A Quick Version of
Honduran History
Pre- Colombian History
• Mayan Culture- At its peak, around 200 to 800 CE, the Mayan culture
stretched from the Yucatan Peninsula in modern Mexico rough what
are now Belize, Guatemala and Western Honduras
• For unknown reasons, the Mayan culture of Honduras history suffered
sudden and tremendous decline at the end of the first millennium CE
• The rest of Honduras was populated by other ethnic groups as seen in
the map above
Spanish Conquest
• The north coast of present-day
Honduras, near the modern city of
Trujillo, was the site of the first
mainland New World landfall by
Christopher Columbus in August
1502
• He named the land Honduras
(Spanish for "depths"), after the
deep waters off the coast
• During the years of Spanish
conquest, native Hondurans were
indentured as slaves to work the
rich gold and silver mines
discovered in the 1530s
Fighting Back
• Most of the native groups were too divided
to mount successful resistance to Spanish
occupation
• The famous Honduran hero (and namesake
of the national currency), Lempira, was able
to unite 30,000 warriors from 200 different
tribes
• Lempira and his fighters were able to resist
for six months, but they were up against a
better armed and organized Spanish army
• The Spanish captain invited Lempira to a
peace meeting on a cliff, and when Lempira
refused to a part of the accord, a concealed
marksmen shot and killed him
• The resistance then fell apart
Lempira
Independence
• After centuries of Spanish rule,
Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
Cost Rica and El Salvador declared
independence on September 15,
1821
• Honduras briefly joined the
Mexican Empire before leaving to
form the short-lived Federal
Republic of Central America,
finally getting full independence
in 1838
Banana Republic
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The history of Honduras since independence
has been marked by bitter struggles between
liberals and conservatives, numerous military
coups, rebellions, fixed elections, foreign
invasions, and meddling by U.S. governments
and companies
The introduction of banana farming in the late
19th century had profound ramifications for
Honduran culture
United States government periodically
dispatched warships to quell revolutionary
activity and to protect United States business
interests
Banana companies, most prominently the
United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) and the
Standard Fruit Company (now Dole), became
extremely powerful within Honduras
Throughout the 20th century political,
environmental, and labor scandals associated
with the banana companies marred the history
of Honduras
Banana Republic
• The Banana industry
helped support strong
military rulers who
supported their interests,
like General Carias in the
1930s and 1940s and
Colonel Lopez Arellano in
the 1960s and 1970s
• The Banana companies
spawned a powerful
labor movement in
Honduras to improve
conditions for fruit
workers
Linoleum block print from 1955
1980s
• The 1980s brought in a new era in which the US used Honduras as its main
staging area for activities in Central America
• 1981 - Roberto Suazo Cordova of the centrist Liberal Party of Honduras
(PLH) was elected president, leading the first civilian government in more
than a century
• Throughout the decade, the Reagan administration helped prop up the
democratic government as neighboring Central American countries were
embroiled in civil wars
• Honduras became a staging area for US actions against the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua and the FMLN in El Salvador, and as a result became entangled
in the biggest U.S. political scandal of the 1980s, as the Reagan
administration trained and funded Nicaraguan and Salvadoran Contras in
Honduras using money made from illegal arm sales to Iran (known as the
Iran- Contra affair)
Post 1980s
• By the early 1990s, with the end to the Contra war and a
peace accord in El Salvador, United States policy toward
Honduras had changed in numerous respects
• Annual foreign aid levels and military assistance had begun
to fall considerably
• There is much criticism over the US involvement in
Honduras during the ‘80s, especially surrounding the
support of the Honduran military, which was allegedly
involved in numerous human rights violations
• After very little economic growth in a decade of such US
presence in Honduras, many felt the US embassy in
Tegucigalpa had been more involved in Nicaragua and El
Salvador than in Honduras itself
Hurricane Mitch
• In 1998, as the strongest hurricane to hit
Central America in two centuries,
Hurricane Mitch destroyed 50 years of
progress in Honduras, in the words of
the then president, Carlos Flores Facusse
• The entire country was affected and
approximately 6,500 people lost their
lives, and many more were missing
• Up to 1.5 million people were displaced
and homeless
• Medicine, food and water shortages
were widespread and an estimated 70
to 80 % of transportation infrastructure
was destroyed.
• Several entire villages were washed
away
Coup in 2009
• Manuel Zelaya was elected
President in January, 2006
• Generally, Mr. Zelaya had the
support of labor unions and the
poor, and as he made some
unprecedented changes, lost the
support of his own party, the PLH
(Liberal Party of Honduras)
• These changes included importing
subsidized oil from Venezuela,
raising the minimum wage, and a
law that made it legal for
individuals to petition the
government
Manuel Zelaya
Coup in 2009
• These changes were met with much resistance
and the other branches of government banded
together to thwart Zelaya in pushing forward any
other changes
• In March, Zelaya proposed a plan to hold a
referendum
• This referendum would ask the population
whether they wanted a fourth option on the
ballots in the coming November presidential
elections- whether they favored creating an
assembly to write a new constitution
Coup in 2009
• The courts blocked the
referendum, and when Zelaya tried
to go along with it anyway, he was
forced into exile
• On June 28, between 200 and 300
troops came to Zelaya's home,
drove him to the airport and put
him on a flight to Costa Rica
• Later the same day, the speaker of
Congress, Roberto Micheletti,
constitutionally second-in-line to
the presidency, was sworn in as
interim leader
• There were widespread protests
against the coup
Honduras Today
• In November of the same year,
rushed elections criticized by
many elected Porfirio "Pepe"
Lobo Sosa of the conservative
National Party
• Lobo is still the president of
Honduras; the next elections
are November 2013
Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa
Sources
• http://countrystudies.us/honduras/100.htm
• http://www.destination360.com/centralamerica/honduras/history
• http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/mitch/mitch.ht
ml
• http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n15/john-perry/integucigalpa (London Review of Books)
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america18974519
• http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/25/world/thehurricane-is-history-but-for-battered-honduras-theagony-lingers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm