At the edge of Lake Xolotlán, or Managua, within view of the Momotombo volcano, lies what is left of the first site of León, Nicaragua, founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. Abandoned in 1610, for centuries León Viejo lay hidden beneath earth and vegetation. Since the rediscovery of the ruins in 1967, archaeologists have gradually revealed much of León Viejo’s material legacy, but historians have done little to wrest the city’s story from the surviving documentary record. With Epoca temprana de León Viejo, Patrick S. Werner attempts to fill the gap.
A U.S.-born attorney and educator who has lived in Nicaragua for more than 20 years, Werner excels in the analysis of legal documents. His account depends heavily on a painstaking reading of the voluminous records of litigation found in the 17-volume Colección Somoza, published in the 1950s by Andrés Vega Bolaños. Because Vega Bolaños’s compilation...
