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Spain had founded the region’s first permanent European settlement on the island of Hispaniola. The year they found it was in 1493.

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Spain founded the region’s first permanent European settlement on the island of Hispaniola

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Spain had founded the region’s first permanent European settlement on the island of Hispaniola. The settlement was founded in 1493.

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Spain founded the region’s first permanent European settlement on the island of Hispaniola

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Rodrigo de Bastidas made Spain’s first claim to Central America. In the month of march and the year was 1501.

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Pedro Arias Dávila established Panama City on the Pacific coast as governor of Panama. Then later, they moved the capital there.

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Pedrarias sent Francisco Hernandez from Cordoba to Nicaragua to conquer the region. Cordova founded Grenada near Nicaragua. He also founded Leon near Lake Managua and tried to rule Nicaragua himself. Pedrarias executed Cordoba and appointed himself governor of Nicaragua.

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Forced labor, starvation, and European diseases nearly killed the entire native population. For the Europeans, the sharp decline in native numbers meant a lack of work. They began bringing captured, enslaved and shipped Africans to the Caribbean to meet the demand for laborers.

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African and indigenous peoples began to take organized action to free themselves from slavery and European rule. François Toussaint-Louverture, a soldier born to enslaved parents, led a revolt of enslaved Africans in Haiti.

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In the 1800s several Central American colonies struggled for independence from Spain.

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Panama declared its independence from Colombia. Then signed a treaty with the United States creating the Panama Canal Zone.