Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . in those days,and the new governor,with power of life and•death over Balboa, wasnow well out at sea. The blow did not fallat once. On arrival atSanta Maria de la An-tigua in June, 1514,Pedrarias sent a courierto Balboa to announcehis coming and his au-thority. The devotedfollowers of Vasco Nunezwere for resisting thelatter, assuring him thatthe King could not havereceived the report of hisnotable discovery, elsehe would not thus havebeen supplanted. Bal-boa however submittedgracefully, promising thenewcomer implicit obedi-ence. Pedrarias, thoughch
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . in those days,and the new governor,with power of life and•death over Balboa, wasnow well out at sea. The blow did not fallat once. On arrival atSanta Maria de la An-tigua in June, 1514,Pedrarias sent a courierto Balboa to announcehis coming and his au-thority. The devotedfollowers of Vasco Nunezwere for resisting thelatter, assuring him thatthe King could not havereceived the report of hisnotable discovery, elsehe would not thus havebeen supplanted. Bal-boa however submittedgracefully, promising thenewcomer implicit obedi-ence. Pedrarias, thoughcharged to try Balboafor treason, concealedhis orders until he hadgathered all the useful information that the old chieftain could impart andwon many of his followers to his own personal sup-port. Then he arrested Balboa and put him on trial,only to have him triumphantly acquitted. Pedra-rias was disgusted. He hated Balboa and fearedhis influence in the colony. For his own part hewas tearing down the little kingdom his predecessorhad WHAT THEY STILL CALL A ROAD IN PANAMA Balboa had fought the Indian tribes to theirknees, then placated them, freed them withouttorture and made them his allies. Pedrarias ap-plied the methods of the slave trader to the nativepopulation. Never was such misery heaped uponan almost helpless foe, save when later his apt pupil Pizarro invaded natives were mur-dered, enslaved, robbed,starved. As Bancroftsays, in addition togold there were alwayswomen for baptism, lustand slavery. The wholeIsthmus blazed with war,and where Balboa hadconquered without losinga man Pedrarias lost 70^in one campaign. Oneof these raids was intothe territory now knownas the Canal Zone. Onone raid Balboa com-plained to the King therewas perpetrated thegreatest cruelty everheard of in Arabian orChristian country in anygeneration. And it isthis. The captain andthe surviving Christians,while on this journey,took nearly 100 Indiansof both sexes, mostlywomen and ch
Size: 1215px × 2056px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
