During the time of conquest, as many as twenty distinct indigenous societies, numbering in the hundreds of thousands and speaking many different languages, inhabited the area. The Spanish conquest of Costa Rica lasted more than half a century after it started 1510. The genocidal enslavement of the indigenous societies of Nicoya on the Pacific North coast was the conquest's first stage. Its second phase began with fruitless attempts to consolidate a Spanish settlement on the country's Caribbean side. In the process, Spaniards reduced the indigenous population to the point of extinction through disease, war, reprisals, relocation and brutal exploitation. The Native American population stood at about 120,000 in 1569 and had fallen to 10,000 by 1611.
