page_title: Miskito people
section_title: Balancing commercial and subsistence activities
hierarchical_section_title: Miskito people / Institutions / Economy / Post-contact mixed economy / Balancing commercial and subsistence activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) at Batu Bolong (near Komodo, Indonesia)
context_page_description: The Miskito are an indigenous ethnic group in Central America, of whom many are mixed race. In the northern end of their territory, the people are primarily of African-Native American ancestry; others are of mixed African-Native American and English descent. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande de Matagalpa, Nicaragua, along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone. Their population is estimated at 180,000 people as of 2016.
  The indigenous people speak a native Miskito language, but large groups also speak Miskito Coast Creole, Spanish, which is the language of education and government, and other languages. Miskito Coast Creole, an English-based creole language, came about through frequent contact with the British for trading, as they predominated along this coast. Many are Christians. A 1987 peace agreement afforded them land rights over traditional lands. However, despite significant political struggles throughout their history, today the Miskito face human rights violations over land rights disputes, as recognized by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
context_section_description: The Miskito culture and economy is a product of intermixing between coastal indigenous tribes, English pirates, traders, and settlers and their African slaves. The Moskito Coast, since colonial times, has been an economic frontier characterized by barter and boom/bust economies where markets develop to exploit specific resources, such as turtles, precious lumber, rubber, bananas, and logwood and collapse when the world market busts leaving little long-term development. As such, there has always been a commercial component to the economy, however, due to the inevitability of economic busts and their isolation from national powers, the Miskito have maintained their subsistence culture without being absorbed into the full-time market economy – what anthropologist Mary Helms refers to as a ‘purchase society’. A purchase society is a power dynamic in which the indigenous are not subjugated as peasants, but still interact with a merchant or elite class via trade - retaining their autonomy and identity.
  The Miskito subsistence economy was based primarily on hunting, fishing, and some limited agriculture and silviculture. The nature of the economy was one of subsistence and reciprocity. Subsistence activities were traditionally divided by gender. Women tended to the agriculture, while the men cleared land, hunted, fished, and worked in wage labor when it was available. As Geographer Bernard Nietschmann highlights, there was a complex system of meat reciprocity which served as a sort of social security system for the society. If a hunter or fisherman was successful, they would gift some of the catch to their extended family and 'sell' it to their friends with the expectation that the favor would be returned. Traditionally, there was a balance between subsistence and commercial activities. When commercial goods were in demand Miskito labor shifted towards commercial activities and subsistence activities were neglected. Upon the decline of the commercial activities, the Miskito fell back on their subsistence skills. However, the rise of the company economy precipitated a fundamental shift in the Miskito economy away from these short term/seasonal economic relationships to more regular long-term employment of contract wage labor and exploitation of communal resources for commercial gain. A major challenge to the Miskito system of meat reciprocity was the commercialization of the green sea turtle, a staple of the Miskito diet
  The Miskito have hunted green turtles as part of their traditional subsistence economy since at least the contact era. Much of the Miskito subsistence system, and settlement patterns were based around the seasonal appearance of the green sea turtle. In the 17th century, the buccaneer William Dampier wrote that the Moskito Indians were "esteemed and coveted by all privateers" because of their skill at hunting turtle and manatee, "for one or two of them [the animals] in a ship will maintain 100 men". The traditional method of capture was the harpoon. The harpoon was eight to ten feet in length and attached to a strong line. the turtle hunters traveled in small, seagoing canoes, using complex mental maps and systems of navigation to locate the turtles. A hunting party consisted of two men: a "strikerman" in the bow, and the "captain" in the stern. The hunters intercepted the turtles in the area between their sleeping shoals and feeding banks as they surfaced for air. After being harpooned, the turtle was capable of pulling a canoe along at high speeds until eventually tiring. The hunters could then pull the turtle alongside the canoe and kill it. Once killed, the turtle was returned to the community where the meat was divided among family and friends.
  In general, no more turtles were hunted than could satisfy the community's meat needs. However, increased demand from international markets during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries led to changes in hunting methods. The activities became market-focused instead of subsistence-focused. Foreign companies established commercial enterprises and hired Miskito turtlemen to 
caption: Green sea turtle
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