Page 294 - The Rough Guide to Panama (Travel Guide)

292 CONTEXTS History
CACIQUE URRACÁ
the most famous of three Guaymí (forefathers of the Ngäbe) heads in western Panama – the
others being Natá and Parita, after whom the spanish named settlements – was the mighty
indigenous chief Urracá, who provided the colonizers’ fiercest resistance over a nine-year period.
Managing to unite tribe leaders who were traditional enemies, he conducted guerrilla-type raids
from his mountain stronghold above santa Fé de Veraguas. After repeatedly failing to defeat
Urracá, the spanish resorted to deception, luring him down to Natá under the pretence of
negotiating a peace settlement. Here he was immediately seized and taken in chains to Nombre
de Dios, from where he was to be deported to spain. Managing to escape, he returned to his
people, vowing to fight the invaders to the death. By this stage, however, the spanish were so
afraid of his warriors that they avoided conflict with them whenever possible, while the chief
continued his resistance until he died in 1531.

the isthmus, prompting violent conflicts with indigenous populations. Though relations
between Columbus and the local chief or cacique, Quibián, known as “El Señor de la
Tierra”, were initially friendly, the mood changed once it was clear the Spanish intended
to stay. When Columbus left his garrison at Santa María de Belén (in present-day
Veraguas) to seek reinforcements, Quibián rallied local leaders to destroy the settlement
but was captured by Columbus’s brother Bartolomé, who had been left in charge. While
being transported as a prisoner downriver to Belén, the chief dived out of the dugout
and was presumed drowned. He survived, however, and went on to lead an assault
against the invaders, forcing them to flee.
The respite was short-lived. In 1505 the king of Spain, Ferdinand II, intent on expanding
his empire, dispatched two men to take charge of what had been named “Tierre Firme”
(extending from present-day Venezuela to Panama): Alonso de Ojeda was to govern the
land between Cabo de la Vela in present-day Colombia through to the Golfo de Urabá,
known as Nueva Andalucía, while Diego de Nicuesa was to oversee the west from the gulf
to Gracias a Dios on what is now the border between Honduras and Nicaragua (and was
known as Castilla de Oro, after its supposed riches). Both campaigns ended in disaster.
Though estimates of the indigenous population at the time of the Spanish conquest
vary from two hundred thousand to two million, what is not in dispute is the speed at
which the local communities were decimated, as much by disease brought by the
conquistadors as through massacre and enslavement. The remainder retreated to
inhospitable remote mountain areas, where they either lay low or continued their
resistance against the invaders. The Spanish instituted a feudal-style system of
encomiendas, theoretically entrusting “free” indigenous peoples to the stewardship of
colonizers for their well-being and instruction in the Catholic faith in return for labour;
in practice, workers were more often treated like slaves. Though the system was abolished
in 1720, it did not spell the end of intense hardships for many of the rural population.

Balboa and the Mar del Sur
There’s little in Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s inauspicious early life to suggest he would rise
to prominence. After setting foot on the isthmus as a member of Bastidas’s expedition,
he settled on Hispaniola, where, failing as a pig-farmer, he fled his creditors by stowing

1501–02 1505 1513
Spanish explorers Rodrigo The Spanish conquest Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses
de Bastidas and Christopher intensifies; indigenous Panama, becoming the first
Columbus visit modern-day populations are massacred or European to see the Pacific
Panama. enslaved, though some resist. Ocean.

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