ABSTRACT
With the development of agriculture, many colonists left the towns to reside on their estates. Nevertheless, Spanish settlers remained concentrated in the urban areas from whence they had powerful influences on Indian communities in the surrounding countryside through the demands they made on Indian labor and production. Towns and cities established in the early sixteenth century depended for their existence on the presence of minerals and large Indian populations. Comayagua remained the major administrative center of Honduras throughout the colonial period. The governor and treasury officials resided there, the latter travelling to the northern ports when the fleets arrived. Whilst Comayagua remained the capital of Honduras throughout the colonial period, in the eighteenth century Tegucigalpa began to challenge its position as it developed with the mining industry. The major development at the end of the eighteenth century was the growth of Trujillo, which occurred after the Spanish had regained control of the north coast.
