# Coffee Boom and Land Laws (c. 1880)

URL: https://allhistories.com/nicaragua/timeline/1880-coffee-boom-and-land-laws
Location: Matagalpa, Nicaragua
Themes: main-event

Coffee was introduced to the Pacific uplands around Managua and the Sierras de Managua (Carazo) in the mid-nineteenth century and spread rapidly as world prices rose. The cool volcanic slopes of Carazo and Masaya, and later the northern highlands of Matagalpa and Jinotega, proved ideal for the crop. The Conservative governments of the 1870s and 1880s encouraged coffee with subsidies, tax exemptions and laws promoting the sale of state-owned and communal lands. Legislation from 1877 onwards authorised the division and sale of indigenous and municipal ejidos and required labourers to carry work papers, while foreign immigrants, especially Germans, Britons and Americans, received land grants in the north. By the 1890s coffee had replaced indigo, cattle products and gold as the leading export, accounting for the majority of export earnings. The coffee boom created a new class of planters and merchants, financed railways and ports and drew Nicaragua into the world market. It also dispossessed many indigenous communities and smallholders, created a rural labour force bound by debt and vagrancy laws, and provoked resistance such as the Matagalpa rebellion of 1881. These social changes shaped Nicaraguan politics well into the twentieth century. At this point in the timeline (c. 1870s–1890s), the President of Nicaragua was Joaquín Zavala (1 March 1879 – 1 March 1883). On the Caribbean coast, the Hereditary Chief of the Mosquito Reserve was George William Albert Hendy (1879 – 1888).

## Why it matters
Coffee transformed Nicaragua's economy and land ownership, creating both a planter elite and a dispossessed rural workforce.

Ruler at the Time: [Joaquín Zavala](https://allhistories.com/nicaragua/rulers/joaquin-zavala)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Coffee production in Nicaragua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_production_in_Nicaragua)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Nicaragua coffee economy](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Nicaragua+coffee+economy)
- [Library of Congress Country Study — Nicaragua](https://www.loc.gov/item/94016869/)
- [Wikipedia — Conservative Republic And Zelaya (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nicaragua)