There’s a first time for everything, and in the case of America and the Spanish, a settlement in northern Colombia would go down in the history books as the first Spanish (and European) city to be founded in the Americas. But it wouldn’t last. A new study reveals the horrors.

Work. Through a combination of satellite imagery, georadar and archaeological studies, the first cartographic study of what is Santa María de la Antigua del Darién has been carried out since 2013. They have just presented their preliminary findings, revealing that the city was built on an ancient indigenous village inhabited by cave cultures that were almost destroyed within twenty years of the arrival of invaders in the area.

Not only that, the study also confirms the entire dramatic history of the site, which stood for only 14 years before being buried by a series of deaths and violence.

The beginning of Santa Maria. In a region that is today highly conflicted due to migration, on the famous Darién Gap, a historic city was built more than five centuries ago. Santa María de la Antigua del Darién was founded in 1510 by a group of Spanish conquistadors.

This choice was not insignificant and already gives several clues about the context of the history in which we find ourselves; this place was chosen because, unlike other places on the Caribbean coast, the natives who lived here before the Spaniards did not use poisoned arrows in warfare. That is, they saw a war that they could not lose.

A turning point. The research team, in a preliminary study in which they show most of the keys found, describes how important this site is for Latin American books and history. In this context, the authors have no doubt that its establishment was “a turning point, one of those important moments in which we can say that there was a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, with continental and regional consequences that continue to this day.”

Why? As they explain, in those 14 years of existence, the city’s Spanish inhabitants set in motion some important events that would define the geopolitical reality of all South and Central America for centuries to come.

Milestones and expeditions. As examples of historical moments lived in Santa María, they remember that the first mayor of the city, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, was the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean and returned to Santa María with wealth and slaves from the Western Coast. It was also the first city from which the expeditions that led to the conquests of Peru, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua were launched.

Moreover, the authors also emphasize that “the city became the first Spanish ‘foot’ on the new continent, the first permanent base to survive through which passed those who would become the heroes of the early conquest.”

But… But as we said at the beginning, cartographic work has also confirmed other definite signs of misfortune and savagery during the city’s existence. For example, mosquito-borne diseases and locust swarms destroyed crops and caused famine, which killed many Spaniards, while a strange “plague of numbness” (thought to be caused by radioactive minerals) afflicted the European settlers, causing the deaths of hundreds of people.

Cathedral ruins

The end of Santa Maria. This event occurred in 1524, following a period of decline marked by several factors. In addition to the diseases that had been reported, the city faced conflict with the indigenous population and severe economic hardship. Additionally, the founding of Panama City by Pedro Arias Dávila in 1519 redirected focus and resources to the new city, which was more strategically located for trade and exploration.

Eventually, the few remaining inhabitants of Santa María de la Antigua del Darién abandoned the city, sealing its fate as a forgotten settlement and leaving it in ruins. It is, of course, the first Spanish and European city in the Americas. When the city was buried, royal notary Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo reported that the site “has claimed more lives than the stars in the sky.”

City upon village. The study also confirmed that it was built on the site of an indigenous village inhabited by cultures that were virtually wiped out two decades after the conquistadors arrived in the area. They say that the houses and gardens of this pre-Hispanic phase date back to the early 12th century C., and later structures attributed to European colonists were built on and around these older elements.

Features they were able to identify included “the rock terraces of Spanish houses, the west street of the town, a house for native servants next to the Spanish plot, a water intake area, a workshop for preparing bullets for guns, a fire pit, a blacksmith’s workshop, and a south river pier,” they detail.

And of course a Cathedral. No matter how much time passed over Santa María, the authors noted that the city had its own cathedral, prison, and hospital, “everything a Castilian city needed at the beginning of the 16th century.” By the end of 1524, it was nothing more than ruins, as Indians set fire to the city and the ensuing torrential rain covered the valley.

For more than four centuries the location of the city remained unknown until the ruins of the cathedral were discovered in the mid-20th century. Then King Leopold III of Belgium funded the first excavations. Only then could the exact location of the symbolic settlement be known.

Image | Internet Archive, Falt i det fri (Public domain), Rogelio

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