Black River (settlement)

The Black River settlement was a British settlement on the Mosquito Coast of present-day Honduras. It was established in 1732 by a British colonist named William Pitt (likely a distant relative of contemporary British politician, William Pitt the Elder). The settlement, made on territory claimed but never really controlled by Spain, was evacuated in 1787 pursuant to terms of the Anglo-Spanish Convention of 1786. The Spanish then attempted to colonize the area, but the local Miskitos massacred most its inhabitants on September 4, 1800. The settlement was abandoned, and its remains are near the village of Palacios in the Honduran department of Gracias a Diós.

The Mosquito Coast of present-day Honduras and Nicaragua was a tropical tangle of swamps and lagoons in the 18th century, much as it still is today. The area was first explored by Christopher Columbus in 1502. The area where this settlement was established is a lagoon near the mouth of what was then called the Black River, Río Negro, or Río Tinto, but is now known as the Sico River (or Río Sico). The lagoon is in the northwestern corner of the Honduran department of Gracias a Dios, between the Caratasca Lagoon and the present-day port city of Trujillo, which was then the site of a small Spanish settlement.

At the time of its settlement, the sand bar at the river mouth was sufficiently high to prevent the passage of most ocean-going ships of the time, a feature that significantly aided the settlement's defence and longevity.

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