The Mosquito Coast (also known as Mosquitia or Mosquito Shore) is an area along the coast of eastern Nicaragua and southeastern Honduras. It was named after the local Miskito nation and was long dominated by British interests and known as the Mosquito Kingdom or Moskito Kingdom.
From 1860 suzerainty of the area was transferred to Nicaragua with the name Mosquito Reserve. In November 1894 the Mosquito Coast was militarily incorporated into Nicaragua. In 1960 the northern part was granted to Honduras by the International Court of Justice.
Because the Mosquito Coast was generally defined as the domain of the Miskito Kingdom, it expanded or contracted with that domain. During the 19th century, the question of the kingdom's borders was a serious issue of international diplomacy among Britain, the United States, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Conflicting claims regarding both the kingdom's extent and arguable existence were pursued in diplomatic exchanges.Naylor, Robert A.; Penny Ante Imperialism: The Mosquito Shore and the Bay of Honduras, 1600–1914: A Case Study in British Informal Empire, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, London, 1989, pp. 95–102, 110–112, 144–157 The British and Miskitu definition applied to the whole eastern seaboard of Nicaragua and even to La Mosquitia in Honduras: i.e., the coast region as far west as the Río Negro or Tinto.
History Before the arrival of Europeans in the region, the area was divided into a large number of small, egalitarian groups, possibly speaking languages related to Sumu and Paya. Christopher Columbus visited the coast briefly in his fourth voyage. Detailed Spanish accounts of the region, however, relate only to the late 16th and early 17th centuries. According to their understanding of the geography, the region was divided between two "provinces" Taguzgalpa and Tologalpa. Lists of "nations" recorded by Spanish missionaries include as many as 30 names. Careful analysis of them by Karl Offen suggests that many were duplicated. He concludes that the regional geography included about a half dozen entities speaking related but distinct dialects and occupying the various river basins of the region.
Attempted Spanish settlement
Spanish authorities issued various licenses to conquer Taguzgalpa and Tologalpa in 1545, 1562, 1577, and 1594, but no evidence suggests that any of these licenses resulted in even brief settlements or conquests. The Spanish were unable to conquer this region during the 16th century. In the 17th century, they sought to "reduce" the region through missionary efforts. These included several attempts by Franciscans between 1604 and 1612; another one led by Fray Cristóbal Martinez in 1622, and a third one between 1667 and 1675. None of these efforts resulted in any lasting success.
Because the Spanish failed to have significant influence in the region, it remained independent of outside control. This allowed the native peoples to continue their traditional way of life and to receive visitors from other regions. English and Dutch privateers who preyed on Spanish ships soon found refuge in the Mosquito Coast.
British contact and recognition of the Mosquito Kingdom
Although the earliest accounts do not mention it, a political entity of uncertain organization, but probably not very stratified, was present on the coast in the early 17th century. The English referred to it as the "Mosquito Kingdom". One of its kings visited England around 1638 at the behest of the Providence Island Company and sealed an alliance.
In subsequent years, the kingdom stood strongly against any Spanish incursions and was prepared to offer sanctuary to any anti-Spanish groups that might come to their shores. At the very least English and French privateers and pirates did visit there, taking in water and food. A detailed account of the kingdom written by a buccaneer describes its organization as being fundamentally egalitarian, with the king and some officials (usually called "captains" in that period but later being more elaborate) being primarily military leaders, but only in wartime.
Early British alliance The first British contacts with the Mosquito region started around 1630, when the agents of the English chartered Providence Island Company—of which the Earl of Warwick was chairman and John Pym treasurer—occupied two cays and established friendly relations with the local inhabitants. Providence Island, the company's main base and settlement, entered into regular correspondence with the coast during the decade of company occupation, 1631–1641.Kupperman, Karen Ordal; Providence Island: The Other Puritan Colony, 1631–41, Cambridge University Press, 1993
The Providence Island Company sponsored the Miskito's "king's son" visit to England during the reign of Charles I (1625–1649). When the king died, the son returned home and placed his country under English protection.Sloane, Hans; A Voyage to the Islands of Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica ..., B. M., London, 1707, pp. lxxvi–lxxvii. According to a conversation held with Jeremy, the future king in about 1688.
Following the capture of Providence Island by Spain in 1641, England lacked a base close to the coast. However, shortly after the English captured Jamaica in 1655, they recommenced relations with the coast, and King Oldman went to visit England. According to the testimony of his son Jeremy, taken around 1699, he was received in audience by "his brother king", Charles II, and was given a "lac'd hat" and a commission "to kindly use and relieve such straggling Englishmen as should chance to come that way".M. W.; "The Mosqueto Indian and his Golden River". in Churchill, Ansham; A Collection of Voyages and Travels, London, 1732, vol. 6, p. 288
Miskito Sambu
While accounts vary, the Miskito Sambu appear to be descended from the survivors of a shipwrecked slave ship who reached this area in the mid-17th century. These survivors intermarried with the local Miskito people, thereby creating a mixed-race group. They gradually adopted the language and much of the culture of their hosts. The Miskito Sambu settled near the Coco River. By the late 17th century, their leader held the office of general with jurisdiction over the northern portions of the Mosquito Kingdom. In the early 18th century, they managed to take over the office of king, which they held for at least the rest of the century.
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Miskitos Zambos began a series of raids that attacked Spanish-held territories and independent Indian polities. Miskito raiders reached as far north as the Yucatán, and as far south as Costa Rica. They sold many of the captives they took as slaves to English or other British merchants; the slaves were transported to Jamaica to work on sugar plantations. Through such raiding, the Zambo gained a more dominant position, and the king's domain was inhabited primarily by Zambos. They also assisted the government of Jamaica in hunting down Maroons in the 1720s.Romero Vargas, German; Las Sociedades del Atlántico de Nicaragua en los siglos XVII y XVIII, Banco Nicaraguënse, Managua, 1995, p. 165
Sociopolitical system Although English accounts referred to the area as a "kingdom", it was relatively loosely organized. A description of the kingdom, written in 1699, notes that it occupied discontinuous areas along the coast. It probably did not include a number of settlements of English traders.M. W.; "The Mosqueto Indian and His Golden River", in Churchill, Anshaw; A Collection of Voyages and Travels, London, 1728, vol. 6, pp. 285–290 Although English accounts refer as well to various noble titles, Miskito social structure does not appear to have been particularly stratified. The 1699 description noted that people holding titles such as "king" and "governor" were only empowered as war leaders, and did not have the last word in judicial disputes. Otherwise, the author saw the population as living in an egalitarian state.M. W.; "Mosketo Indian", p. 293
M. W. mentions titled officers in his account of 1699, but later sources define these superior offices to include the king, a governor, and a general. In the early 18th century, the Miskito kingdom became organized into four distinct clusters of population, centered on the banks of the navigable rivers. They were integrated into a single loosely structured political entity. The northern portions were dominated by Sambus and the southern ones by Tawira Miskitos. The king, whose domain lay from the Coco River south to the Rio Kukalaya, including the king's residence near Sandy Bay, was a Sambu, as was the general, who ruled the northern portions of the kingdom, from the Coco River to nearly Trujillo. The governor, who was a Tawira, controlled the southern regions, from the Cucalaya River to Pearl Lagoon.
After 1766, another title, admiral, was recorded; this man was also a Tawira, controlling a region on the extreme south from Pearl Key Lagoon down to around Bluefields.
British settlement The Miskito king Edward I and the British concluded a formal Treaty of Friendship and Alliance in 1740. The British appointed Robert Hodgson, Senior as Superintendent of the Shore. The language of the treaty includes what amounts to a surrender of sovereignty by the Miskito. British historians often interpreted this as an indication that a British protectorate was established over the Mosquito Kingdom.
Britain's primary motive and the most immediate result of the treaty was to secure an alliance between the Miskito and British for the War of Jenkins' Ear. The two groups cooperated in attacks on Spanish settlements during the war. The most notable was the Raid on Matina in August by 1747; the main Spanish fort (Fuerte de San Fernando de Matina) was captured and the cacao rich area was subsequently ravaged. This military cooperation would prove important as Miskito forces were vital to protecting not only British interests in the Mosquito Kingdom but also for British holdings in British Honduras (now Belize).
A more lasting result of this formal relation was that Edward I and his successors allowed the British to establish settlements and plantations within his realm; he issued the first land grants to this effect in 1742. British settlement concentrated especially in the Black River area, Cape Gracias a Dios, and Bluefields. The British plantation owners used their estates to grow some export crops and as bases for the exploitation of timber resources, especially mahogany. Most of the labor on the estates was supplied by African or Indian slaves captured in Miskito and British raids into Spanish territory. By 1786, there were several hundred British residents on the shore and several thousand slaves, mostly African.
The Miskito kings received regular gifts from the British in the form of weapons and consumer goods. They provided security against slave revolts and aided in capturing runaways.
British evacuation Spain, which claimed the territory, suffered considerably from the Miskito attacks which continued during peacetime. When the American Revolutionary War broke out, Spanish forces attempted to eliminate the British presence, seizing the settlement at Black River, and driving British settlers from the isle of Roatán. But this effort ultimately failed when armed settlers led by the Anglo-Irish soldier Edward Despard retook the settlements.