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THE MOSQUITO COUNTRY.--ORIGIN OF THE NAME.--EARLY CONNECTION OF THE
MOSQUITO INDIANS WITH THE ENGLISH.
The subject of the Mosquito country has lately acquired a general
interest. I am anxious to insert the following "Notes and Queries" in
your useful periodical, hoping thus to elicit additional information, or
to assist other inquirers.
1. As to the origin of the name. I believe it to be probably derived
from an native name of a tribe of Indians in that part of America. The
Spanish Central Americans speak of _Moscos_. Juarros, A Spanish Central
American author, in his _History of Guatemala_, names the Moscos among
other Indians inhabiting the north-eastern corner of that tract of
country now called _Mosquito_: and in the "Mosquito Correspondence" laid
before Parliament in 1848, the inhabitants of Mosquito are called
_Moscos_ in the Spanish state-papers.
How and when would _Mosco_ have become _Mosquito_? Was it a Spanish
elongation of the name, or an English corruption? In the former case, it
would probably have been another name of the people: in the latter,
probably a name given to the part of the coast near which the Moscos
lived.
The form _Mosquito_, or _Moskito_, or _Muskito_, (as the word is
variously spelt in our old books), is doubtless as old as the earliest
English intercourse with the Indians of the Mosquito coast; and that may
be as far back as about 1630: it is certainly as far back as 1650.
If the name came from the synonymous insect, would it have been given by
the Spaniards or the English? _Mosquito_ is the Spanish diminutive name
of a fly: but what we call a mosquito, the Spaniards in Central America
call by another name, _sanchujo_. The Spaniards had very little
connexion at any time with the Mosquito Indians; and as mosquitoes are
not more abundant on their parts of the coast than on other parts, or in
the interior, where the Spaniards settled, there would have been no
reason for their giving the name on account of insects. Nor, indeed,
would the English, who went to the coast from Jamaica, or other West
India Islands, where mosquitoes are quite as abundant, have had any such
reason either. At Bluefields where the writer has resided, which was one
of the first places on the Mosquito coast frequented by English, and
which derives its name from an old English buccaneer, there are no
mosquitoes at all. At Grey Town, at the mouth of the river San Juan,
there are plenty; but not more than in Jamaica, or in the towns of the
interior state of Nicaragua. However names are not always given so as to
be argument-proof. {426}
How did the word _mosquito_ come into our language? From the Spanish,
Portuguese, or Italian? How old is it with us? Todd adds the word
_Muskitto_, or _Musquitto_, to Johnson's _Dictionary_; and gives an
example from Purchas's _Pilgrimage_ (1617), where the word is spelt more
like the Italian form:--"They paint themselves to keep off the
muskitas."
There is a passage in Southey's _Omniana_ (vol. i. p. 21.) giving an
account of a curious custom among the Mozcas, a tribe of New Granada:
his authority is _Hist. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, l. i. c. 4. These
are some way south of the other Moscos, but it is probably the same
word.
One of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies has the name of Mosquito.
Some "Mosquito Kays" are laid down on the chart off Cape Gracias à Dios,
on the Mosquito coast; but these probably would have been named from the
Mosquito Indians of the continent. And these Mosquito Indians appear to
have spread themselves from Cape Gracias à Dios.
It is stated, however, in Strangeways' _Account of the Mosquito Shore_,
(not a work of authority), that these Mosquito Kays give the name to the
country:--
"This country, as is generally supposed, derives its name from a
clustre of small islands or banks situated near its coasts, and
called the _Mosquitos_."
I should be glad if these Notes and Queries would bring assistance to
settle the origin of the name of the Mosquito country from some of your
correspondents who are learned in the history of Spanish conquest and
English enterprise in that part of America, or who may have attended to
the languages of the American Indians.
2. I propose to jot down a few Notes as to the early connexion between
the English and the Mosquito Indians, and shall be thankful for
references to additional sources of information.
I have read somewhere, that a Mosquito king, or prince, was brought to
England in Charles I.'s reign by Richard Earl of Warwick, who had
commanded a ship in the West Indies; but I forget where I read it. I
remember, however, that no authority was given for the statement. Can
any of your readers give me information about this?
Dampier mentions a party of English who, about the year 1654, ascended
the Cape River (the mouth of which is at Cape Gracias à Dios) to
Segovia, a Spanish town in the interior; and another party of English
and French who, after the year 1684, when he was in these parts, crossed
from the Pacific to the Atlantic, descending the Cape River. (Harris's
_Collection of Voyages_, vol. i. p. 92.) Are there any accounts of these
expeditions?
Dampier also speaks of a confederacy having been formed between a party
of English under a Captain Wright and the San Blas Indians of Darien,
which was brought about by Captain Wright's taking two San Blas boys to
be educated "in the country of the Moskitoes," and afterwards faithfully
restoring them, and which opened to the English the way by land to the
Pacific Sea. (Harris, vol. i. p. 97.) Are there any accounts of English
travellers by this way, which would be in the very part of the isthmus
of which Humboldt has lately recommended a careful survey? (See _Aspects
of Nature_, Sabine's translation.)
Esquemeling, in his _History of the Buccaneers_, of whom he was one,
says that in 1671 many of the Indians at Cape Gracias spoke English and
French from their intercourse with the pirates. He gives a curious and
not very intelligible account of Cape Gracias, as an island of about
thirty leagues round (formed, I suppose, by rivers and the sea),
containing about 1600 or 1700 persons, who have no king; (this is quite
at variance with all other accounts of the Mosquito Indians of Cape
Gracias); and having, he proceeds to say, no correspondence with the
neighbouring islands. (I cannot explain this; there is certainly no
island ninety miles in circumference at sea near Cape Gracias.)
A quarto volume published by Cadell in 1789, entitled _The Case of His
Majesty's Subjects having Property in and lately established upon the
Mosquito Shore_, gives the fullest account of the early connexion
between the Mosquito Indians and the English. The writer says that
Jeremy, king of the Mosquitos, in Charles II.'s reign, after formally
ceding his country to officers sent to him by the Governor of Jamaica to
receive the cession, went to Jamaica, and thence to England, where he
was generously received by Charles II., "who had him often with him in
his private parties of pleasure, admired his activity, strength, and
manly accomplishments; and not only defrayed every expense, but loaded
him with presents." Is there any notice of this visit in any of our
numerous memoirs and diaries of Charles II.'s reign?
A curious tract, printed in the sixth volume of Churchill's _Voyages_,
"The Mosquito Indian and his Golden River, being a familiar Description
of the Mosquito Kingdom, &c., written in or about the Year 1699 by
M.W.," from which Southey drew some touches of Indian manners for his
"Madoc," speaks of another King Jeremy, son of the previous one; who, it
is said, esteemed himself a subject of the King of England, and had
visited the Duke of Albemarle in Jamaica. His father had been carried to
England, and received from the King of England a crown and commission.
The writer of this account says that the Mosquito Indians generally
esteem themselves English:--
"And, indeed, they are extremely courteous to all Englishmen,
esteeming themselves to be such, although some Jamaica men have
very much abused them."
I will conclude this communication, whose length will I hope be excused
for the newness of the subject, {427} by an amusing passage of a speech
of Governor Johnstone in a debate in the House of Commons on the
Mosquito country in 1777:--
"I see the noble lord [Lord North] now collects his knowledge by
piecemeal from those about him. While my hon. friend [some one
was whispering Lord North] now whispers the noble lord, will he
also tell him, and the more aged gentlemen of the House, before
we yield up our right to the Mosquito shore, that it is from
thence we receive the greatest part of our delicious turtle? May
I tell the younger part, before they give their consent, that it
is from thence comes the sarsaparilla to purify our
blood?"--_Parl. Hist._ vol. xix. p. 54.