Provoked by this interference, and as yet ignorant of the fate of their colony, the Scotch soon afterward[XXXI‑13] despatched another expedition of thirteen hundred men in four vessels. The ships were hastily fitted out, and during the voyage one was lost and the others scattered. Many died on the passage, and the rest arrived at different times broken in health and spirit. The dwellings of the first settlers had been burned, the fort dismantled, the tools and agricultural implements abandoned, and the site of the settlement was overgrown with weeds. Meanwhile two sloops had arrived in the harbor with a small stock of provisions; but the supply was inadequate, and five hundred of the party were at once ordered to embark for Scotland.
In February 1700 Captain Campbell arrived at New Saint Andrew with a company of three hundred men who had served under him during the campaign in Flanders. Intelligence had now reached the colony that sixteen hundred Spaniards lay encamped on the Rio Santa María expecting soon to be joined by a squadron of nine vessels, when it was proposed to make a concerted attack on the settlement. Campbell resolved to anticipate the enemy, and marching against them at the head of two hundred veterans, surprised their camp by night, and dispersed them with great slaughter. Returning, he found that the Spanish ships were off the harbor, and that troops had been landed from them, cutting off all chance of relief. Nevertheless for six weeks the Scotch sustained a siege, and when their ammunition gave out they melted their pewter dishes and fashioned them into cannon balls. At length provisions ran short and the Spaniards cut off their water supply. A surrender became inevitable. Campbell with a few comrades escaped on board his vessel and made his way to New York and thence to Scotland. The rest capitulated on condition that they be allowed to depart with their effects,[XXXI‑14] but so weak were the survivors and so few in number that they were not able to weigh the anchor of their largest ship until the Spaniards generously came to their assistance. All but two of the vessels were lost; only thirty of the men succeeded in reaching home, and after the loss of more than two thousand lives and several millions of money, the Scotch abandoned further attempts at colonization in Tierra Firme.[XXXI‑15]
CARTAGENA.
While the Spaniards were thus annoyed by foreign encroachments in Darien, the capital of the neighboring province was captured by filibusters. This was in 1697. To Pedro de Heredia had been assigned in 1532, as will be remembered, a province in Nueva Andalucía; and there had been founded the colony of Cartagena, which toward the close of the sixteenth century had become a flourishing settlement. A hundred years later Cartagena ranked next to Mexico among the cities of the western world. Situated on a capacious harbor, esteemed as one of the best in the Indies, it possessed several large streets, each nearly one sixth of a league in length, with well built houses of stone, a cathedral, several churches, and numerous convents and nunneries. Its population was probably little short of twenty thousand, of whom about three thousand were Spaniards and the remainder negroes and mulattoes. It was strongly fortified by nature and art, and had to some extent superseded the cities of the Isthmus as an entrepôt of commerce between the hemispheres. Here the pearl fleet called once a year, an entire street being occupied with the shops of the pearl-dressers, and here was brought, by way of the Desaguadero, the sugar, cochineal, and indigo sent from Guatemala for shipment to Spain.
Cartagena was therefore a tempting prize for the banditti who infested the waters of the North Sea. Drake's operations off that city have already been related. A few years after the decease of that famous adventurer it was laid in ashes by French privateers; and now, in 1697, it was captured by a French fleet having on board twelve hundred men, of whom seven hundred were filibusters under command of Le Baron de Pointis. The spoils of this raid were variously estimated at from eight to forty millions of livres; and yet it is said that before the capture of the city a hundred and ten mule-loads of silver were despatched to a place of safety.
LUIS GARCÍA.
In 1726 the governor of Panamá gave authority to the mestizo, Luis García, a man whose exploits had brought him into prominence, to lead the Indians in a war of extermination against the French filibusters, who still continued to devastate the Isthmus.
A brief but sharp campaign resulted in the death of the French leader, the notorious Petitpied, and García, on his return to Panamá, was amply rewarded. The Cana mines proved too great a temptation to García after his return to his home in Darien, and finding that some of the caciques whose territory extended to the Balsas River were in a state of mutiny on account of grievances inflicted by the curates in the name of the church and the king, he made a compact with them to throw off Spanish allegiance, withdraw their forces to the mountain fastnesses, and form a government of their own. A rendezvous was established in the Cordillera, and García, growing more resolute, resolved on an aggressive war upon the Spaniards and their Indian allies. The campaign opened in a frontier town on the river Yavisa, where they killed the cura, the teniente de justicia, a few Spaniards, and all the Indians who would not join them; then they plundered the place. Elated by this victory, García continued his march until he reached Santa María, where he attempted the same system of spoliation and slaughter. He was less successful, for the inhabitants had fled with most of their valuables. García's men entered the town, burned it, and killed every Spaniard they could capture in the neighborhood.
Meanwhile news of the revolt had reached the president, and seventy picked men well officered had been sent to suppress it. This and other attempts threw the people of Darien, now numbering twenty thousand, into consternation, and concerted action was planned with Panamá. A large reward was offered for the body of García, dead or alive; he perished at last by the hands of a negro.[XXXI‑16]
Although the Isthmus was the seat of the first Spanish settlement in America, as I have said before, the natives of Darien were never completely subdued. The Spaniards built strongholds, gathered the Indians into settlements, introduced missionaries, guarded the coast with men-of-war, but all in vain. In 1745 Fort San Rafael de Terable was built by Governor Dionisio de Alcedo on a small peninsula bordered by the river and bay. In 1751 the natives carrying out an oft repeated threat attacked this stronghold, and of the garrison but two or three wounded men escaped. In 1756 the population of Yavisa, composed chiefly of friendly Indians, was massacred by the Chucunaques. A fort was erected in 1760 at this point, and a few years later it became the capital of the province and the seat of the residence of the governor. In 1768 the Chucunaques slaughtered the garrison at Port Ypelisa, plundered the place of arms and tools, and in the same year laid waste the banks of the Congo.