Santa María la Antigua del Darién
Santa María la Antigua del Darién was a city founded in 1510, during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, by Martín Fernández de Enciso and Vasco Núñez de Balboa, according to the chronicler Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. It was the capital of the Governorate of Castilla de Oro until 1520, when the population moved completely to Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Panamá (current Panama City) by order of Pedrarias Dávila.
Some sources cite Santa María la Antigua del Darién as the first city founded by the Spanish on the American mainland, constituting the starting point for the conquest and/or discovery of the continent by the Europeans of the time: Francisco Pizarro, Sebastián de Belalcázar, Diego de Almagro, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Pedro Arias Dávila.
His remains are found in a small portion of the Isthmus of Panama, near the western coast of the Gulf of Urabá, department of Chocó, village of Santuario, municipality of Unguía, Republic of Colombia.
Background
Santa María was one of the first cities founded by the Spanish on the mainland of the American continent.
Since Christopher Columbus, in 1492, there were many Spanish settlements prior to the founding of Santa María la Antigua del Darién.
In 1492, during his first voyage to the New Continent, Columbus developed the settlements on the island of Hispaniola, today a joint territory of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. From there he led several expeditions to the mainland of the American continent.
In 1502, Columbus landed on the shores of Veragua on the Isthmus of Panama and founded a short-lived settlement on the Caribbean shores called Belén, which was destroyed by the natives.
Other sites on the mainland of the continent, and prior to Santa María la Antigua del Darién, were the town of Nombre de Dios, built by Diego de Nicuesa during his governorship of Veragua and the settlement of Santa Cruz, built by Alonso de Ojeda —who had permission from the crown to explore and conquer the Caribbean coast between the Gulf of Urabá and Cabo de la Vela—during his explorations in Venezuela, in the ephemeral governorate of Coquivacoa, today La Guajira, Colombia, and which lasted only three months.
In 1510, after escaping the attacks of the natives of the area where Cartagena de Indias would be founded in 1533, Ojeda founded the small fort of San Sebastián de Urabá, on the eastern side of the Gulf of Urabá, also in what is now Colombia, which was quickly abandoned to seek its transfer to another safer and friendlier place. In summary, despite these ephemeral settlements, Santa María la Antigua del Darién was the first colonial city established and disappeared during the Spanish conquest of the American continent.
Foundation
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Alonso de Ojeda, the founder of San Sebastián de Urabá, had left for Santo Domingo because the situation had become untenable at the San Sebastián fort, the first attempt by the Spanish to establish a base on the coast mainland Caribbean. The area where they tried to build the base was very warlike and unhealthy, and of the 300 scouts and initial soldiers that Ojeda had brought, only 42 remained.
The command of the situation in San Sebastián was entrusted to Francisco Pizarro, who had to resist for fifty days until Ojeda returned, something that never happened. Martín Fernández de Enciso remained as commander, who had arrived with some reinforcements to try to save the situation. It was then that Vasco Núñez de Balboa suggested that the population of the fort move to the west of the Gulf of Urabá, a territory that he had known since 1501, as it was the most fertile and least dangerous land.
Upon reaching this new region, the Spaniards met the cacique Cémaco and there was strong resistance from the natives. The Spaniards then promised the Virgen de la Antigua, venerated in Seville (Spain), that if they were victorious in battle they would give her name to the new town they wanted to found. Cémaco was defeated, and in September 1510, fulfilling the promise, the new town was called Santa María de la Antigua del Darién. The church, the first on the mainland, was located on Cémaco's house. The first mayor of the city was Martín Fernández de Enciso.
The triumph of the Spanish over the natives and the subsequent foundation of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, now located in a relatively calm place, gave Vasco Núñez de Balboa authority and consideration among his companions, fed up with Fernández de Enciso, whom they described as despot and miser because of the restrictions he adopted on gold, the object of covetousness of the colonists. Enciso, among other atrocities, went so far as to order the colony to move back to the fort of San Sebastián de Urabá, which was already completely wiped off the map.
Núñez de Balboa took advantage of the situation by becoming a spokesman for the disgruntled colonists, and using the law removed Fernández de Enciso from the position of ruler of the city. After the removal, an open Cabildo was established, a municipal government was elected, the first in the Americas, and two mayors were appointed: Martín Zamudio and Vasco Núñez de Balboa.
Later, Núñez de Balboa became mayor of the town. He improved relations with the Indians, treating them well, making friends with the caciques and their daughters, and forbidding them to enslave them. He prevented his 300 men from plundering the natives as a rule; He did not distribute the land or impose, like Christopher Columbus, tributes, nor did he eliminate or demote chiefs. Thus he managed to get help and food from them. He also made the Spaniards plant corn and yucca and raise an animal that they had brought from Spain: the pig. The city prospered greatly, and for many years new settlers and explorers arrived.
It was Núñez de Balboa who actually founded Santa María de la Antigua del Darién in 1510 (the Virgin of Antigua was venerated in Seville and in Logroño, the birthplace of the Enciso family, especially in Arnedo, in whose church there is a altar with his shield, an S on a field of gules). Said Zuazo in his favor & # 34; Vasco Núñez could safely travel 100 leagues on the mainland & # 34;. He was executed by Pedrarias Dávila in the Plaza de Acla, on January 19, 1519.
The diocese of Santa María de la Antigua del Darién was the first on the mainland of the American continent. It was created by Pope Leo X through the bull "Pastoralis officii debitum" on September 9, 1513. Initially it was a suffragan diocese of Seville (Spain). Its first bishop was Fray Juan de Quevedo Villegas who arrived at its headquarters on June 30, 1514. On August 15, 1519, Panama City, the first city in the American Pacific, was founded. In December of that same year, Bishop Quevedo died near Barcelona. Later, in 1524, the second bishop, Fray Vicente de Peraza, began the transfer of the headquarters of this diocese to Panama City, where it functions to this day.
Santa María la Antigua, was designated the capital of the territory of Castilla de Oro and the starting point for the founding of many more cities in the rest of the continent during the 1510s.
Decay and disappearance
Spain relieved Núñez de Balboa of command of the town in 1513. The king proceeded to appoint Pedrarias Dávila as proper governor for all of Castilla de Oro, who arrived in that town in 1514 with an expedition of nearly 2,000 people.
Although Pedrarias came with very precise instructions on how to act in the region, the situation, with such a large population, became chaotic. Despite the fact that the town had already planted yucca and corn, as well as many pigs, it was not easy to support such a population, and famine appeared as soon as the Indians refused to work for the Spaniards. Famine was followed by a terrible epidemic.
The Spaniards then dedicated themselves, with the approval of Pedrarias and Bishop Fray Juan de Quevedo, to plunder and enslave the Indians. It was this crazed behavior that would ultimately lead to the decline of the colony and, ultimately, its abandonment. Although many expeditions to the interior were managed from the city during this time, all of this took place in the midst of a hostile and degenerate environment, which among other evils also caused the death of many Spaniards.
Faced with the chaos, Pedrarias decided to look for other options and in 1519 he founded the city of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Panamá, known today as Panama City, capital of the republic of the same name, where he moved definitively in 1520. Santa María la Antigua survived two or three more years, under the command of the chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo. In 1524, Pedrarias decided to evict it and depopulate it completely.
The decline of Santa María la Antigua del Darién was also due to the fact that, by order of Pedrarias himself, the transfer of the capital from Castilla de Oro to Panama City was arranged. With the capital, people, cattle and ammunition also left.
A few years after the evacuation, the city was assaulted and burned by the indigenous people. What was left of it was henceforth abandoned to its fate and covered with jungle, until it finally disappeared from the historical record.
Later, the region of Urabá, which was the initial home of Santa María la Antigua, was the scene of continuous disputes between the Kuna and Emberá indigenous people, in a religious war that lasted until the end of the century XIX. In addition, due to multiple Dutch and English pirates docking in the region, the Spanish crown banned it during the 17th century, under penalty of of death, the transit through the Atrato river, and for this reason this region was kept away from the colonial process.
At the beginning of the XX century, the Kunas were pacified through an agreement between Colombian President Rafael Reyes and the chief of the region.
Jurisdictional evolution
It was debated for many years whether the location of Santa María del Darién would be in present-day Panama or Colombia.
Until 1751, the territory where said city was established was under the jurisdiction of the Royal Audience of Panama in the Kingdom of Tierra Firme; and until the dawn of the XIX century, it was under the jurisdiction of the General Command of Tierra Firme, attached to the Viceroyalty of New Grenade. With the Panama Independence Act, the territories where the city was located became the possession of Gran Colombia, specifically located in the extinct department of the Isthmus.
Dissolved Gran Colombia, a State called the Republic of New Granada is created, made up mostly of the current territories of Colombia and Panama, passing the territories of the old city to be part of the old province of Panama.
Through the law of June 9, 1855, "concessions to the Panama Railroad Company", the limits of exploitation were established in the province of Darién; In it, more reduced territorial limits were set than those that that province had historically had since colonial times.
On the part of the former Sovereign State of Cauca and the central government, it would be interpreted that said concessions law would set the limits between it and the Sovereign State of Panama; For their part, the rulers of the latter would maintain the thesis that the limits with Cauca should be set by a special law as established in the Political Constitution of the time and that the 1855 law established limits to a concession for the construction of a railway.
This demarcation and interpretation would be claimed and unknown by the government based in Panama City during the late XIX century and the dawn of the 20th century. When separating from Colombia, Panama, in its border dispute with Colombia, claimed as its own the territories with which it joined Gran Colombia in 1821, which reached the Caribbean coast to the banks of the Atrato River. However, with the signing of the Victoria-Vélez treaty, the establishment of the border was agreed with the aforementioned law of 1855, leaving a 40-mile portion of the Caribbean coast within the Isthmus of Panama, in Central America, under Colombian jurisdiction.
Finding
In the 1960s, the first expeditions to rediscover it were organized, promoted by King Leopold III of Belgium and by the Colombian-Austrian anthropologist Gerardo Reichel Dolmatoff. Although artifacts and remains were found, the site of the city was not determined. Evidence of its location appeared between 2006 and 2013, when the Italian anthropologist Alberto Sarcina explored the area. In 2013, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (Icanh) joined the project and agreed with the inhabitants of the region to carry out excavations and build an archaeological park. Sarcina's study established that the ruins of the Spanish city are located in the village of Santuario in the municipality of Unguía, department of Chocó, Colombia. The explorations found pre-Hispanic and Spanish remains such as gold nose rings dating from the 11th to 14th centuries and a jug.
Professors from the Departments of History and Anthropology of the National University of Colombia Paolo Vignolo and Virgilio Becerra also carried out explorations aimed at rescuing the vestiges of the ancient Spanish city. In their expeditions they found a small hamlet that had been occupied for less than five years, a chapel rebuilt by the Diocese of Apartadó in 1994, on which it is believed to have been the site of the Spanish cathedral from the XVI, and pastures dedicated to survival farming.
Heritage asset
Through Resolution 2126 of July 17, 2015, the Ministry of Culture of Colombia declared Santa María de la Antigua del Darién a tangible heritage site.
Archaeological park and museum
On April 4, 2019, the Colombian Ministry of Culture inaugurated the Archaeological and Historical Park of Santa María de Belén la Antigua del Darién. The park has more than 50 hectares and a museum that contains the remains of an indigenous village that was on the site from the XIIth century and the vestiges of the Spanish city. Although there are no remains of buildings because they were all made of wood, archaeologists and inhabitants of the area have recovered swords, weapons, coins and vessels, all of which will remain in the museum in accordance with the agreement between the Icanh and the inhabitants.