History

Panama has a pre-Colombian heritage of native populations whose presence stretched back over 12,000 years. Central Panama was home to some of the first pottery-making villages in the Americas, such as the Monagrillo culture dating to about 2500-1700 BC. These evolved into significant populations that are best known through the spectacular burials of the Conte site (dating to c. AD 500-900) and the beautiful polychrome pottery of the Coclé style. At the time of European conquest, the indigenous population of the isthmus (a narrow strip of land that connects two larger land masses) was said to be between one and two million people.

1538-1821: The Spanish Colonial Period

In 1501, Rodrigo de Bastidas from Seville, who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the Americas, sailed westward from the Atlantic side of present day Colombia in an attempt to militarily observe the coastline of the Caribbean basin. Though the poor condition of his ships forced him to turn back and return to Santo Domingo to effect repairs, de Bastidas would reach La Punta de Manzanillo on Panama's upper Caribbean coast before having to abandon his effort. He is acknowledged to be the first European to have claimed that part of the isthmus, which includes the famous San Blas region of the Kuna Indians. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Panama was widely settled by Chibchan, Chocoan and Cueva peoples, among whom the largest group were the Cueva.

A year after de Bastidas's arrival to Panama and on his fourth trip to the Americas, Christopher Columbus would sail south to the isthmus from the northern, present day Central American states of Honduras and Costa Rica. Columbus produced hand drawn maps of Panama's coastline and, unlike de Bastidas, explored Panama's western territories. He landed at a place that is today called Almirante and proceeded along the coast to a part of the territory he would name Veragua meaning 'to see water'. He continued his coastal journey up to the Chagres River, taking refuge in a natural bay he christened Portobelo (Beautiful Port). This site would become a key port for colonial Spain in 1597 replacing Nombre de Dios had proven to be vulnerable to attack. Columbus ended his explorations at Del Retrete having spent just under two months in what would be Panama.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who had been aboard de Bastidas's ship in 1501, made a hard-fought and tortuous trek from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1513 and was able to verify what indigenous people had reported; that the isthmus had another coast and that there was another ocean. Balboa would call it the South Sea though it was later renamed the Pacific.

Balboa's verification that there was another ocean that could be reached by crossing the isthmus helped encourage Panama's use by colonial Spain as a crossroads and marketplace for seized Peruvian treasures, Spanish goods, contraband (goods and trade not approved by the Spanish crown) supplies, people, conscripted and enslaved labour, all of which were distributed throughout the Spanish colonial territories. The success of the Spanish was in stark contrast to the devastation of indigenous peoples. By the late 17th century, Cueva culture had all but disappeared.

Mining techniques included the looting of Indian cemeteries for the pre-Colombian gold treasures they contained. Gold and silver were brought by ship from South America, hauled across the isthmus, and loaded aboard ships for Spain. The route starting at Panamá la Vieja became known as the Camino Real, or Royal Road, although was more commonly known as Camino de Cruces (Road of the Crosses) because of the frequency of gravesites along the way.

Panama was the site of the ill-fated Darien scheme, which set up a Scottish trading colony in the region in 1698. However, agriculture proved difficult and the local Indian tribes, although friendly, were unwilling to buy the combs and other trinkets offered by the colonists. With the onset of summer the following year, the stifling atmosphere, added to other causes, caused a large number of deaths in the colony. The mortality rose eventually to ten a day, despite the care and assistance of the local Indians. In July 1699 the colony was abandoned. Only 300 survived and only one ship managed to return to Scotland.

Panama was part of the Spanish Empire for 300 years (1538-1821) and Panamanian fortunes fluctuated with the geopolitical importance of the isthmus to the Spanish crown. Panama's importance would wane significantly towards the of the 18th as Spanish influence and power in Europe decreased and as Spanish ships began to increasingly go round Cape Horn to reach the Atlantic. While the Panama route was short it was also labour intensive and expensive because of the loading and unloading and the trek required to get from the one coast to the other. The Panama route was also vulnerable to attack from pirates (mostly Dutch and English) and from 'new world' Africans called cimarrons who had freed themselves from enslavement and lived in communes or Palenque islands off Panama's Pacific coast. When Panama was colonised, the indigenous peoples who survived many diseases, massacres and enslavement of the conquest ultimately fled into the forest or to nearby islands. Indian slaves were replaced by Africans.

1821: Emancipation from Spain

In 1821, the isthmus joined with present Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador to form 'Gran' or Greater Colombia; this territory more or less corresponded to the old colonial administrative district called the Viceroyalty of New Granada. Panama became its Department of the Isthmus, under a number of successive governors.

In September of 1830, under the guidance of General José Domingo Espinar, the local military commander who rebelled against the nation's central government in response to his being transferred to another command, Panama separated from Greater Colombia and requested that general Simón Bolívar take direct command of the isthmus department. It made this a condition to its reunification with the rest of the country. Bolívar rejected Espinar's actions, and though he did not assume control of the isthmus he desired and called for Panama to rejoin the central state. Because of the overall political tension, Greater Colombia's final days were approaching. Bolívar's vision for territorial unity disintegrated finally when General Juan Eligio Alzuru undertook a military coup against Espinar's authority. By early 1831 with order restored, Panama had reincorporated itself to what was left of Greater Colombia, which had adopted the name of Republic of New Granada.

By July 1831, as the new countries of the Venezuela and Ecuador were being established, the isthmus would again declare its independence, now under the same General Alzuru as supreme military commander. Abuses committed by Alzuru's shortlived administration were countered by military forces under the command of Colonel Tomás Herrera, resulting in the defeat and execution of Alzuru in August, and the reestablishment of ties with the rest of New Granada.

In November 1840, during a civil war that had begun as a religious conflict, the isthmus (under the leadership of (now General) Tomás Herrera, who assumed the title of Superior Civil Chief), declared its independence as did multiple other local authorities. The State of Panama took the name of 'Estado Libre del Istmo', or the Free State of the Isthmus in March 1841. The new state established external political and economic ties and by March 1841, had drawn up a constitution which included the possibility for Panama to rejoin New Granada, but only as a federal district. Herrera's style was first changed to Superior Chief of State in March 1841 and in June 1841 to President. By the time the civil conflict ended and the government of New Granada and the government of the Isthmus had negotiated the Isthmus's reincorporation to the union the Isthmus had been independent for 13 months. Re-unification happened on December 31, 1841.

In the 1840s, two decades after the Monroe Doctrine declared US intentions to be the dominant imperial power in the Western Hemisphere, North American and French interests became excited about the prospects of constructing railroads and/or canals through Central America to speed up trans-oceanic travel. In 1846, the United States and Colombia signed the Bidlack Mallarino Treaty, granting the US rights to build railroads through Panama, as well as the power to militarily intervene against revolt to guarantee Colombian control of the isthmus. The world's first transcontinental railroad, the Panama Railway, was completed in 1855 across the Isthmus from Aspinwall/Colón to Panama City. From 1850 until 1903, the United States used troops to suppress independence revolts and quell social disturbances several times, creating a long-term animosity among the Panamanian people against the US military. The first such conflict was known as the Watermelon War of 1856, where white US soldiers mistreated locals causing large-scale race riots that US Marines eventually put down.

Under a federalist constitution that was later brought up in 1858 (and another one in 1863), Panama and other constituent states gained almost complete autonomy on many levels of their administration, which led to an often anarchic national state of affairs that lasted roughly until Colombia's return to centralism in 1886 with the establishment of a new Republic of Colombia.

As was often the case in the new world after independence, the local administrative and political structures were controlled by the remnants of the colonial aristocracy. In the case of Panama, this elite was constituted by a group of under ten extended families. Though Panama has made enormous advances in social mobility and racial integration, it is still true that much of Panama's economic and social life is controlled by a small number of families. The derogatory term rabiblanco ('white tail'), of uncertain origin, has been used for generations to refer to the usually Caucasian members of the elite families.

The Canal Construction Zone

Modern Panamanian history has been shaped by the reality of transisthmian commerce, and by the possibility of a canal to replace the difficult overland route. In the 1520s and 1530s, the Spanish crown ordered surveys of the isthmus to determine the feasibility of such a canal, but the idea was soon abandoned. From 1880 to 1889, the French Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had successfully built the Suez Canal, attempted to construct a sea-level canal in the same general area as the present Panama Canal. The company faced insurmountable health problems such as yellow fever and malaria as well as engineering challenges caused by frequent landslides, slippage of equipment and mud. In the end the company failed in a spectacular collapse which caused the downfall and incarceration of many of its financial backers in France. A new company was formed in 1894 to recuperate some of the losses of the original canal company.

US President Theodore Roosevelt convinced US Congress to take on the abandoned works in 1902, while Colombia was in the midst of the Thousand Days War. During the war there were at least three attempts by Panamanian Liberals to seize control of Panama and potentially achieve independence, including one led by Liberal guerrillas like Belisario Porras and Victoriano Lorenzo, each of which was suppressed by a collaboration of Conservative Colombian and US forces. By the middle of 1903, the Colombian government in Bogotá had balked at the prospect of a US controlled canal under the terms that Roosevelt's administration was offering. The US was unwilling to alter its terms and quickly changed tactics, encouraging a handful of Conservative Panamanian landholding families to demand a Panama independent from Colombia. The USS Nashville was dispatched to local waters around the city of Colón to deter any resistance from Bogotà and so, on November 3, 1903, with United States' encouragement and French financial support, Panama proclaimed its independence. Less than three weeks later, the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty was signed between the French and the United States, without a Panamanian in the room. The treaty allowed for the construction of a canal and US sovereignty over a strip of land 10 miles wide and 50 miles long, (16 kilometres by 80 kilometres) on either side of the Panama Canal Zone. In that zone, the US would build a canal, then administer, fortify, and defend it 'in perpetuity.' The Panama Canal was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914; the existing 83-kilometre (50-mi) lock canal is considered one of the world's greatest engineering triumphs.

On January 5 1909, the government of Rafael Reyes in Colombia signed and presented to its Congress a treaty that would officially recognise the loss of its former province, but the matter was dropped due to popular and legislative opposition, without any ratification being achieved. Different negotiations continued intermittently until a new treaty was signed on December 21, 1921 which finally and formally accepted the independence of Panama.

1903-1981: Military Coups and Coalitions

From 1903 until 1968, Panama was a republic dominated by a commercially-oriented oligarchy. During the 1950s, the Panamanian military began to challenge the oligarchy's political hegemony. The January 9, 1964 Martyrs' Day riots escalated tensions between the country and the US government over its long-term occupation of the Canal Zone. Twenty rioters were killed, and 500 other Panamanians were wounded.

In October 1968, Dr. Arnulfo Arias Madrid, elected president for the third time and twice ousted by the Panamanian military, was again ousted (for the third time) as president by the corrupt National Guard after only 10 days in office. A military junta government was established, and the commander of the National Guard, Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos, emerged as the principal power in Panamanian political life. Torrijos' regime was harsh and corrupt, and had to confront the mistrust of the people and guerrillas backing the populist Arnulfo Arias. However, he was a charismatic leader whose populist domestic programs and nationalist foreign policy appealed to the rural and urban constituencies largely ignored by the oligarchy.

On September 7, 1977, the Torrijos-Carter Treaties were signed by the Panamanian head of state as well as US President Jimmy Carter, for the complete transfer of the Canal and the fourteen US army bases from the US to Panama by 1999 apart from granting the US a perpetual right of military intervention. Certain portions of the Zone and increasing responsibility over the Canal were turned over in the intervening years.

1981-1989: Noriega and the American Invasion

Torrijos died in a mysterious plane crash on August 1, 1981. The circumstances of his death generated charges and speculation that he was the victim of an assassination plot. Despite 1983 constitutional amendments, which appeared to proscribe a political role for the military, the Panama Defence Forces (PDF), as they were then known, continued to dominate Panamanian political life behind a facade of civilian government. By this time, Gen. Manuel Noriega was firmly in control of both the PDF and the civilian government, and had created the Dignity Battalions to help suppress opposition.

Despite undercover collaboration with Ronald Reagan on his Contra war in Nicaragua (including the infamous Iran-Contra Affair), which had planes flying arms as well as drugs, relations between the United States and the Panama regime worsened in the 1980s.

The United States froze economic and military assistance to Panama in the summer of 1987 in response to the domestic political crisis and an attack on the US embassy. General Noriega's February 1988 indictment in US courts on drug-trafficking charges sharpened tensions. In April 1988, President Reagan invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, freezing Panamanian Government assets in US banks, withholding fees for using the canal, and prohibiting payments by American agencies, firms and individuals to the Noriega regime. The country went into turmoil. When national elections were held in May 1989, the elections were marred by accusations of fraud from both sides. However, the elections proceeded as planned, and Panamanians voted for the anti-Noriega candidates by a margin of over three-to-one. The Noriega regime promptly annulled the election and embarked on a new round of repression.

When Guillermo Endara won the Presidential elections held in May 1989, the Noriega regime annulled the election, citing massive US interference. Foreign election observers, including the Catholic Church and Jimmy Carter certified the electoral victory of Endara despite widespread attempts at fraud by the regime. At the behest of the United States, the Organization of American States convened a meeting of foreign ministers but was unable to obtain Noriega's departure. The US began sending thousands of troops to bases in the canal zone. Panamanian authorities alleged that US troops left their bases and illegally stopped and searched vehicles in Panama. During one such search a firefight broke out between US Marines and Panamanian soldiers and a US Marine was killed.

On December 20, 1989 the United States troops commenced an invasion of Panama. Their primary objectives were achieved quickly, and troop withdrawal began on December 27. Endara was sworn in as President at a US military base on the day of the invasion. General Manuel Noriega is now serving a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking. Estimates as to the loss of life on the Panamanian side vary between 500 and 7000.

The entire Panama Canal, the area supporting the Canal, and remaining US military bases were turned over to Panama on December 31, 1999.

1989-Present: After Noriega

On the morning of December 20, 1989, a few hours after the beginning of the invasion, the presumptive winner of the May 1989 election, Guillermo Endara, was sworn in as president of Panama at a US military installation in the Canal Zone. Subsequently, on December 27, 1989, Panama's Electoral Tribunal invalidated the Noriega regime's annulment of the May 1989 election and confirmed the victory of opposition candidates under the leadership of President Guillermo Endara and Vice Presidents Guillermo Ford and Ricardo Arias Calderón.

President Endara took office as the head of a four-party minority government, pledging to foster Panama's economic recovery, transform the Panamanian military into a police force under civilian control and strengthen democratic institutions. During its 5-year term, the Endara government struggled to meet the public's high expectations. Its new police force proved to be a major improvement in outlook and behaviour over its thuggish predecessor but was not fully able to deter crime.

Ernesto Pérez Balladares was sworn in as President on September 1, 1994, after an internationally monitored election campaign. Pérez Balladares ran as the candidate for a three-party coalition dominated by the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the erstwhile political arm of the military dictatorship during the Torrijos and Norieiga years. A long-time member of the PRD, Pérez Balladares worked skilfully during the campaign to rehabilitate the PRD's image, emphasising the party's populist Torrijos roots rather than its association with Noriega. He won the election with only 33% of the vote when the major non-PRD forces, unable to agree on a joint candidate, splintered into competing factions. His administration carried out economic reforms and often worked closely with the US on implementation of the Canal treaties.

On May 2, 1999, Mireya Moscoso, the widow of former President Arnulfo Arias Madrid, defeated PRD candidate Martín Torrijos, son of the late dictator. The elections were considered free and fair. Moscoso took office on September 1, 1999.

During her administration, Moscoso attempted to strengthen social programs, especially for child and youth development, protection, and general welfare. Education programs have also been highlighted. More recently, Moscoso focused on bilateral and multilateral free trade initiatives with the hemisphere. Moscoso's administration successfully handled the Panama Canal transfer and has been effective in the administration of the Canal.

In 2004, Martín Torrijos again ran for president, and this time won.