Vol. XV, No. 2 



WASHINGTON 



February, 1904 



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THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 



By Hon. Wm. H. Burr, of the Isthmian Canal Commission 



THE youngest of the American 

 republics has almost the oldest 

 history. The Caribbean coast 

 line of Colombia and of Panama was one 

 of the earliest localities visited by the 

 old Spanish navigators. One of them, 

 Alonzo de Ojeda, visited a number of 

 places along this coast in 1499 and 1501, 

 while Columbus visited Porto Bello, 25 

 miles northeast of Colon, and other places 

 in 1502, during his last voyage. From 

 those dates onward all this portion of the 

 Spanish main was constantly visited, ex- 

 plored, and apportioned among Spanish 

 officials. Many expeditions of discovery 

 were made inland, until all that north- 

 westerly portion of South America 

 which has so long been known as Vene- 

 zuela, Colombia, and Ecuador was com- 

 pletely explored and a fair knowledge 

 of its resources, mineral and otherwise, 

 obtained. 



One of the most important inci- 

 dents in these exploring expeditions 

 occurred when Vasco Nunez de Balboa, 

 governor of the province in Darien, first 

 set out southward from his capital, Santa 

 Maria dela Antigua, prompted by what 

 the Indians had told him, and, from an 

 elevation on the divide north of the Gulf 



of San Miguel, discovered the Pacific 

 Ocean on the 25th day of September, 

 1 51 3. Many of the earliest historical 

 events of the Republic of Panama are 

 associated with this intrepid explorer. 

 He was on the Isthmus but a short 

 period, but his restless energy was ever 

 prompting him to new enterprises of ex- 

 ploration and aggrandizement of terri- 

 tory for his home government. His re- 

 markable eareer was cut short in 1517 

 by his execution at Acla, on the Carib- 

 bean shore of the Gulf of Darien, by a 

 jealous governor of the province, who 

 feared that Balboa's fruitful enterprises 

 might give him sufficient eclat to make 

 him the head of the new Spanish terri- 

 tory in place of himself. 



The Spanish discoverers found all this 

 country, like others of South and Cen- 

 tral America, peopled with large num- 

 bers of Indians. 



The territory constituting the present 

 Republic of Panama, as well as the north- 

 westerly portion and west coast of South 

 America, was carefully scoured in search 

 of the precious metals of which fabulous 

 stories were related by the natives, 

 many of which were justified by sub- 

 sequent results. Balboa himself visited 



