Entre Armas y Dádivas: The Xicaque before Spanish Rule in Leán y Mulia, the Province of Honduras 1676-1821

Abstract

The Xicaque, a people of colonial Honduras, confronted Spanish settlers who sought their acculturation through diverse strategies. When Spanish settlers implemented policies such as entrada, reducción or misión, the Xicaque or Xicaque capitanes responded with dissidence and flight. Despite the foundation of a few misiones the Xicaque progressively became avoidant of the Spanish settlers who continued to seek their change by Spanish policy, at the Spanish misiones or at their homelands. This aversion became more pronounced in 1751 when a smallpox epidemic decimated the Xicaque populations at the misiones. Aside from this general distrust that existed between the Spanish and the Xicaque, the Xicaque did engage in trade outside of the previously discussed channels made by Spanish policy. Yet, the overarching pattern of avoidance would characterize Xicaque/Spanish interaction until 1821. Unlike previous scholarship, this study of the Xicaque ethnohistory offers the most complete description of Xicaque culture during the colonial period. Furthermore, it analyzes interaction between the Xicaque and the Spanish since the inception of contact, circa 1676, towards 1821. The broadest range of contact between the Xicaque and the Spanish studied to date.