This ambitious volume reconstructs the character of urban life in colonial Panama through its built environment. Castillero Calvo focuses principally on Panama City and Portobelo and primarily on the shape and quality of the housing. Castillero is not an architect, and despite his preoccupation with buildings, he aims primarily at developing an original perspective on Panamanian social history, using the home as his vehicle to elucidate a picture of daily life.
A serious handicap confronting Castillero in conducting this study was the virtual absence of surviving colonial houses. The original Panama City was abandoned after its sack by Henry Morgan in 1671, and the new city was repeatedly ravished by fire, that of 1737 taking nearly everything. And Portobelo was not rebuilt after the British bombardment of 1744 flattened it. The author’s archival research was thus necessarily ambitious, encompassing the principal repositories of Spain, Colombia, and Panama; the Bancroft and British Libraries; and the photographic collections of the Stanford Museum and the Library of Congress. Fortunately, the frequent disasters that befell the Panamanian cities occasionally led to detailed inventories of the losses, and in the end Castillero accumulated an impressive mass of information.
Responsive to the imperatives imposed by climate and economics, the character of Panamanian homes changed very little until modern times. Castillero Calvo argues that despite the great fortunes that were accumulated on the isthmus during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—which were comparable to some of the greatest in America—the overall quality of Panama’s urban housing was singularly unimpressive, and it was in short supply and thus crowded. The explanation was costs. Drawing broad comparisons with outside localities, including Havana, Cartagena, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Madrid, and London, Castillero concludes that considerations of expense—principally in the areas of labor and material—inhibited the construction of the caliber of housing to be found elsewhere in America. Then, too, owners had to rebuild so frequently.
Constructed primarily from wood, upper-class Panamanian homes typically rose to two or three stories, but shops and stores usually occupied much of the first floor. Real estate investment for rental purposes was commonplace, accounting for a fair number of prominent fortunes. As the population grew, lots were subdivided and homes stood closer together. Although little is known about life inside the home, Castillero hypothesizes that by the end of the colonial period an emerging feminization imposed a refining influence.
Embellished with an abundance of maps and plates, this volume is packed with rich detail expressive of the author’s passion for the history of his country. Yet Castillero’s cosmopolitan sophistication enables him to address his subject from a broad perspective that escapes the potential danger of pedestrianism. His imaginative attempt to gain deeper insights into the daily life of colonial Panama through appreciating its housing succeeds admirably.