Trujillo, Honduras
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Trujillo is a city, with a population of 20,780 (2020 calculation), and a municipality on the northern
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
coast of the Honduran department of Colón, of which the city is the capital. The
municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
had a population of about 30,000 (2003). The city is located on a bluff overlooking the Bay of Trujillo. Behind the city rise two prominent mountains, Mount Capiro and
Mount Calentura Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...
. Three
Garifuna The Garifuna people ( or ; pl. Garínagu in Garifuna) are a people of mixed free African and indigenous American ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language, and Vincentian ...
fishing villages—Santa Fe, San Antonio, and Guadelupe—are located along the beach. Trujillo has received plenty of attention as the potential site of a proposed Honduran charter city project, according to an idea originally advocated by American economist
Paul Romer Paul Michael Romer (born November 6, 1955) is an American economist and policy entrepreneur who is a University Professor in Economics at New York University. Romer is best known as the former Chief Economist of the World Bank and for co-recei ...
. Often referred to as a ''Hong Kong in Honduras'', and advocated by among others the Trujillo-born Honduran president
Porfirio Lobo Sosa Porfirio Lobo Sosa (born 22 December 1947), known as Pepe Lobo, is a Honduran politician and agricultural landowner who served as President of Honduras from 2010 to 2014. A member of the conservative National Party and a former deputy in the ...
, the project has also been met with skepticism and controversy, especially due to its supposed disregard for the local
Garifuna The Garifuna people ( or ; pl. Garínagu in Garifuna) are a people of mixed free African and indigenous American ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language, and Vincentian ...
culture.


History

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
landed in Trujillo on August 14, 1502, during his fourth and final voyage to the Americas. Columbus named the place "Punta de Caxinas". It was the first time he touched the Central American mainland. He noticed that the water in this part of the Caribbean was very deep and therefore called the area ''Golfo de Honduras'', i.e., ''The Gulf of the Depths'' (''see'': Bay of Honduras).


Colonial period

The history of the modern town begins in 1524, shortly after the
conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the ev ...
in an expedition led by
Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
. Cortés sent Cristóbal de Olid to find a Spanish outpost in the region, and he established a town named
Triunfo de la Cruz Tela is a town, with a population of 38,030 (2020 calculation), and a municipality in Honduras on the northern Caribbean coast. It is located in the department of Atlantida. History Colonial era Tela was founded by the Spanish conquistad ...
in the vicinity. When Olid began using the town as his base for establishing his own realm in Central America, Cortés sent
Francisco de las Casas Francisco de las Casas y Saavedra (1461–1536) was a Spanish Conquistador in Mexico and Honduras. Francisco de las Casas was born in Trujillo, Spain. By 1513 las Casas was married to Maria de Aguilar, daughter of Geronimo de Aguilar, and th ...
to remove him. Las Casas lost most of his fleet in a storm, but he was nevertheless able to defeat Olid and restore the region to Cortés. Upon assuming control, Las Casas decided to relocate the town to its present location, because the natural harbor was larger. At the same time, Triunfo de la Cruz was renamed Trujillo. His deputy, Juan López de Aguirre was charged with establishing the new town, but he sailed off, leaving another deputy, named Medina, to found the town. In the coming years Trujillo became more important as a shipment point for gold and silver mined in the interior of the country. Because of its sparse population, the city also became a frequent target of
pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
s. Under Spanish rule Trujillo became the capital of
Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...
, but because of its vulnerability the capital was changed to the inland town of Comayagua. The fortress, Fortaleza de Santa Bárbara (El Castillo), which sits on the bluff overlooking the bay, was built by the Spanish around 1550. Nevertheless, it was inadequate to really defend Trujillo from pirates—the largest gathering of pirates in history took place in the vicinity in 1683—or rival colonial powers: the Dutch, French, and English. The town was destroyed several times between 1633 and 1797, and during the eighteenth century, the Spanish all but abandoned Trujillo because it was deemed indefensible.


Republican period

When Honduras obtained its independence from Spain in 1821, Trujillo lost its status of capital city permanently first to Comayagua, which lost it to
Tegucigalpa Tegucigalpa (, , ), formally Tegucigalpa, Municipality of the Central District ( es, Tegucigalpa, Municipio del Distrito Central or ''Tegucigalpa, M.D.C.''), and colloquially referred to as ''Tegus'' or ''Teguz'', is the capital and largest city ...
in 1880. From this same period onwards Trujillo began to prosper again. In 1860, the
mercenary A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...
William Walker, who had seized control of neighboring Nicaragua, was caught and executed in Trujillo by orders of
Florencio Xatruch Florencio Xatruch (October 21, 1811 – February 15, 1893) was a general who led the Honduran expeditionary force against William Walker in Nicaragua in 1856. Life Florencio Xatruch was born in San Antonio de Oriente, Honduras. His father, ...
. His tomb is a local tourist attraction. American author O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) spent about a year living in Honduras, primarily in Trujillo. He later wrote a number of short stories that took place in "Coralio" in the fictional Central American country of "Anchuria", based on the real town of Trujillo. Most of these stories appear in his book ''Of Cabbages and Kings''.


Economy

Historically, Trujillo was known for its
cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...
industry, alongside
Omoa Omoa is a town, with a population of 7,020 (2013 census), and a municipality in the Department of Cortés in Honduras. Omoa is located on a small bay of the same name 18 km west of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean Sea coast. Geography O ...
. Most of the cattle raised was retained for use by Hondurans, and not exported.


Notable people

*
Mirtha Colón Mirtha Colón (born May 18, 1951) is a Honduran-born Garifuna activist and social worker who assists Caribbean migrants in The Bronx and travels widely supporting the issues of HIV prevention, sex education and cultural preservation. In 2012, sh ...
(born 1951), activist *
Porfirio Lobo Sosa Porfirio Lobo Sosa (born 22 December 1947), known as Pepe Lobo, is a Honduran politician and agricultural landowner who served as President of Honduras from 2010 to 2014. A member of the conservative National Party and a former deputy in the ...
(born 1947), president of Honduras


See also

* Chapagua *
History of Honduras Honduras was inhabited by many indigenous peoples when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. The western-central part of Honduras was inhabited by the Lencas, the central north coast by the Tol, the area east and west of Trujillo by the ...
*
Federal Republic of Central America The Federal Republic of Central America ( es, República Federal de Centroamérica), originally named the United Provinces of Central America ( es, Provincias Unidas del Centro de América), and sometimes simply called Central America, in it ...
* Trujillo (Spain) * Trujillo (Peru) *


Further reading

* Robert Stoner Chamberlain, ''The Conquest and Colonization of Honduras, 1502–1550'', 1966.


References


External links


The Trujillo Honduras Pages
(history, news and pictures of Trujillo).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trujillo, Honduras Municipalities of the Colón Department (Honduras) Garifuna communities 1524 establishments in the Spanish Empire Populated places established in 1524