Week 15: Alignment with Enlightened Independence

Spain world dominance was on the wane between the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and Panama was not immune to strain put on here by several world conflicts Spain was part of. The four wars in the 18^th century that Spain took part in were the War of Jenkins Ear or the War of Austrian Secession (1739-1748), The Seven Years War (1756-1763), The American Revolution (1775-1783), and the Napoleonic Wars (1793). Even though the Caribbean port cities in Panama such as Portobelo were derelict of lucrative silver trade, they still had impact in these global conflicts on Spain’s behalf.

Panama’s own vie for independence came in 1821, and unlike other European sovereigns watching their colonies revolt against them, the Spanish authorities appear to have surrendered without any resistance. In 1819, the viceroyalty of New Granada gained independence from Spain and the Venezuelan revolutionary, Simon Bolivar, began his pursuit to establish a Gran Colombia, of which Panama became a part of in 1821.

It would appear the tenuous hold the Spanish authorities held in frontier areas such as the Darien aided in Panama’s national autonomy in the beginning of the 19^th century. The wars Spain waged in the 18^th century had taken their toll financially on supporting colonial extremities of the crown, including marginalized places such as Panama. The mestizo population was now large enough to desire its own identity in the region, and Bolivar’s invitation to Gran Colombia marked a new beginning in Panama’s national history. Spain had left its indelible mark, and Panama would retain linguistic, cultural, and religious ties to its former “conqueror”, along with the migrant indigenous cultures that had resisted full assimilation and acculturation. Time proved to be the straw that broke Spain’s back in Panama.

Ward, Christopher. “Imperial Panama.” Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press. 1993.

Week 14: Tumultous Times in 18th Century Panama

The 18^th century found Spanish Panama in several tenuous situations. The transformation of one of the central regions to Spain in the 16^th century had turned over the next two hundred years into a liability for the crown. Problems included the marauding of the Caribbean coastal port towns by English and French pirates, notably by Henry Morgan, and internal problems with mestizos and indigenous Indians.

The pirating led to immigrating Iberians’ avoidance of settling in the harsh natural environment of Panama, which saw the decline in the isthmus of Spanish importance. Once a prominent place of gold mines and also the facilitation of the majority of silver trade to Spain, Panama became victim to marginalization that favored more expeditious trans-Atlantic routes along with a depletion of natural resources to favor Spanish attention. Bourbon reforms hurt the area even more with restricting the stipend flow of capital supporting the ruling class and secular clergy there. In this mélange of declension, conditions for internal tensions, strife, and rebellion were ripe for the picking.

One interesting facet of Spanish Panama history is the putative Indian uprising that transpired in the Eastern region known as the Darien. On a small level, the nuances of this rebellion is exemplary of the Empire’s struggle with its continued protracted conquest, and also western acculturation of the indigenous natives and their ancestors. It shows as well the problems the Spanish themselves had with grasping the reality of the situation and the imagined order they hoped to be in place there. The Darien region was mostly frontier, with small towns that did have churches and alcaldes overseeing them. Reducciones were also dotted over the eastern frontier, marking the Spanish attempt at disrupting any local efforts to antagonistically organizing themselves.

This Tule uprising took place in 1727-1728 and according to who is telling the story, was provoked by either or both or neither Spanish or local mestizo Indians. The Spanish were the maestros de campos of the region, a family clan named Carrisoli who for several generations facilitated peace and stability over the Darien. The Indians were, either a certain Luis Garcia, disgruntled over reformation efforts and went rogue, or Malpela and Bartolo de Maje, who murdered two Carrisoli brothers in retaliation for murdering two tribal elders. The bigger picture here is the phantom hold of the eastern region of Panama that the Spanish had.

After the uprising through the eastern Darien region into administrative chaos with Indian hostilities rampant, ensuing Spanish efforts were of a conciliatory nature. Conciliatory and one might add a consolidative nature, as the next generation sought to incorporate all of the sprawling region’s Indians into one mass Darien tribe. Scholars tend to view this effort more as a fantastical one, echoing the myth of conquest. Power plays between Indian caciques and Spanish provisional offices continued their tenuous interplay through the late 18^th century.

Gallup-Diaz, Ignacio. "The Spanish Attempt to Tribalize the Darien, 1735-50." Ethnohistory 49 no. 2 (2002): 281-317.

Gallup-Diaz, Ignacio. ""Haven't We Come to Kill the Spaniards?" The Tule Upheaval in Eastern Panama, 1727-1728." Colonial Latin American Review 10 no. 2 (2001): 251-271.

18th Century Progression and Regression

The 18^th century found colonial Panama almost 180 degrees away from were it started as the first and most principal point for Spanish exploration, expansion and great expectations on the world power stage. By 1532, efforts to use the isthmus as a gateway were well under way. To the south, Incan lands and mining drew more people away from Panama and the port cities. The former Aztec lands to the north saw another funneling away of new immigrants from Panama and the central regions. Original policies concerning indigenous peoples were rewritten to help secure vitality on several fronts, and, along with a demographic marginalization and fluctuation, the intended use of the isthmus as passage linking Old and New worlds was also relegated in function.

By the middle of the 18^th century, the once thriving port of Portobelo was now a secondary place of international passage. The establishment of the La Plata port on the east coast of Argentina gave the Bourbon crown a less expensive and thus conservative way of transporting goods from Spanish colonies back to Spain. All was not totally lost in Portobelo, Philip V briefly suspended his Bourbon reform machine and reinstated some Hapsburg commercialism to allow more through back to Spain, silver especially. The need for more capital came from the seemingly endless chain of multinational conflicts escalating in the New World. Every country from Europe that found its way west across the Atlantic also found themselves in competition with everyone else. In Panama, a way to combat encroaching English and other foreign threats was the attempt to conscript displaced native Indians into aiding the Spanish.

Spain lost an authoritative and administrative foothold in eastern Panama starting in the middle of the 16^th century due to growing popularity in other parts of the new Spanish “empire”. This was seen particularly in relations with the natives Indians. The Spanish sought to “re-conquer” and consolidate the remaining Indians in the east known as the Darien region. These Indians were to be called the Darien tribe. The idea was to have Indians intermediaries loyal to Spanish authority to help protect the east coast of Panama against the encroaching pirates of other European nations. This included both Francis Drake and Henry Morgan, bookending and marauding English privateers of the Panama coast. As time moved forward through the 18^th century, further integration between displaced Indians and the Spanish immigrants. Efforts to repel foreign advances were met by internal conflicts as Spain’s grasp on the Panamanian isthmus was slowly slipping away.

Week 6 Brog: (#3) Spanish Gateway Established

Balboa rose to colonial prominence soon after being discovered as a stowaway on Enciso’s boat. Enciso was the lawyer and right hand man of Alonso de Ojeda, who was marooned on the Panama mainland. This group originally set up a survival camp at what would become Portobelo and then moved to Nombre de Dios. This nomenclature resulted from, as the legend goes, a marooned Spaniard’s exhausted exclamation of relief at arriving at the spot of Nombre de Dios. Balboa used his experience and communicative savvy to lead the Spanish followers from starvation to survival in the east Darien region of Panama. His popularity soared and the Spanish deposed Ojeda of his alcade mayor position and elevated the stowaway and indebted Balboa to leading Antigua del Darien.

Balboa was able to maintain his position by way of sheer will and determination. His domination was more officially solidified when Diego Colon appointed Balboa his lieutenant on Tierra Firma and lobbied on Balboa’s behalf to King Ferdinand. Ferdinand made Balboa a provisional governor of the Darien region. Balboa did much to strengthen native alliances to simply survive and then thrive in Panama. Balboa’s zenith rose with his calculated and arguably courageous embarkment to the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Balboa was the first European to discover the Sud de Mer and that gained him notoriety the Spanish court first, and then attention of his enemies as well. Supporters of the humiliated Enciso and Ojeda had influence back in Spain, and the King sent Pedro Arias de Avila, a 70-year old military man, to be Panama’s new governor and command an armada to the new world.

Much changed with Avila’s, or Pedrarias as he was called, arrival. Animosities abounded between the Pedrarias and Balboa camps, with Balboa being arrested on occasion. The situation grew more tenuous when Balboa was given a position of supervision corresponding to his discovery of the Pacific. Pedrarias made the deciding brushstroke and eliminated Balbo from the colonial equation by indicting him on treasonous charges and executed him by beheading.

The year 1519 saw Pedrarias move the principal colonial seat from Antigua del Darien de Santa Maria across the isthmus to Panama, where it would stay and become the capital. Pedrarias also oversaw the reestablishing of Nombre de Dios on the eastern coast, as it was almost a straight shot across from Panama (City). Pedrarias did not continue the native sympathy policy that Balboa had. It seemed that he was more interested in enslavement of the Indians for the building of infrastructures to link the two oceans. Nombre de Dios became the gateway for such men as Pizarro in the new world and Spain’s “conquest”.

These encroachments were not done entirely independent of native resistance; assuredly there was not a “roll over and die” mentality among the natives. The bacteria the Spanish brought with them did decimate the indigenous population that was already thin in the Panamanian region, thus limiting major efforts at rebellion. It seems due to the thinning out of native population, either internal native conflicts, European-native conflicts, and disease, the “conquest” was more successful in Panama. Successful in the sense that Spain was allowed to place an influenced and dominating foothold in the new world, thus opening up all of western South America and the ensuing silver boom that began with Pizarro’s “conquest” of Peru.

There were some valuable commodities intrinsic to Panama’s mainland, yet they were few. These included small gold and silver deposits undoubtedly exhausted soon after Balboa’s establishment of Antigua and the following proliferation of colonists. A generally inhospitable place, many commodities and foodstuffs were imported into the country.

Nombre de Dios and then Portobelo, after 1597, became the locus of giant markets annually held. The trade floodgates had been opened in the western hemisphere. Similar to the European medieval trade fairs, the Nombre de Dios fairs brought natives into the picture as well. These Indians by this point were probably used as servants and/or slaves to help run the fair.

More to come…

Anderson, Charles L.G.. Life and Letters of Vasco Nunez de Balboa. Wesport, Conn.: Greenwood Press , 1941.

Gallup-Diaz, Ignacio. "A Legacy of Strife: Rebellious Slaves in Sixteenth-Century Panama´." Colonial Latin American Review 19 no. 3 (2010): 417-435.

Ward, Christopher. Imperial Panama. Albuquerque, University of Mexico Press. 1993.

Spainish Arrivals and Trials

Panama’s introduction into western civilization came officially in 1501. Rodrigo Galván de las Bastides, an adventurer and hopeful conquistador from Columbus’ second voyage sights land traveling southwest from Hispanõla. The land sighted was part of what would be the east coast of Panama. Deterred by weather and structural problems of the vessel, Bastides turned back and forfeited landfall, deemed not to be the winner.

The next contestant was the Great Admiral himself, Cristobal Colon (Columbus). Columbus embarked from the west of the Morocco in May 1502 on what would be his fourth and final voyage across the Atlantic. Entering the Caribbean and traveling west, Columbus followed the coast down from Mexico all the way to Honduras, to the north of what became Panama. Columbus did make landfall and contact with the natives; but this was for the primary purpose of finding a way to Asia through the Panamanian isthmus. Traveling south and exploring the coast, Columbus sought to procure gold from the natives, often being met with aggressive hostility. These early years of the 16^th century saw Spanish interaction with natives in Central America, but no permanent colony produced

In 1508, attention to the isthmus changed when King Ferdinand II in Spain instituted a Conquest of Tierra Firma, or most of Central America and the north coast of South America. This was in large part a financial investment, as the wars in Spain were taking a fiscal toll on the King. Enter the conquistadors.

The race to Tierra Firma started with Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa, two Spaniards of varying backgrounds and wealth. Ojeda joined with Juan de la Cosa who had traveled with Columbus on previous voyages to the New World. Ferdinand seemed ambivalent as to who would govern the area of Tierra Firma, which would encompass all of Panama along with part of would be Columbia and Costa Rica. Ferdinand split the areas with an ambiguous dividing line. The bickering between the too would-be conquerors caused Ojeda to conscript lawyer Martin Fernandez Enciso to help mediate. With drama brewing, the men brought a growing schism over to Hispanõla to set up a staging area to invade Tierra Firma.

Nicuesa and Ojeda launched their respective forays into Central America and surrounding areas in the fall of 1509 amidst their feud. They both left constituents behind to gather supplies and men to follow in their wake. Ojeda had left Enciso to begin conscripting men and provisions to meet up with later. This proved sensible, since Ojeda was engaged in serious combat with natives near the Spanish province of Nueva Granada and was seriously displaced. Another name entered the conquistador’s competition: Vasco Nunez de Balboa.

Balboa had been living in Hispanola as a pig farmer since Bastides’ expedition in 1501-1502. Son of wealthy landowners in Spain, Balboa traveled with Bastides in search of his own glory and had the capital to finance the venture. The farming was not much of a success, and soon Balboa found himself in debt to Hispanola creditors. These creditors had an interesting rule: one who was in debt was not allowed to leave the island until the debt was paid off. Fast forward to 1513: Balboa claims the Pacific Ocean on Panama’s west coast for the King of Spain. What happened?

The story goes that Balboa of course knew of the drama circulating with the Spaniards itching to claim and establish ports in Panama, and of the expeditions planned. Aided by one of his friends, Balboa was reported to have stowed away on Enciso’s vessel in a food barrel. With his dog! Enciso of course discovers Balboa soon after launch, but is persuaded to keep him because of his value and experience.

Balboa helps to found Santa Maria de Antigua del Darien, which becomes the first governmental seat held by Europeans in the New World.

More to come...this story is real long I'm realizing...!

Sources:

Ward, Christopher. Imperial Panama. Albuquerque, University of Mexico Press. 1993.

http://www.bruceruiz.net/PanamaHistory/panama_history.htm

Week 2 Brog: Indigenous Enigma

The country of Panama is a land bridge that connects not only Central America to South America, but also by extension North America as well. The narrow strip of land was a strategic point of access for Spanish treasure fleets coming from Peru on the Pacific side to cross the continent and travel back to Spain via the Atlantic. It would seem that Panama was a well-traversed piece of land, even for the indigenous peoples there.

By early Spanish accounts, the native people found Panama were very diverse and experienced nomads using the isthmus to travel between present-day Colombia in South America and Costa Rica to the north. Many indigenous names have been associated with pre-Columbian Panama including the Chibchan, Cocle, Cueva, and most modern, the Cuna or Kuna people. The Kuna people inhabited the isthmus area after migrating west from Colombia due to Spanish conquistador encroachment. The people who inhabited the isthmus were an agrarian sort, and "regional archeological studies depict the complex material culture and lifestyle of ancient Panamanians."

Scholars debate the various reasons for the lack of archeological and anthropological evidence and artifacts to support definitive indigenous settlements. The reasons vary from nomadic tendencies to diseases that ravaged the isthmus once the Spanish arrived. A salient point for the lack of indigenous history is the lack of modern Amerindians in Panama itself. The absence of surviving peoples beside the Kuna points to what one scholar believes as the “completeness of Indian collapse during the (Spanish) conquest”.

Ward, Christopher. Historical Writing On Colonial Panama, Hispanic American Historical Review. Vol. 69, No. 4: Duke University Press. 1989. Pgs. 691-713.