British colonialism, coconuts and pangas on the Mosquito Coast

The six-hour bus ride east from Managua that marks the start of the journey to Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast is the sole land travel and most mundane segment of the trip. You disembark at the transportation hub of Rama—remarkable only for its street food. From there, the waterborne adventure begins: you hop on a panga—a little wooden boat, typically handcrafted—towards Bluefields, the capital of the RAAS (Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur, or Autonomous Region of the Southern Atlantic).

The panga travels down Rio Escondido, or Hidden River—an appropriate name, as the river winds through remote wilderness. There are no communities visible along the riverfront, only the occasional wooden hut on stilts, lazy hammock dwellers just barely visible, rocking. A woman sitting next to me, a native of Bluefields, explained that these homesteads belong to large farms that send produce—primarily coconuts—to Bluefields. When you’re not trapped under a black plastic tarp, protected from the pouring, jungle rain—the views are green, dense and magnificent. 

Arriving in Bluefields feels like arriving in a foreign land. The Atlantic Coast’s history is one of geographical and political isolation, and the result is a culture, people and economy that is entirely distinct from the Pacific and northern regions of Nicaragua. Colonized by the British rather than the Spanish, black Creole is the dominant language and many of today’s inhabitants are of African heritage, because the British brought black slaves from Jamaica as indentured servants to work in the mines and ports. 

Bluefields is a small but bustling city with beautiful views of the ocean, traditional fishing and the sea economy, but it is seedy, especially at night, due primarily to its location on the Colombian/Andean-U.S. drug trafficking route. That unemployed youth in a city like Bluefields have the easy option of becoming involved in the drug trade is one of the tragedies that gets lost in the media, as the drug war wages on.

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The Atlantic Coast constitutes more than half of Nicaragua’s territory, but is home to less than 8% of its population. In other words, it is an immense territory, sparsely populated, and has rustic infrastructure where it exists at all. It is home to the country’s richest linguistic and cultural diversity; six ethnic groups live there: the Rama, Sumu, Miskitu, Creole, Garifuna and Spanish/Mestizo. Rich in natural and mineral resources, the region has a long and continuous history of foreign exploitation of resources, and is considered one of the most isolated and poverty-stricken parts of Central America; it is also one of the most beautiful.

British buccaneers first arrived in the 1560’s, and began trading firearms, metal tools, and rum in exchange for lumber, turtles, fish, and labor. The region, which came to be known as the Mosquito Kingdom together with what is today the Honduran Atlantic Coast, remained a British protectorate until 1860, when Britain signed the Treaty of Managua. The treaty granted the region its partial independence: it became a reserve with powers of local self-government, but legally under Nicaraguan sovereignty. Foreign dominance persisted, however. British colonialism was replaced by U.S. economic control: by 1890, roughly 90% of the region's commerce was controlled by U.S. firms (Shapiro 1987: 67-68). Resource extraction, especially of timber and gold, was a defining feature of the economy and cause of socioeconomic inequality and stratification here throughout the 20th century. 

In the early 1980s, many coastal peoples took up arms against the Sandinistas and joined the Contras, due to their own history of conflict with the central state. The civil war made the region a contested war zone, and further complicate its political relationship to the national government. (For a good review, see Kinzer 2007.) In 1987, the Nicaraguan state passed an Autonomy Law, recognizing the coast as a multiethnic nation and guaranteeing religious, cultural and linguistic rights, as well as an economic rights framework in which costal peoples would have control over their natural resources and lands. The law is not enforced and seems to have been more a rhetorical, political tool for the Sandinista administration in the aftermath of a bloody war in which coastal peoples were taken advantage of and some forcibly relocated (again see Kinzer). Coastal peoples continue to fight for political autonomy.

Despite this heavy history, as a visitor, you would never guess that these people—with their absolute warmth, generosity and relaxedness—have endured such an exploitative history or that they are facing such tremendous political obstacles in their search for sovereignty. The environment there is one of absolute relaxation. I return to our trip:

Another panga ride away from Bluefields is the cove of Pearl Lagoon; we reached in late afternoon. “To reach” in Creole is to arrive at one’s destination, and is employed amply. We headed to a restaurant on the water, where we drank coconut water with rum and observed fishermen out at sea. Reggae music plays somewhere in the background almost without stop, and when it stops, the reggae music is replaced not by silence, but rather by decades-old U.S. country music. As to this genre's arrival or appeal I have not a clue, but on it plays.

Coconuts and breadfruit abound. Coconuts are primarily for local consumption; the fruit and milk constitute a staple of the diet. People press their own coconut oil, which is their main baking and cooking oil. We met a geography professor from the U.S. studying the history of the breadfruit. He informed us that the breadfruit is native to Polynesia, and was brought to Nicaragua from Tahiti by the British in the late 18^th century.

I walked out to the dock to sit in humble awe of salt water’s simultaneous stillness and power—the hallmark of the sea’s majesty. Two fishermen approached and graciously agreed to my request to go for a ride. While this was a welcome opportunity to speak with locals, understanding the local Creole dialect was more difficult than I had anticipated. Skeptics: bow down to these people and their awesome boats; Creole is truly its own language. I am no linguist, but the Creole language allows people to express profound ideas in simple terms, there is a certain charm and a definite beauty in their expression of ideas.1 

Never have I felt such intense, facile temptation to romanticize a place or way of life. Although as my friends who are volunteers there can likely attest, all it would take to dissolve this romanticism is an extended stay and a project goal. From a traveler's vantage point, however, Pearl Lagoon is peaceful, exudes calm and is magical in a time warp kind of way.

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1 Linguistics of the region has been the focus of much academic attention. (See Shapiro 1987 and Freeland 2003 for examples.)

References

Freeland, Jane. 2003. “Intercultural-Bilingual Education for an Interethnic-Plurilingual Society? The Case of Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast.” Comparative Education 39 (2) (27): Indigenous Education: New Possibilities, Ongoing Constraints: 239-260.

Kinzer, Stephen. 2007. (1991). Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua. Harvard University Press: Cambridge. 

Shapiro, Michael. 1987. “Bilingual-Bicultural Education in Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast Region.” Latin American Perspectives 14(1) On the Revolutionary Transformation of Nicaragua: 67-86.

For photographs from our trip, click this link to my album.

For a wonderful set of photographs, see this New York Times slideshow.