...
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The Sandinista years and the Contra War
As the 1970s became the 1980s, the challenge facing the
new Sandinista government
was enormous. The country's infrastructure was in ruins: food was scarce, health care nonexistent and diseases like cholera and malaria rampant. But the mood of...
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1990-1996: The Chamorro goverment
The
elections
scheduled for February 1990 were to be a test for the Sandinistas' staying power as a political force: opposition was gathering strength and in 1989 no fewer than fourteen political parties, with nothing in common except their...
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The Alemán government
Many Nicaraguans saw the
Alemán victory
as proof that the counter-revolutionary movement had not only won, but had welcomed Somocismo back into Nicaragua. For many Sandinistas, this was a dispiriting, even heartbreaking, conclusion. In...
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The new millennium
By the beginning of the new millennium, most statistics rated Nicaragua the second poorest country in the Americas, after Haiti, with two million Nicaraguans living on an income of less than a dollar a day, and the first year of the new century saw no...
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