i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

In 1576, King Felipe II ordered the conquest of the mountain regions of
Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In 1603, the Audencia de Guatemala sent military captains
Gaspar Romero and Alonso Cáceres to Tagüisgalpa with instructions to confine the
Indians to reducciones, where they would be trained to live “orderly lives” under “faith
and good doctrine” (Incer 1990: 253). Romero succeeded in reducing the natives at El
Jícaro, near Ciudad Vieja. Cácares was commissioned to reduce the Tologalpan tribes at
Poteca, Jalapa, Telpaneca, Cacaloaste, Mozonte, Totogalpa, Yalagüina, Palacagüina,
Condega, Litelpaneca, Comalteca, Jinotega, and Solingalpa y Mologüina (today’s
Matagalpa). Cácares described the residents of these settlements as “Matagalpa-Chontal
Indians” (Incer 1990:253). Most of these native Segovian tribal names are still in use as
names of mountain towns. Jinotega and Matagalpa are large cities today. Telpaneca and
Palacagüina are within 20 kilometers of San Juan del Río Coco.
Friar Fernando Espino was from Nueva Segovia, was fluent in the indigenous
Matagalpan-Lencan dialect of the region, and interpreted doctrine for the tribes (Incer
2003). Lenca may not have been the only language spoken in the region (Brinton 1891).
According to Incer (2003), the earliest chroniclers referred to both the Lenca and
surrounding (non-Lenca) groups using the ethnonym “Lenca.” The Lenca are recognized
today as a significant indigenous community near the Nicaragua-Honduras boarder.
“They [the natives] came out of the mountains to harass and assault the vulnerable
frontier establishments,” wrote Franciscan friar Francisco Vasquez. He wrote that there
were “more tribes in this region than there were hairs on a deer” (In Incer 1990: 562),
although he only recorded the names of thirty-two. Among the listed names were Lencas
(later known as Chontal-Matagalpas), Taguacas (later as Sumus), and Mexicanos. Padre
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