Portobelo, Colón

Portobelo (originally San Felipe de Portobelo, outdated and Puerto Bello ) is a small tourist town of about 5,000 inhabitants, 30 km east of the beginning of the Panama Canal in Colon on the Caribbean coast of the Central American country of Panama. During the Spanish colonial period Portobelo was an important, sheltered by powerful Forts harbor. The fortifications were added to the list of World Cultural and Natural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 1980. Since 2012, Portobelo is located on the Red List of World Heritage in Danger, the reasons are hinfür is the slow dissolution of the entire plant due to inadequate conservation measures.

History

(: Porto belo, German: beautiful marina in Catalan) described the bay on which the city is located today, was discovered on November 2, 1502 by Christopher Columbus during his fourth voyage and as puerto bello. The port was heavily used even before the official establishment. One of the two lines of the Spanish silver fleet sailed from 1561 every August by Spain to the port where the Camino Real de Castilla de Oro ended. This attracted over again pirate attacks on the port. 1596 died of the English pirate Francis Drake before the official founding of the city of fever while he was trying to capture the port and plunder.

The city was finally established in 1597 and in honor of King Philip II (Spain ) San Felipe de Portobelo called. In July 1668 the privateer Henry Morgan captured the city by an attack from the land side. After he had robbed the inhabitants, he extorted with the threat to burn down the city, by the Spanish authorities in Panama still a considerable ransom before he and his men sailed away again. A further attempt to conquer undertook the pirate William Parker in 1601.

In the first year of the War of Jenkins ' Ear to the Spanish supremacy in the western Indian space, ie, the Caribbean, the British destroyed under the leadership of Edward Vernon on November 20, 1739 all the Spanish military installation Portobelo and thus conquered one of the most important intermediate stations of the Spanish silver fleet.

The construction of the railway in 1855 and later the Panama Canal across the Isthmus, the city lost its economic importance and is now a tourist destination.

Festivals

At each of October 21, a festival is celebrated in honor of the Black Christ, a Jesus figure of a black wooden in Portobelo.