Melissa’s Soapbox

The Bocas del Toro province is located in the northeast corner of Panama on the Caribbean side bordering Costa Rica.  The province is an interesting place in that the Caribbean influence appears more prevalently than Latino culture.  Early Spanish settlers lacked interest in Bocas due to a dearth of gold.  As such, Bocas’s Indian population was spared the initial waves of Spanish brutality until disease, tribe rivalry, and some Spanish colonization desecrated their numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries.  In the early 19th century, slaves from Colombia, Providencia, the US, and Jamaica were brought to Bocas by landowners.  After slavery was abolished in 1850, former slaves worked as fishermen and subsistence farmers until the lucrative banana trade began around 1890.  With these developments, and the later influx of labor from the French Antilles to work the canal, Bocas del Toro has evolved into a diverse and interesting place.

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