1609?1821 Spanish colony in Central America
Map of the provinces of the Kingdom of Guatemala.
The
Captaincy General of Guatemala
(
Spanish
:
Capitania General de Guatemala
), also known as the
Kingdom of Guatemala
(
Spanish
:
Reino de Guatemala
), was an administrative division of the
Spanish Empire
, under the viceroyalty of
New Spain
in
Central America
, including the present-day nations of
Costa Rica
,
Nicaragua
,
Honduras
,
El Salvador
, and
Guatemala
, and the Mexican state of
Chiapas
. The governor-
captain general
was also president of the
Royal Audiencia of Guatemala
, the superior court.
Antecedents
[
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]
Colonization of the area that became the Captaincy General began in 1524. In the north, the brothers Gonzalo and
Pedro de Alvarado
,
Hernan Cortes
and others headed various expeditions into Guatemala and Honduras. In the south
Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba
, acting under the auspices of
Pedro Arias Davila
in
Panama
, moved into what is today Nicaragua.
Moving of the capital
[
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]
The colonial coat of arms of
Antigua Guatemala
and
Guatemala City
.
The capital of Guatemala has moved many times over the centuries. On 27 July 1524,
Pedro de Alvarado
declared the
Kaqchikel
city
Iximche
the first regional capital, styled
Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala
("St. James of the Knights of Guatemala").
[2]
[3]
[4]
However, hostilities between the Spaniards and the Kaqchikel soon made the city uninhabitable.
In 1526 the Spanish founded a new capital at
Tecpan Guatemala
.
Tecpan
is the
Nahuatl
word for "palace".
[5]
Tecpan is sometimes called the "first" capital because it was the first permanent Spanish military center, but the
Spaniards
soon abandoned it due to Kaqchikel attacks that made defense of the city untenable.
In 1527, the capital was moved to the Almolonga Valley to the east, on the site of today's
San Miguel Escobar
district of
Ciudad Vieja
, near
Antigua Guatemala
.
[6]
[7]
This settlement was destroyed by a catastrophic
lahar
from
Volcan de Agua
in 1541, and the survivors abandoned the site.
In 1543, the capital was again refounded several kilometres away at
Antigua Guatemala
. Over the next two centuries, this city would become one of the richest of the
New World
capitals. However, it too was destroyed, this time by a devastating series of earthquakes, and the city was ordered abandoned in 1776.
The final and current capital is the modern-day
Guatemala City
.
Role of the church
[
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]
The Church played an important role in the administration of the overseas possessions of the Spanish crown. The first
dioceses
were established in
Leon, Nicaragua
and
Guatemala
in 1534. Another
diocese
was created in
Chiapas
in 1539. The dioceses of Guatemala and Chiapas were suffragan to the
Archdiocese of Seville
, until 1546 when they were placed under the
Archdiocese of Mexico
. The Diocese of Leon was made suffragan to
Archdiocese of Lima
in 1546. Another short-lived diocese was set up in
Verapaz, Guatemala
in 1559. Along the Caribbean coast, there were several attempts to establish a diocese in Honduras?which finally succeeded in 1561 with the
Diocese of Comayagua
?which was placed under the
Archdiocese of Santo Domingo
.
In 1543 the territory of the kingdom was defined with the establishment of the
Audiencia of Guatemala
, which took most of Central America as its jurisdiction. This
audiencia
, along with the one in
Lima
, took over the territory of the first
Audiencia of Panama
. It was the first institution to define Central America (with the exception of Panama) as a region within the Spanish Empire.
Establishment
[
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]
The Fort of San Fernando
,
Omoa
. Built by the Spaniards to defend against pirates.
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, granting the area autonomy in administrative and military matters. Around the same time
Habsburg Spain
created other captaincies general in
Puerto Rico
(1580),
Cuba
(1607) and
Yucatan
(1617).
In the 17th century, a process of uniting the church hierarchy of Central America also began. The dioceses of Comayagua and Leon became
suffragan
to the
Archdiocese of Mexico
in 1620 and 1647, respectively. Finally, in the 18th century, Guatemala was raised to an archdiocese in 1743 and the dioceses of Leon, Chiapas and Comayagua were made suffragan to it, giving the region unity and autonomy in religious matters.
As part of the
Bourbon Reforms
in 1786 the crown established a series of
intendancies
in the area, which replaced most of the older
corregimientos
. The intendants were granted broad fiscal powers and charged with promoting the local economy. The new intendancies were
San Salvador
(El Salvador), Ciudad Real (Chiapas), Comayagua (Honduras), and Leon (Nicaragua).
The governor-captain general-president of Guatemala became the
superintendente general
of the territory and functioned as the
de facto
intendant of Guatemala proper. The agricultural, southern region of Costa Rica remained under a civil and military governor with fiscal oversight only over military expenses; the expenses of the civil government were handled by the intendant of Leon. These intendancies helped shape local political identity and provided the basis of the future nations of Central America.
Independence
[
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]
Map of the Provinces formed from the Captaincy General of Guatemala, including the
Kingdom of Mosquitia
, up to 1821.
With the removal of
Ferdinand VII
during the
Peninsular War
,
independence movements
broke out in the intendancies of San Salvador and Leon in 1811, which were quickly suppressed. In 1812 the
Cortes of Cadiz
divided the region into two provinces:
Guatemala
(consisting of Guatemala, Belize, Chiapas, Honduras and El Salvador) and
Nicaragua y Costa Rica
. These provinces existed from 1812 to 1814 and once again from 1820 to 1821, the period during which the
Spanish Constitution of 1812
was in effect. The two provinces elected seven deputies to the Cortes during the first period.
[8]
Gabino Gainza Fernandez de Medrano
, the
jefe politico superior
(governor) of Guatemala remained the Captain General of Central America and Chiapas. The Captaincy General ended in 1821 with the signing of the
Act of Independence of Central America
, after which the regional elite supported the
Plan of Iguala
and joined the
First Mexican Empire
by
annexation
.
[9]
With the exception of Chiapas, the region peacefully seceded from Mexico in July 1823, establishing the
United Provinces of Central America
. While the region remained politically cohesive for a short time, centrifugal forces soon pulled the individual provinces apart by 1842.
References
[
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]
Further reading
[
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]
- Dym, Jordana; Christophe Belaubre, eds. (2007).
Politics, Economy, and Society in Bourbon Central America, 1759?1821
. Boulder, Col.: University Press of Colorado.
ISBN
978-0-87081-844-8
.
OCLC
434291337
.
- Hawkins, Timothy (2004).
Jose de Bustamante
and Central American Independence: Colonial Administration in an Age of Imperial Crisis
. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
ISBN
0-8173-1427-X
.
OCLC
1120659170
.
- Wortman, Miles L. (1982).
Government and Society in Central America, 1680?1840
. New York: Columbia University Press.
ISBN
0-231-05212-X
.
OCLC
469874119
.
External links
[
edit
]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "
Santiago de Guatemala
".
Catholic Encyclopedia
. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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