18/11/2021
Facts of Panama
Featuring: Portobelo
Did you know? Portobelo is an authentic Pirate Port of the Caribbean
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Portobelo was one of the largest and most important ports for which the wealth that was transported to Spain passed. At the same time, this made it one of the most besieged by pirates of that time.
Portobelo was founded in 1597 by Spanish explorer Francisco Velarde y Mercado and quickly replaced Nombre de Dios as a Caribbean port for Peruvian silver. Legend has it that Christopher Columbus originally named the port "Puerto Bello", meaning "Beautiful Port", in 1502. After Francis Drake died of dysentery in 1596 at sea, he was buried at sea in a lead coffin near Portobelo Bay, memorialised by the present Isla Drake ("Drake Island") at the mouth of the harbour. During the 16th to the 18th centuries it was an important silver-exporting port in New Granada on the Spanish Main and one of the two Atlantic ports on the route of the Spanish treasure fleets. The Spanish built defensive fortifications.
In 1601 by the English privateer William Parker captured Portobello from the Spanish. Welshman Henry Morgan repeated the feat in 1668, having led a fleet of privateers and 450 men and overcome its strong fortifications. His forces plundered it for 14 days before withdrawing. It was captured again in 1680 by pirate John Coxon.
In 1726 the British suffered a disaster in their Blockade of Porto Bello under Admiral Francis Hosier, an attempt to prevent the Spanish treasure fleet returning to Spain, when due to their lengthy wait and inactivity (as ordered by the British government) moored at Bastimentos 11 km (6.8 mi) to the northeast (not to be confused with another Bastimentos Island 270 miles to the west), the large part of the sailors died from tropical diseases. The disaster was vindicated 13 years later when during the War of Jenkins' Ear the port was attacked and captured on November 21, 1739, by a British fleet of six ships commanded by Admiral Edward Vernon.
… More about Portobelo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portobelo,_Col%C3%B3n