ABSTRACT
On the eve of Spanish conquest Honduras was inhabited by Indian groups’ representative of two cultural types: chiefdoms and tribes. The chiefdoms inhabited western and central Honduras, although they had a few outliers further east. These Indian groups were socially stratified and they formed dense populations that were supported by intensive forms of agricultural production. During the first half of the sixteenth century the distribution of Spanish activities was influenced by the distribution of the Indian population and minerals. Initially Spaniards were attracted to western and central Honduras by the existence of large Indian populations that could be distributed in encomiendas or used to supply the Indian slave trade. During the second half of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries the Indian population continued to decline, reaching its nadir at the end of the period when there were only about 47, 500 Indians left in the province.
