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Central American Coffee

Café

Agricultural region

⚠ COFFEE REMADE THE ISTHMUS AND NOT GENTLY. Introduced in the eighteenth century and expanded massively in the nineteenth, it drove the privatisation of communally held Indigenous land across Guatemala and El Salvador, forced-labour and vagrancy laws that compelled Indigenous people to work the harvest, and a concentration of land ownership that is a documented cause of twentieth-century conflict — in El Salvador the 1932 matanza followed a rising in the coffee districts. The regions: Guatemalan Antigua, Huehuetenango and Cobán; Salvadoran Santa Ana and Apaneca-Ilamatepec, grown under shade; Honduran Copán, Ocotepeque and Marcala, now the largest Central American producer; Nicaraguan Jinotega, Matagalpa and Nueva Segovia; Costa Rican Tarrazú and the Central Valley, ⚠ WITH ROBUSTA CULTIVATION BANNED BY LAW FROM 1989; and Panamanian BOQUETE, whose Geisha has set repeated world auction records.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

Languages: Spanish

What is recorded

  • La Matanza: a rising in the Salvadoran coffee districts is suppressed with mass killings, and Pipil language and dress are largely abandoned in its aftermath. documented
  • Nineteenth-century coffee expansion drove the privatisation of communally held Indigenous land in Guatemala and El Salvador and was accompanied by vagrancy and forced-labour legislation compelling Indigenous labour for the harvest. The resulting concentration of land ownership is documented as a cause of twentieth-century conflict; the 1932 Salvadoran matanza followed a rising in the coffee districts. Honduras is now the largest Central American producer. Costa Rica has prohibited robusta cultivation since 1989. documented
  • Liberal land reforms across Guatemala and El Salvador privatise communally held Indigenous land for coffee; vagrancy and forced-labour laws compel Indigenous labour for the harvest. documented

Related foodways

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Recorded as relating to this foodway

Recipes

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