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Conquest, Imagination, and the Dawn of the Modern Aget h e g o l d o f pa n a m a i n i t s h i s t o r i c a l c o n t e x t
j o h n w. h o o p e s
g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 11
The ancient gold of the Americas has come to be a substance of fascination for
western audiences not only for its workmanship and culturally meaningful
design but also for its association with dramatic conflicts that occurred after
Christopher Columbus first arrived at the small island of San Salvador in
1492. Gold ornaments from Panama—some the first gold seen by Spanish
explorers—are intimately intertwined with the history of European conquest
of the Americas and the accompanying demise of indigenous populations.
The Trail of Tears trod by relocated native people from the southeastern
U.S. into Oklahoma in the 1830s was a direct outcome of the process of “discovery” and
exploitation that began in the Caribbean—including Panama—before 1500. While it was
predominantly the descendants of settlers from Great Britain who pushed westward into
North America, by the time they arrived the Spanish had already penetrated deep within
the territory that was to become the United States. By 1542, Coronado had pushed as far as
central Kansas in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola and Gran Quivira. Hernando de Soto
had explored territory in Florida and traveled up the Mississippi River and its tributaries
to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas even earlier. Their travels were motivated first and fore-
most by the discovery of gold in various places throughout the Caribbean, initially in the
12 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 13
Antilles, next in Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, and then in the empires of the Aztecs
in Mexico and the Incas in Peru. (Both Coronado and de Soto undertook their journeys
soon after three expeditions reached Bogotá, Colombia in 1539 in a disappointing search
for the legendary El Dorado.) The discovery of new lands had a profound impact on the
political and economic life of Europe. In particular, promises of wealth from Spanish
exploration in territories spanning the hemisphere became something that Charles V,
the Holy Roman Emperor, could literally take to the bank. The promise of gold from the
Americas helped Charles persuade his bankers to extend him credit
for the creation of an effective military. With his army he defended
Vienna from the advances of Suleiman the Magnificent and the Ot-
toman Empire—thereby helping to keep Europe from becoming
predominantly Muslim (Reston 2009) and setting the stage for the
world as we know it today. Understanding the role of pre-Columbian gold, and especially
the Panamanian gold, in the context of world events gives us an appreciation for these
objects that goes well beyond their artistic and anthropological value.
The gold of Panama became a significant incentive for the Spanish Conquest. In
fact, the discovery of Tierra Firme (mainland Central and South America) and access to
the Pacific (the overland precursor to the Panama Canal) helped persuade the Spanish to
make massive investments in the business of violent conquest. A great deal transpired in
the Caribbean long before Hernán Cortés ever set foot on the coast of Veracrúz to begin
his march on Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, in 1519. The initial settlement of Panama
had begun almost ten years earlier. Panama was also the site of a base of operations that
permitted Francisco Pizarro and his brothers to make their way down the Pacific coast of
South America to Peru, where they encountered the Inca emperor in Cajamarca in 1532.
Goldwork from Panama played a glittering role in events unfolding in the first decades
of the Modern Age, from Christian Europe’s struggle to avoid Ottoman control to the
emergence of the modern banking industry, events of the early 16th century whose legacy
is still very much with us today.
Previous pages: “Carta,
Navtica, Delmar/Costas, y
Islas Y Indias Occidenales”
Sebastian Ruesta, 1654.
GM 3976.594/Map 9; inset
map: Joan Bleau, Atlas Maior
Vol. XVIII, Amsterdam,
1663. GM 3976.74
From The American
Indians Depicted in
a Collection of Plates
Engraved by Theodore
de Bry in the Years
1590–1602. GM 2975.158
Right: “Charles V,” after Titian,
engraved by R.B. Parks, The
Cloister Life of Emperor
Charles V, Sir William
Sterling-Maxwell, 1891,
London: John C. Nimmo.
GM 2376.2124
Right: “Solyman the
Magnificent and Roxalana,”
The History of the Reign of
Emperor Charles the Fifth,
Vol. III, William H. Prescott,
J.B. Lippincott Company.
GM 96.113
14 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 15
The first act, of course, in the drama of the Spanish Conquest was Columbus’s initial
“discovery” of what he called the Indies in October 1492, which set in motion a wave of
exploratory voyages. Europeans made contact with Panama in 1500, a year historians
identify by convention as the start of the Modern Age.
Spanish colonization began in the Antilles, with a focus on the islands of Hispañola
and Cuba. This was followed by settlement on the north coast of Panama, where the
harbor of Nombre de Dios quickly became the major Spanish port in the Caribbean
once Francisco Nuñez de Balboa had discovered that the coast of the Pacific Ocean lay
just forty miles to the south. From its founding in 1510 until its destruction by pirates in
1572, Nombre de Dios was the gateway for Spanish shipments to and from the Americas.
Panama—especially the part it played in the shipment of gold and silver to Spain—tends
to be forgotten relative to the spectacular encounters that began with Hernán Cortés’s
contact with the Aztecs (in 1519) and Francisco Pizarro’s with the Incas (1532), but its
role was significant.
Map from Lionel
Wafer’s 1699 New
Voyage to America, 1903
reprint. GM 2427.586
Porto Bello (whose
modern name is
Portobelo) is indicated
at upper left as Pto.
Bello. The circular
bay on the other side
of the point, though
not marked, is the
important port Nombre
de Dios.
“The Indians in their robes in Council, and smoaking
tobacco after their way,” A New Voyage to America,
Lionel Wafer, 1903 reprint of 1699 edition. GM 2427.586
“The Indians marching upon a visit or to a feast,”
A New Voyage to America, Lionel Wafer,
1903 reprint of 1699 edition. GM 2427.586
16 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 17
For the first several decades of the Conquest, the principal focus of the Spanish was
the acquisition of gold. It is only natural that the Isthmo-Colombian area (Hoopes and
Fonseca 2003)—a part of the Americas that extends from Honduras in the west to north-
ern Colombia in the east—would have been a significant locus of Spanish activity. Ar-
chaeology has documented that this area was a center for innovation in and production
of pre-Columbian goldwork, in part due to the presence of accessible deposits and in part
due to the development of technologies—especially lost wax casting—for its working.
The quest for gold was devastating to indigenous populations. The Tainos and other
native peoples of the Antilles were crushed by the first wave of Spanish settlement and
exploitation and soon became culturally extinct (Rouse 1992). Forced to work in the rela-
tively unproductive enterprise of extracting gold by panning alluvial sands in the islands,
they died in large numbers and were replaced by growing imports of African slaves. The
indigenous peoples of Panama were almost completely wiped out before the end of the
1500s. By 1535, the Cueva, the main ethnic group living in central Panama and the Darien
before the arrival of the Spanish, had disappeared (Romoli 1987). We cannot even state
with confidence to what family their language belonged (though we believe it may have
been Chibchan or Chocoan), which would be like saying we do not know whether the
people of Portugual spoke a Romance or Germanic language. All that remains of their
tongue is a brief word list.
The main causes of deaths were infectious diseases and the same exploitative prac-
tices used in Hispañola and Cuba. As elsewhere, native slaves who died were replaced by
African slaves. Some of the Cueva territory, including the San Blas islands on the north-
eastern Caribbean coast, was resettled by Kuna, Chibchan speakers who migrated west-
ward from northern Colombia to escape Spanish expansion in the 18th century (Herlihy
1985). Other parts were resettled by Waunaan and Emberá, Chocoan speakers who mi-
grated north from the Pacific coast of Colombia. However, pockets of Chibchan-speaking
groups such as the Changuena, Movere, Bocota, and Ngawbere survived in central and
western Panama, including the ancient territory of the Coclé (Constenla 1991). We are
still uncertain about the ethnic identity of the people who were responsible for the spec-
tacular goldwork from sites such as Sitio Conte (Cooke et al 2003). However, it seems
most likely that they were the ancestors of some of the people of indigenous ancestry who
still live in the region today.
e u r o p e a n d t h e a m e r i c a s
o n t h e e v e o f c o n q u e s t
The dawn of the Modern Age was preceded by remarkable events on both sides of
the Atlantic Ocean. Reconstructed chronologies paint a picture of prosperity and expan-
sion before a “perfect storm” of culture collisions. Both the Aztec empire in Mexico and
the Inca empire in Peru expanded rapidly under the two or three generations of rulers
who preceded Montezuma, in Tenochtitlan, and Huascar, in Cuzco. Significantly, neither
empire reached Panama, although there are hints that they might have, had the Spanish
never arrived. Colonies of speakers of Nahuat or Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs)
were reported on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, respectively. The former, known as the
Sigua, had a settlement near the mouth of the Sixaola River, which currently forms part
of the international boundary between Costa Rica and Panama (Lothrop 1942). The lat-
ter, alluded to only in fragmentary reports, had been in conflict with local groups on the
central Pacific coast. It is still unclear whether these represented advance groups of Aztec
pochteca, elite merchants who are known to have established trading colonies to supply
goods to Aztec royalty, or settlements of Nicarao, a Nahuat-speaking ethnic group in
southwestern Nicaragua with ancient ties to migrants from Central Mexico. They oper-
ated within an ethnic milieu most likely to have been dominated by Chibchan-speakers,
a group with ties extending back for millennia in the region (Constenla 1991). From the
“Christopher Columbus
Received by Ferdinand
and Isabella” after
painting by Tony
Robert-Fleury, History
of the Reign of Ferdinand
and Isabella the Catholic,
Vol. III, William H.
Prescott, J.B. Lippincott
Company. GM 96.109
Title Page, A New Voyage to
America, Lionel Wafer, 1903
reprint of 1699 edition.
GM 2427.586
18 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 19
south, it seems likely that the Incas would have extended their empire into Colombia
and up to the Central American isthmus within a generation. Under the reign of Huayna
Capac, his son the Inca general Atahuallpa had been successful at conquering groups in
Ecuador and establishing a “second capital” in Quito. Huayna Capac died in 1527, with
circumstantial evidence suggesting that he may have fallen victim to a European dis-
ease transmitted overland from the Caribbean long in advance of direct contact with the
Spanish themselves (Hemming 1970). Had this not happened, Quito would have made
an ideal forward base for Inca expansion into highland Colombia and even the Caribbean
coast. In fact, in 1539 a Spanish expedition from Quito successfully made its way to the
vicinity of Bogotá, where it met up with two other expeditions traveling south from the
Caribbean. All three had pressed inland in search of the mythical land and wealth of El
Dorado (Bray 1978, Hemming 1978, Silverberg 1996).
“America Sive Novi
Orbis, No: Va Descripto.”
From Theatrum Orbis
Terrarvim, Abraham
Ortelius, Antwerp, 1570.
GM 3965.569/Map 3
“The Meeting of Cortez
and Montezuma,” History
of Hernando Cortez, John
C. Abbott, 1901, Harper &
Brother Publishers.
GM 2327.2144
Bells, Gran Coclé, 700–1000,
gold. GM 5645.89a-h
20 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 21
In Europe, the 15th century saw recovery from the appalling devasta-
tion of various waves of the Black Plague, which had decimated the popu-
lation and caused a major redistribution of land and wealth. This contrib-
uted to the emergence of the Renaissance, characterized by major advances
in technology, philosophy, art, and music. Unfortunately, our information
about contemporaneous events in the Americas is limited to what we can
learn from archaeology and ethnohistory, with the most complete records
coming from Mexico and Peru. We know little about Panama at this time
other than what can be intuited from cultures thriving when the Spanish
explorers arrived in 1500. Sadly, the oral histories of chiefs and dynasties
disappeared with the populations that were decimated—some to the point
of cultural extinction—within just four decades of initial contact.
In Mexico and Peru, the 15th century saw the rise of the largest politi-
cal empires ever to exist in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans.
In Peru, the emperor Pachacuti reorganized and expanded the Inca state.
Pachacuti, a successful warrior who repelled attacks by the Chancas to se-
cure the capital at Cuzco, commissioned the spectacular site of Machu Pic-
chu and the construction of the temple and fortress at Sacsayhuaman on a
hilltop overlooking Cuzco (Niles 2004). Pachacuti is also credited with the
construction of the Coricancha (“Golden Enclosure”), a temple dedicated to the Sun, the
principal Inca deity, also in Cuzco. The reign of Pachacuti and his sons was contempora-
neous with the period of the Renaissance in Europe, and much of the most spectacular
Inca architecture in Peru was built at about the same time as were the palaces of Florence,
Italy. The Pitti Palace, for example, which became the home of the de Medici dynasty, was
commissioned in 1458, probably within a decade or two of the construction of Pachacu-
ti’s private estate at Machu Picchu.
To put things in perspective, Pachacuti’s son, Tupac Inca Yupanqui, who ruled from
1471 to 1493 (Hemming 1970), was a contemporary of King Henry VII of England (1457–
1509). In Mexico, the Aztec ruler Tizoc came to power in 1481, ruling until his death in
1486, when he was succeeded by his brother Ahuitzotl (Davies 1980). Ahuitzotl is best
known for his dramatic expansion of the central complex at the Templo Mayor in what
is now downtown Mexico City, where he is said to have demanded the sacrifice of thou-
Pitti Palace, Florence,
Italy, 2011. Courtesy
of Lanette Coppage.
Machu Picchu, Peru.
Image licensed by
DepositPhotos.com/
Agnieszka Lipecka
g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 23
sands of warriors at its rededication. (His son, Montezuma—also spelled Moctecuzoma,
Moctezuma, and other variants—would later greet Hernán Cortés when he entered the
Aztec capital.)
In Peru, Tupac Inca’s son Huayna Capac came to power in 1493 (Hemming 1970),
just a year after the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean. Less than ten years later, in
1509, Henry VIII became King of England. At that time Montezuma had been in power
seven years. Both Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Michelangelo (1475–1564) lived
during this period. Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper was completed in 1498. Two years
later, the first Spanish caravel sailed along the Caribbean coast of Panama. Michelangelo’s
masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel, was painted between 1508 and 1512 while the first Span-
ish port was being established in Panama. The ceiling of the chapel was barely dry when
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crossed Panama to become the first European to see the Pacific
Coast of the Americas. It was a time of great accomplishments and great changes.
s pa n i s h e x p l o r at i o n a n d c o n q u e s t b e f o r e 1 5 1 9
The Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas did not happen all at once
but unfolded over a period of decades. The spectacular nature of Cortés’s defeat of the
Aztecs and Pizarro’s defeat of the Incas has tended to draw attention away from the earli-
est wave of Spanish occupation, which took place in the Antilles—especially Hispañola
and Cuba—and in Panama. The period of Spanish settlement did not occur until after
several exploratory voyages by Columbus and others that took place over a period be-
tween 1492 and 1510. It was not until Rodrigo de Bastidas reached the north coast of
Panama in 1501 that Europeans had direct contact with the inhabitants of the mainland
of Central America (Ruiz 2002).
Bastidas was the first European to sail along the Panamanian coast, making his way
westward from Colombia along the San Blas Islands to Punta Manzanillo in Colón Prov-
ince, the farthest northern point of mainland on the Caribbean coast of Panama.1 He
had been on Columbus’s second voyage in 1494 and with Alonso de Ojeda, who “dis-
covered” South America in 1499, traveling from Trinidad and the mouth of the Orinoco
along the coast of Venezuela to the northern coast of the Goajira Peninsula in Colombia.
Bastidas successfully petitioned Ferdinand and Isabella, holy rulers of Spain, to allow
him to finance his own expedition to explore further. He reached the northern coast of
South America in early 1500, picking up where Ojeda’s exploration had ended and ex-
ploring westward along the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Panama. Bastidas named
the Magdalena River and was the first European to visit the Gulf of Urabá, a major center
of gold production and trade. He was also first to reach the gold-exporting port of Nom-
bre de Dios. Among his crew was Balboa, who would become the first Spanish explorer
1430
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1480
1490
1500
1510
1520
1530
1540
1550
1560
1570
1580
1590
1600
1610
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Defeat of Hungarians by Ottoman army at Battle of Mohács
Province of Nicaragua established; death of BastidasSuccessful defense of Vienna against Ottoman Empire
Pizarro begins conquest of PeruFrancis I declares seas open to piracy
Three expeditions seeking El Dorado arrive in Bogotá, Colombia
De Soto reaches OklahomaCoronado reaches central Kansas
Edward VI becomes king of England, will rule until 1553
Mary I becomes queen of England, will rule until 1558
Charles V passes crown to Phillip II
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England, will rule until 1603
Francis Drake begins raids on Spanish shipsNombre de Dios sacked by Francis Drake
Lima, Peru sacked by Francis DrakeSir Francis Drake knighted by Elizabeth I
English navy defeats Spanish Armada
Pilgrims arrive on the Mayflower at Plymouth Harbor
Pachacuti becomes Inca emperor, will rule 1438–1471
Henry VII becomes King of England, will rule 1457–1509
Pitti Palace commissioned in Florence, Italy Construction of Machu Picchu begins near Cuzco, Peru
Gold metallurgy has been practiced in Panama since about 300
Tupac Inca Yupanqui becomes Inca emperor
Holy Office of the Inquisition established in SpainTizoc becomes Aztec emperor, succeeded by Ahuitzotl in 1486
Moors and Jews expelled from Spain Columbus lands on San SalvadorSecond voyage of Columbus embarks Huayna Capac becomes Inca emperor
Leonardo da Vinci completes The Last Supper Alonso de Ojeda “discovers” South AmericaBastidas explores coast of Panama
Montezuma becomes Aztec emperorColumbus encounters a trading canoe off Honduras, trades for goldMichelangelo begins painting the Sistine Chapel
Henry VIII becomes King of England Nombre de Dios founded on north coast of PanamaBalboa crosses Panama to “discover” the Pacific coast
Coronation of Charles I of SpainMartin Luther distributes 95 Theses in Germany Cortés begins conquest of Mexico
Sulieman the Magnificent becomes ruler of the Ottoman Empire
E U R O P E T H E A M E R I C A S
24 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 25
to cross the isthmus of Panama. Bastidas’s voyage brought proof that there was gold in
Colombia and Panama. In 1503, he was ordered to return to his home in Spain and along
the way to display his share of gold and pearls in all of the towns he passed to demonstrate
to the populace that there was money to be had in the Indies.2 Bastidas’s discoveries fired
the imagination of his peers, but, unfortunately, his followers lacked his sensitivity. Bas-
tidas later came to be known as “the noblest conquistador” because he avoided violence
and sought to obtain gold and other goods only through trade. He died violently in 1527
after being stabbed in his sleep by crew members who felt he was not distributing gold
fairly (Ruiz 2002).
c o l u m b u s ’ s i n i t i a l e n c o u n t e r
In 1502, Columbus made his fourth and final voyage to the New World. His first
three voyages had concentrated on the exploration and colonization of Hispañola and the
islands of the Caribbean. Although these had given Europeans a taste of the New World,
they had not provided the gold riches that had been the principal object of the Admiral’s
quest. It was on this last journey that he made the first direct contact with inhabitants of
the Central American mainland and had a glimpse of the substance of his obsession.
Columbus’s first encounter with residents of the mainland ensued when his men
spotted a large sailing canoe off the Bay Islands in the Gulf of Honduras. They hailed the
vessel, which pulled up alongside. In it were two dozen men traveling with their fami-
lies. The canoe was transporting a load of dried cacao seeds and cotton textiles. To the
Spaniards’ disappointment, they saw no gold. However, Columbus made note that they
had bells and axes made of copper and what appeared to be ceramic crucibles for smelt-
ing metals. After what must have been a discussion using gestures (since the language
was unknown), Columbus headed east along the Central American isthmus. He probably
learned that the Maya, to the west, had little in the way of gold. Sources of what he was
seeking lay in the opposite direction.
In late September, the flotilla dropped anchor near a small island in crystalline wa-
ters at a place whose name they recorded as Cariay or Cariari (Columbus and Lane 1988).
From the boats, the Admiral and his crews were within sight of a black beach and forested
shore of a tropical paradise Columbus later called Costa Rica, or “the rich coast,” because
it was here that he found gold. Some two hundred natives, with spears in hand, gathered
on the beach. However, although they bore weapons, their gestures indicated friendship.
A party of Spaniards—not including the Admiral himself—went ashore. The initial con-
tact appears to have been formal and courteous, if awkward. The Spanish offered gifts of
European clothing and trinkets, but the Indians were reluctant to accept anything when
the Spanish turned down the indigenous goods that were offered in return. According to
one source, this led the Indians to regard what the Spaniards offered with suspicion and
everything given to them by the Spanish at that first encounter was left in a pile on the
beach. The natives were so gracious and polite, wrote Columbus’s son Ferdinand, that it
seemed clear they enjoyed giving more than receiving.
While Columbus rested at anchor near an idyllic Caribbean beach, a local cacique
of Cariay approached his ship with a special gift: two attractive young girls, naked except
for their cotton loincloths and the gold “eagle” pendants around their necks. The cacique
rightly noticed the absence of women, probably strange for such large vessels (the trad-
ing canoe in Honduras carried both men and women), and may have assumed that this
is what the sailors were seeking for either temporary or permanent relationships. The
girls were described as being far from shy, and one can only imagine the reception they
enjoyed from a crew of weather-beaten sailors. The admiral was shocked, however, by the
open sensuality of these children and he reacted to them with revulsion and fear. He later
described them as “. . . two highly adorned girls, the oldest was not more than eleven years
old and the other seven;3 both so bold that they could not be other than prostitutes: they
brought powders of hidden witchcraft.”4
Columbus ordered the girls to be dressed immediately in men’s clothes, relieved of
their gold jewelry, and adorned with cheap trinkets from Europe, probably necklaces of
“Ferdinand the Catholic”
and “Isabella the
Catholic,” from History
of the Reign of Ferdinand
and Isabella the Catholic,
William H. Prescott, J.B.
Lippincott Company.
GM 96.109, 117, .110.
26 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 27
Venetian glass beads and the like. However, he declined to engage them in the activity for
which they had undoubtedly been presented and forbade his men to touch them. After
a night likely different from what they had anticipated, the girls were returned to shore
with a red wool hat “to give to their father.”
Upon the girls’ return, the natives stripped them of the European garments, piled
the clothing in a heap on the beach, and left in silence, presumably angry and resentful at
Columbus’s rejection of their generous hospitality. Communication had failed.
One can only speculate about how the local inhabitants perceived this incident. Kin-
ship was the glue of indigenous society. If these girls, adorned in gold, were the daughters
of an important individual, their offer represented more than a gift of sexual gratifica-
tion. It was an invitation to enter into a reciprocal relationship, one that would ultimately
benefit the girls’ families. It may well have been an invitation to Columbus and his men to
stay and settle. The indigenous groups of this part of Costa Rica—as was true for much
of the territory of Chibchan speakers—were matrilineal and matrilocal. Had Columbus
taken these girls as his wives, he would have been expected to stay with their mother’s
family. The natives, seeing that the Spanish were traveling as single men without women
or children, are likely to have believed that they came in search of mates. They may have
been happy to oblige, provided the exchange was of mutual benefit. For the admiral,
they were little more than couriers, bringing gold ornaments and taking away clothing
and beads. For the natives, however, they provided a strategic window through which to
learn far more about the Europeans than the Europeans learned about them. What they
learned was that the visitors had a radically different worldview, one that would color all
future interactions. They may also have learned that the Europeans could not be counted
on as friends. Columbus, a religious man, may have sought to teach a lesson in morality
to both the natives and his crew (the latter perhaps his larger concern). In so doing, he
highlighted profound differences between the indigenous and non-indigenous world.
As he continued east, Columbus encountered both more people and more gold
along the Caribbean coast of Panama. He later wrote, “In this land of Veragua I saw more
signs of gold in the first two days than I saw in Española during four years.” As a result,
Columbus’s family chose this area, named the Duchy of Veragua, as its fief from the Span-
ish Crown. In the bay that was later named for his father (Almirante Bay), Ferdinand Co-
lumbus described people who were naked except for gold plates or cast gold “eagles” they
wore around their necks. He estimated that one of these plates weighed fourteen duc-
ats (almost fifty grams) while an “eagle” pendant weighed twenty-two ducats (about 78
grams). One of the caciques they encountered presented Columbus with a trove estimat-
ed to be “about 300 ducats in gold plates, little eagles, and small quills, which they string
and wear about their arms and legs, and gold twists which they put about their head in
the nature of a coronet” that had been plundered from the house of an enemy (Emmerich
Winged pendant, Gran Coclé,
gold, 1150–1520. GM 5645.71
28 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 29
1965: 100). Columbus’s journey took him past the Veraguas coast to a harbor he named
Porto Bello. It later became a sister port to Nombre de Dios. With this, he reached the
region that had been the farthest point west on Bastidas’s exploration. The Spanish had
confirmed there was gold along the northern coast of Panama, and this became a magnet
for additional plunder and settlement. Columbus himself never returned.
t h e e x t r a c t i o n o f g o l d
Most of the gold the Spanish collected in the 16th century was obtained through
plunder, looting, and forced labor. Manufactured gold objects were plundered directly
from the people. Since gold ornaments were associated with power, authority, and su-
pernatural abilities, their owners tended to occupy the upper hierarchies of indigenous
societies; plundering objects from them involved killing the most knowledgeable as well
as the most powerful. Looting included the active “mining” of indigenous burial grounds.
In 1519, Espinoza witnessed the adornment of a Coclé
chieftain in gold in preparation for burial (Lothrop 1937).
Finding and looting burials therefore became a major pre-
occupation as well as an indignity, since indigenous labor-
ers were forced to excavate their own cemeteries. The most
productive method of extracting gold was the use first of
indigenous labor and then African slaves to work known
placer deposits, an intense, back-breaking work that re-
quired hours in the water running sluices. Although the
Spanish, and later the Germans, had great ambitions for
the mining of gold, mining proved futile for more than a
century.
The initial Spanish settlement of Panama, under the
direction of Diego de Nicuesa, was sited on the shore of a
picturesque natural harbor just east of the northernmost
point along the Caribbean coast of Panama. It was named
Nombre de Dios (“In the Name of God”) in honor of the
divine mission to enrich Spain’s Catholic rulers, Ferdinand
and Isabella. The location had benefits and drawbacks. It was located near a swamp that
actively bred mosquitos carrying the malaria and yellow fever that had been imported
with African slaves. However, it had a small and readily defended oval harbor whose en-
trance could be carefully guarded from twin battlements. Nombre de Dios was also situ-
ated near the first partially paved European road on the continent, which for decades was
crossed by thousands of mules and horses carrying goods and precious metals between
Sir Francis Drake
LC-USZ62-38479
Library of Congress Prints a
nd Photographs Division
Washington, D.C.
Facing: Details, Beaded
necklace with human
effigy pendants,
Gran Coclé, 500–1520,
gold. GM 5645.174–187
30 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 31
the Caribbean and the Pacific. It has been estimated that this small port handled approxi-
mately 45 percent of the shipping between Seville and the Americas for over a century
between the time of its founding and its sacking and burning by English pirates led by Sir
Francis Drake in 1572 (Vilar 2011). It was all but abandoned by 1600. Today it is a sleepy
town that receives only the occasional tourist. Little historical archaeology has been un-
dertaken there to date.
Nombre de Dios was located roughly in the middle of what became known as the ter-
ritories of Castilla de Oro. These were initially identified by the Spanish crown as a region
extending from the isthmus of Panama in the west to the Gulf of Maracaibo in Venezuela
in the east. They comprised a vast area that had initially included the Caribbean coastal
regions as well as the upper reaches of as-yet-unexplored river systems, among them the
Magdalena, and was extended to include the Pacific coasts of Panama and northwestern
Colombia after Balboa’s successful crossing of the isthmus in 1513. As more territory be-
came known, Castilla de Oro was extended westward into Costa Rica and Nicaragua (un-
til 1527, when the Province of Nicaragua was established). However, boundaries shifted
with discoveries and disputes. By 1540, Castilla de Oro had been divided into the Prov-
ince of Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica to the west, the Duchy of Veragua in the middle, and
the Realm of Tierra Firme (Panama) in the east. By 1560, it had merged with the Province
of Veragua (Loftus 1911).
A mythology of great natural riches was perpetuated by explorers and their patrons
to encourage settlement, and Spaniards who had failed in their quest for riches in the An-
tilles were happy to try their hand on new shores. The wealth of Veraguas became legend-
ary with Velasco’s words: “There is gold running through the earth in many places, and it
can be found wherever you dig to the depth of five feet. Every negro extracts at least one
peso a day, there are good deposits in all the rivers and streams, and the gold is of good
quality” (Vilar 2011: 106).
This was an obvious exaggeration, especially because it implied to some the existence
of veins that could be mined, not placer deposits from which small nuggets of gold were
obtained by laborious panning and sluices. Sadly, the reference to “every negro” reflects
the fact that indigenous slave labor had been largely replaced by African slaves, who had
a greater resistance to imported diseases and were thought less likely to flee than people
forced to work on their native lands.
s pa n i s h p e r c e p t i o n s o f pa n a m a n i a n g o l d
Considering Spanish attitudes towards indigenous peoples of Central America and
their goldwork, it is important to recall that Spain at the time was somewhat behind
other parts of Europe—especially Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands—with respect to
Renaissance advances in science. The Spanish Inquisition, whose official title was The
Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, had been established by Ferdinand and
Isabella of Castile in 1480 and was accompanied by fear and brutal intolerance. Isabella
and Ferdinand had expelled the Moors and the Jews in 1492, putting an end to intel-
lectual advances by each of these communities during the Medieval period. Spain of the
early 16th century was a place of religious fervor and deep suspicion of anything that
Facing: America fuie
India Nova, from Atlas
Sive Cosmographicae,
Gerard Mercater,
Amsterdam 1623.
GM 3976.570/Map 6
32 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 33
strayed from Catholic doctrine. This became even further exacerbated with the begin-
nings of Protestant beliefs, which only increased the intensity with which the Church felt
compelled to identify and destroy all traces of heresy. In his lengthy will, Charles V, who
died in 1558, exhorted his son and successor Philip II to renew the Inquisition with even
greater resolve (Reston 2009). The heavy hand of Catholic doctrine colored all the events
of the Spanish Conquest.
Spanish conquistadors and missionaries to the Americas included representatives of
this extremism. As had been true with Columbus in his encounter with the young girls
in Costa Rica, there was tremendous fear of witchcraft and sorcery, practices that had a
presence in Europe but were also a fundamental part of the belief systems of indigenous
peoples of the Americas. The Spanish feared indigenous magic, and indigenous people
undoubtedly attempted to use it. In fact, there are hints that some of the baskets of gold
ornaments offered freely to the Spanish by caciques were part of a supernatural strategy
to weaken them. In several instances, the gold offered came from defeated enemies. The
Spanish appear not to have caught on to the possibility that this was the gold of “losers.”
That is, that it carried the magical residue of loss and defeat—the people who had worn
it, after all, had not won the conflict. The caciques may have felt they were passing on “bad
mojo,” tainted amulets, and maleficent magic. For their part, when the Spanish looked at
indigenous gold, they saw representations of fantastic beings that were half-human, half-
animal. Interpreting these within their own realm of experiences and iconographies, they
identified these as demons or Satan himself. The animals represented in Chibchan gold-
work—crocodiles, jaguars, snakes, bats, frogs, and the like—were hostile and dangerous
from a Spanish perspective. Collecting and destroying objects made in the form of these
creatures, especially by melting them in intense heat, was not just a means of collecting
precious metal but a way of destroying idols and eliminating maleficent sorcery.
From the viewpoint of indigenous people of the Americas, Spanish behavior seemed
irrational. They understood the subtleties of the magical combinations of gold and cop-
per used to form the alloy guanín, a mixture of male and female essences. They also un-
derstood how objects—especially those that included bells or rattles—included hidden
qualities that evoked spirits and forces. Most of all, they knew the individual histories of
objects that had probably been manufactured by magic workers, whether shamans and
sorcerers or warriors and leaders, seeking to capture hidden power. Spanish interest in the
objects for their metal alone seemed as bizarre to the natives as did the possession of gold
by people who walked around naked and lived in houses made of thatch to the Europe-
ans. This led to indigenous claims that the Spanish ate and drank gold, and the occasional
practice of punishing Spanish captives by forcing them to swallow molten gold (Carvajal
and Járegui 2008: 46).
Monkey effigy pendant,
Gran Coclé, 500–1520, gold.
GM 5645.95
34 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 35
Apprehension and outright fear of the images in indigenous goldwork may help ex-
plain why so few of these objects were preserved by Europeans, even by private individu-
als. The artist and master craftsmen Albrecht Dürer commented on the skill and ingenu-
ity apparent in goldwork from America that he saw on the docks, lamenting that it would
be immediately melted into bullion (Carrasco and Sessions 1998: 167). The Church and
the Crown would have both identified the objects with heresy and harmful magic. The
remedy was to melt them down, stamp them as coinage bearing symbols of Christianity
and sacred rulership, or, in the best possible use, to apply the metal to the decoration of
holy altars, representations of saints, and other adornments of Spain’s cathedrals. The
cathedral in Seville is an excellent example of this, with its massive quantities of gold leaf
made from the gold of the Americas and painstakingly applied to the surfaces of carved
wooden altars and ornaments.
It would be centuries before Columbian expositions in Spain (in Seville in 1892) and
subsequently the United States (especially the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893) led collectors
to value pre-Columbian objects more for their artistic value and workmanship than for
their precious metal content.
h o ly r o m a n d e b t
Charles V, born to Austrian parents in Flanders in 1500, was crowned Charles I of
Spain in 1516. The teenage monarch was a member of the House of Hapsburg (as well
as the House of Valois-Burgundy of the Netherlands and the House of Trastámara of
Castile-Leon and Aragon)—in all, of exceptionally high status. Although he was King of
Spain, his first language was German. He is said to have spoken Spanish poorly, a problem
exacerbated by a congenital deformity of his jaw.
Soon after his coronation, Charles engaged in a fierce competition to be recognized
by Pope Leo X as Holy Roman Emperor. His two principal rivals were Francis I of France
and Henry VIII of England. While the position was putatively religious, the competition
was based primarily on political relationships and the ability to muster financial resources.
Although he had excellent connections, the young king’s successful accession to this
powerful title was purchased. Pope Leo X and the Vatican’s electors exacted significant
sums for their support, much of which Charles obtained through loans from Europe’s
wealthiest bankers. The House of Fugger in Augsberg, for example, loaned half a million
of the ultimate cost of 850,000 ducats necessary (Reston 2009, Vilar 2011). The promise
of Spanish gold from the Americas undoubtedly played a major part in this decision.
Armadillo pendant
effgy, Gran Coclé,
500–1520. gold.
GM 5645.34
Tooth effigy pendant,
Gran Coclé, 500–850,
gold. GM 5645.221
36 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 37
Colonies in the Antilles and Panama had been returning
sufficient gold to persuade investors that much more was to
be had. Cortés, having collected stories of fabulous riches
in Mexico from indigenous merchants, landed on the coast
of Veracrúz with an army prepared to march inland in
April 1519. The supporters of Charles V assembled the last
of his loans that spring. He became Holy Roman Emperor
on June 28, 1519.
The principal preoccupations of Charles V’s reign
were his opposition to the spread of Protestantism and his
military successes against the westward advance of the Ot-
toman Empire. The seeds of the Protestant Reformation
had been planted in 1517 with Martin Luther’s distribution
of his Ninety-Five Theses, a sharp criticism of the Catholic
Church—especially its financial behavior. From the time of
his accession, Charles V and his advisors were focused on
the threats these critiques represented, especially as Protes-
tant movements grew. As “defender of the faith,” Charles V
was also preoccupied with threats posed by the Ottoman Empire to eastern Europe. He
was ultimately successful at preventing an invasion of Vienna by forces that had come
from Constantinople under the leadership of Suleiman the Magnificent (Reston 2009).
Had this failed, these Muslim forces would have continued a march up the Danube into
central Europe, plundering, conquering, and establishing colonies as they proceeded. The
wars Charles waged were costly and had little support from the population in Spain,
which in 1521 violently rebelled against heavy taxation in the Revolt of the Comuneros.
Promised riches of the Americas helped to support his efforts against Protestantism and
Islam. The main way this happened was through heavy military spending that resulted in
a massive accumulation of debt. Although there were successes on both fronts, by the lat-
ter half of the 16th century Spain sustained such an enormous debt that it went bankrupt
during the reign of Charles V’s successor Philip II. One could argue that the brunt of the
cost was borne on the backs of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, whose popula-
tions were devastated by the Spanish quest for gold.
The Holy Roman Emperor took full advantage of a huge credit line. He borrowed in-
creasingly vast sums of money at increasingly higher rates of interest, mostly from credi-
tors tied to the royal families of Holland, Flanders, Italy, and Germany. In the thirteen
years between 1520 and 1532 (the year that Pizarro began his conquest of the Incas),
Charles V borrowed 5.4 million ducats (6.3 million with interest). In the next ten years
(1533–1542), he borrowed another 5.4 million. In the following nine years (1543–1551),
he borrowed another 8.4 million, but at a rate that brought it to 10.7 million with inter-
est. In the last five years of his reign alone (1552–1556), he borrowed 9.6 million ducats
(with a value of 14.4 million in repayments). Between 1520 and 1556, Charles V ran up
an ever-increasing deficit with a total repayment value of over 38 million gold ducats.
The cost of these loans rose from an initial interest rate of 17.6 percent in the first pe-
riod to 48.8 percent in the last. Moreover, 87 percent of his debts were to foreign banks
(Vilar 2011: 149). While the gold and silver that came to Spain from the Americas was
substantial, it was always imagined (and promised) to be more than what actually arrived.
Promises of income from the indigenous territories of the Americas on the far western
frontier of Charles V’s empire were used to obtain loans for waging wars against Muslims
on the far eastern edge. The Modern Age had begun not only with circumnavigation of
“Portrait of Hernando
Cortés,” engraving, by
Masson after Ant. Moro,
History of the Conquest
of Mexico, Vol. I,
William H. Prescott, J.B.
Lippincott Company.
GM 96.100
Altar at Seville, Spain.
Image licensed by
DepositPhotos.com/
Sergey Borisov
38 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 39
the globe and the discovery of a “New World,” but with the beginning of an economy in
which events occurring in Panama, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru had a profound effect on
the lives of people and rulers in Austria and Turkey. It was also accompanied by a rapid
expansion of international banking and the accumulation of previously unimaginable
deficits.
The reality is that most of the gold and silver imported from the Americas went in-
stantly to debt service. Precious metals were valued where other goods and paper promises
were not. The greatest value of precious metals was that they could be used in exchanges
between nations. As a result, a great deal of gold that entered Spain was quickly shipped
out to other countries. In 1566, Hernán Cortés complained that “. . . when a fleet comes
in from the Indies with much money, within a month or two there is no good money to
be found for it is all exported at once in indirect ways” (Vilar 2011: 166). “Though our
kingdoms could be the richest in the world for the gold and silver they have got and still
get from the Indies,” he later wrote, “they are the poorest, for they are only a bridge for
these to go into the Kingdoms of our enemies and the enemies of the Holy Catholic Faith”
(Vilar 211: 166). Cortés and others complained that money was “made of air” because it
was tied up in paper agreements. It was these agreements that provided the real impetus
behind the Spanish Conquest and the devastation of in-
digenous populations, as creditors increased the pressure
for repayment, interest rates climbed, and eventually the
banks themselves were granted concessions and hired
their own explorers and soldiers in attempts to collect
their debts.
d i d c e n t r a l a m e r i c a n g o l d
s av e t h e w e s t ?
At the same time that Cortés was fighting to gain
control of the Valley of Mexico, Ottoman armies were
advancing on the Balkans in eastern Europe. Cortés de-
feated the emperor Montezuma in 1520, when the latter
was stoned to death by his own people for having failed
to repel the Spanish. Belgrade fell to the Turks in 1521.
These events on the frontiers of opposite ends of the Holy
Roman Empire soon became part of a web of increasing-
ly related conflicts. In 1526, an Ottoman army originat-
ing in Constantinople marched on Hungary again. The
Battle of Mohács, at which it prevailed (and 14,000 Hun-
garian soldiers died), represented a significant defeat of
Christian forces by the Ottoman army. King Louis II of
Hungary and Bohemia’s defeat by forces led by Suleiman
sent shudders throughout Europe when it was realized
that the Turks intended to continue westward in an Is-
lamic jihad (Reston 2009). Far to the west, on the oppo-
site side of the Atlantic, the gold of the Americas became
all the more valuable. Seen as an asset that could be used
to finance the arming of Hapsburg forces, American gold
was used by Charles V to persuade his bankers to extend
significant credit. This made the extraction of gold from
the recently discovered Aztec empire and sources in
both the Central American isthmus and northern South
America even more imperative.
The successful defense of Vienna in 1529 was a major victory against Ottoman ex-
pansion. At the time, the Ottoman Empire was at its peak in power and size. Charles V’s
contribution was relatively small, consisting of a small regiment of infantry. However,
“Audience of Cortés with
Montezuma,”History of
the Conquest of Mexico,
Vol. II, William H.
Prescott, J.B. Lippincott
Company. GM 96.101
Facing: “The Meeting of
Cortés and Montezuma”
History of the Conquest of
Mexico, Vol. II, William H.
Prescott, J.B. Lippincott
Company. GM 96.101
40 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 41
the Catholic forces prevailed. Four years later,
in 1532, the defense of Vienna was even better
prepared. Charles V, having invested heavily in
the expansion of his army, reinforced the city’s
defenses with 80,000 troops. This caused the Ot-
toman army to retreat to Constantinople, never
again to attempt to take Austria or central Eu-
rope (Reston 2009). It was in that same year, on
the opposite side of the world, that Pizarro en-
countered, captured, and killed the Inca general
Atahuallpa at Cajamarca, initiating the Span-
ish Conquest of Peru and providing yet greater
promises of wealth to Charles. Yet the gold of
Peru took time to secure and ship back to Spain.
In the meantime, creditors were seeking repay-
ment.
In 1538, when it became difficult to pay
these debts, Charles V’s German creditors, the
Welsers, were given free access to the South
American continent, beginning with Venezuela
but with implications that they were free to plun-
der all the way south to Tierra del Fuego. They became one of three groups vying for
discovery of the fabled land of El Dorado, believed to be a source of wealth even greater
than what had been found in Mexico, Peru, or lands between. When these expeditions ar-
rived almost simultaneously at the plateau of Bogotá, Colombia, in 1539, the cities whose
streets were paved with gold were nowhere to be found. All of the main sources of gold in
the possession of indigenous populations had been found at that point. After the Coro-
nado and de Soto expeditions came up empty-handed—at least with respect to gold—the
age of Spanish plunder for gold came to an end.
The second half of the 16th century saw a gradual shift from gold to silver as the
principal metal of Spanish plunder and mining (Vilar 2011). The main discovery of that
period was the famous silver mine at Potosí, Bolivia, a virtual mountain of silver ore that
was mined at unimaginable human expense in the form of indigenous slaves. Silver con-
tinued to fuel the aspirations of Charles V until 1556, when he stepped down to pass the
crown to his son Phillip II. Sick with gout, he left the Spanish economy with a crushing
deficit. He retreated to the solitude of a monastery and died in 1558. His sad legacy was
a Spanish fervor to extract as much as possible from the Americas, one that ultimately
reduced the indigenous population to under a million people in less than a century.
t h e e n d o f t h e a g e o f s pa n i s h g o l d
The last half of the 16th century was a difficult one for Spain. In 1532, the same
year that Pizarro marched on Atahuallpa’s camp in Cajamarca, King Francis I of France
declared that the sea was common to all nations. This amounted to an open season on
Spanish ships carrying treasure, initiating a period of piracy on the high seas by French,
Dutch, and English privateers. French pirates had been among the first to attack Spanish
ships and settlements, beginning with a successful sack of ships returning under the com-
mand of Cortés with some of the first shipments of Aztec gold from Mexico in 1523. It
has been estimated that only between 80 and 85 percent of the gold that left the Americas
made it directly to Spain, the rest being lost through piracy and the occasional shipwreck,
with some of that treasure still hidden in unknown or inaccessible places (Vilar 2011).
The English actively invested in piracy, with creditors outfitting ships for privateer
John Hawkins and his nephew Drake to undertake raids on Spanish ships beginning in
1566. Their expeditions were privately financed, with investors including Queen Eliza-
beth I. Drake led a raid on Nombre de Dios in 1572, destroying the Spanish fort and
sacking the town. The following year, he returned to attempt an ambush on a mule train
carrying silver bullion—much of which had originated in the mines of Potosí, Peru—
from the Pacific coast. In 1577, Drake made a daring round of South America through the
Straits of Magellan to sack the city of Lima, Peru, crossing the Pacific Ocean and return-
ing triumphant from the Orient to repay the Queen with the value of forty-seven times
her initial investment. In 1581 she knighted him aboard his flagship, the Golden Hind, in
gratitude (Loftus 1911).
The ongoing successes of Sir Drake and others inflamed the Spanish, who decided
to attack the English navy off their own coasts in 1588. The resulting sea battle, one of the
greatest of the period, cost Spain the Spanish Armada—a devastating loss at a time when
precious metal exports from the Americas were fueling the Spanish economy. Drake him-
self was second in command of the victorious English fleet.
By the second half of the 16th century, although some gold continued to be extract-
ed at great cost, the flashy ornaments of the Aztecs, Incas, and the many different ethnic
groups of the Central American isthmus and northern Colombia had been taken, and
most had been melted down for bullion to pay Spanish debts. It is virtually impossible
to imagine the quantities of individual objects that were destroyed by looking at the slim
traces that have survived in a small number of private collections. Collections such as that
of the Gilcrease Museum provide just a small glimpse of what once existed.
Today, the goldwork of Panama is a reminder of the vast differences between the
histories and cultures of the ancient Americas and Europe as well as of their dramatic
convergence.
“Philip II,” engraved in
mezzotint on copper by
R.B. Parks, The Cloister
Life of Emperor Charles
V, Sir William Sterling-
Maxwell, 1891, London:
John C. Nimmo.
GM 2376.2124
42 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 43
One of the principal characteristics of the European quest for gold is that produc-
tion was undertaken outside the laws of economics. The price of the commodity was
completely unrelated to the cost of its production, the incalculable losses of human life,
destruction of property, and the devastation of land and human resources with other
productive potential. There was no normal subsistence level that permitted the reproduc-
tion of indigenous labor, which was destroyed as it was used and remained in sharp de-
cline until it almost completely disappeared—as was the tragic case in Panama. There was
little relationship, if any, between the value of gold and silver in Europe and its average
costs of production in the Americas. The two were, in an economic sense, almost com-
pletely decoupled. When one adds to this the fact that extensions of credit were made on
the basis of imagined gold in lands that—at the times the loans were being made—were
completely unknown, the economic picture becomes surreal.
It is a worthwhile exercise to contemplate what the world would be like today had
the ancient peoples of Panama and elsewhere in the Americas been able to survive and
retain their language and culture to the extent that has occurred in India, China, and Af-
rica (despite their own bitter experiences with colonization). The objects in the Gilcrease
collection remind us not only of the humanity of the individuals who made them, but of
the many ways in which gold has been interpreted by humans in different cultures at dif-
ferent times. The world in which we live today has a deep connection with these ancient
objects that were created and used by indigenous peoples yet resonate still in the larger
history of our world.
n o t e s
1 Isla Grande, off the point, has the farthest northern point of land. Punta Manzanillo is located
about halfway between what were later settled as Portobelo (to the west) and Nombre de Dios (to the east),
the two principal 16th century Spanish ports on the Caribbean coast. Portobelo and Nombre de Dios (in a
circular cove east of “Pto. Bello”) can both be seen in the upper left of the map on page 14.
2 Bastidas, who had been specifically interested in finding gold, ultimately discovered it in abundance
in Colombia. When he refused to divide his spoils with his men, some of them stabbed him in his sleep. He
died of his wounds after sailing from Colombia to Cuba in 1527.
3 Given the small size of indigenous people relative to Europeans and the custom of removing all
pubic hair, Columbus may have been completely wrong about their ages.
4 [Author’s translation] The original reads “. . . .dos muchachas muy ataviadas: la mas vieja no seria
de once años y la otra de siete; ambas con tanta desenvolutura que no serian mas unas putas: traian polvos
de hechizos escondidos.. . . ” (Academia de Geografía e Historia 1952:27). Europeans of the time had a great
fear of witchcraft and sorcery, which also affected how they regarded artwork in gold.
r e f e r e n c e s
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Costa Rica. 1952. Colección de
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ultimo viaje de Cristóbal Colón.
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People of the Sun and Earth.
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Recommended