CHILDREN IN A NATIVE HUT
Yet the colony was not wholly without a certain sturdy self reliance. Seeing it persist despite all obstacles, the Spaniards dispatched a force of soldiers from Panama to destroy it. Campbell waylaid them in the jungle and overthrew them. Then the King of Spain became alarmed and sent eight Spanish men-of-war to make an end of these interlopers—the King of England and Scotland coldly leaving them to their fate. But they fought so bravely that in the end the Spanish, though their fleet had been reënforced by three ships, were obliged to grant them capitulation with the honors of war, and they “marched out with their colors flying and drums beating, together with arms and ammunition, and with all their goods.”
THE WATER FRONT OF PANAMA
So ended the effort to make of Darien an outpost of Scotland. In the effort 2000 lives and over £200,000 had been lost. Macaulay explains it by saying, “It was folly to suppose that men born and bred within ten degrees of the Arctic circle would enjoy excellent health within ten degrees of the equator.” But Lord Macaulay forgot to reckon on the hostility of the East India Company, whose monopoly was threatened, the plenteousness of the brandy and the zeal of the four ministers.
THE WATER GATE OF PANAMA
After the expulsion of the Scotch, the domination of the Isthmus by the Spaniards was never again seriously menaced by any foreign power. All the vast South and Central American domain was lost to Spain, not by the attacks of her European neighbors, but by the revolt of their people against a government which was at one time inefficient and tyrannical. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic upheaval in Europe found their echo in South America, where one after another the various states threw off the Spanish yoke. But Panama, then known as Terra Firma, was slow to join in the revolutionary activities of her neighbors. It is true that in 1812 the revolutionists became so active in Bogotá, the capital of the province, that the seat of government was temporarily removed to Panama City. But the country as a whole was sluggish.
Four classes of citizens, European Spaniards, their sons, born on the Isthmus, and called creoles, the Indians and the negroes, made up the population and were too diverse by birth and nature to unite for any patriotic purpose. Accordingly through the period of breaking shackles, which made Bolivar famous the world over and created the great group of republics in South America, the state of which the Isthmus was a part remained quiescent. In 1814 revolutionists vainly tried to take Porto Bello, but that famous fortress which never resisted a foreign foe successfully, beat off the patriots. Panama was at this time in high favor at Madrid because of its loyalty and the Cortes passed resolutions for the building of a canal, but went no further. But all the time the revolutionary leaven was working beneath the surface. In 1821 a field marshal from Spain, charged with the task of crushing out the revolution in Colombia and Ecuador, stripped Porto Bello, San Lorenzo and Panama of the greater part of their garrisons and took them to Guayaquil. By bribes and promises the local patriots persuaded the few soldiers remaining to desert and, with no possibility of resistance, the independence of Panama from Spain was declared. Early in 1822 Panama became the Department of the Isthmus in the Republic of Colombia.
It would be idle to describe, even to enumerate, all the revolutions which have disquieted the Isthmus since it first joined Colombia in repudiating the Spanish rule. They have been as thick as insects in the jungle. No physical, social or commercial ties bound Panama to Colombia at any time during their long association. A mountain range divided the two countries and between the cities of Panama and Bogotá there was no communication by land. In foreign commerce the province of Panama exceeded the parent state, while the possession of the shortest route across the Isthmus was an asset of which both Bogotáns and Panamanians keenly realized the value.