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

The native Segovians apparently cooperated with the pirates and English
traffickers who came from the Caribbean to sack and raid Spanish settlements (Incer
1993: 279-280). This is reminiscent of Charles Hale’s account of the Atlantic coastal
natives’ preference for the British Crown and their defiance of the Spaniards (Hale 1994:
69). The native Segovian resentment against the Spanish colonizers is reflected in
historical references to their rebellious attitude. Incer (1993) recounts the cruelties and
abuses committed by the Spanish conquerors during their initial forays into the
mountains. A century later, an oral tradition perpetuated stories of the harsh pillaging of
Jinotega and Matagalpa..
Brinton (1895) reports that “a peculiar native idiom prevails – or fifty years ago
did prevail – among the aboriginal population of that portion of Nicaragua where are
situated the city of Matagalpa and the towns of San Ramón, Muymuy, Sébaco and others
in the department of Matagalpa.” Brinton expands this classification to the towns of
“Telpaneca, Palacagüina, Yalaguina, Condega, Tologalpa, Somato Grande and others in
the department of Segovia. That in one time it extended into the former department of
Chontales is proved by the traditions of those who yet speak it” (1895: 403). According
to Nicaragua historian German Romero Vargas,
The quotidian life of the Indians elapsed with a backdrop of difficulties. Some
correlated to their social status, others, to use a contemporary expression of that
time, ‘sent by divine majesty’. . . . The poverty, the misery of the Indians was not
only stereotype of the colonial era, but also an eighteenth century reality for
everyone to see. The Indians only possessed the clothes on their backs, their straw
house and the right to work a parcel of communal land (Romero Vargas 1988:56).
The ethnocentric biases inherent in early missionary and conquistador accounts
make it impossible to obtain a clear picture of native life (Incer 2003). This period was
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