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History
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Before the arrival of the Spanish, the Tegucigalpa valley was inhabited by small Lenca groups who gradually moved south and settled along the Rio Choluteca, as far as what is today Comayaguela. Exactly when the conquistadors first arrived in the valley is unclear; records make no mention of the area until the 1560s, when silver deposits were found in the hills to the east, around Santa Lucia. The discovery of further deposits in the surrounding hills attracted growing numbers of settlers, who pushed the indigenous inhabitants out to what are now the outlying barrios of Comayaguela.
Real de Minas de San Miguel de Tegucigalpa
was founded on September 29, 1578, and in 1608 granted the status of
alcaldia
, with authority over a rash of mining settlements in the valley and surrounding hills. Town status came in 1768 and that of city in 1807, with profits from the silver mines aiding the construction of fine colonial churches and houses.
Its mining wealth and location at the centre of cross-country trade routes made Tegucigalpa an increasingly clamorous rival to the then capital, Comayagua. Following independence - initially spurned by both cities through fear that the other might be named capital - it was decided to alternate the seat of government between the two, a plan that was riddled with shortcomings but nevertheless staggered on until 1830, when parliament was permanently restored to Comayagua. Fifty years later, however, the Liberal President Soto shifted power back to Tegucigalpa, enraged by the failure of Comayagua's innately conservative leaders to support him. In 1932, the city and its poor relation to the south, Comayaguela, were united under the title Distrito Central . Since the late nineteenth century, when the economic focus of the country began to shift to the bountiful fruit plantations of the north coast, Tegucigalpa has become somewhat eclipsed by San Pedro Sula. In essence a chaotic small town grown large, the business of government remains the city's main industry. In the words of a local saying, "Tegucigalpa thinks, San Pedro works" Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Honduras,
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