San Juan de Nicaragua
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San Juan de Nicaragua (formerly known as San Juan del Norte) is a municipality in the Río San Juan Department of Nicaragua. Its capital is Grey Town (formerly also known as San Juan del Norte or Greytown).[1]
History
San Juan del Norte was founded by the Spanish and was a small fort and customs station. Spanish explorers first reached the bay at the mouth of the San Juan River on 24 June (feast day of Saint John the Baptist) 1539 and named it San Juan del Norte ('St. John of the North'). A garrison was first established in 1541 as San Juan de la Cruz by Nicaraguan governor Rodrigo Contreras.
In 1707 and again in 1762, the area was captured by an alliance of Miskitos, Zambos (Afro-Indians), and English. After 1762, settlement of the area began and a 1778 peace and commercial treaty permitted residency of Spaniards. Mosquitia, being a British protectorate from 1740, had long fallen under British influence and outside of Spanish control. The town was declared a free port by the Spanish but the Spanish were ousted in 1821 with the independence of Central America.
In 1841, the town was occupied by the Miskitos with British assistance and, in 1847, the town was occupied directly by the British. It was rechristened Grey Town after the then Jamaican Governor Charles Edward Grey and nominally ceded to the Kingdom of Mosquitia, then a British protectorate.
A year later, the town began rapid growth as the eastern terminus of a transport operation owned by American Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company that carried thousands of travelers each month from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of Central America on their way to San Francisco during the California Gold Rush. Sail and steam-ships traveled from New York City and New Orleans in the United States to Grey Town. From there, small boats transported passengers up the San Juan River and across Lake Nicaragua. Then, mules, horses, or stagecoaches carried them over the small isthmus between the lake and San Juan del Sur, Rivas on the Pacific where they would embark on ships traveling the coast between Panama and Nicaragua and California.
However, the town's prosperity was cut short when, on 13 July 1854, the United States Navy sloop USS Cyane bombarded and totally burned the town, supposedly in retaliation for local actions against American citizens. The action was a culmination of a confrontation between Americans and the townspeople over tariffs and control of transit routes. The destruction was reported around the world, including an illustration in the Illustrated London News.[2] Soon after, the San Juan River changed course and the town was again destroyed.
Grey Town was rebuilt after its destruction and, in 1855, the American filibuster William Walker installed himself as President of Nicaragua and took control of the Accessory Transit Company's assets and revoked its charter. A military coalition led by Costa Rica defeated Walker and forced him to resign the presidency of Nicaragua on May 1, 1857.
Vanderbilt then ceased operation of the transit service in exchange for a stipend from the rival Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the United States Mail Steamship Company, which operated similar routes across Panama. As a result, Grey Town reverted to backwater status and remained a small settlement into the 20th century.
The town was legally placed under the sovereignty of Nicaragua and removed from Mosquitia control in 1860 but remained de facto under British protection through much of the remainder of the century. In 1894, Nicaraguan President José Santos Zelaya fully incorporated the region into the state, at which time Grey Town had 1482 inhabitants.
In 1984, Grey Town was attacked again during the Sandinista–Contra conflict in which a US helicopter, while supporting the Contras, fired on the town on 9 April 1984.[3]
A new town was built a few kilometres to the northwest and is called both New Grey Town and Nuevo San Juan del Norte.
In 2002, the municipality of San Juan del Norte was officially renamed San Juan de Nicaragua and its capital renamed Grey Town [sic] by the National Assembly of Nicaragua.[4]
Geography
San Juan de Nicaragua lies in the centre of Mosquitia. It is located at the mouth of the San Juan River which flows east from Lake Nicaragua and is along the route of various proposals for a Nicaragua Canal to the Pacific Ocean.
The town's geography is influenced by the San Juan River delta with volcanic sediment deposits from Costa Rican volcanoes interacting with ocean currents and winds. This action fills the town's harbor with shifting sandbars and spits.
Climate
San Juan de Nicaragua has a very wet tropical rainforest climate (Köppen Af) with heavy rainfall from February to April and very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in the remaining months. It is the wettest place in Nicaragua, and its annual rainfall of around Script error: No such module "convert". rivals Whittier or Little Port Walter in the Alaska Panhandle as the wettest inhabited place in North and Central America. Script error: No such module "weather box".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Population
As part of Mosquitia, Grey Town has a large population of Moskitian Creole speakers who are of African descent.
Popular culture
- W. Douglas Burden describes the town in his Look to the Wilderness.[5]
References
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Further reading
- Peter H. Dana and Shannon Crum. 3D Modeling of Greytown, Nicaragua. The Geographer's Craft Project, Department of Geography, The University of Colorado at Boulder. 1995.
- History of the San Juan River at Rio Indio Lodge website
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