History
Before the Spanish arrived, the Mosquitia belonged to the Pech and Sumu. Initial contact with Europeans was comparatively benign, the Spanish showing slight interest in the area, preferring to concentrate on the mineral-rich lands of the interior. Contact with Europeans intensified when the British began seeking a foothold on the mainland in the seventeenth century, establishing settlements on the coast at Black River (now Palacios) and Brewer's Lagoon (Brus Laguna), whose inhabitants - the so-called "shoremen" - engaged in logging, trading, smuggling and fighting the Spanish. Britain's claim to Mosquitia, nominally to protect the shoremen, though their real reason was to ensure a transit route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, supposedly ended in 1786, when all Central American territories except Belize were ceded to the Spanish. In the 1820s, however, taking advantage of post-independence chaos, Britain again encouraged settlement on the Mosquito Coast and by 1844 had all but formally announced a protectorate in the area. Not until 1859 and the British-American Treaty of Cruz Wyke did Britain formally end all claims to Mosquitia. The initial impact of mestizo Honduran culture on Mosquitia was slight. Since the creation of the administrative department of Gracias a Dios in 1959, however, indigenous cultures have become gradually diluted: Spanish is now the main language and the government encourages mestizo settlers to migrate here in search of land. Pech, Miskito and Garifuna communities have become more vocal in recent years in demanding respect for their cultural differences and in calling for an expansion of health, education and transport infrastructures
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