NOMBRE DE DIOS
Another sanitary district had to be established about twenty miles
east of Porto Bello, at Nombre de Dios. Here we had a force of some
two hundred men who dredged the sand that was used in making concrete
for the locks at Gatun. The conditions were very much the same as
at Porto Bello. There was a small native town of not more than one
hundred people, on the old site of Nombre de Dios, and we found that
to protect our own force we had to take charge of these natives, just
as we did at Porto Bello.
Nombre de Dios has even a more romantic history than Porto Bello, and
the name of Nombre de Dios is even better known in the wild history
of the Spanish Main than is that of Porto Bello. It was founded
about 1520, soon after the settlement of old Panama, and became the
northern terminus of the paved royal highway leading from Panama.
Afterwards, when Porto Bello was built, the highway forked about
thirty miles south of Nombre de Dios, one branch leading to Porto
Bello, and the other to Nombre de Dios.
The roadstead at Nombre de Dios was entirely open and exposed to
the full force of the north wind, locally known as the “norther,”
so troublesome along this coast during the winter months. It was so
exposed that it was difficult for the Spaniards to fortify it. The
fabulous amount of treasure which the Spaniards were bringing up from
Peru rapidly became known throughout the world. The Spaniards, during
their earlier colonial period, collected their treasure from time to
time during the year, in preparation of the sailing of the fleet.
For this reason, Nombre de Dios was constantly being threatened by
adventurers of all nationalities, who frequented the seas washing the
shores of the Spanish Main.
Drake, in his expedition of 1572, made a most romantic attack upon
Nombre de Dios. With one hundred men in small boats he attacked the
town and took the garrison entirely by surprise. They were driven in
every direction and many captured. The Governor, with a handful of
men, defended the palace where the gold and more valuable treasures
were stored, with desperate valor, but the town and all other public
buildings were in the hands of the English, and there seemed very
little chance for the Governor and his few brave followers. The
silver bullion, the accumulations of a year from the countries
tributary to Spain in this part of the world, was in one of the
buildings already in the hands of the English. Drake describes it as
being piled in bars of solid silver, and states that the pile was
some eighty feet long, twenty feet broad and ten feet high. The old
Governor and his companions were still bravely holding the palace,
and Drake led a charge in person. While they were battering in the
main gate, Drake received a bullet wound in the head and fell to the
ground unconscious. His men became demoralized, thinking that he had
been killed, and though they had the prize entirely within their
grasp, they fled to their boats, carrying with them the insensible
form of Drake, and left to the defeated Spaniards the treasure which
the English had gone through so much suffering and privation to
possess.
The Spanish garrison was immediately reinforced from Panama. Though
Drake remained with his ships concealed among the San Blas Islands
in the beautiful tropical bay of San Blas, he never had another
opportunity of surprising with any chance of success the fort and
garrison of Nombre de Dios.
About a year later, however, he surprised and captured a treasure
train on the royal highway coming across from Panama to Nombre de
Dios. The fight took place just about where the royal highway to
Porto Bello branches off from that to Nombre de Dios. Drake’s men
after the capture were some fifty or sixty miles from their ships.
There was no trail nor road of any kind leading in that direction,
so that they could not take the pack mules. Drake therefore directed
that the gold and most valuable treasure should be divided up among
the men as much as each could carry, and that the silver and least
valuable part of the treasure should be buried and concealed as well
as it could be in the immediate neighborhood.
Drake and his men succeeded in getting to their ships safely with the
treasure they had captured, and this was enough to pay the expense
of their whole trip and besides make each one of them rich for
life, according to the standards of that day. The Spanish garrison
from Nombre de Dios was on the ground within a few hours after the
capture of the pack train, and spent several days in searching for
hidden buried treasure. They found a great deal, and thought they had
found all that was left. About two weeks afterwards Drake and his
men returned and dug up enough to give again to each man all that
he could carry, but as this was principally silver, it was not so
valuable as had been their previous load.
In 1598, Nombre de Dios, by order of the Spanish king, was abandoned
and everything moved to Porto Bello. As I before remarked, our men
were located right among the ruins of the old city of Nombre do Dios,
and our sand-digging operations were carried on near the shore line
right in front of the town. In the three hundred years since Nombre
de Dios had been abandoned the harbor had silted up and filled in to
a considerable extent. In excavating for sand our men found the frame
of an old ship of considerable size ten or fifteen feet under the
surface of the ground, and some two hundred yards from the present
coast line. She was evidently an old Spanish ship that had been
abandoned at the then shore line of the city of Nombre de Dios, and
had gradually been covered by the action of the water with sand and
silt.
The Spanish officers and soldiers of 1650 seemed to have lost the
initiative and energy which they had so wonderfully exhibited two
generations before in this same country under Balboa, Pizarro,
Almargo, and other leaders of that stamp. But they did not lack
bravery and dogged determination, when it came to the defensive, as
was illustrated in the case of the Spanish Governor at Nombre de
Dios, when summoned by Drake to surrender, although his condition was
apparently hopeless. His courage and devotion were most unexpectedly
rewarded by success, which he had not the slightest right to expect,
due to purely accidental conditions.
This bravery and devotion of the Spanish cavalier was again
illustrated eighty years later, when Sir Henry Morgan, the English
buccaneer, stormed the works at Porto Bello. The circumstances were
somewhat the same as above described at Nombre de Dios. The English
stormed and carried one stronghold after another until nothing but
the palace was left to the Spaniards. In the palace the Governor had
placed the women and children, with himself and about ten men, and
had barricaded all the entrances as well as possible. He steadily
refused all summons which Morgan made on him to surrender. When the
main door was battered down and Morgan entered sword in hand at the
head of more than one hundred men, he found the old Governor standing
with drawn sword, his ten men behind him and the women and children
behind them. The Governor was even then a man of over sixty years
of age. It was not the custom in those days for either Spaniards or
buccaneers to ask or give quarter. Sir Henry Morgan is not ordinarily
credited with much soft-heartedness even from the standpoint of a
buccaneer. According to accounts, he was touched by the scene that
presented itself to his view as he and his men poured into the
court—the white-haired old Governor unflinchingly supported by his
brave little garrison of ten men, and the frightened and crying women
and children standing behind. By a gesture he waved back his men,
and told the Governor that he wished to spare his life and the lives
of those dependent upon him. Though his wife entreated the Governor
to accept Morgan’s terms and pointed out to him the uselessness of
resistance, as all the town and the forts were in the hands of six or
seven hundred buccaneers, and that there were but ten Spaniards left,
the doughty old Governor refused to yield and told Morgan that he was
not placed there by his king to surrender, but to fight, and that if
he wanted his sword, he (Morgan) would have to take it, as he would
never yield it as long as he had a drop of blood left.
This is the only recorded instance that I know of in which Morgan was
touched by the bravery of his enemy. But his patience now entirely
exhausted, he gave the signal, and in a few moments the brave old
Governor and ten of his brave men had gone to the land where the
souls of soldiers, good and true, are known to go.
This picture has always affected me strongly. I have often stood on
the ground and tried to rehabilitate the old court as it appeared
that memorable May afternoon.