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The Plight of Central Americans From Colonial Times to Present
Spanish Colonial Period
Since the arrival of the Spanish in the New World, the area we commonly call Central America has been poor, underdeveloped, and exploited. This exploitation began with the establishment of the first Spanish settlement in what we now call Panama in 1509.
Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias de Avila began to conquer northwardly in 1519, eventually ending at the door of the Aztec empire three years later. Throughout the 1520s, Spanish forces toppled a number of Mayan city-states, until Spain had successfully colonized all of Central America and Mexico.
As the Spanish Empire expanded throughout the Americas, it is estimated that 1.86 million Spaniards migrated to this region, while simultaneously 80% of the indigenous population vanished. Viruses, germs, and other diseases brought by the new arrivals, along with their greed for gold and riches, compelling them to enslave and overwork a large number of the native people, is largely to blame for what can only be described as a genocide.
While much of the brutality and abuses committed upon the aboriginal population of this region occurred during the initial colonization by Spain, the peoples of Central America continued to suffer under the brutal regimes of the Spanish kings that…
