The word “Panama” is either a corruption of a Kuna (one of the indigenous peoples) word meaning “far away”, or a misnomer of the early Spanish explorers of a native village name meaning “many fish”. There you have it. That’s all you need to know that Panama has been and remains much of a mystery to most of us in the US of A. Of course, we know of the Panama Canal, and certainly we know Rod Carew. A few of us may even be able to call to mind the name Noriega without knowing exactly who he is or what he may have done to deserve our notice. When pressed, in Rorschach fashion, I would throw out Panama hat which, of course, is not primarily made in Panama, but in Equador. My darling wife S., who has been a reader of the great English spy novelist John Le Carre, remembered one of his best sellers named The Tailor of Panama. Nothing else. We could not, before we arrived here, think of another intelligent thing to say about Panama. I’ll bet you’re right there with us.
Two million, or thereabouts, visitors come to Panama each year. Visitors from America comprise roughly ten percent of that number. The rest come from neighboring South and Central American countries, Canada, Russia, and increasingly the whole gamut of Asian countries. Considering that Panama City is only three hours as the crow flies from Miami or Houston, and that we pretty much controlled the country and every thing in in for nigh on to a hundred years, it has miles of beaches, casinos on every corner, and legal “ladies of the evening”, it seems more than a little odd that Panama gets so little of our travel attention. I suspect that change is in the offing. I’ll tell you why later.
You know that I can’t help but give you a little dose of Panamanian history before I proceed. Let me start at the beginning…if I only knew when the beginning was. What we now call the Panamanian Isthmus (of course you know that an isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two land masses) arose from the sea somewhere between three million and seventeen million years ago. I know that this seems like a fairly wide range of years, but there you go, more of the mystery. In any case, at some point, as a result of eruptions of underwater volcanos, the build up over eons of sediment, and lots of failed sand castles for all I know, the isthmus was born and the world was changed. Just think, once a land bridge was erected between South and North America, the migration of four footed critters between the two was possible. If it hadn’t, we wouldn’t, among other things, have armadillos in Texas now. More importantly, we wouldn’t have the gulf stream, and big Ernie wouldn’t have been able to write The Old Man and the Sea. Some people, far smarter than I, opine that the polar ice cap would not have formed and there goes Santa Claus. So you see, this was a really, really important event. And that’s just the start.
It’s thought that peeps of various stripes have lived here for about ten thousand years, but no one knows exactly where they came from or how they got here. Another of the mysteries. But they were, as far as we know, pretty happy campers before the Spaniards got here in 1503. Note the large gap from three or seventeen million BCE and ten thousand BCE. It looks like some of the smart guys in our universities who study this kind of stuff ought to be able to give us some clue.
An old Spanish sailor by the the name of Bastida is reported to have sailed down the coast of the isthmus in 1502, but it was his first mate, Vasco Nunez de Balboa who made the big hit by discovering the Pacific Ocean…how could we have missed it all those years…and claiming Panama for the Spanish crown. Even Columbus wanted in on the act and on his fourth voyage to the new world laid down a claim. Success has many fathers as we all know. Shortly thereafter, the Catholic church, knowing a good deal when they saw it, sent their first Bishop to Panama, and, as they say, it was all down hill after that.
For the next three hundred years, the Spanish did what they were wont to do with all of their colonies in the new world. Looked for gold, saved the heathens, built churches, and supported the crown in their efforts to suppress the natives. While further to the north, Simon Bolivar was stirring things up in what was then called New Granada, now Columbia. The Spaniards hated him worse than the Tea Party hates Obama, but he succeeded in hiving Columbia off from Spain. Panama rode his coat tails and escaped the oppression of Spanish colonization in 1821, but Bolivar didn’t stop there. He had a dream of a “Gran Columbia” which he brought into reality with the support of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. Alas, it didn’t last long. Bolivar’s dream imploded in 1830, but Panama stayed the course and continued as a part of Columbia until 1903 at which time Panama became it’s own republic. Panama became one of the few countries that could legitimately celebrate two independence days.
In the mean time, a few other things were going on. The canal had become more than a gleam in a dreamer’s eye. The French were out and the Americans were in. What a story. No I’m not going to give you the history of the big dig. David McCulloch has already done that. If you haven’t already done so, you must read The Path Between the Seas which is the definitive history of the Panama Canal. It’s the only history book that falls into the category of a page turner. I couldn’t put it down.
I’ll give you the bottom line on the Canal thing. In Part 2. I know you’ll be on pins and needles.
