Castilla de Oro
Substate | Defunct
1513 CE to 1539 CE
Castilla de Oro (or del Oro) is the name given by the Spanish settlers at the beginning of the sixteenth century to the Central American territories from the Gulf of Urabá, near today's Colombian-Panamanian border, to the Belén River.
Beyond that river, the region is known as Veragua, and is disputed by the Spanish crown and the Columbus family.
The name "Castilla de Oro" is made official in May 1513 by King Ferdinand II of Aragon, at that time regent of the Crown of Castile.After Vasco Núñez de Balboa's discovery of the Pacific Ocean, Castilla de Oro's jurisdiction is broadened to include the Pacific coasts of Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.With the creation, in 1527, of the Province of Nicaragua, which includes today's Nicaragua as well as the Nicoya Peninsula, Castilla de Oro's jurisdiction is reduced.
In 1537, once the conflict between the crown and the Columbus family is settled, Castilla de Oro is split up, divided by the Duchy of Veragua.The western portion, which comprises most of Panama's and Costa Rica's Pacific coasts, is merged in 1540 with Royal Veragua, to create the Province of Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica.The eastern part, the last remnant of Castilla de Oro, in time becomes known as the Realm of Tierra Firme, or Panamá, especially after the creation of the Royal Academy of Panamá in 1538.
In 1560, the new Province of Veragua, created by Philip II out of the now defunct Duchy of Veragua, is merged with Castilla de Oro.
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The colonies, however, are far from the seat of ultimate responsibility, and few administrators are guided by the humane spirit of those regulations.
The Roman Catholic Church, and particularly the Franciscan order, show some concern for the welfare of the natives, but on the whole, church efforts are inadequate to the situation.
The natives, nevertheless, find one effective benefactor among their Spanish oppressors.
Bartolome de las Casas, the first priest ordained in the West Indies, is outraged by the persecution of the natives.
He frees his own slaves, returns to Spain, and persuades the council to adopt stronger measures against enslaving the natives.
He makes one suggestion that he will later regret—that Africans, whom the Spaniards consider less than human, be imported to replace the natives as slaves.
In 1517 King Charles V (1516-56) grants a concession for exporting four thousand enslaved Africans to the Antilles.
Thus the slave trade begins, and will flourish for more than two hundred years.
Pedro Arias Davila (Pedrarias), the governor of Panama, appoints Francisco Hernández de Córdoba to lead the Nicaraguan conquest effort.
Córdoba leads an expedition in 1524 that succeeds in establishing the first permanent Spanish settlement in Nicaragua.
He quickly overcomes the resistance of the native peoples and names the land Nicaragua.
To deny Gonzalez's claims of settlement rights and prevent his eventual control of the region, Córdoba founds the cities of León and Granada, which will later become the centers of colonial Nicaragua.
From León, he launches expeditions to explore other parts of the territory.
Estimates vary greatly of the number of natives who inhabit the isthmus of Panama when the Spanish explorers arrive.
By some accounts, the population is considerably greater than that of contemporary Panama.
Some Panamanian historians have suggested that there might have been a population of five hundred thousand natives from some sixty "tribes," but other researchers have concluded that the Cuna alone numbered some seven hundred and fifty thousand.
Besides the Cuna, who constitute by far the largest group in the area, two other major groups, the Guaymi and the Choco, have been identified by ethnologists.
The Guaymi, of the highlands near the Costa Rican border, are believed to be related to natives of the Nahuatlan and Mayan nations of Mexico and Central America.
The Choco on the Pacific side of Darien Province appear to be related to the Chibcha of Colombia.
Although the Cuna, now found mostly in the Comarca de San Bias, an indigenous territory or reserve considered part of Colon Province for some official purposes, have been categorized as belonging to the Caribbean culture, their origin continues to be a subject of speculation.
Various ethnologists have indicated the possibility of a linguistic connection between the name Cuna and certain Arawak and Carib tribal names.
The possibility of cultural links with the Andean natives has been postulated, and some scholars have noted linguistic and other affinities with the Chibcha.
The implication in terms of settlement patterns is that the great valleys of Colombia, which trend toward the isthmus, determine migration in that direction.
Lines of affiliation have also been traced to the Cueva and Coiba tribes, although some anthropologists suggest that the Cuna might belong to a largely extinct linguistic group.
Some Cuna believe themselves to be of Carib stock, while others trace their origin to creation by the god Olokkuppilele at Mount Tacarcuna, west of the mouth of the Rio Atrato in Colombia.
Among all three native Panamanian groups—the Cuna, Guaymi, and Choco—land is communally owned and farmed.
In addition to hunting and fishing, the natives raise corn, cotton, cacao, various root crops and other vegetables, and fruits.
They live at this time—as many still do in the present day—in circular thatched huts and sleep in hammocks.
Villages specialize in producing certain goods, and traders move among them along the rivers and coastal waters in dugout canoes.
The natives are skillful potters, stone cutters, goldsmiths, and silversmiths.
The ornaments they wear, including breastplates and earrings of beaten gold, reinforce the Spanish myth of El Dorado, the city of gold.
Christopher Columbus travels to the Gulf of Honduras during his fourth voyage in 1502.
A few years later, two of his navigators, Martín Pinzon and Juan De Solis, sail northward along the coast of Belize to the Yucatan.
Hernan Cortes conquers Mexico in 1519 and Pedro Arias Davila founds Panama City.
Spain soon sends expeditions to Guatemala and Honduras, and the conquest of the Yucatan begins in 1527.
There are settlements of Ch'ol-speaking Manche in the southwestern corner of present-day Belize when Cortes passes through this area in 1525.
The Spanish will forcibly displace these settlements to the Guatemalan highlands when they "pacify" the region in the seventeenth century.
The Spanish launch their main incursions into the area from the Yucatan, however, and encounter stiff resistance from the Mayan provinces of Chetumal and Dzuluinicob.
Part of an expedition headed by Gil Gonzalez Davila in 1523 discovers the Golfo de Fonseca on the Pacific coast, naming it in honor of Bishop Rodriguez de Fonseca.
Four separate Spanish land expeditions began the conquest of Honduras the following year.
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a member of Bastidas's crew, had settled in Hispaniola (the island encompassing present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) but stowed away on a voyage to Panama in 1510 to escape his creditors.
At this time, about eight hundred Spaniards live on the isthmus, but soon the many jungle perils, doubtless including malaria and yellow fever, kill all but sixty of them.
The settlers at Antigua del Darien (Antigua), the first city to be duly constituted by the Spanish crown, finally depose the crown's representative and elect Balboa and Martin Zamudio co-mayors.
Balboa proves to be a good administrator.
He insists that the settlers plant crops rather than depend solely on supply ships, and Antigua becomes a prosperous community.
Balboa leads raids on native settlements like other conquistadors, but unlike most, he proceeds to befriend the conquered tribes.
He takes the daughter of a chief as his lifelong mistress.
Balboa sets out on September 1, 1513, with one hundred and ninety Spaniards—among them Francisco Pizarro, who will later conquer the Inca Empire in Peru—a pack of dogs, and a thousand enslaved natives.
After twenty-five days of hacking their way through the jungle, the party gazes on the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
Balboa, clad in full armor, wades into the water and claims the sea and all the shores on which it washes for his God and his king.
Balboa returns to Antigua in January 1514 with all one hundred and ninety soldiers and with cotton cloth, pearls, and forty thousand pesos in gold.
His enemies have meanwhile denounced him in the Spanish court, and King Ferdinand appoints a new governor for the colony, at this time known as Castilla del Oro.
Hundreds of Spaniards die of disease and starvation in their brocaded silk clothing; thousands of natives are robbed, enslaved, and massacred.
Thousands more of the natives succumb to European diseases to which they have no natural immunity.
After the atrocities of Pedrarias, most of the natives flee to remote areas to avoid the Spaniards.
Balboa is arrested, brought to the court of Pedrarias, and executed in 1517.
Pedrarias moves his capital in 1519 away from the debilitating climate and unfriendly natives of the Darien to a fishing village on the Pacific coast.
The natives call the village Panamá, meaning "plenty of fish."