Captaincy General of Guatemala

Honduras, 1542–1821. Draft, not yet reviewed

It was an administrative division of the Spanish Empire, under the viceroyalty of New Spain in Central America. Honduras was organized as a province of the Kingdom of Guatemala. In 1609 the area became a captaincy general, when the governor and Audiencia president was also granted the title of captain general to deal with foreign threats to the area from the Caribbean. The Captaincy General ended in 1821 with the signing of the Act of Independence of Central America.

Seat of power: Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala

Rulers

Carlos Luis de Urrutia

Captain General of Guatemala, 1818–1821

He was a Spanish military commander and colonial administrator. He was the supreme military commander of Guatemala from 1818 to 1821 and fled to Cuba when it declared independence.

Culture

The capital of the province was first at Trujillo on the Atlantic coast and later at Comayagua, and finally at Tegucigalpa in the central part of the country.
Silver mining was a key factor in the Spanish conquest and settlement of Honduras. Initially the mines were worked by local people through the encomienda system, but as disease and resistance made this option less available, slaves from other parts of Central America were brought in.
Resistance to conquest was led in particular by Lempira. The Miskito Kingdom in the northeast was particularly effective at resisting conquest.

Picture

This city is an old capital of Honduras and is noted for its wealth of Spanish Colonial architecture.

Image: Luis Alfredo Romero, CC BY-SA 4.0, file

Sources

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.