| Miskito people changing bus tire between Bilwi and Krukira, Nicaragua |
| Total population |
|---|
| 150,000-200,000 |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Nicaragua Honduras |
| Languages |
| Religion |
| Related ethnic groups |
The Miskitos are a Native American ethnic group in Central America. A substantial number of them are mixed race, especially those in the northern end of their territory, where an African-Indigenous mixture was predominant. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Rio Grande, Nicaragua along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone. There is a native Miskito language, but large groups speak Miskito creole English, Spanish, and other languages. The creole English came about through frequent contact with the British. Many are Christians.[1] The name "Miskito" derives from the Miskito language ethnonym Mískitu, and is not related to the Spanish word "mosquito," which derives from the word mosca, meaning "fly", also used in Spanish for the insect.
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Before the arrival of Europeans in the region, the area was divided into a large number of small, egalitarian groups, possibly speaking languages related to Sumu. Lists of "nations" in Taguzgalpa and Tologalpa provinces, as the Spanish understood their geography, by well informed Spanish writers include as many as 30 names, though careful analysis of them by Karl Offen suggests about a half dozen entities, dialectically distinct groups lying in river basins.[2] The Spanish were unable to conquer this region during the sixteenth century and as a result much of the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and northeastern Honduras was outside any Spanish authority. This situation allowed the region to become a haven for northern European, especially Dutch and English privateers during the early seventeenth century.
Shipwrecked slave ships, notably one in 1641 also left a number of Africans on the coast.[3] The shipwrecks, or perhaps escaped slaves from Providence Island, concentrated around Cape Gracias a Dios and as they intermarried with the indigenous people producing a mixed race offspring, were known to the Spanish as Mosquitos Zambos, while the others living more on the southern (Nicaraguan) region were less mixed and have been dubbed Tawira Miskito by modern scholars. Rivalries between these two groups often led to wars, as indeed they were very divisive in the eighteenth century.[4]
English privateers working through the Providence Island Company made informal alliances with the Miskito, and the English began to crown Miskito kings, thus forming what came to be called the Mosquito Kingdom. A description of the kingdom written in 1699 shows that it was discontinuously spread out along the coast and probably did not include a number of settlements of English traders.[5] There was a king but he did not have total power. The 1699 description noted that the kings and governors had no power except in war time, even in matters of justice, and otherwise the people were all equal.[6] These superior officers included the king, a governor, a general, and by the 1750s, an admiral. [7] Historical information on kings is often obscured by the fact that many of the kings were semi-mythical.
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Miskitos Zambos began a series of raids that attacked Spanish held territories and still independent indigenous groups in the area. Miskito raiders reached as far north as the Yucatan, and as far south as Costa Rica. Many of the people they captured were sold as slaves to English merchants and carried to Jamaica.[8]
The Miskito king and the British concluded a formal Treaty of Friendship and Alliance in 1740 and John Hodgson was appointed as Superintendent of the Shore.[9] A protectorate was established over the Miskito Nation, often called the Mosquito Coast.
The Miskito kingdom aided Britain during the American Revolutionary War by attacking Spanish colonies and gained several victories alongside the British. However, at the conclusion of the peace in 1783, Britain had to relinquish control over the coast. The British withdrawal was completed at the end of June 1787. In the end 2,214 inhabitants (537 free people and 1,677 slaves) from Mosquitia were resettled in the Bay Colony of today's Belize. [10] Despite the withdrawal, Britain maintained an unofficial protectorate over the kingdom, often intervening to protect Miskito interests against Spanish encroachments.[11]
Their military capacity and British support allowed the Miskito people to retain their independence when the Pacific side of Central America was in Spanish hands and through the Federation of Central American States. However, they were absorbed into Nicaragua in 1894.[12]
Once the Central American republics became independent, they had less international clout,and Britain reinvolved itself in the affairs on the Mosquito Coast, both from its position in Belize/British Honduras, and from Jamaica. In addition, US trading interests began to develop in the region. British governors in Belize began issuing commissions and appointments to Miskito kings and other officials, such as King Robert Charles Frederick, crowned in Belize in 1825, and British officials regularly recognized the various Miskito offices and protected Miskito interests against the Central American republics and against the United States, which protested British interference under the Monroe Doctrine. However, US involvement in the Mexican war prevented much real support for the republics, and England gradually became less aggressive in its commissioning of Miskito nobility, which in turn became effectively an independent state.[13]
Due to British economic interest in Central America (particularly British Honduras, now called Belize), the Miskitos were able to acquire guns and other modern weapons. After Nicaragua was declared in 1821, combined Miskito-Zambo raiders began to attack Honduran settlements, often to rescue enslaved Miskitos before they were shipped to Europe, but often also to enslave other Amerindians to sell to the British to work in Jamaica. They also enslaved women from other tribes. Due to the allowance of polygamy and the added number of women from these slave raids, the Miskito population boomed. These raids continued for many years after any animosity between Britain and Spain ended. The Miskitos, for a long time, considered themselves superior to other tribes of the area, whom they referred to as "wild". European dress and English names were popular among the Miskitos.
Moravian Church Missionaries came to the Miskito Coast in 1847 from Herrnhut, Saxony. Working among the Miskitos and Creoles, by the end of the Century they had converted almost all of the inhabitants.
From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, British interest in the region began to wane. At the Treaty of Managua in 1860, Great Britain allowed Nicaragua to have uncontested claim over the Mosquito Coast, but the treaty also created a Miskitu reserve, a self governing entity which enjoyed semi-sovereign rights. The state ceased to exist in 1894 when it was occupied by Nicaragua. It was restored by the British in July that same year but reoccupied by Nicaragua in August. The establishment of Nicaraguan authority was in part supported by the various fruit companies from the United States that had begun large scale production of bananas in the Miskito reserve. The American companies preferred Nicaraguan authority to Miskito, especially as the Miskito elite was more prepared to protect the rights of small holders than the Nicaragua government was.[14]
The Miskitos who lived in the Jinotega Department, west of the Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte, were much different from the Miskitos who lived along the Caribbean coast. The Miskitos in Jinotega were Catholic and were not influenced by the British, and they often traded with the Spanish-speaking mestizos from the Pacific coast. During the conflict in 1927-1933 between Augusto Sandino and the United States over the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua, the Miskitos were asked by both sides to provide food and transport. Many Miskitos in the Jinotega region joined Augusto Sandino and his troops in 1926. As opposed to the Miskitos of the Caribbean coast, the Miskitos of Jinotega had closer ties with Sandino as well as the FSLN, which organized agricultural cooperatives and built schools and health centers in the area.[15] The presence of the state in the regions where Miskitos lived was reinforced during the 1960s and the 1970s, leading to expropriation of native-held land. During these decades, the Miskitos' only encounter with national politics was to be firmly asked to vote for the National Liberal Party.
In the 1980s, the leftist Sandinista government extended their influence over the region via its Comités de Defensa Sandinista.[16] In response, several Miskito groups eventually formed guerrillas in the 1980s, which carried on armed struggle against the central government. On 25 February 1982, Steadman Fagoth, one of the guerrilla leaders, took refuge in Honduras along with 3,000 Miskitos,[17] while the Sandinistas began to denounce the activities of Contras in the Rio Coco zone. The Miskitos occupied the village of San Carlos during the "Red December" (20–21 December 1982) during which several Sandinista soldiers were killed. In retaliation, the state massacred 30 Miskitos in the following days, prompting many of them to escape to Honduras to live in a difficult state of exile. The state of emergency in the Rio Coco zone was proclaimed in 1983, and lasted until 1988.[18] In 1983 the Misurasata movement, led by Brooklyn Rivera, split, with the breakaway Misura group of Stedman Fagoth allying itself more closely with the FDN, one of the first Contra commanded by Enrique Bermúdez. A subsequent autonomy statute in September 1987 largely defused Miskito resistance.
In 1992, after the Sandinistas' defeat during the elections, the Miskitos signed an agreement with the Minister of the Interior, Carlos Hurtado, creating "security zones," preparing the return of the police forces to the region and the integration of 50 Miskitos to the police force. Brooklyn Rivera, one of the Miskito guerrilla leaders, became the director of the INDERA (Nicaraguan Institute of Development of Autonomous Regions), an illegal structure regarding the 1987 law on autonomy still in force in Nicaragua.[19] The INDERA was suppressed a few years later, allegedly because of opposition between Miskitos and other native groups[20]
In 1998, Hurricane Mitch heavily affected regions where Miskitos live.
On 4 September 2007, Category 5 Hurricane Felix with peak sustained winds of 160 mph struck the coast near Punta Gorda, Nicaragua. Damage and death toll estimates are around 100 at this time[update] but are likely more considerable.[21]
In April 2009 the Miskito announced a unilateral declaration of independence from Nicaragua under the name Community Nation of Moskitia [22]. This declaration has not been met with any formal response from the government of Nicaragua nor has it been recognised by any other state. The independence movement is led by Hector Williams who is described as the leader of the Miskito and uses the title Wihta Tara, or Great Judge. The main reasons cited for their renewed desire for independence are serious economic problems damaging their traditional fishing industry and the recent election of Daniel Ortega as president of Nicaragua whom many of them fought against during the Nicaraguan Civil War (as Contras).
Majority of the Miskito men and male youths in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve coastal communities work or have worked, in the lobster export industry. [23] In Honduras, estimates range from 1,500 to 4,000 males in the industry.[23] In Nicaragua, as many as 2,500 males work in the industry.[23]
Since 1960, the Miskito Indians have utilized breath hold diving techniques to harvest lobsters as their primary source of income.[24] Scuba diving techniques were introduced around 1980 allowing the Indians to increase the area available for harvesting following lobster populations depletion.[23][24][25] These dives do result in symptoms of decompression sickness or death.[23][24]
Miskito Indians living on the coast of Nicaragua once hunted green turtles in the context of a traditional subsistence economy. Turtle fishing was combined with agriculture, hunting, fishing and gathering. Subsistence activities were timed to harmonize with seasonal fluctuations and resource availability.
Turtles were traditionally harpooned. The harpoon was eight to ten feet in length and attached to a strong line. Turtlemen traveled in a small, seagoing canoe, often in hazardous weather conditions, using complex mental maps and systems of navigation to locate the turtles. A hunting party consisted of two men: a "strikerman" in the bow, and the "captain" in the stern. Turtles were intercepted in the area between their sleeping shoals and feeding banks as they surfaced for air. When the turtle had been harpooned, it would pull the canoe along at high speeds in an effort to escape, until it tired and could be pulled alongside the canoe.
Exposure to international markets led to a change in hunting methods. Hunting activities became market-focused instead of subsistence-focused. Commercial enterprises were established by foreign companies, and the skills of Miskito turtlemen were utilized to facilitate intensive harvesting of green turtle populations. A series of economic booms and busts led to serious depletion of green turtle populations, and villagers were confronted with rising social tensions and an increased dependence on a scarce resource[26]
The Miskito people have been able to resist the influence of outside cultures for the most part. Contact with the English has created the position of a king who is seen as the figurehead of the tribes; however, the modern king has little power and generally does not affect the different tribes.[27]
The gender roles within the Miskito culture are affected more by the “boom and bust” of the local economy than any ruler.[28] When there are few job opportunities men rely on agricultural work and they spend time within their respective communities. There is evidence that the society followed a patriarchal set up during these “bust” times; however, when the economy is “booming” men generally get jobs that force them to travel.[29] Since the 1990s men have been traveling as a result of an increase in job opportunities, and they spend significant amounts of time away from their villages.[30]
Currently, most men work on fishing boats diving for lobsters.[31] Since men spend eight months out of the year away from their families, communities have a matrilocal arrangement.[32] Typically men over age 13 are rarely present during daily life in a village.
Men are considered the breadwinners of a household and contribute the majority of a family’s income, but women have the ability to make all economic decisions.[33] Some women do housekeeping or sell small crafts to make extra money, but it is not enough by itself to support a family. Girls inherit the right to settle on their mother’s land, and although men clear farmland women have full ownership of it.[34]
It is extremely difficult for women to find jobs, and most rely on men and their incomes to support their children. Many women practice magia amorosa (love magic), and they believe that it helps attract men and their money.[35] This love magic can also be used to help save one’s marriage. Women have the greatest input in how their households are run, but they are unable to do anything without the money that their husbands provide. Love magic highlights the importance of keeping a man interested within Miskito society.
Women usually begin forming relationships at age 15, and most become mothers by 18. Most women have six to eight children with their husband, but since men are not around that often there are high abandonment and divorce rates.[36] Men often feel no moral obligation to take care of children because of a high illegitimacy rate. Abandoned children are generally adopted by women within the child’s matrilocal group and taken care of by an aunt or grandmother. As women become older they also gain status within their community. In each society women who are respected elders, kukas, are considered local experts and enforcers of correct behavior in their village.[37]
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