Fast Facts
- Named for: Possibly “butterflies” or “bannaba”=distant place or “place of many fish,” both in indigenous tongue.
- Capital: Panama City
- Long/Lat: 8.6 N/79.3 W, only 6 hours or 3000 miles SE of Castro Valley. Very close to the equator.
- Population: 4.3 million, 65 Castro Valleys
- Size: 29,000 sq mi, or 1600 Castro Valleys
- Avg temp in April: 90 F/32 C (humidity 85%/ CV usually around 70%)
- Median household income: $7,800
- Ethnicity: 65% mestizo (mixed), 12% indigenous, 10% Black, 7% white.
- Main industries: Trade, commerce, shrimp, copper, hydropower
Sometimes there is serendipity; the stars align. Things can be helped along by choice, but happy accidents may begin the process. Today is the day to write a post on “P” and today, as it happens, we are going through the Panama Canal. The A to Z challenge meets the travel blogs! Due to this exciting circumstance, I will write two posts. Today, I will cover the country of Panama in the same fashion as before, A through O. Tomorrow we will talk about the reason for the trip: going through the Canal.
The Most Ancient History of Panama
Today, let’s focus on early pre-Canal history. Really early, 200 million years ago: Pangaea.
If long-lived intelligent beings were to look through a telescope at this part of Earth, they might ask, Can’t they make up their minds? First, it’s all land, then it’s all sea, then land, then sea, then land… In other words: Pangaea, the Central American Seaway (CAS), the isthmus, the canal, then all the bridges. Humans want all the ways to go, sometimes through the water and sometimes on the roads.
When Pangaea separated in the Triassic (200 million years ago), North and South America moved apart because they sit on separate tectonic plates. The young Atlantic and the old Pacific, formerly known as the super-ocean, were freely mingling. Water, water, everywhere. Paleocene giant bears in Texas were looking down at Peru and wondering how they could get at those tasty-looking tubers that we call potatoes. This “water freeway” was called the Central American Seaway.
Over several hundred million years, the separate tectonic plates started rubbing up against each other (hey baby) which caused volcanic activity, meaning melted land surfacing and cooling, and voila! The isthmus! Isthmus, by the way, is Greek for “neck.” Here it was as if two tectonic plates made a baby. There is a big debate among the paleogeologists about whether this happened 3 MYA, 13 MYA, or perhaps even earlier. We’ll leave them to their scientific arguments about zircon heat dating.
We Love a Land-Bridge
Suffice it to say, this was a big deal for two reasons. First, it created the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. Because the water wasn’t flowing “through” to the other side, it starting circling, on both sides of the isthmus. This both isolated populations of flora and fauna on each side and led to the giant stream of water that navigators discovered as a way of circling the Atlantic, fueling things like the Triangle Trade.
The second consequence was called the Great American Interchange. Animals on both continents started crossing the new land bridge. Proto-horses and deer migrated down south from the north, while armadillos, opossums, and porcupines went from south to north. The biologists say that the ones going north to south were better equipped to adapt than the ones going from warm to cold.
Humans Discover Water
Skipping a bit ahead, indigenous people across crossed the isthmus establishing tribes like the Chibchan, Chocoan, and Cueva. Most came from the north, although some Austronesian did cross the Pacific bringing South Sea coconuts to South America. But these Panamian groups did not create the cities like the Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs. When the Europeans showed up, the local tribes couldn’t fend them off.
So now we get to the Europeans, and that old propaganda bit about “discovering” land and treasure, also known as colonizing and strip-mining the local resources. Panama would be a bitter leaf to chew for many of these explorers. The first European on Panama was Rodrigo de Bastidas in 1501, although Columbus did set foot on the isthmus in 1502. However, the guy that got the big credit here was Vasco Nunez Balboa. He not only set foot on the land-bridge but also decided to hack his way through the thick jungle until wow! lookie at all that water. He claimed the Pacific Ocean for Espana, mine all mine!
There are two things further frequently shared about Balboa. One is that he was such a staunch Catholic that he had his soldiers throw a group of Cueva to his dogs, allegedly because they were homosexual. Or because they were between him and His Pacific Ocean? Famous painting here. The other is that he was accused by Pizarro later of treason against Espana, so he was beheaded. It took three tries. So much for Balboa and his extremism!
Panama is full of stories like that. Henry Morgan got ticked off at the Spanish city of Panama and burned it to the ground in 1671. Scottish settlers tried to establish a base in the area called Darien, but, like the Jamestown settlement, they died out. There were multiple causes: yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, brutal heat, torrential rains, poisonous– well, stupidity and poor planning are common to so many human tribes.
It’s ironic that the northern animals were able to fare well in the south. When it came to people, the Europeans did put down a foothold, but many, many died. The rest had to intermarry to stay. I just spent an April afternoon taking photos on the balcony, and it was bloody hot.
So much death and foolishness came to Panama–and we haven’t even talked about the elephant in the room, or the capybara on the isthmus, namely the canal. It did ultimately bring in trade to such an extent that Panama City is now a thriving financial and commercial center. Technological wonders. The traffic across the bridges is a nightmare. Downtown Panama City ranks fifth in the Americas in terms of skyscrapers (New York, Chicago, Toronto, and Miami).
So how did Panama go from being impenetrable jungle to this? That story tomorrow.
Authors Note: I really am trying to write fewer words. But the world is just too interesting!