Central America

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Central America was formed more than 3 million years ago, when its portion of the Isthmus of Panama rose and joined two sides of water that had been separate. That single bridge of land changed which animals could walk where, and it set up almost everything that followed. Today the region is usually defined as seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. It sits between Mexico to the north and Colombia to the southeast, with the Caribbean to the east and the Pacific to the southwest. It is small on a map and easy to overlook. It is also one of the most geologically violent and biologically crowded places on Earth. So what does the name even mean, and why does it mean different things to different people? Why did five of these countries once form a single republic and then break apart? And how did a fruit company end up owning more land in Guatemala than anyone else?

• 2. What Counts As Central

  ›

  The term "Central America" means different things depending on who is using it. The United Nations geoscheme treats it as all of mainland North America south of the United States, which includes Mexico, though historically and politically Mexico is considered North American. Middle America is a wider idea, usually understood to take in Mexico in the north, the seven Central American states in the south, and the Caribbean to the east. One source notes that "Central America" was used as a synonym for "Middle America" at least as recently as 1962. In Ibero-America, the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking countries, the Americas are counted as one continent called América. Within that single continent, Central America is the subregion of the seven countries between Mexico and Colombia. The continent splits into four parts: Central America, the Caribbean, North America, and South America. The Spanish language itself draws a line that English blurs. For people in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, "América Central" means the geographical strip of seven countries. "Centroamérica" means something narrower and warmer. It refers to the former members of the Federation, and it carries a shared culture and history. Portuguese often folds the entire Antilles into the definition, and the Dominican Republic is a full member of the Central American Integration System, even though it is traditionally counted as Caribbean.

• 3. Conquest And Colony

  ›

  Pedro de Alvarado arrived in Soconusco in 1523 and began the conquest of northern Central America for the Spanish Empire. His forces moved through the major Maya kingdoms one after another, subjugating the K'iche', the Tz'utujil, the Pipil, and the Kaqchikel. By 1528 the conquest of Guatemala was nearly finished, with only the Petén Basin still outside Spanish reach. The last independent Maya kingdoms held out far longer than the rest. The Kowoj and the Itza people were not defeated until 1697, as part of the Spanish conquest of Petén. That is more than a century and a half after Alvarado first crossed the border. In 1538 Spain set up the Real Audiencia of Panama, with authority stretching from the Strait of Magellan to the Gulf of Fonseca. It was dissolved in 1543, and most of Central America then fell under the Audiencia Real de Guatemala. Its seat sat in Antigua Guatemala, and its president governed the whole area. In 1609 the territory became a captaincy general, and the governor also became captain general. The Captaincy General of Guatemala covered most of Central America, leaving out only what would become Belize and Panama. It lasted more than two centuries before it began to fray.

• 4. The Enslaved

  ›

  Spanish records show requests to travel with enslaved Africans to Guatemala from 1530 to 1532. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, many enslaved Africans were carried to Central America and put to work in agriculture, mining, and domestic labor. The exact date of their first arrival is hard to pin down. Most are assumed to have come from West Central Africa, since most ships departed from there, and after the crossing most landed in Guatemala or Honduras. Santiago de Guatemala, established in 1541, became one of the most important trading posts in the region. Its position between the Valley of Panchoy raised Spanish economic and political standing, and it served as the seat of the Audiencia de Guatemala. Enslaved Africans began arriving through Santiago in 1543, though smaller shipments had already reached Honduras through the port of Trujillo. People were bought by gender and skill, and sorted into three categories. A Bozal had just arrived and knew little Spanish. A Ladino was fluent. A Criollo was someone born outside of Africa. Labor was divided across the isthmus: mining in Honduras and Nicaragua, timber in Belize, sugar in Guatemala, indigo plantations in El Salvador, and cacao in Costa Rica reached through Panama. Freedom came in 1824, but some won it sooner. During the early conquest, an enslaved man named Juan Bardales was granted his freedom and a pension after taking part in the conquest of Panama and Honduras.

• 5. Breaking From Empires

  ›

  A rebellion in 1811, beginning in the Intendancy of San Salvador, started the long unraveling of Spanish rule. The Captaincy General of Guatemala formally ended on the 15th of September 1821, with the signing of the Act of Independence of Central America. Mexican independence came at almost the same moment, with the Treaty of Córdoba and the Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire. By the 28th of September 1821, the entire region was fully free of Spanish authority. Independence did not mean separation, not at first. From 1821 until 1823, the former Captaincy General stayed intact as part of the short-lived First Mexican Empire. When Agustín de Iturbide abdicated as emperor on the 19th of March 1823, Central America became independent again. On the 1st of July 1823, the Congress of Central America peacefully seceded from Mexico and declared absolute independence from all foreign nations. The Federal Republic of Central America, first known as the United Provinces of Central America, existed from 1823 to 1840. It was made of five states: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Its 1824 constitution drew on the federal system of the United States, set a federal capital in Guatemala City, and gave each state a president. The constitution abolished slavery, kept the privileges of the Roman Catholic Church, and limited the vote to the upper classes. In 1838, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua became the first to become independent countries. El Salvador followed in 1841, Panama in 1903, and Belize in 1981.

• 6. Panama And Belize

  ›

  Panama spent most of its history tied to South America, not the lands to its north. It belonged to the Province of Tierra Firme from 1510 until 1538, then came under the Audiencia Real de Panama. From 1543 it was administered as part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, alongside Spain's other South American possessions. In 1739 it moved to the Viceroyalty of New Granada, whose capital sat at Santa Fé de Bogotá, and it stayed there until that viceroyalty was dissolved in 1819. After the dissolution of Gran Colombia in 1830, Panama became part of the Republic of New Granada. From 1855 to 1886 it existed as Panama State, passing through the Republic of New Granada, the Granadine Confederation, and the United States of Colombia. When the Republic of Colombia replaced that union in 1886, Panama State was abolished and became the Isthmus Department. Colombia remained plagued by conflict, and the strain finally produced the secession of Panama on the 3rd of November 1903. Only after that did some begin to regard Panama as a North or Central American entity. Belize was contested for decades. Spain, and later Guatemala, treated the land as a Guatemalan department. In 1862 Britain formally declared it a colony and named it British Honduras. It became independent as Belize in 1981. By the 1930s the United Fruit Company owned 3.5 million acres in Central America and the Caribbean, and was the single largest landowner in Guatemala. Such holdings gave it great power over small governments, and helped coin the phrase banana republic.

• 7. A Restless Land

  ›

  Central America has over 70 active volcanoes, 41 of them in El Salvador and Guatemala. The most active is Santa María, which is still erupting, with its latest activity beginning in 2013. Volcanic soil is part of the bargain. Fertile ground from weathered lava has made it possible to sustain dense populations in the productive highlands. In 1968 the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica erupted and killed 87 people, burying the three villages of Tabacon, Pueblo Nuevo, and San Luis under pyroclastic flows and debris. Most of Central America rests on the Caribbean Plate. That plate meets the Cocos, Nazca, and North American plates to form the Middle America Trench, a major subduction zone running parallel to the Pacific coast. Subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the North American Plate there is believed to have caused the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which killed as many as 40,000 people. The Motagua Fault cuts right across Guatemala and has driven earthquakes in 1717, 1773, 1902, 1976, 1980, and 2009. Roughly 80 km to its north runs the Chixoy-Polochic Fault, less active but still capable of very large earthquakes, such as the 1816 earthquake of Guatemala. Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, was devastated by earthquakes in 1931 and 1972. This shaking, eruption, and occasional tsunami have killed many thousands across the region. The highest peak is Volcán Tajumulco, rising to 4,220 m.

• 8. The Living Bridge

  ›

  Central America holds 7% of the world's biodiversity as part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot. Acting as a bridge between two continents, it carries species from both the Nearctic and the Neotropical realms. The funnel shape of the land concentrates migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway, which runs from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, especially in spring and autumn. The southern countries, Costa Rica and Panama, hold more biodiversity than the northern ones, Guatemala and Belize, while Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador have the least. Over 300 species of the region's flora and fauna are threatened, and 107 of those are critically endangered. The pressures are deforestation, estimated by FAO at 1.2% per year across Central America and Mexico combined, fragmentation of rainforest, and the fact that 80% of the vegetation has already been converted to agriculture. From 2001 to 2010, 5,376 km2 of forest were lost, much of it on the Caribbean slopes of Nicaragua. Belize protects 36% of its land territory, one of the most extensive systems of protected areas in the Americas, plus 13% of its marine territory. The Belize Barrier Reef, part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, holds 70 hard coral species, 36 soft coral species, and 500 species of fish. So far only about 10% of the species in that reef have been discovered. One absence still marks the highlands. The golden toad of the Monteverde Reserve has not been seen alive since 1989, and the IUCN lists it as extinct, for reasons no one fully understands.