Abstract
At the time of the Spanish conquest Nicaragua was inhabited by tribes and chiefdoms whose total population ran into hundreds of thousands: today only 4 per cent of the population is classified as Indian. With the exception of a short period in the eighteenth century, the Indian population has declined continuously since the sixteenth century, with the greatest losses being sustained during the first few decades of Spanish rule. Reconstructing the demographic history of Nicaragua is not an easy task since much of the documentary record has been lost as the result of natural disasters and political upheavals.

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