History of Panama

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The history of Panama includes the history of the Isthmus of Panama prior to European colonization.

Before the arrival of Europeans, Panama was widely settled by peoples speaking Chibchan languages, Choco languages, and Cueva language.^[1] There is no accurate knowledge of the size of the Pre-Columbian indigenous population. Estimates range as high as two million people. They lived mainly by fishing, hunting, gathering edible plants and fruits, growing corn, squash, and root crops, and lived in wattle and daub houses with thatched rooves of palm leaves.

The first permanent European settlement, Santa María la Antigua del Darién on the Americas mainland was founded in 1510. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and Martín Fernández de Enciso agreed on the site near the mouth of the Tarena River on the Atlantic. This was abandoned in 1519 and the settlement moved to Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Panamá (present day Panama City), the first European settlement on the shores of the Pacific.

Panama was part of the Spanish Empire for over 300 years (1513–1821) and its fate changed with its geopolitical importance to the Spanish crown. In the 16th and 17th centuries, at the height of the Empire, no other region would prove of more strategic and economic importance.

On November 10, 1821, in a special event called Grito de La Villa de Los Santos, the residents of the Azuero declared their separation from the Spanish Empire. As was often the case in the New World after independence, control remained with the remnants of colonial aristocracy. In Panama, this elite was a group of less than ten extended families. The derogatory term rabiblanco ("white tail") has been used for generations to refer to the usually Caucasian members of the elite families.

In 1852, the isthmus adopted trial by jury in criminal cases and—30 years after abolition—would finally declare and enforce an end to slavery.