In the valuable collection of Mr Arrowsmith are many Spanish documents, among which one plan, dated 1774, shows all the Spanish establishments, military and religious, as well as mining, at that date, in Darien. Others show details of a previous century, and a few give the earliest settlements of the 16th century.
INJURY TO TRUTHFUL GEOGRAPHY.
And here allow one word to be said of the injury to truthful geography, caused by copying all materials without acknowledgment, or by adding imaginary topography without explanation. The map by Dr Autenreith has much the appearance of an exact survey; there is no distinction made between those parts for which there is authority and those which are partly the results of imagination (the interior hill-work).
The public in general being unaware of the authorities for a map, the mere copyist is often supposed to be the author of the work. Maps or charts that are not original ought always to show from what data they have been compiled.
In order to assist in now forming a correct opinion of Darien, a retrospective historical glance at a few points is necessary.
The first settlement in all America was founded in 1509 at the mouth of the Atrato. It was called Santa Maria de la Antigua. The next settlement on the Isthmus was at Acla, or Agla, in 1514, a few miles inland[XXXIV-57] from that port or bay now famed in history and romance, called by Paterson Caledonian Harbor. It was from Agla that Balboa crossed to the South Sea, and that the earliest expeditions to Peru were despatched.
In 1532 these two settlements were abandoned, and their population transferred to Nombre de Dios and Panamá. This is said to have been done on account of the unhealthy site of Santa Maria de la Antigua, surrounded by marshes and mangrove jungles; but why Agla was abandoned does not appear, except by Paterson's narrative, whence it may be inferred that the settlers there were harassed by the Indians, and were too far from the sea-shore. Besides which, as intercourse increased with places on the Pacific coasts it became, no doubt, more convenient to have a principal rendezvous on the southern shore more accessible from the Pacific.
In those early days so famed was Darien for gold, that the province was called 'Golden Castile'[XXXIV-58] (Castilla del Oro). It was the principal portion of that 'tierra firme,' so famed afterward as the 'Spanish Main,' the real 'El Dorado' to which Sir Walter Raleigh went in 1517-18, Sir Francis Drake in 1557, troops of buccaneers in the 17th century, and the Scotch colony in 1698.
Repeated aggressions on this auriferous district, where abundance of gold was procured by black slave labor, after the aborigines had been diminished in numbers by oppressive cruelties, induced Spain to close and abandon the mines for a time (early in the 18th century)—even those famous ones in the mountains of Espíritu Santo near Cana, from which alone more gold went through Panamá in a year than from all the other mines of America taken together. These Cana mines were sacked in 1702 and 1712 by English, in 1724 by French, and by the Indians in 1727. Nevertheless, in 1774 the mining operations were again going on, having been reëstablished a few years previously.
When Cana was taken by the expedition (as narrated by Davis) sent from Jamaica by Colonel Beckford in 1702, there were about '900 houses' (probably most of them mere huts); therefore, the population could hardly have been less than 3,000 at that time. From 1719 to 1727 there was a great and general resistance of the Indians, who attacked the Spaniards in all directions, and drove them out of all the detached settlements. Some years afterward peace was made (in 1740), missions of the Jesuits advanced among the natives, and by their aid not only much topographical knowledge was acquired, but Spanish settlements in the interior were renewed and mines worked. But the Indians again rebelled; therefore, small forts were reëstablished at Yavisa, Molineca, and Santa Maria Real, with a new post (in 1780) at El Príncipe, or Ocubti, from which a road was cut by Arisa, leading toward Caledonian Harbor. The fort El Príncipe does not appear in the Spanish MS. map of 1774; it was built about 1785, when the Spaniards had again advanced into the interior Indian territory.