This coast was discovered by Columbus, in his fourth voyage, in 1502. He sailed along its entire length, stopping at various points, to investigate the country, and ascertain the character of its inhabitants. He gave it the name Cariay, and it was accurately characterized by one of his companions, Porras, as “una tierra muy baja,” a very low land. Columbus himself in his letter to the Spanish sovereigns, describes the inhabitants as fishers, and “as great sorcerers, very terrible.” His son, Fernando Columbus, is more explicit. He says, they were “almost negroes in color, bestial, going naked; in all respects very rude, eating human flesh, and devouring their fish raw, as they happened to catch them.” The language of the chroniclers warrant us in believing that these descriptions applied only to the Indians of the sea-coast, and that those of the interior, whose language then was different, were a distinct people.
The great incentive to Spanish enterprise in America, and which led to the rapid conquest and settlement of the continent, was the acquisition of the precious metals. But little of these was to be found on the Mosquito Shore, and, as a consequence, the tide of Spanish adventure swept by, heedless of the miserable savages who sought a precarious subsistence among its lagoons and forests. It is true, a grant of the entire coast, from Cape Gracias to the Gulf of Darien, was made to Diego de Nicuessa, for purposes of colonization, within ten years after its discovery, but the expedition which he fitted out to carry it into effect, was wrecked at the mouth of the Cape, or Wanks river, which, in consequence bore, for many years, the name of Rio de los Perdidos.
From that time forward, the attention of Spain was too much absorbed with the other parts of her immense empire in America, to enable her to devote much care to this comparatively unattractive shore. Her missionaries, inspired with religious zeal, nevertheless penetrated among its people, and feeble attempts were made to found establishments at Cape Gracias, and probably at other points on the coast. But the resources of the country were too few to sustain the latter, and the Indians themselves too debased and savage to comprehend the instructions of the former.
The coast, therefore, remained in its primitive condition, until the advent of the buccaneers in the sea of the Antilles, which was about the middle of the seventeenth century. Its intricate bays and unknown rivers, furnished admirable places of refuge and concealment, for the small and swift vessels in which they roved the seas. They made permanent stations at Cape Gracias and Bluefields, from which they darted out like hawks on the galleons that sailed from Nombre de Dios and Carthagena, laden with the riches of Peru. Indeed Bluefields, the present seat of Mosquito royalty, derives its name from Bleevelt, a noted Dutch pirate, who had his rendezvous in the bay of the same name.
The establishment at Cape Gracias, however, seems to have been not only the principal one on this coast, but in the whole Caribbean Sea. It is mentioned in nearly every chapter of the narratives, which the pirates have left us, of their wild and bloody adventures. Here they met to divide their spoil, and to decide upon new expeditions. The relations which they maintained with the natives are well described by old Jo. Esquemeling, a Dutch pirate, who wrote about 1670:—
“We directed our course toward Gracias à Dios, for thither resort many pirates who have friendly correspondence with the Indians there. The custom is, that when any pirates arrive, every one has the liberty to buy himself an Indian woman, at the price of a knife, an old axe, wood-bill or hatchet. By this contract the woman is obliged to stay with the pirate all the time he remains there. She serves him, meanwhile, with victuals of all sorts that the country affords. The pirate has also liberty to go and hunt and fish where he pleases. Through this frequent converse with the pirates, the Indians sometimes go to sea with them for whole years, so that many of them can speak English.” (Buccaneers of America, London, 1704, p. 165.)
He also adds that they were extremely indolent, “wandering up and down, without knowing or caring so much as to keep their bodies from the rain, except by a few palm-leaves,” with “no other clothes than an apron tied around their middle,” and armed with spears “pointed with the teeth of crocodiles,” and living chiefly on bananas, wild fruits and fish.
We have a later account of them by De Lussan, another member of the fraternity of freebooters:
“The Cape has long been inhabited by mulasters [mulattos] and negroes, both men and women, who have greatly multiplied since a Spanish ship, bound from Guinea, freighted with their fathers, was lost here. Those who escaped from the wreck were courteously received by the Mousticks [Spanish Moscos, English Mosquitos] who live hereabout. These Indians assigned their guests a place to grub up, and intermixed with them.
“The ancient Mousticks live ten or a dozen leagues to the windward, at a place called Sanibey [Sandy Bay]. They are very slothful, and neither plant or sow but very little; their wives performing all the labor. As for their clothing, it is neither larger or more sumptuous than that of the mulasters of the Cape. There are but few among them who have a fixed abode, most of them being vagabonds, and wandering along the river side, with no other shelter than the latarien-leaf [palm-leaf], which they manage so that when the wind drives the rain on one side, they turn their leaf against it, behind which they lie. When they are inclined to sleep, they dig a hole in the sand, in which they put themselves.” (De Lussan’s Narrative, London, 1704, p. 177.)