Recent Publications of William V. Davidson

In 2001, for the first time, Honduras attempted to report ethnicity at the most detailed geographical level. For the first time, the census posed the question (F5): “A qué grupo poblacional pertenece?” and residents were offered nine choices. Eight well-known ethnic groups: Lenca, Misquito, Garífuna, Chortí, Negro Inglés, Tolupán, Pech, and Tawahka were listed, along with “Otro,” the “umbrella” category, which referred primarily to the Ladino majority.

The purpose of this document is to focus attention on the modern geographical dimension of ethnicity in Honduras. To see quickly the locations, sizes, and proportions of minority population at all regional scales, census information has been reorganized into maps and tables at the national, department, municipio, and local levels.

The document presented here is the third census of Honduras reorganized by the author and sponsored by the Honduran Academy of Geography and History. The first, for 1895, was produced from manuscripts found in the Honduran National Archives in 1994 (Davidson 2002). The second, for the national census of 2001, emphasized ethnic populations and was derived from the on-line records of the INEH (Instituto Nacional Estadística de Honduras) (Davidson 2011a, 2011b). The current compilation is from the national census of 1916 and was produced from the rare copy of the census housed in the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago (Honduras 1918).

This volume is a reference work to aid the place-specific study of the minority populations of Honduras. The primary intent is to list the locations occupied by the six well-documented aboriginal people, with citations that direct readers to sources of information chronologically. Groups include the Chortí Maya, Lenca, Mískitu, Pech, Tawahka, and Torrupán, plus the Garífuna-speakers, a more recent migrant community. The places in this publication, over 7,000, include many alternate spellings of the same location. The attached bibliography includes a list of maps that, for the most part, was printed in the atlas of historical maps by Davidson (2006).

During the first three months of 1821, while politicians were progressing toward Central American Independence, a census was taken in Honduras. The counts were gathered first by populated place, then, complied by curato and partido (department level). Unfortunately, the known archival manuscripts account for only 40% of the curatos. Therefore, while we will never know the total population and ethnic composition of Honduras at Independence, we can make a gross estimation based on interpolations from previous and later censuses.

The first ethno-linguistic census of Honduras, 1895: from original manuscripts in the Archivo Nacional de Honduras, with brief comparative notes from the 1887 census.

Among the several un-cataloged and difficult-to-locate documents housed in the national archives of Honduras in Tegucigalpa is a 13-page census manuscript entitled “Pliegos Complementarios del Padrón de la Mosquitia - varios caserios y aldeas con 364 [sic] habitantes.” At the time “La Mosquitia” was a part of the Department of Colón, one of the 15 major subdivisions of Honduras (Fiallos 1980). The document is not dated, but for two reasons it is obvious that it is an isolated part of the unpublished third national census of 1895: 1) the questions posed and ordered in the manuscript are identical to the printed questionnaires used in the census of December 26, 1895 (Davidson 2002: 2a) and 2) the ten settlements reported in the manuscript are not found within the collection of other 1895 census records for La Mosquitia and Colón (Davidson 2002: 1). The incorrect number of inhabitants given in the title is due to a simple arithmetic error -- 339 names, not 364, are listed. As one indication of how remarkable this census is note that the previous census of 1887, and the later ones of 1910 and 1916, did not include six of these villages (Aguasdaban, Crata, Gualpatanta, Pau, Pimienta, Wankibila).

This census is important beyond the new basic settlement/population information. Within are indications of widespread regional migrations and demographic characteristics of the different culture groups. For this period, in an out-of-the–way area of Honduras, such insights are rare.

Algunos estudiosos han sugerido que la naturaleza, es decir, la geografía física, determina los parámetros iniciales para el desenvolvimiento de los asuntos humanos. La naturaleza establece el escenario en el cual se desarrolla la historia de la humanidad. El entorno en que se desarrollaron las aventuras de Colón en 1502, a lo largo de las áreas costeras de la moderna Honduras, jugó sin ninguna duda un rol importante en las actividades de los primeros españoles que alcanzaron la tierra firme de Norteamérica.

Some scholars have suggested that nature, i.e. physical geography, determines the initial parameters for the development of human affairs. Nature sets the stage in which human history unfolds. The environment in which Columbus' adventures took place in 1502, along the coastal areas of modern Honduras, undoubtedly played an important role in the activities of the first Spaniards to reach the mainland of North America.

A brief reconnaissance of Key West in April 2018 uncovered eight ceiba trees in six sites. Locally, the Ceiba pentandra tree is known by its Indonesian name, “kapok.” Seven of the trees seem to be about 100 years old; only one seems to be of private origins. Given the history of the Key as a military stronghold, hosting navy and army bases during the period of World War II (and before), it might be reasonable to expect the ceiba to be called “kapok” because of the U. S. military’s use of the term for the silk-cotton fibers surrounding ceiba seeds that were used in the water-repellant life jackets used by the military.

Silk cotton trees (Ceiba pentandra) are a major, but often overlooked, component of the cultural landscape of New Providence Island, in the Bahamas. These trees represent a rich tradition, particularly in areas occupied by Afro-Bahamians after Emancipation in the nineteenth century. One particularly notable tree — a large, ancient silk cotton surrounded by public buildings in the center of Nassau — became famous as probably the most illustrated and photographed ceiba in the world before its demise in the mid-1900s.

Geographer William Davidson and his wife Sharon, who have studied extensively the ceibas of Central America and Yucatán, report herein their April 2019 field reconnaissance of Nassau and its environs, including the history and legacy of the iconic Nassua silk cotton tree.

Based on landscape observations, this book explains the distribution and significance of yaxché-ob (ceibas, Ceiba pentandra) in the State of Yucatán, México. More than 2,500 ceibas can be found in a wide range of settings, including villages and cities, at churches and cemeteries, at cenotes and haciendas, along highways and at rancho entrances, and even at modern tourism facilities. However, in the ceiba landscapes of a few special places — Yalcón, Xocén, Maní, Muna, Cholul — evidence of the ancient Maya geographical cosmos can still be seen.