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History of Bocas del Toro

The islands of Bocas del Toro are located on the northwest Caribbean coast of the country of Panama, just twenty-five miles from Costa Rica.  Bocas del Toro is also the name for the entire northernmost province, as well as the name of the region’s capital city, located on Isla Colon.  There are over forty islands in the archipelago, but just six principal ones are inhabited.
     Spanish Galleon

Christopher Columbus arrived here in 1502, while searching for a passage to the Pacific Ocean.  He entered with his two vessels into the waters of what is known today as the Bay of Almirante, provisioned on the present day Bastimentos Island and careened a ship off of Carenero Island. There is no certainty as to the origin of the name Bocas del Toro, meaning “Mouths of the Bull”, which was given to the island chain by Columbus.  One legend says that when he landed, he saw various waterfalls in the form of  “mouths of the bull”.  Another states that Columbus saw a large rock on Bastimentos Island that has the form of a bull lying down.  It has also been said that the sound of the immense waves that hit this large rock is similar to the call of a bull.  Lastly, there are indigenous people who insist the last chief of the region was known as "Boka Toro". 
The islands weren’t colonized by the Spanish as other parts of Panama were, as little gold was found here, leaving the indigenous Indians in peace.  At the beginning of the 19th century, Europeans arrived from Jamaica with their slaves, and a few years later English families emigrated from the San Andres and Providencia Islands, also with their slaves, in order to evade tax payments.  Commercial exchange started with the indigenous Indians of the region, including live turtles, turtle shells, cocoa and mahogany.  When the banana industry began to flourish, former slaves from other Caribbean islands and Colombia came to work.  The population of the archipelago was at its height at the turn of the 20th century, when around 25,000 people lived in the islands. 
Beach History

When a fungus known as “Panama Disease” destroyed much of the local banana crops, the archipelago was largely abandoned in the late 1920’s as growers and suppliers sought work elsewhere on the mainland.  By the 1940’s, there remained less than 1,000 residents in Bocas, as the U.S. had begun building military bases in Panama City and the opportunity drew everyone away from the islands.  It wasn’t until the 1970’s that backpackers and adventure seekers began to rediscover Bocas del Toro.  They began to spread the word about what a naturally beautiful place the rainforest-covered islands were to explore. 
Beach today

Bocas has continued to grow throughout the better part of the past forty years until the present day.  It is only within the past ten years that the majority of hotels, restaurants and tourist-related businesses came to be in existence.  Recently the area has become a popular place for expatriates from the United States, Canada and Europe to retire, as Panama offers a year-round agreeable climate, lower cost of living and beaches and jungles that have as much beauty and appeal as they did to Columbus over 500 years ago.