ABSTRACT
This chapter traces Central America’s history from Spanish colonization in the 1520s through 1821 as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and Mexico (1821–1823). Spanish conquest and colonization decimated indigenous communities as Spanish elites seized land and resources and created pervasive and enduring inequalities. Independence as the Central American Republic in 1823 soon succumbed to domestic conflict, with five nations—Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica—emerging independently in 1838. With poor and isolated Costa Rica as an exception, the four northern nations experienced continued partisan conflict, military intervention in politics, and dictatorships. After 1900 the United States intervened in the region to assure control of a canal in Panama and to replace Britain as the dominant regional power. The US occupied Nicaragua (1909–1933) to secure its new canal monopoly. World War II renewed direct US involvement, followed during the Cold War by US economic development promotion and extensive military aid to contain communism. Central American countries created a Common Market (CACM) in the 1960s, but its mismanagement contributed to the emergence of civil unrest in the 1970s.
