Originally published: Berkeley : University of California Press, 1973. With new introd. and index.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 472-511) and index.

A new introduction : More than three decades of writing on Spanish Central America, 1973-2006 / Murdo J. MacLeod -- 1. The Central American background and conquest -- 2. Slaves and silver : the first experts -- 3. Ephemeral hopes -- 4. Soconusco, a hint of things to come -- 5. The cacao boom -- 6. From conquest to the emergence of order and pattern -- 7. The two republics, Indians and Spaniards, in the age of Encomienda -- 8. Attempts to revive declining industries -- 9. The search for new industries and trades -- 10. Indigo, 1580-1720 : possibilites and frustrations -- 11. The effects of the crisis on local populations and economy -- 12. The aftermath of a boom : seventeenth-century cacao -- 13. Honduran mining : the emergence of a local industry and culture -- 14. External trades in hte depth of the depression -- 15. The currency crisis -- 16. Men and land in mid-century : contraction and isolation -- 17. The two republics in the years of depression -- 18. Costa Rican cacao -- 19. Signs of strain and change (c. 1685-1720) -- 20. The growth of a new solution : the rise of smuggling