Lempira (Lenca ruler)

Lenca leader of western Honduras (1499–1537)

Lempira was a warrior, chieftain of the Lencas of western Honduras in Central America during the 1530s, when he led resistance to Francisco de Montejo's attempts to conquer and incorporate the region into the province of Honduras. Mentioned as Lempira in documents written during the Spanish conquest, he is regarded by the people as a warrior hero whom the conquistadors feared, since they could not kill him. The Spaniards sent a messenger to tell him they wanted “peace”, but when Lempira showed up for negotiations, they captured him, dismembered his body, and buried him in undisclosed locations so no one could pay him respects.

Jorge Lardé y Larín argues that the name Lempira derived from words of the Lenca language: lempa, meaning "lord" as a title of hierarchy, i meaning "of", and era, meaning "hill or mountain". Thus, Lempira, means "lord of the mountain" or "lord of the hill". When the Spaniards arrived in Cerquin, Lempira was fighting against neighboring chiefs. Because of the Spanish threat, he allied with another Lenca subgroup, the Cares, and united the different Lenca tribes. Based at Cerquin hill, he organized resistance against the Spanish troops in 1537, managing to gather an army of almost 30,000 soldiers, from 200 villages. As a result, other groups in the valleys of Comayagua and Olancho also took up arms. Spanish attempts to stop him, led by Francisco de Montejo and Alonso de Cáceres, were unsuccessful until later in 1537.

In 1931, Honduras renamed its currency in honor of Lempira. In 1943, Honduras renamed the Gracias Department as the Lempira Department.

In 1957, the Honduran writer Ramón Amaya Amador wrote a novel featuring Lempira, entitled El señor de la sierra (The Lord of the Mountains). In 2016, the filming of a movie based on Lempira was announced under the title of "El señor de la sierra".