Ethnic groups in Central America
The inhabitants of Central America represent a variety of ancestries, ethnic groups, and races, making the region one of the most diverse in the world.
[3] In 2007, Central America had a population of approximately 40 million persons within an area of 523,780 km2, yielding an overall density of 77.3 inhabitants/km2 that is not distributed evenly.
Mestizos used the third social group of the social pyramid of the Spanish, although in countries like Costa Rica and El Salvador, the mestizos were seen as the same group with the Criollos, for various reasons such as the scarcity of indigenous populations, at this point of the history, majority of population in Central America were biologically mixed but in El Salvador and Costa Rica several future borns leave the indigenous tribes, not the same in Guatemala or Honduras until XVIII century.
[9] However, the numbers are highly variable, according to Bernardo Augusto Thiel, the indigenous population in Costa Rica was around 27,000, in El Salvador less than 100,000, in Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama 750,000 and more than a million in Guatemala, on the other hand, other historians gave intermediate figures, more than a million in Guatemala and Honduras, 750 thousand in Nicaragua and Panama, 200,000 in El Salvador and 100,000 in Costa Rica.
[10] The progressive unions between Europeans and Amerindians cause the loss of racial purity both inside the region and whole continent.
[20] The Caribbean coast of Nicaragua was inhabited by indigenous peoples who were mostly chibcha related groups that had migrated from South America, primarily present day Colombia and Venezuela.
Today many Pipil and other Indigenous populations live in small towns of El Salvador like Izalco, Panchimalco, Sacacoyo, and Nahuizalco.
[24] The first contact of Europeans with Central America occurred in 1502, during the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus, who sailed the Caribbean coasts of present-day Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
[25] After the conquest of the native population, the Spanish established a caste system in which they and their descendants occupied the upper part of the social pyramid.
[27][28][29][30][31] Liberal reforms began in 1870 in Central America, being successful in Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica, this attracted thousands of immigrants, mainly Italian, German and Spanish.
[32][33] The construction of large infrastructure works such as the Panama Canal or the Atlantic Railroad in Costa Rica, demanded the entry of thousands of Spanish, Italian and Greek workers.
[48][49] The largest population, however, is in Honduras of Garifuna, English-speaking Creoles, Afro-Hondurans, and to a lesser degree of Miskito descent, of which the majority is concentrated on the Caribbean coast and the Bay Islands Department.
An estimated 600,000 Hondurans are of Garífuna descent, and, in addition to the Miskito and Creole population, Honduras has one of the largest African communities in Latin America.
In Panama people who claim being of African descent were already present when the construction of an inter-oceanic channel saw the large arrival of immigrant afro-Caribbeans.
[56] Bay Islanders and more Jamaicans came in the late 19th century, further adding these already varied peoples, creating this ethnic group.
Of them, 32 found work on the farm of José María Cañas, while the remaining 45 were hired by Alejandro Von Bulow, an agent sent by the Berlin Colonization Society to prepare suitable sites for German settlement in Costa Rica.
During the 1859–1863 administration of José María Montealegre Fernández, laws were promulgated which prohibited the migration of blacks and Asians, in an effort to reserve Costa Rica for European settlers.
However, they formed a transitory group, with many using Costa Rica as a stopover while they waited for permission to settle in the United States or Canada.
