Captaincy General of Guatemala
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Captaincy General of Guatemala Capitanía General de Guatemala (Spanish) | |||||||||||
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1542–1821 | |||||||||||
Status | Kingdom | ||||||||||
Capital |
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Common languages |
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Captaincy General | |||||||||||
Legislature | Audiencia of Guatemala | ||||||||||
Historical era | Spanish Empire | ||||||||||
• Established | 1542 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1821 | ||||||||||
Currency | Peso | ||||||||||
ISO 3166 code | GT | ||||||||||
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The Captaincy General of Guatemala (
Antecedents
Colonization of the area that became the Captaincy General began in 1524. In the north, the brothers Gonzalo and Pedro de Alvarado, Hernán Cortés and others headed various expeditions into Guatemala and Honduras. In the south Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, acting under the auspices of Pedro Arias Dávila in Panama, moved into what is today Nicaragua.
Moving of the capital
The capital of Guatemala has moved many times over the centuries. On 27 July 1524, Pedro de Alvarado declared the Kaqchikel city Iximche the first regional capital, styled Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala ("St. James of the Knights of Guatemala").[2][3][4] However, hostilities between the Spaniards and the Kaqchikel soon made the city uninhabitable.
In 1526 the Spanish founded a new capital at Tecpán Guatemala. Tecpán is the Nahuatl word for "palace".[5] Tecpán is sometimes called the "first" capital because it was the first permanent Spanish military center, but the Spaniards soon abandoned it due to Kaqchikel attacks that made defense of the city untenable.
In 1527, the capital was moved to the Almolonga Valley to the east, on the site of today's
In 1543, the capital was again refounded several kilometres away at Antigua Guatemala. Over the next two centuries, this city would become one of the richest of the New World capitals. However, it too was destroyed, this time by a devastating series of earthquakes, and the city was ordered abandoned in 1776.
The final and current capital is the modern-day Guatemala City.
Role of the church
The Church played an important role in the administration of the overseas possessions of the Spanish crown. The first
In 1543 the territory of the kingdom was defined with the establishment of the
Establishment
In 1609 the area became a
In the 17th century, a process of uniting the church hierarchy of Central America also began. The dioceses of Comayagua and León became suffragan to the Archdiocese of Mexico in 1620 and 1647, respectively. Finally, in the 18th century, Guatemala was raised to an archdiocese in 1743 and the dioceses of León, Chiapas and Comayagua were made suffragan to it, giving the region unity and autonomy in religious matters.
As part of the Bourbon Reforms in 1786 the crown established a series of intendancies in the area, which replaced most of the older corregimientos. The intendants were granted broad fiscal powers and charged with promoting the local economy. The new intendancies were San Salvador (El Salvador), Ciudad Real (Chiapas), Comayagua (Honduras), and León (Nicaragua).
The governor-captain general-president of Guatemala became the superintendente general of the territory and functioned as the de facto intendant of Guatemala proper. The agricultural, southern region of Costa Rica remained under a civil and military governor with fiscal oversight only over military expenses; the expenses of the civil government were handled by the intendant of León. These intendancies helped shape local political identity and provided the basis of the future nations of Central America.
Independence
With the removal of
Gabino Gainza Fernandez de Medrano, the jefe político superior (governor) of Guatemala remained the Captain General of Central America and Chiapas. The Captaincy General ended in 1821 with the signing of the Act of Independence of Central America, after which the regional elite supported the Plan of Iguala and joined the First Mexican Empire by annexation.[9] With the exception of Chiapas, the region peacefully seceded from Mexico in July 1823, establishing the United Provinces of Central America. While the region remained politically cohesive for a short time, centrifugal forces soon pulled the individual provinces apart by 1842.
References
Further reading
- Dym, Jordana; Christophe Belaubre, eds. (2007). Politics, Economy, and Society in Bourbon Central America, 1759–1821. Boulder, Col.: University Press of Colorado. OCLC 434291337.
- Hawkins, Timothy (2004). OCLC 1120659170.
- Wortman, Miles L. (1982). Government and Society in Central America, 1680–1840. New York: Columbia University Press. OCLC 469874119.
External links
- Map of the Provinces of Nicaragua and Costa Rica—from 1764, created during the Captaincy
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Santiago de Guatemala". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.