Historia General de Panama (review)

In terms of the modern political history of Latin America, Panama is a late-bloomer. Like Cuba, it achieved its independence belatedly, barely more than a century ago. Unlike Cuba, Panama freed itself not from Spanish colonizers, but from distant and fratricidal Colombian overlords. Colombia's bloody War of the Thousand Days (1899-1902) paved the way. While still reeling from the devastating effects of this conflict, Panamanians found a chance to fulfill their long-deferred dream of nationhood. They seceded from Colombia with U.S. cooperation in 1903. That cooperation, of course, formed part of a Faustian bargain and, for most of the rest of the century, the promise of independence would seem stunted and hollow. Panama's recent celebration of its first 100 years of formal nationhood has allowed historians to take stock and to view events in broader perspective. The result has been Alfredo Castillero Calvo's magisterial, if uneven, five-volume Historia General de Panamá.

While roughly comparable to the multivolume, multi-author national histories common elsewhere in the region, this collection is unprecedented. It brings together for the first time the work of a new, professionally trained generation of scholars and embodies a comprehensive account of Panama's long and tumultuous history, including nearly 400 years' worth of developments before the winning of independence. Earlier historians ignored many of these developments (including Anglophone scholars who still overlook Panama generally) and the Historia offers an important corrective; three of its five volumes cover the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, with the first two being devoted almost exclusively to the colonial period. This work also seeks to appeal to and enlighten the average educated citizen. Most of the volumes include numerous maps, photographs, and illustrations as well as the standard apparatus of footnotes and bibliography. Castillero Calvo's Introduction in the first volume includes a special reminder to its Panamanian readers, exhorting them to learn about and embrace the reality of their rich collective past. "La identidad de los pueblos se sustenta sobre la conciencia de su pasado," it tells them.

The first two volumes are especially important to its dual mission of being revisionist and popularizing. They are the lengthiest of the collection, averaging eighteen chapters each and, aside from two essays on pre-Columbian civilizations by archaeologists Richard Cooke and Luis Alberto Sánchez Herrera, focus on Panama's long-neglected colonial era. They also delve into a cornucopia of topics. There are chapters (virtually all authored by Castillero Calvo) on early Spanish settlement; food production and consumption; the rise of creole elite groups or oligarchies; slavery and the slave trade; race mixture; material life; colonial militias and defense; church and society; the trade fairs at Nombre de Dios and Portobelo; urban architecture; and so forth. Chapter 10 of Volume 1, for example, broaches the fascinating topic of race and upward social mobility. Entitled "Color y movilidad social," it describes a situation roughly similar to that of the racially-mixed (Afro-mestizo) populations of late-colonial Cuba and urban south Louisiana, especially New Orleans. As urban Panama's population became increasingly mulatto, individuals of African origin found growing opportunities to advance themselves within the socioeconomic hierarchy. Castillero Calvo cites several examples of their progress including a successful lawsuit launched in the 1750s by mulatto merchants against Panama City's white commercial establishment—a case he sees as being of great symbolic importance for the cause of Afro-mestizo rights and dignity.

Also intriguing is Chapter 13 on "El transporte transístmico y las comunicaciones regionales." Here, Castillero Calvo offers a tantalizing insider's glimpse of the vital role Panama once played in the traffic between Spain and its South American dominions, especially Peru. Using travelers' accounts, he takes us along the main routes used for crossing the isthmus during the nearly three centuries before construction of the Panama Railroad, highlighting the nature and...