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Tet Offensive Essay, Research Paper

Pamama History

Indians inhabited the isthmus of Panama when the Spanish explorers arrived. Some historians say that there might have been a population of 500,000 Indians from sixty tribes, but other researchers said that the Cuna Indians alone numbered 750,000. Besides the Cuna, the largest group, two other major groups of Indians, the Guaym and the Choc , have been identified. The Guaym , 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 Choc on the Pacific side appear to be related to the Chibcha of Colombia. The land was owned and farmed among all three Indian groups. In addition to hunting and fishing, the Indians raised corn, cotton, cacao, various root crops and other vegetables, and fruits. They lived 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 gold,reinforced the Spanish myth of El Dorado, the city of gold.

Rodrigo de Bastidas, was the first of many Spanish explorers to reach the isthmus. Sailing from Venezuela in 1501 in search of gold, he explored some 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.) Vasco N* ez de Balboa, was a member of Bastidas’s crew. He settled in Hispaniola, which today is the Dominican Republic andHaiti. In 1510 he stowed away on a voyage to Panama to escape his creditors. At that time, about 800 Spaniards lived on the isthmus. Soon the many jungle perils, including malaria and yellow fever, had killed all but 60 of them. Finally, the settlers at Antigua del Dari n, the first city of Spanish rule overthrew the crown’s representative and elected Balboa and Martin Zamudio as co-mayors. Balboa insisted that the settlers plant crops rather than depend on supply ships, and Antigua became a prosperous community. Like other conquistadors, Balboa led raids on Indian settlements, but unlike most, he made friends with the conquered tribes. He took the daughter of a chief as his girlfriend.

In 1513, Balboa, Francisco Pizarro 190 Spaniards set out on an expedition with 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 for his God and his king. He returned to Antigua in January 1514 with all 190 soldiers and with cotton cloth, pearls, and 40,000 pesos in gold. Meanwhile, his enemies had denounced him in the Spanish court, and King Ferdinand appointed a new governor for the colony, Pedro Arias de Avila. Later he became known as “Pedrarias theCruel. ” He charged Balboa with treason. In 1517 Balboa was arrested, brought to the court and executed.

In 1519 Pedrarias moved his capital to a fishing village on the Pacific coast. The Indians called the village Panama, meaning “plenty of fish. A trail known as the Camino Real, or royal road, linked Panama and Nombre de Dios, a deserted early settlement , which was was resettled. Along this trail, gold from Peru was

carried by muleback to Spanish galleons waiting on the Atlantic coast. The importance of the isthmus for transporting treasure and the delay and difficulties of the Camino Real caused the Spanish to think about building a canal. This was around 1530. King Philip II concluded that if God had wanted a canal

there He would have built one so he gave up the idea.

Back in Panama hundreds of Spaniards died of disease and starvation. Thousands of Indians were robbed, enslaved, and massacred. Thousands more of the Indians died from European diseases. After the atrocities of Pedrarias, most of the Indians fled to remote areas to avoid the Spaniards. The Indians found one friend among their Spanish oppressors. Bartolom 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 exported 4,000 African slaves to the Antilles. This was the beginning of the slave trade began which flourished for more than 200 years. Panama was a major distribution point for slaves going someplace else. The supply of Indian labor in Pamama was small so and Panama began to keep many of the slaves. A large number of slaves escaped into the jungle. They became known as

Cimarrones, meaning wild or unruly, because they attacked travelers along the Camino Real. An official census of Panama City in 1610 listed 3,500 African slaves.

The king exercised royal control by appointing governors in Panama. The king’s representative was responsible for tracking all gold, pearls, and income from trade and conquest and to give the king his share. Courts were established. The first in Santo Domingo, had jurisdiction over the whole area of conquest. By a decree of 1538, all Spanish territory from Nicaragua to Cape Horn was to be administered

from an court in Panama. This only until 1543 because of the impossibility of exercising jurisdiction over such a big area. A new Panamanian court, with jurisdiction over a smaller area was established in 1563. After 1567 Panama was attached to Peru but

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