History
Christopher Columbus explored the coast of Bocas del Toro searching for a route to Asia during his fourth voyage in 1502, and many of the place names date from his visit - Islas Cristobal and Colon were named in his honour, Isla Bastimentos was where he took on supplies, Isla Carene where he careened his ships. But during the colonial era the Spanish had little success in taming the many warring indigenous tribes that populated the mountainous interior, and European pirates often sheltered in the calm waters between its many offshore islands. By the nineteenth century, English ships from Jamaica were becoming frequent visitors, arriving in search of hardwoods from the mainland forests and turtles, and in 1826 the town of Bocas del Toro was founded by West Indian migrants on stilts above a mangrove swamp. Isolated from the rest of the country and plagued by malaria and yellow fever, the settlement developed slowly until the arrival of US banana companies towards the end of the century. Concentrated on the islands of the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, the banana plantations brought a measure of prosperity and encouraged further settlement by West Indian migrants, many of whom came here after working on the French canal construction. By 1895, bananas from Bocas accounted for over half of Panama's export earnings, and Bocas Town boasted five foreign consulates and three English-language newspapers. Early in the twentieth century, however, the banana plantations were repeatedly devastated by crop disease, leading the fruit companies to move production to the mainland around Changuinola, and the islands reverted to the tropical indolence that characterizes them today. The region's isolation from the rest of Panama only ended in 1981, when the road across the isthmus from Chiriqui to Chiriqui Grande was completed. In the last few years the development of tourist facilities has accelerated enormously. Huge areas of the archipelago have been bought by foreign speculators who are dividing it up into lots for the construction of luxury hotels and holiday homes, and the regional economy is dominated by US interests in a way not seen since the banana era at the beginning of the last century. Certainly, the tourism boom has revived the local economy, generating much needed employment and income for local residents, but as the barbed wire enclosures go up, some are beginning to realize they may have been too hasty in selling their birthright
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