8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 191 



Under the Emperor Ferdinand of Spain, Antigua was established 

 as the first stronghold on the Atlantic coast of the New Continent. 

 In 1513 the governorship of the eastern half of Panama was given to 

 Pedro Arias de Avila (Pedrarias the Cruel) under whom Captains 

 Diego de Albites and Antonio Tello de Guzman were sent forth, 

 toward Balboa's newly discovered "South Sea," to obtain gold and to 

 establish a string of outposts for possible settlement. In the latter 

 months of 1515, the captains arrived at the Pacific coast near a small 

 Indian village which the local inhabitants called "Panama." The 

 name is generally accepted now to mean "Place of Many Fishes," 

 but at least one chronicler, Hererra, states that the name referred to 

 the huge local trees which the natives termed "Panamas." 



Two years later. Licentiate Caspar de Espinosa had been appointed 

 to replace the beheaded Vasco Nunez de Balboa in the work of explor- 

 ing the Pacific coast. The expedition of Espinosa camped at this 

 same Indian village while awaiting the return of Governor Pedrarias 

 from a pillaging trip to the Pearl Islands and Taboga Island in the 

 Gulf of Panama. 



It is possible that this village was in the vicinity of the present 

 Venado Beach, although the exact site is not known. The actual city 

 was founded on a site a few miles farther east where the land was 

 firmer and afforded better grazing for the cattle. There is no record 

 of any Indian inhabitants at this latter location. In 1519, Pedrarias 

 officially founded the city of Panama with characteristic pomp and 

 ceremony, and in 1521 he was granted a charter and coat of arms. 

 Thereafter, the story is first one of slow development and then of 

 rapid growth after the conquest of Peru by Pizarro. A transcon- 

 tinental trail was constructed from the city of Portobelo and Nombre 

 de Dios over which the gold of Panama and Peru was transported 

 for shipment to Spain. For the next century or so the story wanes 

 and finally closes with the destruction of the city in 1671 by the 

 buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF OLD PANAMA 



The city had smaU beginnings and was relatively stable for the 

 first 75 years. The first extant report is provided by the historian 

 Oviedo, who visited the site in 1529, after 10 years of its existence, 

 and stated that it was composed of 75 shacks which "were narrow and 

 long, and someumes the tide will wash right into their homes. To 

 the North [the archeological site] was an invironment of mud and 

 swamps, which caused the lack of sanitation." ^ 



Twelve years later, Jeronime (Girolamo) Benzoni, an Italian his- 

 torian, remarked that there were 112 wooden houses and calculated 



1 Ovledo y Valdes: La historia general de las Indias, Seville, 1535 {in Sosa, 1955). 



