Once resting between two great Indian civilizations, what today is Panama was first settled by Europeans in 1508 and crossed by Vasco Nunez de Balboa in 1513.
Geographically situated between present-day Colombia to the south and Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico to the north, the Isthmus of Panama stood between the great Inca and Maya civilizations. In the more immediate vicinity, the Chibchas lived in the mountainous Colombian region. Already established in the West Indies, the Spanish planters of Hispaniola looked longingly at the mainland for riches and more important, manpower, because the enslaved Natives under their control were perishing in great numbers. Accordingly, the Spanish sent a number of exploratory expeditions to the mainland whose end goals included colonization and subjugation of the Native population. The “discovery” of the Isthmus of Panama played an important role in Spanish expansion because the establishment of a permanent settlement on Tierre Firme, the northern coast of South America, allowed Spain’s empire to spread to the Pacific and into South America.
Yet, however promising, Panama was not an easy place for the Spanish to succeed. In 1508 Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa obtained permission to organize and lead a large expedition to explore and settle the coast. Splitting up to cover more territory, Ojeda began his settlement after landing at the Gulf of Uraba, where present-day Colombia and Panama come together, referring to his settlement as Darien. Nicuesa sailed farther to the north, landing at Panama, where he enthusiastically, not to mention hopefully, dubbed his settlement Golden Castile. The horrors met by both parties soon became legendary throughout the Indies and even back in Spain. In addition to uncooperative Natives, land crabs, flies, jungle cats, crocodiles, mosquitoes, and DISEASE combined to make life uncomfortable and often deadly. Within a year the combined number of nearly 1,000 settlers within the two camps was reduced to a few dozen ill-tempered Spaniards within each settlement. After he was wounded, Ojeda returned to Hispaniola, becoming a monk. His spirit broken, he soon died.
A small party ventured out of Darien in search of Nicuesa. Finding him in near-skeletal form, they helped revive him. Possibly insane from his experiences, Nicuesa demanded that he should take over Darien and the GOLD and pearls that the CONQUiSTADORes had managed to gather. Indignant at the request, the remaining settlers of Darien chased Nicuesa away, putting him out to sea, where he disappeared from the annals of history. The remaining men quickly organized a city, electing the ablest amongst them ADELANTADO. In the process they allowed an official who was legally in charge to sail away. Returning to Spain, he informed the Crown of the rebellious and defiant attitude of Darien.
Eventually, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who had originally joined the expedition as a stowaway after fleeing his creditors in Santo Domingo, became its improbable leader. Balboa, who possessed rare leadership qualities, soon rallied the unruly colonists and gained the friendship of the Native population. With the colony in order, he set about investigating reports of a great sea to the west. In September 1513 he left with nearly 200 Spaniards and 1,000 Native guides and porters. Slogging their way through swamps and jungles, the expedition soon reached the mountainous ridge separating the two great oceans. Approaching the crest of the ridge, Balboa reportedly preceded the rest of the party, becoming the first European to “discover” the “South Sea,” later known as the Pacific Ocean. With pomp and circumstance, the Spaniards took possession of the Pacific for Spain, erecting a cross and signing an affidavit that the discovery occurred on September 25, 1513. Before returning to Darien, Balboa received a gift of pearls and gold from the Natives on Panama’s western coast.
In Spain news of Nicuesa and Ojeda’s colonization debacle was well circulated, leading the Crown to believe that a firm hand was needed to control the area. Accordingly, the Crown commissioned a large expedition of 19 ships and more than 2,000 men to set sail in April 1514. The elderly yet strong-willed Pedro Arias de Avila, otherwise known as Pedrarias Davila, commanded the expedition. Accompanying Pedrarias was a long list of famous conquistadores of later years including HERNANDO DE SoTO, Diego de Almagro, Hernado de Luque, and FRANCISCO CORONADO.
The expedition’s arrival began a bitter conflict of interest between Balboa and Pedrarias, one in which the latter possessed, by decree of the Crown, the upper hand. Although he was appointed adelantado of the South Sea and ruler of Panama, Balboa’s power was ultimately subsumed under that of Pedrarias’s, resulting in an acrimonious feud resembling a modern-day soap opera. Among other bizarre events, Pedrarias captured the popular Balboa and brought him to his house, where he had him caged for a time. The two came to a truce after Balboa agreed to marry, by proxy, Pedrarias’s oldest daughter in Spain and remove himself from Darien. Released from Pedrarias’s possession, Balboa moved to the north, where he spent three peaceful years constructing ships while he learned of great civilizations to the south. Ever jealous of Balboa’s increasing popularity, his father-in-law called him for a meeting at the town of Alca. Upon his arrival, Pedrarias ordered Balboa seized and charged with treason. His captors soon beheaded him.
Pedrarias continued to control the area until his death in 1531, much to the indignity of the area’s Natives. During his tenure as governor of Panama, he oversaw the establishment of the first bishopric on the American mainland at Darien in 1513, yet his rule was anything but benevolent for the Native population. In Panama the Spaniards followed their conquest with the establishment of their form of agriculture and the enslavement of captives. This process devastated the Native population. Leaving behind a systematic description of Panama before and after conquest, the early 16th-century chronicler Cieza de Leon wrote in harsh terms of the destruction of the Indians. At the same time he noted the growth of farms and ranches with herds of cattle and groves of oranges, citrons, and figs, all imported from Spain.
As the Native population died out or migrated, the Spanish imported African slaves (see SLAVERY and SLAVE trade) to Panama. Accepted not only as an economic necessity in Spanish America, slavery was also defended by the church as being compatible with Christian ethics. In 1531 the Spanish suppressed a general slave uprising in Panama only with great difficulty, creating insecurity in the isthmus throughout the colonial period. Because of the inaccessible hills and forests of the interior, the isthmus also became an inviting haven for escaped African slaves. Known as cimarrones, they formed independent communities within Panama’s interior, thereby contributing to Panama’s present-day ethnic heritage.
Beyond expanded production, Panama served as a center for Spanish trade. By the middle of the 16th century, Panama’s Nombre de Dios ranked as one of Spain’s three principal ports for the reception of merchandise in America (the others were Veracruz and Cartagena). Merchants at the port received goods that they then sent across the isthmus to Panama City and transshipped to Callao and other ports in Ecuador, Chile, and Peru. The conquest of these South America regions came shortly after the conquest of Panama. Between 1509 and 1554 the Spanish brought Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile under their control. Many conquering missions used Panama as a geographical springboard for these conquests. Such was the case in 1531, when a pair of illiterate explorers, Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, left Panama en route to Peru. Theirs was an expedition that signaled not only the demise of the Inca civilization but also the Spanish exploitation of the Peruvian silver mines.
The Spanish conquistadores used Panama as a weigh station in the trade of Peruvian silver en route to Spain, thus providing an inviting target for piracy. Perhaps the most intriguing raid on Panama’s silver warehouses occurred in 1572-73, when England’s Sir Francis Drake, known to the Spanish as El Draque, landed and captured a large store of riches, leading to a hero’s welcome back home. Not all the English pirates were as successful as Drake. Attempting a similar raid, John Oxenham was captured by the Spanish and executed by the inquisition in Lima as a heretic. Drake himself met defeat and death in 1595 while leading 2,500 men on an attempted conquest of Panama. Despite its jungles, mountains, and swamps, which combined to make transportation difficult, control over Panama gave the Spanish remarkable power in the Western Hemisphere.
Further reading: L. G. Anderson, Life and Letters of Vasco Nunez de Balboa (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1941); Bailey W. Diffie, Latin-American Civilization: Colonial Period (New York: Octagon Books, 1967); John Edwin Fagg, Latin America: A General History (New York: Macmillan, 1969); Kathleen Romoli, Balboa of Darien (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1953); Dominic Salandra, “Pedrarias
Davila and the Spanish Beginnings on the Isthmus,” Ph. D. diss. (University of California at Berkeley, 1933).
—Matthew Lindaman
World History
