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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The Rio Sinu In Its
Upper Course Approaches The Tributary Streams Of The Atrato Which, To
The Auriferous And Platiniferous Province Of Choco, Is Of The Same
Importance As The Magdalena To Cundinamarca, Or The Rio Cauca To The
Provinces Of Antioquia And Popayan.
The three great rivers here
mentioned have heretofore been the only commercial routes, I might
almost add, the only
Channels of communication for the inhabitants.
The Rio Atrato receives, at twelve leagues distance from its mouth,
the Rio Sucio on the east; the Indian village of San Antonio is
situated on its banks. Proceeding upward beyond the Rio Pabarando, you
arrive in the valley of Sinu. After several fruitless attempts on the
part of the Archbishop Gongora to establish colonies in Darien del
Norte and on the eastern coast of the gulf of Uraba, the Viceroy
Espeleta recommended the Spanish Government to fix its whole attention
on the Rio Sinu; to destroy the colony of Cayman; to fix the planters
in the Spanish village of San Bernardo del Viento in the jurisdiction
of Lorica; and from that post, which is the most westerly, to push
forward the peaceful conquests of agriculture and civilization towards
the banks of the Pabarando, the Rio Sucio and the Atrato.* (* I will
here state some facts which I obtained from official documents during
my stay at Carthagena, and which have not yet been published. 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. The Lele, or
high-priest of Mandinga, took an oath of fidelity to the King of
Spain; but in 1786 the war with the Darien Indians recommenced and was
terminated by a treaty concluded July 27th, 1787, between the
archbishop-viceroy and the cacique Bernardo. The forts and new
colonies, which figured only on the maps sent to Madrid, augmented the
debt of the treasury of Santa Fe de Bogota, in 1789, to the sum of
1,200,000 piastres. The viceroy, Gil Lemos, wiser than his
predecessor, obtained permission from the Court to abandon Carolina,
Concepcion and Mandinga. The settlement of Cayman only was preserved,
on account of the navigation of the Atrato, and it was declared free,
under the government of the archbishop-viceroy: it was proposed to
transfer this settlement to a more healthy spot, that of Uraba; but
lieutenant-general Don Antonio Arebalo, having proved that the expense
of this removal would amount to the sum of 40,000 piastres, the fort
of Cayman was also destroyed, by order of the viceroy Espeleta in
1791, and the planters were compelled to join those of the village of
San Bernardo.) The number of independent Indians who inhabit the lands
between Uraba, Rio Atrato, Rio Sucio and Rio Sinu was, according to a
census made in 1760, at least 1800. They were distributed in three
small villages, Suraba, Toanequi and Jaraguia. This population was
computed, at the period when I travelled there, to be 3000. The
natives, comprehended in the general name of Caymans, live at peace
with the inhabitants of San Bernardo del Viento (pueblo de Espanoles),
situated on the western bank of the Rio Sinu, lower than San Nicolas
de Zispata, and near the mouth of the river. These people have not the
ferocity of the Darien and Cunas Indians, on the left bank of the
Atrato; who often attack the boats trading with the town of Quidbo in
the Choco; they also make incursions on the territory of Uraba, in the
months of June and November, to collect the fruit of the cacao-trees.
The cacao of Uraba is of excellent quality; and the Darien Indians
sometimes come to sell it, with other productions, to the inhabitants
of Rio Sinu, entering the valley of that river by one of its tributary
streams, the Jaraguai.
It cannot be doubted that the Gulf of Darien was considered, at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, as a nook in the country of the
Caribs. The word Caribana is still preserved in the name of the
eastern cape of that gulf. We know nothing of the languages of the
Darien, Cunas and Cayman Indians: and we know not whether Carib or
Arowak words are found in their idioms; but it is certain,
notwithstanding the testimony of Anghiera on the identity of the race
of the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles and the Indians of Uraba, that
Pedro de Cieca, who lived so long among the latter, never calls them
Caribs nor cannibals.
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