Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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In The
Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries The Name Of Darien Was Given
Vaguely To The Whole Coast Extending From The Rio Damaquiel To The
Punta De San Blas, On 2 1/4 Degrees Of Longitude.
The cruelties
exercised by Pedrarias Davila rendered almost inaccessible to the
Spaniards a country which was one of the first they had colonized.
The
Indians (Dariens and Cunas-Cunas) remained masters of the coast, as
they still are at Poyais, in the land of the Mosquitos. Some Scotchmen
formed in 1698 the settlements of New Caledonia, New Edinburgh and
Scotch Port, in the most eastern part of the isthmus, a little west of
Punta Carreto. They were soon driven away by the Spaniards but, as the
latter occupied no part of the coast, the Indians continued their
attacks against Choco's boats, which from time to time descended the
Rio Atrato, The sanguinary expedition of Don Manuel de Aldarete in
1729 served only to augment the resentment of the natives. A
settlement for the cultivation of the cocoa-tree, attempted in the
territory of Urabia in 1740 by some French planters under the
protection of the Spanish Government, had no durable success; and the
court, excited by the reports of the archbishop-viceroy, Gongora,
ordered, by the cedule of the 15th August, 1783, either the conversion
and conquest, or the destruction (reduccion o extincion) of the
Indians of Darien. This order, worthy of another age, was executed by
Don Antonio de Arebalo: he experienced little resistance and formed,
in 1785, the four settlements and forts of Cayman on the eastern coast
of the Gulf of Urabia, Concepcion, Carolina and Mandinga.
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