of the province of Cueva for the citizens of Acla. But as the captains, who had made many incursions into the country from Darien, had carried off great numbers of Indians, and as the land was of small extent from one sea to the other, there were very few Indians at the time that the land was divided, and the governor could give only ninety Indians in repartimiento, or fifty or forty. And as each cacique had to give nearly all his Indians, who were required to till the ground and build houses, and as those that remained were taken off to the mines, where they died, in a short time neither chiefs nor Indians were to be found in all the land.[1]
Panama was founded in the year 1519, on the day of Nuestra Señora de Agosto, and at the end of that year a captain named Diego Alvites founded Nombre de Dios, by order of Pedrarias.[2] In Nombre de Dios there was a certain race of people called Chuchures, with a language different from that of the other Indians. They came to settle in this place in canoes from Honduras, and as the country was unhealthy their numbers decreased, and there were few of them. Of these few none survived the treatment they received after Nombre de Dios was founded.
Having founded Panama in this year, the governor sent the licentiate Espinosa in command of the ships, with as many men as they would hold, to the westward.[3] The licentiate arrived at the province of Burica, on the coast of Nicaragua, some hundred leagues from Panama. Thence
- ↑ This hideous picture of the devastation caused by the Spaniards, within a few years after their first arrival, is but too true.
- ↑ The town of Nombre de Dios was abandoned in the reign of Philip II, on account of its extreme unhealthiness, and Porto Bello became the chief Atlantic port of the isthmus. In later times Porto Bello was abandoned for Chagres, and now Colon or Aspinwall is the Atlantic terminus of the Panama railway.
- ↑ These were the vessels constructed with such immense toil and difficulty by Vasco Nuñez.
