In the wake of the buccaneers

by A. Hyatt Verrill

Do not think from the above that the Panamanian [[322]]is totally lacking in good qualities or redeeming features. He is intensely patriotic, he is fond of music and art, he is outwardly a polished gentleman, and while, as a rule, he has a streak of yellow in his make-up, yet individuals have shown time and time again that they possess a high degree of courage and self-sacrifice. On the whole, however, after one knows the Panamanians and has lived among them, one is rather sorry that Morgan did not make a clean job of it and wipe out all the inhabitants of Old Panama when he had the chance, or that old Mansvelt did not hold St. Catherine and from that vantage-point subdue the isthmus and add it to Britain’s domains.

Panama is as rich, as fertile, and as fair a country as in the days of its greatest prosperity—an almost virgin land of limitless forests, stupendous mountains, vast rolling plains, great rivers, luxuriant valleys, high table-lands, and untrodden wildernesses.

One may cross the isthmus by railway trains hauled by oil-burning locomotives or may steam through the canal on huge liners. One may whirl about Colon or Panama in motor-cars or may ride on trolleys. One may live luxuriously in the palatial Tivoli or Washington Hotel, and may find every convenience and comfort of New York in [[323]]the shops; and from morn to night one hears the bustle and the hum of modern progress and activity. And yet, within a few hours of all this, within a hundred and fifty miles of the teeming towns and the up-to-date Zone, is a vast unknown territory, a land that the foot of no white man has ever trod, a district wherein dwell Indians as primitive as those who gazed in wonder at the ships of Columbus.

And, oddly enough, it was in this district, in Darien, that the first Spanish settlement was made on the isthmus. It was across this wild and untamed land that Balboa made his slow and difficult way to look upon the Pacific, and it was through the Darien jungles that Sharp and Dampier and their fellow buccaneers forced their way from the Atlantic to the Pacific on that marvelous “dangerous voyage.”

Darien has changed little since then. The jungles are as impenetrable as when the first Dons and the later buccaneers slashed through the tangle of creepers and vines. Within the forests dwell the same Indians as those Balboa fought and the same tribes that aided the pirates to attack the hated Spaniards. One may still find the Chokois garbed only in breech-cloths and wearing the strange wooden crowns described by Ringrose and [[324]]Dampier. One may still see the Kunas wearing the palm-wood combs and the golden nose-rings that attracted the buccaneers’ attention and curiosity. And, just as in the days of Ringrose and his fellows, there are friendly or “tame” red men and wild Indians, or bravos, in Darien. As ever, the brown-skinned Chokois are friendly and peaceable, although as primitive as at the time of Balboa’s expedition, while the yellow-skinned Kunas are as implacable, as aloof, and as unapproachable as when they tore the cruel Lolonais limb from limb.

But in addition to these wild tribesmen, who never permit a white man or a strange red man within their territory, there are also “tame,” or, as the Panamanians say, “mansos” Kunas, descendants of those who helped and guided the buccaneers across the isthmus and were ever the allies of the pirates—or, for that matter, any enemies of the hated Dons.

Wonderful tales are told in Panama and Colon of the wild Kunas, or, as the people call them, “San Blas” Indians, of the forbidden district. It is said that they either kill whoever enters their land, or else slice off the soles of one’s feet and then turn one loose in the jungle; and the Panamanians, as well as the Chokois, are in deadly fear of them. [[325]]As a matter of fact, while the Kunas do prevent strangers from entering the territory they control, which extends from the upper Chukunaque to the headwaters of the Bayano River, yet I doubt very much if they ever kill or even maltreat a white man. Personally I have gone into their forbidden district for a short distance, and have dwelt among the wild Kunas for a fortnight, and I was treated well and made many friends among them. But the bravos have seen the results of contact with civilized or supposedly civilized man, and they have no intention of permitting the native rubber-gatherers or gold-seekers to secure a foothold in their country. And when one has seen what association with other races does to the red men, one cannot blame the Kunas if they adopt stern measures to keep their tribe pure and undefiled.

Inhabitants of this same Darien are the true San Blas Indians, who have ever been confused with the Kunas, but are quite distinct—a peaceable, friendly tribe dwelling on the Atlantic coast and the neighboring islets. In the old days they were sworn friends of the pirates, and rendered every British freebooter inestimable aid, from the time of Drake to that of Patterson. As sailors they are unexcelled, and many buccaneer ships dropped [[326]]anchor off the San Blas isles and picked up the stocky brown Indians to act as pilots on their forays up and down the coasts.

The buccaneers treated the Indians fairly wherever they met them, although no doubt their attitude toward the red men was due to selfish motives rather than to any sense of humanity or decency. They well knew how the Indians were treated by the Spaniards; they knew that by treating them kindly and fairly they could win their confidence and friendship and thus enlist them as allies against the Dons; and, most of all, they were compelled to depend upon them very largely for food.

But, whatever the reason, they never molested or disturbed the aborigines. Even when, as often happened, the Indians of some hitherto untouched locality attacked them, the buccaneers never retaliated. Instead, they endeavored to mollify the savages, made overtures of friendship, gave them presents, or, if they found it impossible to make peace with them, left the spot and the natives to themselves. In all their records there is not a single instance of the pirates’ maltreating or killing Indians except on occasions when the Dons had Indian friends who took part in battles against [[327]]the buccaneers or in case of those who were the Spaniards’ servants.