Conquest, Imagination, and the Dawn of the Modern AgeGilcreas… · Conquest, Imagination, and the Dawn of the Modern Age ... john w. hoopes gold of ancient panama 11 T he ancient

Conquest, Imagination, and the Dawn of the Modern Aget h e g o l d o f pa n a m a i n i t s h i s t o r i c a l c o n t e x t

j o h n w. h o o p e s

g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 11

The ancient gold of the Americas has come to be a substance of fascination for

western audiences not only for its workmanship and culturally meaningful

design but also for its association with dramatic conflicts that occurred after

Christopher Columbus first arrived at the small island of San Salvador in

1492. Gold ornaments from Panama—some the first gold seen by Spanish

explorers—are intimately intertwined with the history of European conquest

of the Americas and the accompanying demise of indigenous populations.

The Trail of Tears trod by relocated native people from the southeastern

U.S. into Oklahoma in the 1830s was a direct outcome of the process of “discovery” and

exploitation that began in the Caribbean—including Panama—before 1500. While it was

predominantly the descendants of settlers from Great Britain who pushed westward into

North America, by the time they arrived the Spanish had already penetrated deep within

the territory that was to become the United States. By 1542, Coronado had pushed as far as

central Kansas in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola and Gran Quivira. Hernando de Soto

had explored territory in Florida and traveled up the Mississippi River and its tributaries

to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas even earlier. Their travels were motivated first and fore-

most by the discovery of gold in various places throughout the Caribbean, initially in the

12 t o c a p t u r e t h e s u n g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 13

Antilles, next in Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, and then in the empires of the Aztecs

in Mexico and the Incas in Peru. (Both Coronado and de Soto undertook their journeys

soon after three expeditions reached Bogotá, Colombia in 1539 in a disappointing search

for the legendary El Dorado.) The discovery of new lands had a profound impact on the

political and economic life of Europe. In particular, promises of wealth from Spanish

exploration in territories spanning the hemisphere became something that Charles V,

the Holy Roman Emperor, could literally take to the bank. The promise of gold from the

Americas helped Charles persuade his bankers to extend him credit

for the creation of an effective military. With his army he defended

Vienna from the advances of Suleiman the Magnificent and the Ot-

toman Empire—thereby helping to keep Europe from becoming

predominantly Muslim (Reston 2009) and setting the stage for the

world as we know it today. Understanding the role of pre-Columbian gold, and especially

the Panamanian gold, in the context of world events gives us an appreciation for these

objects that goes well beyond their artistic and anthropological value.

The gold of Panama became a significant incentive for the Spanish Conquest. In

fact, the discovery of Tierra Firme (mainland Central and South America) and access to

the Pacific (the overland precursor to the Panama Canal) helped persuade the Spanish to

make massive investments in the business of violent conquest. A great deal transpired in

the Caribbean long before Hernán Cortés ever set foot on the coast of Veracrúz to begin

his march on Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, in 1519. The initial settlement of Panama

had begun almost ten years earlier. Panama was also the site of a base of operations that

permitted Francisco Pizarro and his brothers to make their way down the Pacific coast of

South America to Peru, where they encountered the Inca emperor in Cajamarca in 1532.

Goldwork from Panama played a glittering role in events unfolding in the first decades

of the Modern Age, from Christian Europe’s struggle to avoid Ottoman control to the

emergence of the modern banking industry, events of the early 16th century whose legacy

is still very much with us today.

Previous pages: “Carta,

Navtica, Delmar/Costas, y

Islas Y Indias Occidenales”

Sebastian Ruesta, 1654.

GM 3976.594/Map 9; inset

map: Joan Bleau, Atlas Maior

Vol. XVIII, Amsterdam,

1663. GM 3976.74

From The American

Indians Depicted in

a Collection of Plates

Engraved by Theodore

de Bry in the Years

1590–1602. GM 2975.158

Right: “Charles V,” after Titian,

engraved by R.B. Parks, The

Cloister Life of Emperor

Charles V, Sir William

Sterling-Maxwell, 1891,

London: John C. Nimmo.

GM 2376.2124

Right: “Solyman the

Magnificent and Roxalana,”

The History of the Reign of

Emperor Charles the Fifth,

Vol. III, William H. Prescott,

J.B. Lippincott Company.

GM 96.113


The first act, of course, in the drama of the Spanish Conquest was Columbus’s initial

“discovery” of what he called the Indies in October 1492, which set in motion a wave of

exploratory voyages. Europeans made contact with Panama in 1500, a year historians

identify by convention as the start of the Modern Age.

Spanish colonization began in the Antilles, with a focus on the islands of Hispañola

and Cuba. This was followed by settlement on the north coast of Panama, where the

harbor of Nombre de Dios quickly became the major Spanish port in the Caribbean

once Francisco Nuñez de Balboa had discovered that the coast of the Pacific Ocean lay

just forty miles to the south. From its founding in 1510 until its destruction by pirates in

1572, Nombre de Dios was the gateway for Spanish shipments to and from the Americas.

Panama—especially the part it played in the shipment of gold and silver to Spain—tends

to be forgotten relative to the spectacular encounters that began with Hernán Cortés’s

contact with the Aztecs (in 1519) and Francisco Pizarro’s with the Incas (1532), but its

role was significant.

Map from Lionel

Wafer’s 1699 New

Voyage to America, 1903

reprint. GM 2427.586

Porto Bello (whose

modern name is

Portobelo) is indicated

at upper left as Pto.

Bello. The circular

bay on the other side

of the point, though

not marked, is the

important port Nombre

de Dios.

“The Indians in their robes in Council, and smoaking

tobacco after their way,” A New Voyage to America,

Lionel Wafer, 1903 reprint of 1699 edition. GM 2427.586

“The Indians marching upon a visit or to a feast,”

A New Voyage to America, Lionel Wafer,

1903 reprint of 1699 edition. GM 2427.586


For the first several decades of the Conquest, the principal focus of the Spanish was

the acquisition of gold. It is only natural that the Isthmo-Colombian area (Hoopes and

Fonseca 2003)—a part of the Americas that extends from Honduras in the west to north-

ern Colombia in the east—would have been a significant locus of Spanish activity. Ar-

chaeology has documented that this area was a center for innovation in and production

of pre-Columbian goldwork, in part due to the presence of accessible deposits and in part

due to the development of technologies—especially lost wax casting—for its working.

The quest for gold was devastating to indigenous populations. The Tainos and other

native peoples of the Antilles were crushed by the first wave of Spanish settlement and

exploitation and soon became culturally extinct (Rouse 1992). Forced to work in the rela-

tively unproductive enterprise of extracting gold by panning alluvial sands in the islands,

they died in large numbers and were replaced by growing imports of African slaves. The

indigenous peoples of Panama were almost completely wiped out before the end of the

1500s. By 1535, the Cueva, the main ethnic group living in central Panama and the Darien

before the arrival of the Spanish, had disappeared (Romoli 1987). We cannot even state

with confidence to what family their language belonged (though we believe it may have

been Chibchan or Chocoan), which would be like saying we do not know whether the

people of Portugual spoke a Romance or Germanic language. All that remains of their

tongue is a brief word list.

The main causes of deaths were infectious diseases and the same exploitative prac-

tices used in Hispañola and Cuba. As elsewhere, native slaves who died were replaced by

African slaves. Some of the Cueva territory, including the San Blas islands on the north-

eastern Caribbean coast, was resettled by Kuna, Chibchan speakers who migrated west-

ward from northern Colombia to escape Spanish expansion in the 18th century (Herlihy

1985). Other parts were resettled by Waunaan and Emberá, Chocoan speakers who mi-

grated north from the Pacific coast of Colombia. However, pockets of Chibchan-speaking

groups such as the Changuena, Movere, Bocota, and Ngawbere survived in central and

western Panama, including the ancient territory of the Coclé (Constenla 1991). We are

still uncertain about the ethnic identity of the people who were responsible for the spec-

tacular goldwork from sites such as Sitio Conte (Cooke et al 2003). However, it seems

most likely that they were the ancestors of some of the people of indigenous ancestry who

still live in the region today.

e u r o p e a n d t h e a m e r i c a s

o n t h e e v e o f c o n q u e s t

The dawn of the Modern Age was preceded by remarkable events on both sides of

the Atlantic Ocean. Reconstructed chronologies paint a picture of prosperity and expan-

sion before a “perfect storm” of culture collisions. Both the Aztec empire in Mexico and

the Inca empire in Peru expanded rapidly under the two or three generations of rulers

who preceded Montezuma, in Tenochtitlan, and Huascar, in Cuzco. Significantly, neither

empire reached Panama, although there are hints that they might have, had the Spanish

never arrived. Colonies of speakers of Nahuat or Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs)

were reported on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, respectively. The former, known as the

Sigua, had a settlement near the mouth of the Sixaola River, which currently forms part

of the international boundary between Costa Rica and Panama (Lothrop 1942). The lat-

ter, alluded to only in fragmentary reports, had been in conflict with local groups on the

central Pacific coast. It is still unclear whether these represented advance groups of Aztec

pochteca, elite merchants who are known to have established trading colonies to supply

goods to Aztec royalty, or settlements of Nicarao, a Nahuat-speaking ethnic group in

southwestern Nicaragua with ancient ties to migrants from Central Mexico. They oper-

ated within an ethnic milieu most likely to have been dominated by Chibchan-speakers,

a group with ties extending back for millennia in the region (Constenla 1991). From the

“Christopher Columbus

Received by Ferdinand

and Isabella” after

painting by Tony

Robert-Fleury, History

of the Reign of Ferdinand

and Isabella the Catholic,

Vol. III, William H.

Prescott, J.B. Lippincott

Company. GM 96.109

Title Page, A New Voyage to

America, Lionel Wafer, 1903

reprint of 1699 edition.

GM 2427.586


south, it seems likely that the Incas would have extended their empire into Colombia

and up to the Central American isthmus within a generation. Under the reign of Huayna

Capac, his son the Inca general Atahuallpa had been successful at conquering groups in

Ecuador and establishing a “second capital” in Quito. Huayna Capac died in 1527, with

circumstantial evidence suggesting that he may have fallen victim to a European dis-

ease transmitted overland from the Caribbean long in advance of direct contact with the

Spanish themselves (Hemming 1970). Had this not happened, Quito would have made

an ideal forward base for Inca expansion into highland Colombia and even the Caribbean

coast. In fact, in 1539 a Spanish expedition from Quito successfully made its way to the

vicinity of Bogotá, where it met up with two other expeditions traveling south from the

Caribbean. All three had pressed inland in search of the mythical land and wealth of El

Dorado (Bray 1978, Hemming 1978, Silverberg 1996).

“America Sive Novi

Orbis, No: Va Descripto.”

From Theatrum Orbis

Terrarvim, Abraham

Ortelius, Antwerp, 1570.

GM 3965.569/Map 3

“The Meeting of Cortez

and Montezuma,” History

of Hernando Cortez, John

C. Abbott, 1901, Harper &

Brother Publishers.

GM 2327.2144

Bells, Gran Coclé, 700–1000,

gold. GM 5645.89a-h


In Europe, the 15th century saw recovery from the appalling devasta-

tion of various waves of the Black Plague, which had decimated the popu-

lation and caused a major redistribution of land and wealth. This contrib-

uted to the emergence of the Renaissance, characterized by major advances

in technology, philosophy, art, and music. Unfortunately, our information

about contemporaneous events in the Americas is limited to what we can

learn from archaeology and ethnohistory, with the most complete records

coming from Mexico and Peru. We know little about Panama at this time

other than what can be intuited from cultures thriving when the Spanish

explorers arrived in 1500. Sadly, the oral histories of chiefs and dynasties

disappeared with the populations that were decimated—some to the point

of cultural extinction—within just four decades of initial contact.

In Mexico and Peru, the 15th century saw the rise of the largest politi-

cal empires ever to exist in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans.

In Peru, the emperor Pachacuti reorganized and expanded the Inca state.

Pachacuti, a successful warrior who repelled attacks by the Chancas to se-

cure the capital at Cuzco, commissioned the spectacular site of Machu Pic-

chu and the construction of the temple and fortress at Sacsayhuaman on a

hilltop overlooking Cuzco (Niles 2004). Pachacuti is also credited with the

construction of the Coricancha (“Golden Enclosure”), a temple dedicated to the Sun, the

principal Inca deity, also in Cuzco. The reign of Pachacuti and his sons was contempora-

neous with the period of the Renaissance in Europe, and much of the most spectacular

Inca architecture in Peru was built at about the same time as were the palaces of Florence,

Italy. The Pitti Palace, for example, which became the home of the de Medici dynasty, was

commissioned in 1458, probably within a decade or two of the construction of Pachacu-

ti’s private estate at Machu Picchu.

To put things in perspective, Pachacuti’s son, Tupac Inca Yupanqui, who ruled from

1471 to 1493 (Hemming 1970), was a contemporary of King Henry VII of England (1457–

1509). In Mexico, the Aztec ruler Tizoc came to power in 1481, ruling until his death in

1486, when he was succeeded by his brother Ahuitzotl (Davies 1980). Ahuitzotl is best

known for his dramatic expansion of the central complex at the Templo Mayor in what

is now downtown Mexico City, where he is said to have demanded the sacrifice of thou-

Pitti Palace, Florence,

Italy, 2011. Courtesy

of Lanette Coppage.

Machu Picchu, Peru.

Image licensed by

DepositPhotos.com/

Agnieszka Lipecka

g o l d o f a n c i e n t p a n a m a 23

sands of warriors at its rededication. (His son, Montezuma—also spelled Moctecuzoma,

Moctezuma, and other variants—would later greet Hernán Cortés when he entered the

Aztec capital.)

In Peru, Tupac Inca’s son Huayna Capac came to power in 1493 (Hemming 1970),

just a year after the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean. Less than ten years later, in

1509, Henry VIII became King of England. At that time Montezuma had been in power

seven years. Both Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Michelangelo (1475–1564) lived

during this period. Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper was completed in 1498. Two years

later, the first Spanish caravel sailed along the Caribbean coast of Panama. Michelangelo’s

masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel, was painted between 1508 and 1512 while the first Span-

ish port was being established in Panama. The ceiling of the chapel was barely dry when

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crossed Panama to become the first European to see the Pacific

Coast of the Americas. It was a time of great accomplishments and great changes.

s pa n i s h e x p l o r at i o n a n d c o n q u e s t b e f o r e 1 5 1 9

The Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas did not happen all at once

but unfolded over a period of decades. The spectacular nature of Cortés’s defeat of the

Aztecs and Pizarro’s defeat of the Incas has tended to draw attention away from the earli-

est wave of Spanish occupation, which took place in the Antilles—especially Hispañola

and Cuba—and in Panama. The period of Spanish settlement did not occur until after

several exploratory voyages by Columbus and others that took place over a period be-

tween 1492 and 1510. It was not until Rodrigo de Bastidas reached the north coast of

Panama in 1501 that Europeans had direct contact with the inhabitants of the mainland

of Central America (Ruiz 2002).

Bastidas was the first European to sail along the Panamanian coast, making his way

westward from Colombia along the San Blas Islands to Punta Manzanillo in Colón Prov-

ince, the farthest northern point of mainland on the Caribbean coast of Panama.1 He

had been on Columbus’s second voyage in 1494 and with Alonso de Ojeda, who “dis-

covered” South America in 1499, traveling from Trinidad and the mouth of the Orinoco

along the coast of Venezuela to the northern coast of the Goajira Peninsula in Colombia.

Bastidas successfully petitioned Ferdinand and Isabella, holy rulers of Spain, to allow

him to finance his own expedition to explore further. He reached the northern coast of

South America in early 1500, picking up where Ojeda’s exploration had ended and ex-

ploring westward along the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Panama. Bastidas named

the Magdalena River and was the first European to visit the Gulf of Urabá, a major center

of gold production and trade. He was also first to reach the gold-exporting port of Nom-

bre de Dios. Among his crew was Balboa, who would become the first Spanish explorer

1430

1440

1450

1460

1470

1480

1490

1500

1510

1520

1530

1540

1550

1560

1570

1580

1590

1600

1610

1620

Defeat of Hungarians by Ottoman army at Battle of Mohács

Province of Nicaragua established; death of BastidasSuccessful defense of Vienna against Ottoman Empire

Pizarro begins conquest of PeruFrancis I declares seas open to piracy

Three expeditions seeking El Dorado arrive in Bogotá, Colombia

De Soto reaches OklahomaCoronado reaches central Kansas

Edward VI becomes king of England, will rule until 1553

Mary I becomes queen of England, will rule until 1558

Charles V passes crown to Phillip II

Elizabeth I becomes queen of England, will rule until 1603

Francis Drake begins raids on Spanish shipsNombre de Dios sacked by Francis Drake

Lima, Peru sacked by Francis DrakeSir Francis Drake knighted by Elizabeth I

English navy defeats Spanish Armada

Pilgrims arrive on the Mayflower at Plymouth Harbor

Pachacuti becomes Inca emperor, will rule 1438–1471

Henry VII becomes King of England, will rule 1457–1509

Pitti Palace commissioned in Florence, Italy Construction of Machu Picchu begins near Cuzco, Peru

Gold metallurgy has been practiced in Panama since about 300

Tupac Inca Yupanqui becomes Inca emperor

Holy Office of the Inquisition established in SpainTizoc becomes Aztec emperor, succeeded by Ahuitzotl in 1486

Moors and Jews expelled from Spain Columbus lands on San SalvadorSecond voyage of Columbus embarks Huayna Capac becomes Inca emperor

Leonardo da Vinci completes The Last Supper Alonso de Ojeda “discovers” South AmericaBastidas explores coast of Panama

Montezuma becomes Aztec emperorColumbus encounters a trading canoe off Honduras, trades for goldMichelangelo begins painting the Sistine Chapel

Henry VIII becomes King of England Nombre de Dios founded on north coast of PanamaBalboa crosses Panama to “discover” the Pacific coast

Coronation of Charles I of SpainMartin Luther distributes 95 Theses in Germany Cortés begins conquest of Mexico

Sulieman the Magnificent becomes ruler of the Ottoman Empire

E U R O P E T H E A M E R I C A S


to cross the isthmus of Panama. Bastidas’s voyage brought proof that there was gold in

Colombia and Panama. In 1503, he was ordered to return to his home in Spain and along

the way to display his share of gold and pearls in all of the towns he passed to demonstrate

to the populace that there was money to be had in the Indies.2 Bastidas’s discoveries fired

the imagination of his peers, but, unfortunately, his followers lacked his sensitivity. Bas-

tidas later came to be known as “the noblest conquistador” because he avoided violence

and sought to obtain gold and other goods only through trade. He died violently in 1527

after being stabbed in his sleep by crew members who felt he was not distributing gold

fairly (Ruiz 2002).

c o l u m b u s ’ s i n i t i a l e n c o u n t e r

In 1502, Columbus made his fourth and final voyage to the New World. His first

three voyages had concentrated on the exploration and colonization of Hispañola and the

islands of the Caribbean. Although these had given Europeans a taste of the New World,

they had not provided the gold riches that had been the principal object of the Admiral’s

quest. It was on this last journey that he made the first direct contact with inhabitants of

the Central American mainland and had a glimpse of the substance of his obsession.

Columbus’s first encounter with residents of the mainland ensued when his men

spotted a large sailing canoe off the Bay Islands in the Gulf of Honduras. They hailed the

vessel, which pulled up alongside. In it were two dozen men traveling with their fami-

lies. The canoe was transporting a load of dried cacao seeds and cotton textiles. To the

Spaniards’ disappointment, they saw no gold. However, Columbus made note that they

had bells and axes made of copper and what appeared to be ceramic crucibles for smelt-

ing metals. After what must have been a discussion using gestures (since the language

was unknown), Columbus headed east along the Central American isthmus. He probably

learned that the Maya, to the west, had little in the way of gold. Sources of what he was

seeking lay in the opposite direction.

In late September, the flotilla dropped anchor near a small island in crystalline wa-

ters at a place whose name they recorded as Cariay or Cariari (Columbus and Lane 1988).

From the boats, the Admiral and his crews were within sight of a black beach and forested

shore of a tropical paradise Columbus later called Costa Rica, or “the rich coast,” because

it was here that he found gold. Some two hundred natives, with spears in hand, gathered

on the beach. However, although they bore weapons, their gestures indicated friendship.

A party of Spaniards—not including the Admiral himself—went ashore. The initial con-

tact appears to have been formal and courteous, if awkward. The Spanish offered gifts of

European clothing and trinkets, but the Indians were reluctant to accept anything when

the Spanish turned down the indigenous goods that were offered in return. According to

one source, this led the Indians to regard what the Spaniards offered with suspicion and

everything given to them by the Spanish at that first encounter was left in a pile on the

beach. The natives were so gracious and polite, wrote Columbus’s son Ferdinand, that it

seemed clear they enjoyed giving more than receiving.

While Columbus rested at anchor near an idyllic Caribbean beach, a local cacique

of Cariay approached his ship with a special gift: two attractive young girls, naked except

for their cotton loincloths and the gold “eagle” pendants around their necks. The cacique

rightly noticed the absence of women, probably strange for such large vessels (the trad-

ing canoe in Honduras carried both men and women), and may have assumed that this

is what the sailors were seeking for either temporary or permanent relationships. The

girls were described as being far from shy, and one can only imagine the reception they

enjoyed from a crew of weather-beaten sailors. The admiral was shocked, however, by the

open sensuality of these children and he reacted to them with revulsion and fear. He later

described them as “. . . two highly adorned girls, the oldest was not more than eleven years

old and the other seven;3 both so bold that they could not be other than prostitutes: they

brought powders of hidden witchcraft.”4

Columbus ordered the girls to be dressed immediately in men’s clothes, relieved of

their gold jewelry, and adorned with cheap trinkets from Europe, probably necklaces of

“Ferdinand the Catholic”

and “Isabella the

Catholic,” from History

of the Reign of Ferdinand

and Isabella the Catholic,

William H. Prescott, J.B.

Lippincott Company.

GM 96.109, 117, .110.


Venetian glass beads and the like. However, he declined to engage them in the activity for

which they had undoubtedly been presented and forbade his men to touch them. After

a night likely different from what they had anticipated, the girls were returned to shore

with a red wool hat “to give to their father.”

Upon the girls’ return, the natives stripped them of the European garments, piled

the clothing in a heap on the beach, and left in silence, presumably angry and resentful at

Columbus’s rejection of their generous hospitality. Communication had failed.

One can only speculate about how the local inhabitants perceived this incident. Kin-

ship was the glue of indigenous society. If these girls, adorned in gold, were the daughters

of an important individual, their offer represented more than a gift of sexual gratifica-

tion. It was an invitation to enter into a reciprocal relationship, one that would ultimately

benefit the girls’ families. It may well have been an invitation to Columbus and his men to

stay and settle. The indigenous groups of this part of Costa Rica—as was true for much

of the territory of Chibchan speakers—were matrilineal and matrilocal. Had Columbus

taken these girls as his wives, he would have been expected to stay with their mother’s

family. The natives, seeing that the Spanish were traveling as single men without women

or children, are likely to have believed that they came in search of mates. They may have

been happy to oblige, provided the exchange was of mutual benefit. For the admiral,

they were little more than couriers, bringing gold ornaments and taking away clothing

and beads. For the natives, however, they provided a strategic window through which to

learn far more about the Europeans than the Europeans learned about them. What they

learned was that the visitors had a radically different worldview, one that would color all

future interactions. They may also have learned that the Europeans could not be counted

on as friends. Columbus, a religious man, may have sought to teach a lesson in morality

to both the natives and his crew (the latter perhaps his larger concern). In so doing, he

highlighted profound differences between the indigenous and non-indigenous world.

As he continued east, Columbus encountered both more people and more gold

along the Caribbean coast of Panama. He later wrote, “In this land of Veragua I saw more

signs of gold in the first two days than I saw in Española during four years.” As a result,

Columbus’s family chose this area, named the Duchy of Veragua, as its fief from the Span-

ish Crown. In the bay that was later named for his father (Almirante Bay), Ferdinand Co-

lumbus described people who were naked except for gold plates or cast gold “eagles” they

wore around their necks. He estimated that one of these plates weighed fourteen duc-

ats (almost fifty grams) while an “eagle” pendant weighed twenty-two ducats (about 78

grams). One of the caciques they encountered presented Columbus with a trove estimat-

ed to be “about 300 ducats in gold plates, little eagles, and small quills, which they string

and wear about their arms and legs, and gold twists which they put about their head in

the nature of a coronet” that had been plundered from the house of an enemy (Emmerich

Winged pendant, Gran Coclé,

gold, 1150–1520. GM 5645.71


1965: 100). Columbus’s journey took him past the Veraguas coast to a harbor he named

Porto Bello. It later became a sister port to Nombre de Dios. With this, he reached the

region that had been the farthest point west on Bastidas’s exploration. The Spanish had

confirmed there was gold along the northern coast of Panama, and this became a magnet

for additional plunder and settlement. Columbus himself never returned.

t h e e x t r a c t i o n o f g o l d

Most of the gold the Spanish collected in the 16th century was obtained through

plunder, looting, and forced labor. Manufactured gold objects were plundered directly

from the people. Since gold ornaments were associated with power, authority, and su-

pernatural abilities, their owners tended to occupy the upper hierarchies of indigenous

societies; plundering objects from them involved killing the most knowledgeable as well

as the most powerful. Looting included the active “mining” of indigenous burial grounds.

In 1519, Espinoza witnessed the adornment of a Coclé

chieftain in gold in preparation for burial (Lothrop 1937).

Finding and looting burials therefore became a major pre-

occupation as well as an indignity, since indigenous labor-

ers were forced to excavate their own cemeteries. The most

productive method of extracting gold was the use first of

indigenous labor and then African slaves to work known

placer deposits, an intense, back-breaking work that re-

quired hours in the water running sluices. Although the

Spanish, and later the Germans, had great ambitions for

the mining of gold, mining proved futile for more than a

century.

The initial Spanish settlement of Panama, under the

direction of Diego de Nicuesa, was sited on the shore of a

picturesque natural harbor just east of the northernmost

point along the Caribbean coast of Panama. It was named

Nombre de Dios (“In the Name of God”) in honor of the

divine mission to enrich Spain’s Catholic rulers, Ferdinand

and Isabella. The location had benefits and drawbacks. It was located near a swamp that

actively bred mosquitos carrying the malaria and yellow fever that had been imported

with African slaves. However, it had a small and readily defended oval harbor whose en-

trance could be carefully guarded from twin battlements. Nombre de Dios was also situ-

ated near the first partially paved European road on the continent, which for decades was

crossed by thousands of mules and horses carrying goods and precious metals between

Sir Francis Drake

LC-USZ62-38479

Library of Congress Prints a

nd Photographs Division

Washington, D.C.

Facing: Details, Beaded

necklace with human

effigy pendants,

Gran Coclé, 500–1520,

gold. GM 5645.174–187


the Caribbean and the Pacific. It has been estimated that this small port handled approxi-

mately 45 percent of the shipping between Seville and the Americas for over a century

between the time of its founding and its sacking and burning by English pirates led by Sir

Francis Drake in 1572 (Vilar 2011). It was all but abandoned by 1600. Today it is a sleepy

town that receives only the occasional tourist. Little historical archaeology has been un-

dertaken there to date.

Nombre de Dios was located roughly in the middle of what became known as the ter-

ritories of Castilla de Oro. These were initially identified by the Spanish crown as a region

extending from the isthmus of Panama in the west to the Gulf of Maracaibo in Venezuela

in the east. They comprised a vast area that had initially included the Caribbean coastal

regions as well as the upper reaches of as-yet-unexplored river systems, among them the

Magdalena, and was extended to include the Pacific coasts of Panama and northwestern

Colombia after Balboa’s successful crossing of the isthmus in 1513. As more territory be-

came known, Castilla de Oro was extended westward into Costa Rica and Nicaragua (un-

til 1527, when the Province of Nicaragua was established). However, boundaries shifted

with discoveries and disputes. By 1540, Castilla de Oro had been divided into the Prov-

ince of Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica to the west, the Duchy of Veragua in the middle, and

the Realm of Tierra Firme (Panama) in the east. By 1560, it had merged with the Province

of Veragua (Loftus 1911).

A mythology of great natural riches was perpetuated by explorers and their patrons

to encourage settlement, and Spaniards who had failed in their quest for riches in the An-

tilles were happy to try their hand on new shores. The wealth of Veraguas became legend-

ary with Velasco’s words: “There is gold running through the earth in many places, and it

can be found wherever you dig to the depth of five feet. Every negro extracts at least one

peso a day, there are good deposits in all the rivers and streams, and the gold is of good

quality” (Vilar 2011: 106).

This was an obvious exaggeration, especially because it implied to some the existence

of veins that could be mined, not placer deposits from which small nuggets of gold were

obtained by laborious panning and sluices. Sadly, the reference to “every negro” reflects

the fact that indigenous slave labor had been largely replaced by African slaves, who had

a greater resistance to imported diseases and were thought less likely to flee than people

forced to work on their native lands.

s pa n i s h p e r c e p t i o n s o f pa n a m a n i a n g o l d

Considering Spanish attitudes towards indigenous peoples of Central America and

their goldwork, it is important to recall that Spain at the time was somewhat behind

other parts of Europe—especially Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands—with respect to

Renaissance advances in science. The Spanish Inquisition, whose official title was The

Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, had been established by Ferdinand and

Isabella of Castile in 1480 and was accompanied by fear and brutal intolerance. Isabella

and Ferdinand had expelled the Moors and the Jews in 1492, putting an end to intel-

lectual advances by each of these communities during the Medieval period. Spain of the

early 16th century was a place of religious fervor and deep suspicion of anything that

Facing: America fuie

India Nova, from Atlas

Sive Cosmographicae,

Gerard Mercater,

Amsterdam 1623.

GM 3976.570/Map 6


strayed from Catholic doctrine. This became even further exacerbated with the begin-

nings of Protestant beliefs, which only increased the intensity with which the Church felt

compelled to identify and destroy all traces of heresy. In his lengthy will, Charles V, who

died in 1558, exhorted his son and successor Philip II to renew the Inquisition with even

greater resolve (Reston 2009). The heavy hand of Catholic doctrine colored all the events

of the Spanish Conquest.

Spanish conquistadors and missionaries to the Americas included representatives of

this extremism. As had been true with Columbus in his encounter with the young girls

in Costa Rica, there was tremendous fear of witchcraft and sorcery, practices that had a

presence in Europe but were also a fundamental part of the belief systems of indigenous

peoples of the Americas. The Spanish feared indigenous magic, and indigenous people

undoubtedly attempted to use it. In fact, there are hints that some of the baskets of gold

ornaments offered freely to the Spanish by caciques were part of a supernatural strategy

to weaken them. In several instances, the gold offered came from defeated enemies. The

Spanish appear not to have caught on to the possibility that this was the gold of “losers.”

That is, that it carried the magical residue of loss and defeat—the people who had worn

it, after all, had not won the conflict. The caciques may have felt they were passing on “bad

mojo,” tainted amulets, and maleficent magic. For their part, when the Spanish looked at

indigenous gold, they saw representations of fantastic beings that were half-human, half-

animal. Interpreting these within their own realm of experiences and iconographies, they

identified these as demons or Satan himself. The animals represented in Chibchan gold-

work—crocodiles, jaguars, snakes, bats, frogs, and the like—were hostile and dangerous

from a Spanish perspective. Collecting and destroying objects made in the form of these

creatures, especially by melting them in intense heat, was not just a means of collecting

precious metal but a way of destroying idols and eliminating maleficent sorcery.

From the viewpoint of indigenous people of the Americas, Spanish behavior seemed

irrational. They understood the subtleties of the magical combinations of gold and cop-

per used to form the alloy guanín, a mixture of male and female essences. They also un-

derstood how objects—especially those that included bells or rattles—included hidden

qualities that evoked spirits and forces. Most of all, they knew the individual histories of

objects that had probably been manufactured by magic workers, whether shamans and

sorcerers or warriors and leaders, seeking to capture hidden power. Spanish interest in the

objects for their metal alone seemed as bizarre to the natives as did the possession of gold

by people who walked around naked and lived in houses made of thatch to the Europe-

ans. This led to indigenous claims that the Spanish ate and drank gold, and the occasional

practice of punishing Spanish captives by forcing them to swallow molten gold (Carvajal

and Járegui 2008: 46).

Monkey effigy pendant,

Gran Coclé, 500–1520, gold.

GM 5645.95


Apprehension and outright fear of the images in indigenous goldwork may help ex-

plain why so few of these objects were preserved by Europeans, even by private individu-

als. The artist and master craftsmen Albrecht Dürer commented on the skill and ingenu-

ity apparent in goldwork from America that he saw on the docks, lamenting that it would

be immediately melted into bullion (Carrasco and Sessions 1998: 167). The Church and

the Crown would have both identified the objects with heresy and harmful magic. The

remedy was to melt them down, stamp them as coinage bearing symbols of Christianity

and sacred rulership, or, in the best possible use, to apply the metal to the decoration of

holy altars, representations of saints, and other adornments of Spain’s cathedrals. The

cathedral in Seville is an excellent example of this, with its massive quantities of gold leaf

made from the gold of the Americas and painstakingly applied to the surfaces of carved

wooden altars and ornaments.

It would be centuries before Columbian expositions in Spain (in Seville in 1892) and

subsequently the United States (especially the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893) led collectors

to value pre-Columbian objects more for their artistic value and workmanship than for

their precious metal content.

h o ly r o m a n d e b t

Charles V, born to Austrian parents in Flanders in 1500, was crowned Charles I of

Spain in 1516. The teenage monarch was a member of the House of Hapsburg (as well

as the House of Valois-Burgundy of the Netherlands and the House of Trastámara of

Castile-Leon and Aragon)—in all, of exceptionally high status. Although he was King of

Spain, his first language was German. He is said to have spoken Spanish poorly, a problem

exacerbated by a congenital deformity of his jaw.

Soon after his coronation, Charles engaged in a fierce competition to be recognized

by Pope Leo X as Holy Roman Emperor. His two principal rivals were Francis I of France

and Henry VIII of England. While the position was putatively religious, the competition

was based primarily on political relationships and the ability to muster financial resources.

Although he had excellent connections, the young king’s successful accession to this

powerful title was purchased. Pope Leo X and the Vatican’s electors exacted significant

sums for their support, much of which Charles obtained through loans from Europe’s

wealthiest bankers. The House of Fugger in Augsberg, for example, loaned half a million

of the ultimate cost of 850,000 ducats necessary (Reston 2009, Vilar 2011). The promise

of Spanish gold from the Americas undoubtedly played a major part in this decision.

Armadillo pendant

effgy, Gran Coclé,

500–1520. gold.

GM 5645.34

Tooth effigy pendant,


gold. GM 5645.221


Colonies in the Antilles and Panama had been returning

sufficient gold to persuade investors that much more was to

be had. Cortés, having collected stories of fabulous riches

in Mexico from indigenous merchants, landed on the coast

of Veracrúz with an army prepared to march inland in

April 1519. The supporters of Charles V assembled the last

of his loans that spring. He became Holy Roman Emperor

on June 28, 1519.

The principal preoccupations of Charles V’s reign

were his opposition to the spread of Protestantism and his

military successes against the westward advance of the Ot-

toman Empire. The seeds of the Protestant Reformation

had been planted in 1517 with Martin Luther’s distribution

of his Ninety-Five Theses, a sharp criticism of the Catholic

Church—especially its financial behavior. From the time of

his accession, Charles V and his advisors were focused on

the threats these critiques represented, especially as Protes-

tant movements grew. As “defender of the faith,” Charles V

was also preoccupied with threats posed by the Ottoman Empire to eastern Europe. He

was ultimately successful at preventing an invasion of Vienna by forces that had come

from Constantinople under the leadership of Suleiman the Magnificent (Reston 2009).

Had this failed, these Muslim forces would have continued a march up the Danube into

central Europe, plundering, conquering, and establishing colonies as they proceeded. The

wars Charles waged were costly and had little support from the population in Spain,

which in 1521 violently rebelled against heavy taxation in the Revolt of the Comuneros.

Promised riches of the Americas helped to support his efforts against Protestantism and

Islam. The main way this happened was through heavy military spending that resulted in

a massive accumulation of debt. Although there were successes on both fronts, by the lat-

ter half of the 16th century Spain sustained such an enormous debt that it went bankrupt

during the reign of Charles V’s successor Philip II. One could argue that the brunt of the

cost was borne on the backs of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, whose popula-

tions were devastated by the Spanish quest for gold.

The Holy Roman Emperor took full advantage of a huge credit line. He borrowed in-

creasingly vast sums of money at increasingly higher rates of interest, mostly from credi-

tors tied to the royal families of Holland, Flanders, Italy, and Germany. In the thirteen

years between 1520 and 1532 (the year that Pizarro began his conquest of the Incas),

Charles V borrowed 5.4 million ducats (6.3 million with interest). In the next ten years

(1533–1542), he borrowed another 5.4 million. In the following nine years (1543–1551),

he borrowed another 8.4 million, but at a rate that brought it to 10.7 million with inter-

est. In the last five years of his reign alone (1552–1556), he borrowed 9.6 million ducats

(with a value of 14.4 million in repayments). Between 1520 and 1556, Charles V ran up

an ever-increasing deficit with a total repayment value of over 38 million gold ducats.

The cost of these loans rose from an initial interest rate of 17.6 percent in the first pe-

riod to 48.8 percent in the last. Moreover, 87 percent of his debts were to foreign banks

(Vilar 2011: 149). While the gold and silver that came to Spain from the Americas was

substantial, it was always imagined (and promised) to be more than what actually arrived.

Promises of income from the indigenous territories of the Americas on the far western

frontier of Charles V’s empire were used to obtain loans for waging wars against Muslims

on the far eastern edge. The Modern Age had begun not only with circumnavigation of

“Portrait of Hernando

Cortés,” engraving, by

Masson after Ant. Moro,

History of the Conquest

of Mexico, Vol. I,

William H. Prescott, J.B.

Lippincott Company.

GM 96.100

Altar at Seville, Spain.

Image licensed by

DepositPhotos.com/

Sergey Borisov


the globe and the discovery of a “New World,” but with the beginning of an economy in

which events occurring in Panama, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru had a profound effect on

the lives of people and rulers in Austria and Turkey. It was also accompanied by a rapid

expansion of international banking and the accumulation of previously unimaginable

deficits.

The reality is that most of the gold and silver imported from the Americas went in-

stantly to debt service. Precious metals were valued where other goods and paper promises

were not. The greatest value of precious metals was that they could be used in exchanges

between nations. As a result, a great deal of gold that entered Spain was quickly shipped

out to other countries. In 1566, Hernán Cortés complained that “. . . when a fleet comes

in from the Indies with much money, within a month or two there is no good money to

be found for it is all exported at once in indirect ways” (Vilar 2011: 166). “Though our

kingdoms could be the richest in the world for the gold and silver they have got and still

get from the Indies,” he later wrote, “they are the poorest, for they are only a bridge for

these to go into the Kingdoms of our enemies and the enemies of the Holy Catholic Faith”

(Vilar 211: 166). Cortés and others complained that money was “made of air” because it

was tied up in paper agreements. It was these agreements that provided the real impetus

behind the Spanish Conquest and the devastation of in-

digenous populations, as creditors increased the pressure

for repayment, interest rates climbed, and eventually the

banks themselves were granted concessions and hired

their own explorers and soldiers in attempts to collect

their debts.

d i d c e n t r a l a m e r i c a n g o l d

s av e t h e w e s t ?

At the same time that Cortés was fighting to gain

control of the Valley of Mexico, Ottoman armies were

advancing on the Balkans in eastern Europe. Cortés de-

feated the emperor Montezuma in 1520, when the latter

was stoned to death by his own people for having failed

to repel the Spanish. Belgrade fell to the Turks in 1521.

These events on the frontiers of opposite ends of the Holy

Roman Empire soon became part of a web of increasing-

ly related conflicts. In 1526, an Ottoman army originat-

ing in Constantinople marched on Hungary again. The

Battle of Mohács, at which it prevailed (and 14,000 Hun-

garian soldiers died), represented a significant defeat of

Christian forces by the Ottoman army. King Louis II of

Hungary and Bohemia’s defeat by forces led by Suleiman

sent shudders throughout Europe when it was realized

that the Turks intended to continue westward in an Is-

lamic jihad (Reston 2009). Far to the west, on the oppo-

site side of the Atlantic, the gold of the Americas became

all the more valuable. Seen as an asset that could be used

to finance the arming of Hapsburg forces, American gold

was used by Charles V to persuade his bankers to extend

significant credit. This made the extraction of gold from

the recently discovered Aztec empire and sources in

both the Central American isthmus and northern South

America even more imperative.

The successful defense of Vienna in 1529 was a major victory against Ottoman ex-

pansion. At the time, the Ottoman Empire was at its peak in power and size. Charles V’s

contribution was relatively small, consisting of a small regiment of infantry. However,

“Audience of Cortés with

Montezuma,”History of

the Conquest of Mexico,

Vol. II, William H.


Company. GM 96.101

Facing: “The Meeting of

Cortés and Montezuma”

History of the Conquest of

Mexico, Vol. II, William H.


Company. GM 96.101


the Catholic forces prevailed. Four years later,

in 1532, the defense of Vienna was even better

prepared. Charles V, having invested heavily in

the expansion of his army, reinforced the city’s

defenses with 80,000 troops. This caused the Ot-

toman army to retreat to Constantinople, never

again to attempt to take Austria or central Eu-

rope (Reston 2009). It was in that same year, on

the opposite side of the world, that Pizarro en-

countered, captured, and killed the Inca general

Atahuallpa at Cajamarca, initiating the Span-

ish Conquest of Peru and providing yet greater

promises of wealth to Charles. Yet the gold of

Peru took time to secure and ship back to Spain.

In the meantime, creditors were seeking repay-

ment.

In 1538, when it became difficult to pay

these debts, Charles V’s German creditors, the

Welsers, were given free access to the South

American continent, beginning with Venezuela

but with implications that they were free to plun-

der all the way south to Tierra del Fuego. They became one of three groups vying for

discovery of the fabled land of El Dorado, believed to be a source of wealth even greater

than what had been found in Mexico, Peru, or lands between. When these expeditions ar-

rived almost simultaneously at the plateau of Bogotá, Colombia, in 1539, the cities whose

streets were paved with gold were nowhere to be found. All of the main sources of gold in

the possession of indigenous populations had been found at that point. After the Coro-

nado and de Soto expeditions came up empty-handed—at least with respect to gold—the

age of Spanish plunder for gold came to an end.

The second half of the 16th century saw a gradual shift from gold to silver as the

principal metal of Spanish plunder and mining (Vilar 2011). The main discovery of that

period was the famous silver mine at Potosí, Bolivia, a virtual mountain of silver ore that

was mined at unimaginable human expense in the form of indigenous slaves. Silver con-

tinued to fuel the aspirations of Charles V until 1556, when he stepped down to pass the

crown to his son Phillip II. Sick with gout, he left the Spanish economy with a crushing

deficit. He retreated to the solitude of a monastery and died in 1558. His sad legacy was

a Spanish fervor to extract as much as possible from the Americas, one that ultimately

reduced the indigenous population to under a million people in less than a century.

t h e e n d o f t h e a g e o f s pa n i s h g o l d

The last half of the 16th century was a difficult one for Spain. In 1532, the same

year that Pizarro marched on Atahuallpa’s camp in Cajamarca, King Francis I of France

declared that the sea was common to all nations. This amounted to an open season on

Spanish ships carrying treasure, initiating a period of piracy on the high seas by French,

Dutch, and English privateers. French pirates had been among the first to attack Spanish

ships and settlements, beginning with a successful sack of ships returning under the com-

mand of Cortés with some of the first shipments of Aztec gold from Mexico in 1523. It

has been estimated that only between 80 and 85 percent of the gold that left the Americas

made it directly to Spain, the rest being lost through piracy and the occasional shipwreck,

with some of that treasure still hidden in unknown or inaccessible places (Vilar 2011).

The English actively invested in piracy, with creditors outfitting ships for privateer

John Hawkins and his nephew Drake to undertake raids on Spanish ships beginning in

1566. Their expeditions were privately financed, with investors including Queen Eliza-

beth I. Drake led a raid on Nombre de Dios in 1572, destroying the Spanish fort and

sacking the town. The following year, he returned to attempt an ambush on a mule train

carrying silver bullion—much of which had originated in the mines of Potosí, Peru—

from the Pacific coast. In 1577, Drake made a daring round of South America through the

Straits of Magellan to sack the city of Lima, Peru, crossing the Pacific Ocean and return-

ing triumphant from the Orient to repay the Queen with the value of forty-seven times

her initial investment. In 1581 she knighted him aboard his flagship, the Golden Hind, in

gratitude (Loftus 1911).

The ongoing successes of Sir Drake and others inflamed the Spanish, who decided

to attack the English navy off their own coasts in 1588. The resulting sea battle, one of the

greatest of the period, cost Spain the Spanish Armada—a devastating loss at a time when

precious metal exports from the Americas were fueling the Spanish economy. Drake him-

self was second in command of the victorious English fleet.

By the second half of the 16th century, although some gold continued to be extract-

ed at great cost, the flashy ornaments of the Aztecs, Incas, and the many different ethnic

groups of the Central American isthmus and northern Colombia had been taken, and

most had been melted down for bullion to pay Spanish debts. It is virtually impossible

to imagine the quantities of individual objects that were destroyed by looking at the slim

traces that have survived in a small number of private collections. Collections such as that

of the Gilcrease Museum provide just a small glimpse of what once existed.

Today, the goldwork of Panama is a reminder of the vast differences between the

histories and cultures of the ancient Americas and Europe as well as of their dramatic

convergence.

“Philip II,” engraved in

mezzotint on copper by

R.B. Parks, The Cloister

Life of Emperor Charles

V, Sir William Sterling-

Maxwell, 1891, London:

John C. Nimmo.

GM 2376.2124


One of the principal characteristics of the European quest for gold is that produc-

tion was undertaken outside the laws of economics. The price of the commodity was

completely unrelated to the cost of its production, the incalculable losses of human life,

destruction of property, and the devastation of land and human resources with other

productive potential. There was no normal subsistence level that permitted the reproduc-

tion of indigenous labor, which was destroyed as it was used and remained in sharp de-

cline until it almost completely disappeared—as was the tragic case in Panama. There was

little relationship, if any, between the value of gold and silver in Europe and its average

costs of production in the Americas. The two were, in an economic sense, almost com-

pletely decoupled. When one adds to this the fact that extensions of credit were made on

the basis of imagined gold in lands that—at the times the loans were being made—were

completely unknown, the economic picture becomes surreal.

It is a worthwhile exercise to contemplate what the world would be like today had

the ancient peoples of Panama and elsewhere in the Americas been able to survive and

retain their language and culture to the extent that has occurred in India, China, and Af-

rica (despite their own bitter experiences with colonization). The objects in the Gilcrease

collection remind us not only of the humanity of the individuals who made them, but of

the many ways in which gold has been interpreted by humans in different cultures at dif-

ferent times. The world in which we live today has a deep connection with these ancient

objects that were created and used by indigenous peoples yet resonate still in the larger

history of our world.

n o t e s

1 Isla Grande, off the point, has the farthest northern point of land. Punta Manzanillo is located

about halfway between what were later settled as Portobelo (to the west) and Nombre de Dios (to the east),

the two principal 16th century Spanish ports on the Caribbean coast. Portobelo and Nombre de Dios (in a

circular cove east of “Pto. Bello”) can both be seen in the upper left of the map on page 14.

2 Bastidas, who had been specifically interested in finding gold, ultimately discovered it in abundance

in Colombia. When he refused to divide his spoils with his men, some of them stabbed him in his sleep. He

died of his wounds after sailing from Colombia to Cuba in 1527.

3 Given the small size of indigenous people relative to Europeans and the custom of removing all

pubic hair, Columbus may have been completely wrong about their ages.

4 [Author’s translation] The original reads “. . . .dos muchachas muy ataviadas: la mas vieja no seria

de once años y la otra de siete; ambas con tanta desenvolutura que no serian mas unas putas: traian polvos

de hechizos escondidos.. . . ” (Academia de Geografía e Historia 1952:27). Europeans of the time had a great

fear of witchcraft and sorcery, which also affected how they regarded artwork in gold.

r e f e r e n c e s

Academia de Geografía e Historia de

Costa Rica. 1952. Colección de

documentos para la : historia de

Costa Rica relativos al cuarto y

ultimo viaje de Cristóbal Colón.

San José: Imprenta y Librería

Atena.

Bray, Warwick. 1978. The Gold of

El Dorado. London: Times

Newspapers Limited.

Carrasco, David and Scott Sessions.

1998. Daily Life of the Aztecs:

People of the Sun and Earth.

Westport: Greenwood Press.

Carvajal, Micael de and Carlos A.

Járegui. 2008. The Conquest

on Trial: Carvajal’s Complaint

of the Indians in the Court

of Death. University Park:

Pennsylvania State University

Press.

Columbus, Christopher and Lionel C.

Jane. 1988. The Four Voyages of

Columbus: A History in Eight

Documents. New York: Dover

Publications.

Constenla, Adolfo. 1991. “Las

lenguas del Área Intermedia:

Introducción a su studio

areal.” San José: Editorial de la

Universidad de Costa Rica.

Cooke, Richard. G., Ilean Isaza, John.

C. Griggs, Benoit Desjardins

and Luís. A. Sánchez. 2003.

“Who Crafted, Exchanged

and Displayed Gold in Pre-

Columbian Panama?” In Gold

and Power in Ancient Costa Rica,

Panama, and Colombia, edited

by J. Quilter and J. W. Hoopes,

91–158. Washington, D.C.:

Dumbarton Oaks Research

Library and Collections.

Davies, Nigel. 1980. The Aztecs: A

History. Norman: University of

Oklahoma Press.

Emmerich, André. 1965. Sweat of the

Sun and Tears of the Moon: Gold

and Silver in Pre-Columbian

Art. Seattle: University of

Washington Press.

Hearne, Patricia and Robert J. Sharer,

eds. 1992. River of Gold:

Precolumbian Treasures from

Sitio Conte. Philadelphia:

University Museum, University

of Pennsylvania.

Hemming, John. 1970. The Conquest

of the Incas. New York: Harcourt

Brace Jovanovich.

Hemming, John. 1978. The Search for

El Dorado. London: Michael

Joseph Publishers.

Herlihy, Peter. 1985. “Chocó Indian

Relocation in Darién, Panama.”

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43–45.

Hoopes, John W. and Oscar Fonseca Z.

2003. “Goldwork and Chibchan

Identity: Endogenous Change

and Diffuse Unity in the

Isthmo-Colombian Area.” In

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John W. Hoopes. Washington,

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de Oro. Washington, D.C.: Press

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the Incas, edited by Richard L.

Burger and Lucy C. Salazar. New

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eds. 2003. Gold and Power in

Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and

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Reston, James. 2009. Defenders of the

Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the

Magnificent, and the Battle for

Europe, 1520–1536. New York:

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lengua de cueva: Los grupos

indígenas del istmo oriental en la

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PanamaHistory/rodrigo de

bastidas.htm (Accessed June 1,

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Dream: Seekers of El Dorado.

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World. Westport: Greenwood

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and Money (New Edition). New

York: Verso Books.

Dog effigy,


gold. GM 5645.83