Bluefields

Bluefields is the capital of the municipality of the same name, and of Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur (R.A.A.S.) in Nicaragua. It was also capital of the former Zelaya Department, which was divided into North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions. It is located on Bluefields Bay at the mouth of the Escondido River.

Bluefields was named after the Dutch pirate Abraham Blauvelt who hid in the bay’s waters in the early 17th century. It has a population of 87,000 (2005) and its inhabitants are mostly Mestizo, Miskito, whites, blacks, along with smaller communities of Garifuna, Chinese, Sumu, and Ramas. Bluefields is Nicaragua’s chief Caribbean port, from where hardwood,seafood, shrimp and lobster are exported. Bluefields was a rendezvous for English and Dutch buccaneers in the 16th and 17th century and became capital of the English protectorate over the Mosquito Coast in 1678. DuringUnited States interventions (1912–15, 1926–33) in Nicaragua, Marines were stationed there. In 1984, the United States mined the harbor (along with those of Corinto and Puerto Sandino). Bluefields was destroyed by Hurricane Joan in 1988 but was rebuilt.

Generally, it is accepted that the origin of the city of Bluefields is connected with the presence on the Nicaraguan Caribbean coast of European pirates, subjects of powers at the time hostile to Spain. These pirates used the Escondido River to rest, to repair damages and to be provisioned. By then, the territory of the present municipality was populated by the native towns of Kukra and Branch. In 1602 one of these soldiers of fortune chose the bay of Bluefields as his center of operations due to its tactical advantages, a Dutchman named Blauveldt or Bleeveldt, and from him originates the name of the municipality.

Consensus exists that the black Africans first appeared in the Caribbean coast in 1641, when a Portuguese ship that transported slaves wrecked in the Miskito Cays. From the original settlement the bay began to be populated; theEnglish subjects burst in 1633 and from 1666 they were already organized into colonies, and by 1705 there were authorities established. In 1730 the colony of Bluefields came to depend on the British government of Jamaica. For this, the alliance of the English Miskito ethnic group was decisive, and the British provided them with armaments that allowed them to subdue the other ethnic groups of the Caribbean coast, the Sumu, and the Rama.

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