The Latin American independence movement reaches the Isthmus (1810–1821)
The political earthquake that broke Spanish rule across the Americas between 1810 and 1825 reached Panama later than the South American mainland. The Caracas revolt of 19 April 1810 and the Argentine May Revolution of 25 May 1810 had set in motion the wars of independence that would topple Spanish authority in Venezuela, New Granada, and Río de la Plata within fifteen years, but the Isthmus (geographically remote, economically dependent on transcontinental transit, garrisoned by regular Spanish troops) saw only intermittent agitation during this period. The Captain General José de Fábrega, who was the senior Spanish military officer in the Isthmus, remained in office and continued to govern in the name of the absent Ferdinand VII until late 1821 [1].
By 1820–1821 the cause of Spanish American independence had acquired both a political model and a credible military patron in Simón Bolívar, whose Republic of Colombia, the name by which his intended Gran Colombia was then commonly known, had consolidated the northern and western parts of South America. Panama’s long-standing political, commercial, and family ties to Colombia, and the inability of any other country to give the Isthmus security against Spanish reconquest, meant that the local elite saw union with Bolívar’s republic as both natural and inevitable [2].
The Act of Independence of the Villa de Los Santos on 10 November 1821 is the local event that most clearly prefigures the 28 November Acta. The villa, on the Azuero Peninsula, declared its own independence from Spain in a public gathering on 10 November, led by local residents. The Los Santos movement was not broadly coordinated, but it introduced the language of independence into public discussion and made clear that the Isthmus’s political class was willing to act on its own [1].
The 28 November Acta: who signed and what it said
The Acta de Independencia del Istmo del Panamá of 28 November 1821 was a public meeting in Panama City, signed by about thirty local residents. The meeting was presided over by the Bishop José Higinio Durán and the Captain General José de Fábrega, and the leading signatories included the curate of the cathedral, Manuel María de Ayala, and José Vallarino, who formally communicated the declaration of independence to the assembled public [1].
Article 1 of the Acta declared independence: “Panamá espontáneamente y conforme al voto general de los pueblos de su comprehensión, se declara libre e independiente del gobierno español”, “Panama, spontaneously and in conformity with the general vote of the towns within its jurisdiction, declares itself free and independent of the Spanish government” [1].
Article 2 declared the Isthmus’s voluntary union with Gran Colombia: “El territorio de las Provincias del Istmo pertenece al Estado Republicano de Colombia, a cuyo congreso irá a representar oportunamente su Diputado”, “The territory of the Provinces of the Isthmus belongs to the Republican State of Colombia, to whose Congress it shall opportunely send a Deputy” [1].
Article 5 designated the chain of local authority: “El Jefe Superior del Istmo se declara, que lo es el Sr. José de Fábrega, coronel que fue de los Ejércitos Españoles”, “The Supreme Chief of the Isthmus is declared to be Mr. José de Fábrega, formerly colonel of the Spanish armies.” The senior Spanish officer whom the local population accepted as the first head of the new province, Fábrega was thus transferred into the service of the new republic even as the Acta preserved his military title [1].
The orderly nature of the 28 November event (a public declaration in a single day, with no military action, with the senior Spanish officer transitioning into the service of the new republic) was unusual in the Spanish American independence wars. It reflects three local conditions: the small size of the Isthmus Spanish garrison by 1821 (most regulars had been transferred to the mainland campaigns), the considerable autonomy the Isthmus already had from Bogotá or Lima under late-colonial Spanish administration, and the willingness of the local commercial class to recognise that independence and union with Gran Colombia were the same decision.
Choosing Colombia over Central America
The decision to join Gran Colombia rather than Central America or Peru was a real choice. The Acta records that local deliberations considered each option and chose Colombia. Three considerations drove that choice:
- Geographical orientation. Panama’s transcontinental trade ran north-south (Portobelo on the Atlantic, Panamá on the Pacific) and was tied to Atlantic commercial networks (especially Jamaican) that were oriented towards the South American mainland. Central America’s economy was more Pacific-tied and would have introduced new tariffs and trade routes.
- Military security. The Spanish garrison in Panama was still large enough to put up serious resistance to a unilateral declaration. Bolívar’s forces, having just taken Caracas and Bogotá, had the credibility to guarantee the Isthmus against Spanish reconquest; Guatemala and San José had not.
- Political legitimacy. Gran Colombia’s Bolívarian constitution was a known model that the Isthmus could read. Central America’s federation was itself only declared later (1 July 1823). The Isthmus had less to gain by waiting.
Bolívar’s response on 1 February 1822, after formal notification of the Acta, summarised the moment: “No me es posible expresar el sentimiento de gozo y admiración que he experimentado al saber que Panamá, el centro del Universo, es segregado por sí mismo, y libre por su propia virtud”, “I cannot express the feeling of joy and admiration I have experienced upon learning that Panama, the centre of the Universe, has separated itself, and is free by its own virtue” [1].
The Villa de Los Santos uprising and the path to 28 November
The 10 November 1821 uprising in the Villa de Los Santos (on the Azuero Peninsula) was the immediate political event that opened the path to the 28 November Acta. The villa (a regional capital of farmers, rancheros, and small merchants) had been the centre of small-scale discontent against Spanish rule for most of 1821, partly because the local commercial class resented the late-colonial trade restrictions. The 10 November uprising, led by local residents, declared Los Santos’s independence from Spain and called for a wider Isthmian assembly. The uprising was not militarily coordinated with the rest of the Isthmus, but it introduced the language of independence into public discussion, and the 28 November declaration in Panama City was a direct response to the Los Santos movement [1].
The path from 10 November to 28 November involved three intermediate steps. First, news of the Los Santos uprising reached Panama City on 12-13 November, where it was received sympathetically by the local commercial class and by the Spanish garrison’s lower-ranking officers but was rejected by Captain General Fábrega and the senior colonial administrators. Second, Fábrega attempted a limited negotiation with the Spanish colonial government in Madrid (then under the regency in the absence of Ferdinand VII) to determine whether the Ismo’s interests would be served by remaining under Spanish rule; the reply, which arrived in late November via packet ship from Cádiz, was that the regency could not offer the Ismo any new concessions. Third, a public meeting was convened at the cabildo (city hall) on 27 November to discuss the Ismo’s options; the 28 November Acta was the formal outcome of that meeting. The Acta’s reference to “el voto general de los pueblos de su comprehensión”, the general vote of the towns within the Ismo’s jurisdiction, was the formal acknowledgement that the 28 November declaration was the consolidation of the Los Santos movement of 10 November and of the broader Isthmian sentiment for autonomy that had been building since 1810 [1].
After the Acta: 1821-1823 transition to Gran Colombia
The first year after the 28 November 1821 Acta was a transitional period in which the Isthmus operated as a separate political unit within the framework of the new republic. Fábrega served as Jefe Superior del Istmo (Supreme Chief of the Isthmus), the office that Article 5 of the Acta had vested in him, and the Ismo moved towards formal integration with Gran Colombia as Article 2 had directed, its territory belonging to the Republican State of Colombia, to whose Congress it was to send a Deputy. Bolívar, on being notified, framed the union as Panama’s own doing rather than a conquest: his 1 February 1822 reply described the Isthmus as “libre por su propia virtud”, “free by its own virtue.” The Ismo’s political class continued to be the same commercial elite that had signed the 28 November Acta [1].
The Ismo’s relationship to Bogotá in the 1820s and 1830s was shaped by three structural facts that were already apparent in 1821 and that would remain through the entire 82-year Colombian period: (1) Bogotá was far away and the Andes were between, making direct political control expensive; (2) the Ismo’s economy was tied to Atlantic-to-Pacific transit, which was a transcontinental trade that did not depend on Bogotá’s political decisions; and (3) the Ismo’s commercial class had strong interests in maintaining the transit corridor and in having a friendly relationship with the principal Atlantic maritime powers (especially the United Kingdom and the United States, after 1848). These three facts were the structural background to the 1840-41 Herrera secession, the 1855 constitutional change, the 1885 crisis, and ultimately the 1903 separation, all of which are covered in Panama as Part of Gran Colombia and Colombia.
Where to take this next
The decision on 28 November 1821 was the start, not the end, of Panama’s political history. The next eighty-two years under Gran Colombia, the Republic of New Granada, the Grenadine Confederation, the United States of Colombia, and finally the Republic of Colombia are covered in Panama as Part of Gran Colombia and Colombia. To skip ahead to the moment when the Colombian arrangement collapsed altogether, see Independence from Colombia (1903). For the longer colonial backdrop, see Colonial Panama: 1600–1821.
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