Mosquito Coast
Mosquito Coast Kingdom of Mosquitia | |||||||||
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| Early 17th century – 1894 | |||||||||
| Status |
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| Capital |
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| Common languages | |||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| King | |||||||||
• c. 1650–1687 | Oldman (first known) | ||||||||
• 1842–1860 | George Augustus Frederic (last) | ||||||||
| Hereditary Chief | |||||||||
• 1860–1865 | George Augustus Frederic (first) | ||||||||
• 1890–1894 | Robert Henry Clarence (last) | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | Early 17th century | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 20 November 1894 | ||||||||
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| Today part of | |||||||||
The Mosquito Coast, also known as Mosquitia, is a historical and geo-cultural region along the western shore of the Caribbean Sea in Central America, traditionally described as extending from Cape Camarón to the River Chagres. The name derives from the Miskito people, one of the Indigenous inhabitants of the region. The area was historically associated with the Kingdom of Mosquitia, an Indigenous polity that exercised varying degrees of autonomy from the 17th to the 19th centuries. In the late 19th century, the kingdom was succeeded by the Mosquito Reservation, a territory established through international agreements aimed at preserving a degree of local governance.
During the 19th century, the question of the kingdom's borders was a serious issue of international diplomacy between Britain, the United States, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Conflicting claims regarding both the kingdom's extent and arguable nonexistence were pursued in diplomatic exchanges. The British and Miskito definition applied to the whole eastern seaboard of Central America from the Aguan River to the Chiriqui Lagoon area.