Kukra

The Kukra were a Misumalpan-speaking people of the Ulua branch of the Sumu family, whose home was the coast around present-day Kukra Hill and the Kukra River in southern Nicaragua, south of the Ulwa settlements. Their tongue is counted among the Sumo dialects, alongside Panamahka and Tawahka.

In the second half of the seventeenth century Kukra communities began mixing with Africans brought to the coast as slaves, but their independence ended with the rise of the Miskito: allied with English privateers, Miskito war parties subjugated them, and English influence over the shore lasted until Britain recognized Spanish sovereignty over Mosquitia in 1796.

By the end of the eighteenth century the Kukra had been absorbed into the dominant Miskito, leaving only place names such as Kukra Hill and the Kukra River to mark their former territory.