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Panama

The Spanish isthmus corridor joining the Pacific city of Panama to the Caribbean fleet terminus of Portobelo and the fortified mouth of the Chagres, carrying the Peruvian silver to the Tierra Firme galleons, sacked by Henry Morgan in 1671 and, through the golden age of 1690 to 1725, a template carried in print rather than a target attacked.

Also writtenPanama la Vieja; Panama Viejo (Spanish and modern heritage usage, from 1671, for the ruined 1519 city); Ciudad de Panama; Panama City (Spanish and English, 1519 onward, the Pacific city on its old and new sites); Casco Viejo; Casco Antiguo; San Felipe (Spanish and modern, 1673 onward, the refounded city); Portobelo; Puerto Bello; Porto Bello; Porto Belo (Spanish and English period spellings, 1597 onward, the Caribbean fleet terminus); Nombre de Dios (Spanish, the earlier Caribbean terminus, superseded from 1597); Chagres; Chagre; Rio de Chagre (Spanish and English period spellings, the river and its mouth); San Lorenzo; Castillo San Lorenzo el Real de Chagres (Spanish, c.1601 onward, the fort at the Chagres mouth); Tierra Firme; Terra Firma; Castilla del Oro (Spanish and English, the mainland province and fleet route); Darien; Isthmus of Darien (English buccaneer and later usage for the isthmus generally and its eastern end); Caledonia; Nueva Caledonia; Puerto Escoces; Puerto Inabaginya (Scots, Spanish and modern Guna, the Scots settlement site on the isthmus); Venta de Cruces; Las Cruces (Spanish, the river head of the Camino de Cruces); Perico (Spanish, the island and roadstead off Panama City); Taboga (Spanish, the island in the Bay of Panama)

The Panama of these years was a corridor, not a town. The place meant is the narrow neck of land and the three fixed points that gave it value: the Pacific city of Panama, founded on 15 August 1519 by Pedro Arias Davila; the Caribbean fleet terminus of Portobelo, founded in 1597 in place of Nombre de Dios; and the mouth of the river Chagres under the guns of Castillo San Lorenzo el Real. The Council of the Indies resolved on 29 August 1592 to move the terminus to the better bay.1

The two Panamas

The old city burned at the end of January 1671 and was never rebuilt on its site. A new walled city went up in 1673 about 7.5 km away, on the peninsula now called Casco Viejo, the ancestor of the modern capital. Panama la Vieja is an abandoned ruin field of some 32 hectares, its grid legible.2

The silver road and the fair

The isthmus was Spanish throughout, governed through the Audiencia de Panama, its economy a transit economy. Peruvian silver came by sea from Callao to Panama City, crossed by mule on the Camino Real or by the Camino de Cruces and the river, and was loaded at Portobelo into the Tierra Firme galleons for Havana and Spain. The Portobelo fair turned an unhealthy little bay into one of the richest markets in the Atlantic for a few weeks.3

The traffic in enslaved people

Panama was a port of entry and sale for enslaved Africans, and the transit was worked substantially by enslaved and coerced labour, in the mule trains, at the wharves and in the pearl fisheries. Supply ran on the asiento, the crown contract to deliver enslaved people to Spanish America, which passed between Portuguese, Dutch, Genoese and French holders and, at Utrecht in 1713, to the British South Sea Company. Portobelo was among the ports where it operated. The cimarrones, communities of escaped enslaved people, had been on the isthmus since the sixteenth century, a standing problem for the administration and at times allies of raiders.4

Two seas within a day

The isthmus put two seas a day or two apart, and the difference dictated tactics. Portobelo offered what Nombre de Dios never had, a deep enclosed bay ringed by ground for batteries; the Chagres mouth, 43 km from Portobelo by the inscription's measure, was the other door. The tide rises and falls about 12.5 feet at the Pacific end against a little under a foot at the Caribbean end, the two ends only about 30 nautical miles apart. Across the shoaling flats of the Bay of Panama the approach dried into mud for a great distance, boats grounded and refloated on the clock, and deep-draught vessels lay off among the islands. Perico is said to have been the working roadstead. The great overland operations fall in the dry months, Morgan crossing in January and the 1680 buccaneers in April. Hurricanes matter little here beside Jamaica or the Bahamas. Fever was the killer.5

Morgan's crossing, 1671

Henry Morgan took Portobelo in July 1668, about 500 men landed from a force of about 700 out of Jamaica, and came back for the Pacific city in the winter of 1670 to 1671. The battle before the city, at the savanna often named Mata Asnillos, where Juan Perez de Guzman was routed, was fought on 18 January 1671 by Morgan's reckoning, which is 28 January in the Spanish: one day in two calendars, English Julian against Spanish Gregorian, not two dates. The start of the march up the Chagres is a real spread, 8 January in some accounts and 19 January in others, eleven days apart where the calendar conversion gives ten; Morgan's own account has him start up the river on 9 January old style. Who fired the old city is unsettled: Morgan's account and Spanish testimony both point to the inhabitants. Plunder is reported between about 140,000 and 400,000 pesos. Captain Robert Robinson wrote to the Navy Commissioners on 25 June 1671 that Panama had been taken with thirteen million pieces of eight, a measure of rumour.6

His fleet staged through Santa Catalina, also called Old Providence, and entering the Chagres the flagship Satisfaction and four other vessels were lost on the reef. The raid fell after the Treaty of Madrid of 8 July 1670, news of which reached the Caribbean only after a long delay. Morgan was knighted in 1674, in January by one reputable account and in November by another, November better attested.

What the golden age inherited

The surviving record has no Anglo-American pirate assault on Panama City, Portobelo or the Chagres between 1690 and 1725 to compare with those of 1668 and 1671. What the isthmus gave the golden age was print. Bucaniers of America appeared in English in 1684 and 1685. William Dampier, who was on the expedition that fought the Armada off Perico in April 1680, published A New Voyage Round the World in 1697; Lionel Wafer, left injured among the Kuna, published his description of the interior in 1699.7

What stands now

The Portobelo works and Castillo San Lorenzo above the river mouth were inscribed as one World Heritage property in 1980 and put on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2012, where they remain. Panama Viejo and the 1673 historic district were joined into one property in 2003. The first archaeological survey at the Chagres mouth, in 2008, recovered cannon, ship timbers and an unidentified seventeenth-century wreck with wooden chests. Press coverage has attached that wreck to the Satisfaction. The project's account does not.8

What the sources cannot yet give is the paper that would settle 1671. The start of the crossing, the day of the battle, who set the fire and the size of the plunder stand as conflicts between printed narratives, Robinson's letter at Kew and modern scholarship; the Audiencia de Panama papers at Seville, read against Morgan's narrative at Westminster Abbey, would settle them. No value or duration for a Portobelo fair could be verified, nor the volume of the trade in enslaved people through the port, and how rich the fair was and for how long is reported inconsistently. No careening ground on the isthmus is documented. That the great overland operations fall in the dry months is an inference from the campaign dates, not a motive any source states. The action off Cartagena in 1708, Taboga's part in the anchorage and the Scots settlement of Caledonia are unverified against the Spanish, Admiralty and Company of Scotland papers that would settle them.

What the evidence does not settle

Date of the 1671 battle for Panama

  • The battle before Panama City is dated 18 or 28 January 1671Unverified

Isthmus crossing start-date discrepancy

  • The isthmus crossing start date shows an unexplained 11-day gap

Enslaved-people trade volume through Portobelo

  • The volume of the enslaved-people trade through Portobelo is unstatedLikely

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Panama in this archive is a corridor rather than a single settlement: the narrow neck of land and the three fixed points that gave it value, the Pacific city of Panama founded on 15 August 1519 by Pedro Arias Davila, the Caribbean fleet terminus of Portobelo founded in 1597 in place of Nombre de Dios, and the mouth of the river Chagres guarded by the Castillo San Lorenzo el Real, the move of the terminus being recorded in a consulta of the Council of the Indies of 29 August 1592 catalogued at Seville as "Traslado de Nombre de Dios a Portobelo". Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Catalogue record and heritage records: Consejo de Indias, "Traslado de Nombre de Dios a Portobelo", 29 August 1592, Madrid, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, ES.41091.AGI/15//PANAMA,1,N.67, via PARES (Confirmed); "Archaeological Site of Panama Viejo and Historic District of Panama", UNESCO World Heritage Centre, list entry 790bis, and "Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Portobelo-San Lorenzo", UNESCO World Heritage Centre, list entry 135, both consulted 2026 (Confirmed)
  2. The old Pacific city burned at the end of January 1671 and was never rebuilt on its site, a new walled city being founded in 1673 about 7.5 km from the ruins on the peninsula now called Casco Viejo, so that the archive must keep two Panamas distinct: Panama la Vieja, an abandoned ruin field of about 32 hectares with its original grid intact, and the successor city that is the ancestor of the modern capital. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Heritage record and modern archaeology: "Archaeological Site of Panama Viejo and Historic District of Panama", UNESCO World Heritage Centre, list entry 790bis, consulted 2026, for the destruction, the refoundation of 1673 about 7.5 km away and the extent of the protected remains (Confirmed); Juan G. Martin and Beatriz Rovira, "The Panama Viejo Archaeological Project: More than a Decade of Research and Management of Heritage Resources", Historical Archaeology vol. 46 (2012), pp. 16 to 26, doi 10.1007/BF03376868, for the excavation and management programme (Confirmed). Responsibility for the fire itself is carried separately as a conflict and is not settled here
  3. The isthmus was Spanish without interruption across the whole of the archive's period, governed through the Audiencia de Panama, and its economy was a transit economy in which silver mined in Peru came by sea from Callao to Panama City, crossed by mule on the Camino Real or by the Camino de Cruces and the Chagres, and was loaded at Portobelo into the Tierra Firme galleons for Havana and Spain, the Portobelo fair on the galleons' arrival turning a small and unhealthy bay into one of the richest markets in the Atlantic world for a few weeks at a time; the scale and duration of individual fairs are reported inconsistently and no single figure should be quoted as standard. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Heritage record and archival fonds: "Audiencia de Panama" (fonds), 1513 to 1825, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, ES.41091.AGI/15, 378 legajos, via PARES, for the governing archive and unbroken Spanish administration (Confirmed); "Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Portobelo-San Lorenzo", UNESCO World Heritage Centre, list entry 135, consulted 2026, for the terminus, the transit route and the fortified bay (Confirmed). The fair's scale and duration are Disputed, and no fair value, duration or cargo figure could be verified to a catalogue standard, the Contaduria and Contratacion series at Seville being where it would be settled
  4. Panama was a Spanish American port of entry and sale for enslaved Africans and the isthmus transit was worked substantially by enslaved and coerced labour, in the mule trains, at the wharves and in the pearl fisheries of the Gulf, the supply running on the asiento, the crown contract to deliver enslaved people to Spanish America, which passed between Portuguese, Dutch, Genoese and French holders across the seventeenth century and, by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, to the British South Sea Company, with Portobelo among the ports at which that traffic and its annual ship operated; communities of escaped enslaved people, the cimarrones, had been established on the isthmus since the sixteenth century and were a standing security problem for the Spanish administration and at times allies of raiders. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Printed treaty text and general reading of the isthmus economy: "The Assiento, or, Contract for allowing to the subjects of Great Britain the liberty of importing Negroes into the Spanish America, signed by the Catholick King at Madrid, the twenty-sixth day of March, 1713", printed by John Baskett, London, 1713, digitised copy CIHM 28677 via archive.org, for the transfer of the asiento to the British South Sea Company (Confirmed); the local detail and the cimarron communities rest on a general reading of the isthmus economy rather than on a single catalogued source (Probable). The year by year volumes of the traffic through Portobelo specifically could not be retrieved and are deliberately not estimated; the South Sea Company records at The National Archives and the asiento accounts would settle them
  5. The isthmus presented two different seas within a day or two of one another: on the Caribbean side a deep enclosed bay at Portobelo that could hold the galleons in safety, with the Chagres mouth, 43 km from Portobelo by the World Heritage inscription's own measure, as the other door, and on the Pacific side a tide that rises and falls about 12.5 feet at that end of the isthmus against a little under a foot at the Caribbean end, the two ends lying only about 30 nautical miles apart, so that across the shoaling flats of the Bay of Panama the approach to the old city dried into mud over a great distance, boats grounded and refloated on the clock, and deep-draught vessels lay off among the islands, Perico serving as the working roadstead. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period chart and heritage record: H. A. Marmer, US Coast and Geodetic Survey, "Panama Tides", US Naval Institute Proceedings vol. 56/11/333, November 1930, for the comparative tidal ranges at the two ends of the isthmus (Confirmed); "Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Portobelo-San Lorenzo", UNESCO World Heritage Centre, list entry 135, consulted 2026, for the enclosed bay, the component forts and the 43 km between Portobelo and the Chagres mouth (Confirmed); Cristobal de Roda Antonelli, "Discrecion (plano) de la Ciudad de Panama y el sitio donde estan las Casas Reales y la Ysla de Perico y las demas Yslas", 1609, Archivo General de Indias, ES.41091.AGI//MP-PANAMA,27, digitised via PARES, for the city, the Casas Reales and Perico in one view (Confirmed). The fit between the dry season of January to April and the timing of the great overland operations is an inference from the campaign dates rather than a motive stated in the sources, and no careening ground on the isthmus is documented at all. The whole is Probable rather than Confirmed because the drying of the flats and the working of boats on the tide are consequences drawn from the tidal figures rather than separately attested
  6. Henry Morgan took Portobelo in July 1668, about 500 men landed from a force of about 700 out of Jamaica, and returned for the Pacific city in the winter of 1670 to 1671, and almost every figure of that second raid is contested: the battle before the city at the savanna often named Mata Asnillos, where the force under Juan Perez de Guzman was routed, is dated 18 January 1671 by Morgan's own account, which is 28 January in the Gregorian reckoning of the Spanish authorities, the two dates being one day in two calendars rather than a disagreement, while the start of the march up the Chagres is dated 8 January by some accounts and 19 January by others, a spread of eleven days that the ten-day conversion does not fully explain, Morgan's account giving 9 January old style; responsibility for firing the old city is likewise unsettled, Morgan's own account and Spanish testimony both pointing to the inhabitants, and the plunder is reported at between about 140,000 and 400,000 pesos, against which Captain Robert Robinson's letter to the Navy Commissioners of 25 June 1671 reporting the capture of Panama with thirteen million pieces of eight measures the rumour rather than the treasure. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. State paper and modern archaeology: Capt. Robert Robinson to the Navy Commissioners, 25 June 1671, The National Archives, Kew, SP 46/137/306, catalogued via Discovery, for the thirteen million pieces of eight report (Confirmed); Juan G. Martin and Beatriz Rovira, Historical Archaeology vol. 46 (2012), for the two dating traditions and the plunder range (Disputed). The crossing date, the battle date, the responsibility for the fire and the plunder total are all Disputed, and both dates are given here without settling between them; the Audiencia de Panama papers at Seville read against Morgan's own narrative at Westminster Abbey (WAM 11919, 11926) are what would resolve them
  7. Between 1690 and 1725 the archive records no Anglo-American pirate assault on Panama City, Portobelo or the Chagres comparable to those of 1668 and 1671, and what the isthmus supplied to the golden age was print and precedent rather than plunder: Bucaniers of America appeared in English in 1684 and 1685, William Dampier, who was on the expedition that fought the Armada off Perico in April 1680, published A New Voyage Round the World in 1697, and Lionel Wafer, left injured among the Kuna, published his description of the interior in 1699. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period narrative in print: William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, London, 1697, and Lionel Wafer, A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, London, 1699, digitised copies via archive.org, the Royal Collection copy of Wafer recorded at RCIN 1141445 (Confirmed for the publications); Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, Bucaniers of America, London, William Crooke, 1684 and 1685, digitised copies via archive.org (Confirmed for the English editions). The negative finding for 1690 to 1725 is Probable and is a statement about what the archive records rather than a demonstration that no such assault occurred
  8. The Caribbean fortifications, the works around Portobelo bay and the Castillo San Lorenzo el Real on its promontory above the Chagres mouth, were inscribed as a single World Heritage property in 1980 and placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2012, where they remain, while Panama Viejo and the historic district of the 1673 city were joined into one property by the extension of 2003; at the Chagres mouth the first archaeological survey was carried out in 2008 with excavation seasons following, recovering cannon, ship timbers and an unidentified seventeenth-century wreck containing wooden chests, and although press coverage has attached that wreck to Morgan's Satisfaction the project's own account does not, so the archive treats it as unidentified. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Heritage records and modern archaeology: "Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Portobelo-San Lorenzo", UNESCO World Heritage Centre, list entry 135, inscribed 1980, and "List of World Heritage in Danger", UNESCO World Heritage Centre, both consulted 2026, for the inscription, the component forts and the continuing danger listing from 2012 (Confirmed); Decision 27 COM 8C.40, Panama, UNESCO World Heritage Committee, 2003, and list entry 790bis, for the 2003 extension and renaming (Confirmed); "Lost Ships of Henry Morgan", project page, The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University, page last updated April 2021, for the 2008 survey and the material recovered (Confirmed). The identification of any of that material with the Satisfaction is Disputed, asserted in press coverage but not established in the project's own account