The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-13 00:00:00

The History of Darien.

Terra Firma, or the mainland of New Granada, was
discovered by Columbus in 1498, and he visited Chagres
and Navy Bay on the 2d of November, 1502, on his fourth
voyage. Six years afterwards King Ferdinand commis-
sioned Don Alonzo de Ojeda and Don Diego de Nicuesa to
make discoveries and conquests in Terra Firma, giving to
the former jurisdiction over the country from the Gulf of i
Uraba, or Darien, eastward to Cape de la Vela, and assign-
ing to the latter the Government over the country from the
Gulf of Darien westward to Cape Graciasa Dios. A dispute
which arose between them as to the boundary line of their
respective provinces was referred to the pilot, Juan de la
Cosa, by whom it was arranged that the River Atrato
should form the boundary. Alonzo de Ojeda went to Car-
thagena and Turbaco, and was killed by the Indians.
Nicuesa went to Veraguas, where he was vigorously opposed
by the Indians, and thence proceeded to Nombre do Dios,
between Portobello and Cape San Blas. One of the vessels
of Nicues t's small squadron was commanded by the been
tiate or bachelor-in.laws, Enciso, who sailed from the city
of Santo Domingo, on the Oz ma, in 1509, and proceeded to
the Gulf of Darien. Previ ,us to his sailing, a young but
penniless cavallero, named Vasco Nunez do Balbao, was
smuggled on board, concealed in an empty wino cask. To
this stratagem he was obliged to have recourse in order to
get a passage, in consequence of the great animosity borne to
him by Enciso, whose rival ho was in the affections of La
Zenoril a Teresa Davila, by whose father he was beheaded a
few years afterwards. Upon discovering him a few days
after sailing Enciso ordered him to be killed, but the crew,
with whom Vasco Nunez was a favourite, refused to obey
his order. Meeting with unexpected difficulties and obsta-
cles in the Gulf of Darien, he consented to take the advice
of Vasco, in accordance with which ho selected a place on
the west side cf the Atrato mouth for the site of a town, to
which was given the name of Santa Maria el Antigua del
Darien. This town, being the first actual settlement formed
on the continent of America, was declared to be the capital
of New Andalusia, and was governed by Enciso, and next
by Vasco Nunez, who was elected by tha people in place of
Enciso, whom they deposed. From this place he sent to the
King cf Spain 300 mares of gold, which occasioned the
name of Castilla del Oro, or Golden Castile, to be given
to Terra Firma. S ;on after Enciso had settled at Santa
Maria, a party despatched from thence to the westward
found Nicuesa and his men in a famishing condition at a
plac.: called afterwards Nombre de Dios, because on landing
there and finding no Indians, Nicuesa, who had been
severely harassed by the Indians cf Veraguas, said,
" Quedamos aqui en el nombre de Dio" (let us stop here,
in the name of God).
On St. Michael's day, Sept. 29, 1513, Vasco Nunez dis-
covered the Pacific Ocean, at the Gulf of San Miguel,
having sailed from Santa Maria to Carreto, and thence to
Caledonia Barbour, from whence he crossed, fighting a
battle on the way with the Indian chief Quarequa.
In July, 1614, Don Pedro Arias Davila, surnamed El
Justador, succeeded him as governor of Santa Maria, hav-
ing been sent out to supersede him, in consequence of com-
plaints carried to Spain by Eaciso. He was afterwards be-
headed by Davila, at Panama, upon an unfounded charge
of treason to the king. IVi h Davila came Juan de Quevedo,
as Bishop of Darien, with the usual authority from Pope
Leo X., so that Santa Maria was the first episcopal city in
America.
In 1514, Agla, or Ada, in Caledonia B ay, probably at the
mouth o f the Aglatumati, was founded by Gabriel de Rojas,
as the most conveuient pant from whence to cross to the
Pacific.

In 1515, King Ferdinand granted to the town of Santa
Maria the privilege of bearing as its arms—gales, a golden
castle, surmounted by a sun of the same, supported on the
right by a tiger, and on the left by a crocodile, with these
word—" La imagen do Nuestra Senora del Antigua,"
10. 1516, Agla was fortifiod by Davila. In 1518 Panama
was founded by Davila, after the conquest of Tubanama,
its cac'que, by Vasco Nunez. The word Panama, it may be
observed, means "plenty of fish,' In 1532 Agla and the
whole Isthmus of Darien were abandoned for Nombrede
Dios and Panama, a road having been opened from the
former place to San Juan and thence to Panama. Most
probably the hostility of the Indians of Darien obliged the
Spaniards to seek a transit route elsewhere ; for, although
Vasco Nunez conquered the Cacique of Carreto, whose
daughter ho married, and caciques of Comagre, Ponca,
Quarequa, Chiapes, Zumaco, and Pocorosa, no settlements
were effected in Darien except those of Santa Maria and
Agla, which were so soon abandoned.
From 1532 to the days of the filibustieros, or buccaneers,
there is a complete hiatus in the history of Darien.
In 1572, indeed, Nombre de Dios was taken by Sir
Francis Drake, who plundered it of specie and commodities
of immense value ; but that place, being to the westward
of Cape Sans Bias, is included in the Isthmus of Panama.
Alter the sacking of Nombre de Dios, which is now a
hamlet with a population of about 100 negroes, it was aban-
doned for Portrbello, which was selected as being a more
defensible position and having a better harbour. Its insa-
lubrity, however, was so great the Spaniards removed from
thence to Chagres, whence passengers and goods were con-
veyed in canoes up the Chagres river to Gorgona in the
dry, and Cruces in the rainy season. From each of these
places there is a most execrable mule road to Paname,which
is 23 miles distant from the former and 21. from the latter,
In the lower course of the river, the canoes were propelled
by paddles (eanaletas), and higher up they were shoved
along by poles (palancas). Chagres has lately been deserted,
and the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Railroad at
Aspinwall or Colon, on the island of Manzanillo, Navy Bay,
is now the point cf departure for the Pacific.
In 1680 the buccaneers crossed the isthmus by the Chu-
guanaqua, and took the fort and town of Real de Santa
Maria, on the Turfra, in the south of Darien. The follow•
ing ie the account given in the MS. of Basil Ringrose, one
of the buccaneers, which is in the Ayecough Collection, in
the Britiah Museum —" On April 5, 1680, 331 buccaneers,
most of them English, passed over from Golden Island, and
landed in Darien, each man provided with four
cakes of bread, called doughboys, with a pistol,
a fusil, and a hanger. They began their jour-
ney, marshalled in divisions with distinguishing
flags, under their several commanders, Bartholomew Sharp
and his men taking the lead. Many Darien Indians kept
them company as their confederates, and supplied them with
fruit, plantains, and venison, for which payment was made
in axes, hatchets, knives, needles, beads, and trinkets ; all
of which the buccaneers had taken care to come well pro •
vided with. Among the Darien Indians in company were
two chiefs, who went by the names of Captain AndreTs and
Captain Antonio. The commencement of their march was
through the skirt of a wood, which, having passed, they
prcceeded about a league by the side of a bay, and after-
wards about two leagues directly up a woody valley, where
there was an Indian house and plantation by the side of a
river. Here they took up their lodgings for the night, those
who could not be received in the house building huts. The
Indians were earnest in cautioning them not to sleep on the
grass on account of adders. This first day's journey dis-
couraged four of he buccaneers, and they returned to the
ships. Stones were found in the river which, on being
broken, shone with sparks of gold. These stones, they
were told, were driven down from the neighbouring
mountains by torrents during the rainy season. The next
mornmg at sunrise they proceeded on their way,
labo wring up a steep hill, which they surmounted
about three in the afternoon, and at the foot on the
other side they rested on the bank of a river which Capt.
Andreas told them ran into the South Sea, and was the
same by which the town of Santa M aria was situated."
It was, in fact, the Sucubti, which rises from the Pacific
side of Mount Agla. By descending it and the Chuqua-
naqua, of which it is a tributary, they reached the Tuyra,
into which the latter falls, and on which Santa Maria, the
nearest town to the Mine of Cana, was situated. After
taking Santa Maria they proceeded to the Gulf of San
fatigue and Panama.
In 1681, Surgical L'onel Wafer, with a party of the
buccaneers, when approaching the mouth of the Tuyra
with the intention of returning the way they had come,
observed a Spanish gunboat anchored off it. To avoid
being taken by the Spaniards they landed at the mouth of
the Congo, in the Gulf of San Miguel, whence the Indians
guided the buccaneers to the Atlantic. Wafer, having
scorched his knee by the accidental explosion of-some gun-
powder, was left behind at a hut on the bank of the Congo,
and after a residence of some months with the Indians,who
treated him well, was by them conducted to the mouth of
Conception River, in San Bias Bay. On his return to Lon-
don he wrote a most interesting account of his journey. lie
afterwards went to Edinburgh with Patterson to give infor-
mation concerning Darien to the company which organised
the Scotch colony.
In 1685 the gold mines of Darien were ordered to be
closed by royal decree, dated March the 12th,
In 1698 the Scotch colony settled on the extremity of the
promontory outside of Port Escoces, and began to build the
town of New Edinburgh and the Fort of St. Andrew. The
colonists were starved out, in 1699, by the infamous order
of King William the Third, who was influenced in his
opposition to them by the remonstrances of the Spanish
Ambassador, and the intrigues of the Dutch East Indian
Company. The project of colonization was started by
Patterson from information given to him by Wafer.
lii 1719 the Indians rose against the Spaniards, and the
few doctrines, or missions, that had been established,
were broken up. It appears from a passage in the " Vidge"
of Don Antonio do Ultoo. and Don Juan Jorge, the Spanish
academicians, who went to the vicinity of Quito to measure
the length of a degree on the equator, th tt, previous to
Y 19, there were doctrines at Matutnetganti (a branch of
the Savana) and Aglaseniqua, in Caledonia Bay.
In 1740 peace was concluded with the Indians by Lieu-
tenant-General Don Dionisio Martinez de lrr Vega, in con-
sequence of which Don Sebastian de Eslaba, Viceroy of
Santa Fe, sent to North Darien two Jesuits, Padres Salva-
dor Grande and Pedro Fehr° ; and the Freeident of
Panama sent to the South Padres Mellitus Alvarez and
Claudio Escobar, who formed the settlements of Mo.
liners, Balsas, Tucu'i, Chnquanaqua, Cups, and Yavisa.
But they Lad scarcely succeeded in establishing those
missions when the Indians deserted them, and the fathers
with difliculy escaped with their lives.
In 1784 a junta, convened at Santa Fe do Bogota, by the
viceroy and archbishop, Don Antonio Caballero y Gon-
'gsra, for the purpose of devising measures for the reduction
and pacification of the Indians, decreed the establishment
of forts at Kondinga, Ceucepeio, Carolina, iu c4I4)AiA