Subtopic 2.1. The beginnings of the Honduras Configuration

 

The process of territorial appropriation by the Spanish Crown will take place in different stages; as far as Honduras is concerned, we can identify two stages: the first from 1502 to 1524 and the second from 1524 to 1550.

 

The first configuration is found in 1524 as Gobernacion de la Mar Dulce. Gil Gonzalez Davila established the port of Caballos in the bay of Omoa, and towards the Motagua River, San Gil de Buenavista. He sought to have his domain authorized from these places to the lakes of Nicaragua, which he had discovered earlier....

 

The second configuration is found in 1526, under the figure of Nueva España. Hernan Cortes, conqueror of Mexico sent Olid, who was separated from his obedience, to the places of Honduras, and Francisco de Las Casas to follow him. Cortez came to Honduras with the purpose of putting order and extending the Governorship of La Nueva España, from Mexico to Trujillo.

 

A third configuration is the one proposed by the Council of the Indies in 1526, under the institutional representation of the Gobernacion of Honduras y de las Higueras. Diego

 

 

Lopez de Salcedo is appointed by Royal Decree, to govern the jurisdiction of Honduras and Higueras which included: by the Atlantic, following the east coast to the Cape of Gracias a Dios, the closure by the south was placed in the bay of Fonseca, so that this first official delimitation of a territory whose interior the Spaniards did not know yet,

 

Is as imprecise as possible, closely similar to the current boundaries. The port of Trujillo was the seat of the government.

 

Diego Lopez de Salcedo, decided to extend his domains to part of the territory of Nicaragua, giving this personal decision a new configuration in 1527 to be called Nuevo Reino de Leon. Salcedo's ambitions fail, as he was imprisoned by the governor of Nicaragua, Pedrarias Davila, for having appeared in Leon and interfering in a foreign jurisdiction.

 

The configuration of Honduras continues to be uncertain and confused in the face of rivalries between Francisco de Montejo and Pedro de Alvarado. In this conflict, the project of communication between the North Sea and the South Sea, already in operation in Panama with the opening of the Camino de Las Cruces, is still in force. Thus, in 1538, what will sporadically be called Gobernacion de Yucatan-Honduras, under the command of Adelantado Francisco de Montejo, came into being.

 

In 1539, Pedro de Alvarado was appointed governor of Guatemala and Honduras and upon his death, in 1541, the appointment falls on Alonso de Maldonado, thus constituting a sixth configuration.

 

Faced with this disorder unleashed by the Spanish colonizers, the Spanish Crown decided to establish a territorial and administrative reorganization, under what was to be called the New Laws of Barcelona in 1542, the Audiencia de los Confines was designed to suppress litigation between the conquerors in the isthmus and to settle, with greater firmness over them, the royal authority, leaving the Gobernacion de Honduras attached to the Audiencia de los Confines.

 

Thus and with these provisions of the New Laws of 1542, for the future times, Honduras has emerged as an administrative political entity of the Spanish Empire.