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Panama THE CONQUEST
Estimates vary greatly of the number of Indians who inhabited
the isthmus when the Spanish explorers arrived. By some accounts,
the population was considerably greater than that of contemporary
Panama. Some Panamanian historians have suggested that there might
have been a population of 500,000 Indians from some sixty "tribes,"
but other researchers have concluded that the Cuna alone numbered
some 750,000.
Besides the Cuna, which constituted by far the largest group in
the area, two other major groups, the Guaymí and the Chocó, have
been identified by ethnologists
(see Indians
, ch. 2). The Guaymí,
of the highlands near the Costa Rican border, are believed to be
related to Indians of the Nahuatlan and Mayan nations of Mexico and
Central America. The Chocó on the Pacific side of Darién Province
appear to be related to the Chibcha of Colombia
(see
fig. 1).
Although the Cuna, now found mostly in the Comarca de San Blas,
an indigenous territory or reserve considered part of Colón
Province for some official purposes, have been categorized as
belonging to the Caribbean culture, their origin continues to be a
subject of speculation. Various ethnologists have indicated the
possibility of a linguistic connection between the name Cuna
and certain Arawak and Carib tribal names. The possibility of
cultural links with the Andean Indians has been postulated, and
some scholars have noted linguistic and other affinities with the
Chibcha. The implication in terms of settlement patterns is that
the great valleys of Colombia, which trend toward the isthmus,
determined migration in that direction.
Lines of affiliation have also been traced to the Cueva and
Coiba tribes, although some anthropologists suggest that the Cuna
might belong to a largely extinct linguistic group. Some Cuna
believe themselves to be of Carib stock, while others trace their
origin to creation by the god Olokkuppilele at Mount Tacarcuna,
west of the mouth of the Río Atrato in Colombia.
Among all three Indian groups--the Cuna, Guaymí, and Chocó--
land was communally owned and farmed. In addition to hunting and
fishing, the Indians raised corn, cotton, cacao, various root crops
and other vegetables, and fruits. They lived then--as many still
do--in circular thatched huts and slept in hammocks. Villages
specialized in producing certain goods, and traders moved among
them along the rivers and coastal waters in dugout canoes. The
Indians were skillful potters, stonecutters, goldsmiths, and
silversmiths. The ornaments they wore, including breastplates and
earrings of beaten gold, reinforced the Spanish myth of El Dorado,
the city of gold.
Rodrigo de Bastidas, a wealthy notary public from Seville, was
the first of many Spanish explorers to reach the isthmus. Sailing
westward from Venezuela in 1501 in search of gold, he explored some
150 kilometers of the coastal area before heading for the West
Indies. A year later, Christopher Columbus, on his fourth voyage to
the New World, touched several points on the isthmus. One was a
horseshoe-shaped harbor that he named Puerto Bello (beautiful
port), later renamed Portobelo.
Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a member of Bastidas's crew, had settled
in Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) but stowed
away on a voyage to Panama in 1510 to escape his creditors. At that
time, about 800 Spaniards lived on the isthmus, but soon the many
jungle perils, doubtless including malaria and yellow fever, had
killed all but 60 of them. Finally, the settlers at Antigua del
Darién (Antigua), the first city to be duly constituted by the
Spanish crown, deposed the crown's representative and elected
Balboa and Martin Zamudio co-mayors
(see
fig. 2).
Balboa proved to be a good administrator. He insisted that the
settlers plant crops rather than depend solely on supply ships, and
Antigua became a prosperous community. Like other conquistadors,
Balboa led raids on Indian settlements, but unlike most, he
proceeded to befriend the conquered tribes. He took the daughter of
a chief as his lifelong mistress.
On September 1, 1513, Balboa set out with 190 Spaniards--among
them Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca Empire in
Peru--a pack of dogs, and 1,000 Indian slaves. After twenty-five
days of hacking their way through the jungle, the party gazed on
the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Balboa, clad in full armor,
waded into the water and claimed the sea and all the shores on
which it washed for his God and his king.
Balboa returned to Antigua in January 1514 with all 190
soldiers and with cotton cloth, pearls, and 40,000 pesos in gold.
Meanwhile, Balboa's enemies had denounced him in the Spanish court,
and King Ferdinand appointed a new governor for the colony, then
known as Castilla del Oro. The new governor, Pedro Arias de Avila,
who became known as "Pedrarias the Cruel," charged Balboa with
treason. In 1517 Balboa was arrested, brought to the court of
Pedrarias, and executed.
In 1519 Pedrarias moved his capital away from the debilitating
climate and unfriendly Indians of the Darién to a fishing village
on the Pacific coast (about four kilometers east of the present-day
capital). The Indians called the village Panama, meaning "plenty of
fish." In the same year, Nombre de Dios, a deserted early settlement , was resettled and until the end of the sixteenth century
served as the Caribbean port for trans-isthmian traffic. A trail
known as the Camino Real, or royal road, linked Panama and Nombre
de Dios. Along this trail, traces of which can still be followed,
gold from Peru was carried by muleback to Spanish galleons waiting
on the Atlantic coast.
The increasing importance of the isthmus for transporting
treasure and the delay and difficulties posed by the Camino Real
inspired surveys ordered by the Spanish crown in the 1520s and
1530s to ascertain the feasibility of constructing a canal. The
idea was finally abandoned in mid-century by King Philip II (1556-
98), who concluded that if God had wanted a canal there, He would
have built one.
Pedrarias's governorship proved to be disastrous. Hundreds of
Spaniards died of disease and starvation in their brocaded silk
clothing; thousands of Indians were robbed, enslaved, and
massacred. Thousands more of the Indians succumbed to European
diseases to which they had no natural immunity. After the
atrocities of Pedrarias, most of the Indians fled to remote areas
to avoid the Spaniards.
The regulations for colonial administration set forth by the
Spanish king's Council of the Indies decreed that the Indians were
to be protected and converted to Christianity. The colonies,
however, were far from the seat of ultimate responsibility, and few
administrators were guided by the humane spirit of those
regulations. The Roman Catholic Church, and particularly the
Franciscan order, showed some concern for the welfare of the
Indians, but on the whole, church efforts were inadequate to the
situation.
The Indians, nevertheless, found one effective benefactor among
their Spanish oppressors. Bartolomé de las Casas, the first priest
ordained in the West Indies, was outraged by the persecution of the
Indians. He freed his own slaves, returned to Spain, and persuaded
the council to adopt stronger measures against enslaving the
Indians. He made one suggestion that he later regretted--that
Africans, whom the Spaniards considered less than human, be
imported to replace the Indians as slaves.
In 1517 King Charles V (1516-56) granted a concession for
exporting 4,000 African slaves to the Antilles. Thus the slave
trade began and flourished for more than 200 years. Panama was a
major distribution point for slaves headed elsewhere on the
mainland. The supply of Indian labor had been depleted by the midsixteenth century, however, and Panama began to absorb many of the
slaves. A large number of slaves on the isthmus escaped into the
jungle. They became known as cimarrones (sing.,
cimarrón), meaning wild or unruly, because they attacked
travelers along the Camino Real. An official census of Panama City
in 1610 listed 548 citizens, 303 women, 156 children, 146
mulattoes, 148 Antillean blacks, and 3,500 African slaves.
Data as of December 1987
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