Abstract
There is evidence of settlement by Paleo-Indians in the region around 4000 Bc. Spanish explorers, led by Gil González de Ávila, arrived in the west of present-day Nicaragua in 1523. They made contact with the Niquirano and the Chorotegano tribes, thought to have been linked to the Aztec civilization in Mexico, and the Chontal, who shared cultural traits with the Honduran Maya people. Government up to this point was through tribal monarchies and each grouping had distinct customs. In 1524 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba established Granada on Lake Nicaragua and León on Lake Managua. Many indigenous Indians were killed, died of introduced diseases or were enslaved. Estimates suggest the population fell from 1m. to less than 100,000.
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Further Reading
Baracco, Luciano, Nicaragua: The Imagining of a Nation—From Nineteenth-Century Liberals to Twentieth-Century Sandinistas. 2005
Cruz, Consuelo, Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua: World-making in the Tropics. 2005
Dijkstra, G., Industrialization in Sandinista Nicaragua: Policy and Party in a Mixed Economy. 1992
Horton, Lynn, Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–94. 1998
Jones, Adam, Beyond the Barricades: Nicaragua and the Struggle for the Sandinista Press, 1979–1998. 2002
National Statistical Office: Dirección General de Estadística y Censos, Managua.
Website (Spanish only): http://www.inide.gob.ni
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Palgrave Macmillan. (2016). Nicaragua. In: The Statesman’s Yearbook. The Statesman’s Yearbook. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-68398-7_293
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-68398-7_293
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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