Spanish conquest of Nicaragua

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The Spanish conquest of Nicaragua was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the natives of the territory now incorporated into the modern Central American republic of Nicaragua during the colonisation of the Americas. Before European contact in the early 16th century, Nicaragua was inhabited by a number of indigenous peoples. In the west, these included Mesoamerican groups such as the Chorotega, the Nicarao, and the Subtiaba. Other groups included the Matagalpa and the Tacacho.

Gil González Dávila first entered what is now Nicaragua in 1522, with the permission of Pedrarias Dávila, governor of Castilla de Oro, but was driven back to his ships by the Chorotega and the Nicarao, and sailed south into what is now Panama.^[1][2] In 1524, a new expedition led by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded the Spanish towns of León and Granada. The western portions of Nicaragua along the Pacific littoral plain received the brunt of the Spanish activity in the territory for the next three decades.^[3] Within a century of the conquest, the native inhabitants had been all but eliminated due to war, disease, and exportation as slaves.