The post-Columbian Nicaragua

The coast of Nicaragua was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1502 and it soon became a Spanish ccolony. In 1524, a Spanish conqueror Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded the cities of Granada and Leon. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Nicaragua was often attacked by pirates who were located on the the east coast.

In 1811, Granada gave birth to the first Nicaraguan independence movement. This led to the independence of the country in 1821, although Nicaragua became an internationally recognized independent republic on the 25 June 1850.

Nicaragua was a strategically important area, hence the numerous interventions of world powers: the British in the mid-nineteenth century and the U.S. in the early twentieth century. Destabilisation of the country deepened since the early days of the republic with the conflict between conservative groups (the owners of coffee plantations and sugar cane) and liberals (artisans and small landowners).