Caribbean Colombia Research Articles

Babylon, Christianity, and Republicanism in New World Slave Societies

Babylon, Christianity, and Republicanism in New World Slave Societies María Elena Díaz (bio) A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804. By Laurent Dubois . (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. 466. $55.00 cloth, $22.50 paper.) Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. By Laurent Dubois . (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. 384. $29.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.) The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery, and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil. By Laura de Mello e Souza . Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty . (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Pp. 374. $60.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.) Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450–1680. By Stuart B. Schwartz . (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. 368. $59.95 cloth, $22.50 paper.) Slavery and Salvation in Colonial Cartagena de Indias. By Margaret M. Olsen . (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. Pp. 208. $59.95 cloth.) Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835. By Aline Helg . (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. 384. $59.95 cloth, $22.50 paper.) The expansion of Europe in the fifteenth century, the establishment of colonies in the New World and generally speaking, the emergence of a dynamic Atlantic region produced, for better or worse, an unprecedented circulation of peoples, commodities, discourses, and practices across that ocean. Atlantic racial slavery was one sordid aspect of all that oceanic activity. That forced migration of millions of captive people entailed irrevocable transformations for all those involved in the crossing, for the new societies they entered, and probably for the communities they left behind forever. Research on differing aspects of Atlantic racial slavery [End Page 265] and on the new lives, identities, and communities that people of African descent constructed in New World colonial and postcolonial societies has constituted one of the fastest-growing areas in Latin American history in the last three decades, but particularly in the last ten to fifteen years. Although probably more work has been recently coming out on the postcolonial modern period, the Latin American colonial field has produced its share of solid research as the study of slavery moves out of the plantation loci (the Babylon of the title) into new sites of life and work (urban areas, military frontiers, mines, maroon and corporate communities, lay brotherhoods) and also into new geographical regions. There is not only a new interest in colonial peripheries and frontiers such as those in Colombia, Ecuador, eastern Cuba, and Florida but magnet regions such as Mexico, which are usually construed as mestizo or Indian, are also increasingly the focus of research on enslaved and free people of African descent (albeit there is no example of such work in this group of books). This expanding interest is also benefiting from the ever wider academic frameworks of Atlantic history and African diasporic studies, as well as from extra-academic movements and mobilizations in some Latin American regions (Colombia and Brazil in particular). This new wave of research is still developing its own specialized historiography, but future work on Latin America may soon turn to more hybrid social and racial formations and to intersections and comparisons with other groups, particularly Indians and castas. When appropriate, I will indicate potential moves in that comparative direction as suggested by some of the work reviewed here. The specific set of books under review in this essay represents a relatively wide range of themes, approaches and lines of research within this area of work in colonial historiography. The meaning of the disparate triad in this essay's title: "Babylon,""Christianity," and "Republicanism," will become clearer as the works are discussed. These books explore the limits and outcomes of a range of expanding projects and discourses that attempted to reconstitute subjects of African descent in various Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonial Atlantic locations, first as slaves, commodities, and laborers; as enslaved black, Christianized subjects; and later at the dawn of the old (colonial) regimes as free Republican citizens. Stuart Schwartz' anthology Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450–1680 is a...

Caracterización fisicoquímica, biológica y microbiológica en aguas de lastre de buques de tráfico internacional

During the years 2005 and 2006 the sampling to those international traffic ships ballast water which arrived in the Bay of Cartagena, located at the south western Caribbean Colombia Zone and between 75o30 - 75o36W and 10o26'-10o16N, continued. This work was carried out with the objective of continuing the assessment on if whether work on board the ballast tanks, was carried out according to the guide lines issued by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), in order to diminish the risk of species introduction in the shore zones. The achieve the objectives, samples of ballast water of 75 ships coming from different international ports were taken, through the man holes, from the direct discharges to the sea, from the deck disballast or from the tank access pipelines. Those water samples were processed in the laboratory, where in each one of them the physical-chemical conditions were characterized, such as nutrients, solved oxygen, temperature, salinity, pH, turbidity, total solids in suspension; the biological ones such as fito-plankton, zooplankton, photosynthetic pigment concentration; microbiological such as intestinal enterococos, Salmonella sp., Psedumonas sp., total Coliforms, Escherichia coli, fungus. Likewise the previous 2002, 2003 and 2204 characterizations at this same port, in this study there port of the appropriate environmental conditions for sustaining the biological communities in the tanks continued. Also the new planktonic species continued to be reported, among which Oithona setigera, Oithona hegolandica, Miocrostella sp., Diartrodes sp., Oculosetella sp., Corystoide chilensi, Parapagurus Diógenes, and Sagitta minima can be mentioned. In addition, it was possible to evidence that according to the agreement on the handling of ballast water and sediment by IMO in 2004, 29% of the monitored vessels surpassed the permissible discharge levels with respect to the Escherichia coli and the 11% of Intestinal enterococos germ indicator.

Hospital admissions resulting from unsafe abortion: estimates from 13 developing countries

Complications from unsafe abortion are believed to account for the largest proportion of hospital admissions for gynaecological services in developing countries. The WHO estimates that one in eight pregnancy-related deaths result from unsafe abortions. The social stigma and legal restrictions associated with abortion in many countries means that data on the magnitude of this problem are scarce; this article estimates the rate and numbers of hospital admissions resulting from unsafe abortions in developing countries to help quantify the problem. National estimates of abortion-related hospital admissions in women aged 15-44 years were compiled for 13 developing countries: Africa (Egypt, Nigeria, and Uganda), Asia (Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Philippines), and Latin America and the Caribbean (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru). These data were combined with supplementary data from five countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa) to give estimates for the three world regions. The annual hospitalisation rate varies from a low of about 3 per 1000 women in Bangladesh to a high of about 15 per 1000 in Egypt and Uganda. Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines have rates of 4-7 per 1000, and two countries in Latin America with recent data have rates of almost 9 per 1000. In the developing world as a whole, an estimated five million women are admitted to hospital for treatment of complications from induced abortions each year. This equates to an average rate of 5.7 per 1000 women per year in all developing regions, excluding China. By comparison, in developed countries complications from abortion procedures or hospitalisation are rare. These results help quantify the magnitude of the adverse health effects of unsafe abortion in developing countries and highlight the need for improved access to post-abortion care. The provision of abortion services is changing to include the drug misoprostol and this could reduce the severity of abortion complications and the number of women who are hospitalised. Researchers will need to monitor these changes to provide countries with up-to-date information on illness and death from unsafe abortion. Improved contraceptive services are necessary to prevent unintended pregnancy. However, increasing access to safe abortion services is the most effective way of preventing the burden of unsafe abortion, and remains a high priority for developing countries.

West Nile virus meningoencephalitis

Since its first appearance in the US in 1999, West Nile virus (WNV) has emerged as the most common cause of epidemic meningoencephalitis in North America. In the 6 years following the 1999 outbreak, the geographic range and burden of the disease in birds, mosquitoes and humans has greatly expanded to include the 48 contiguous US and 7 Canadian provinces, as well as Mexico, the Caribbean islands and Colombia. WNV has shown an increasing propensity for neuroinvasive disease over the past decade, with varied presentations including meningitis, encephalitis and acute flaccid paralysis. Although neuroinvasive disease occurs in less than 1% of infected individuals, it is associated with high mortality. From 1999-2005, more than 8,000 cases of neuroinvasive WNV disease were reported in the US, resulting in over 780 deaths. In this review, we discuss epidemiology, risk factors, clinical features, diagnosis and prognosis of WNV meningoencephalitis, along with potential treatments.

:Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835

:Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835

Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770–1835

It is an interesting paradox that although Colombia has the third largest population of African origin in the Western Hemisphere (after Brazil and the United States), its leaders have consistently portrayed their country as a mestizo nation. On the surface, their historical dismissal of the black population can be explained by the fact that the majority of Afro-Colombians are inhabitants of the Caribbean coast and the Pacific lowlands, which are far away and isolated from the highland capital, and that despite the density of their numbers, they have failed to develop a “collective black- or African-derived identity” (p. 3). However, Aline Helg is not content with these simplistic rationalizations. In an effort to uncover more plausible reasons for Colombia’s neglect of its Afro-Caribbean population, she has written an encyclopedic history of the Caribbean region, which traces its social, cultural, economic, and political development from the late Bourbon era through the early national period.In tackling this intriguing topic, Helg examined an impressive array of archival documents and secondary sources located in Cartagena, Santa Marta, Bogotá, France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States. More specifically, she wanted to find the answers to three questions: First, why did the lower classes of color on the Caribbean coast not collectively challenge the small white elite during the crucial period of national formation? Second, why did race not become an organizational category in the region? And third, why did the Caribbean coast integrate into Andean Colombia without asserting its Afro-Caribbeanness? In answering these questions, Helg produces a cogently argued monograph that throws light on a multitude of topics, including Bourbon policies, frontiers, Indians, race relations, gender roles, the war of independence, and the sociopolitical views of independence-era leaders such as Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander.In her conclusion, Helg summarizes her analysis and returns to her initial questions. She suggests that the Caribbean region’s postcolonial fragmentation and dependency on Bogotá largely “resulted from people’s continuing identification, throughout the war for independence and after 1821, with individual cities, towns, and villages rather than with their province, their region, or New Granada” (p. 238). By opting for legal racial inclusion from the time of the first independence, the new national leaders embraced a vision of a racially mixed majority. The decision to grant legal equality and suffrage to all adult men, regardless of race, helped to erase the “stain of slavery,” even though slavery was not completely abolished until 1852. The acceptance of mulattoes and blacks into the Caribbean militias also promoted “a fuzzy yet enduring racial hierarchy,” and the development of popular support for the Liberal and Conservative Parties further integrated local and regional Caribbean constituencies into the Colombian nation. As a result, nonwhites posed no problems to the elite, as long as they did not challenge the socioracial hierarchy and existing power relations. In the few instances when they did threaten white supremacy, such as mulatto general José Padilla’s challenge to Bolívar in 1828, nonwhites were quickly repressed or, as in the case of Padilla, executed. Finally, Helg argues that “the most abiding reason why the Caribbean region avoided social conflict and remained within New Granada despite its racial distinctiveness was the continuing existence of vast uncontrolled hinterlands and frontiers as well as an unguarded littoral offering viable alternatives to rebellious and free-spirited individuals” (p. 262).In one sense, Helg’s book is only the most recent contribution to the boom in regional studies dealing with Colombia’s Caribbean, which began more than two decades ago with Orlando Fals Borda’s four-volume Historia doble de la costa (Valencia Editores, 1979–86). Her placement of her subject within a comparative perspective of the Americas expands its relevance to researchers beyond those of us who concentrate on Colombian history. Scholars interested in the interaction of elite and popular classes, in mestizaje, in slave systems, in the role of women in the wars of independence, and in frontier societies and Indian resistance will surely find insights that will enhance their understanding of these complex topics regardless of their country specialization. In short, Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia seems certain to become a classic monograph in the literature concerning the development of Latin American nations in the early nineteenth century.

Cocculinid and pseudococculinid limpets (Gastropoda: Cocculiniformia) from off the Caribbean coast of Colombia

The present paper reports on the occurrence of six species of Cocculinidae and three species of Pseudococculinidae off the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Cocculina messingi McLean & Harasewych, 1995, Cocculina emsoni McLean & Harasewych, 1995 Notocrater houbricki McLean & Harasewych, 1995 and Notocrater youngi McLean & Harasewych, 1995 were not previously known to occur within the of the Caribbean Sea, while Fedikovella beanii (Dall, 1882) had been reported only from the western margins of the Atlantic Ocean, including the lesser Antilles. New data are presented on the external anatomy and radular morphology of Coccocrater portoricensis (Dall & Simpson, 1901) that supports its placement in the genus Coccocrater. Cocculina fenestrata n. sp. (Cocculinidae) and Copulabyssia colombia n. sp. (Pseudococculinidae) are described from the upper continental slope of Caribbean Colombia.

An Updated and Annotated List of Marine Brown Algae (Phaeophyceae) of the Caribbean Coast of the Republic of Panama

Thirty-six taxa of brown macroalgae (Phaeophyceae) are reported for the Caribbean coast of the Republic of Panama including 16 new records. Most of the species diversity is restricted to two families, Dictyotaceae and Sargassaceae. This updated list represents an increase in known algal diversity for Panama of approximately 80%, but diversity is probably underestimated as revealed by comparison to the Colombian and Costa Rican floras which harbor many species not yet recorded in the marine flora of Panama. In total species diversity, Panama's brown algal flora is considerably less diverse than Caribbean Colombia but comparable to Caribbean Costa Rica. In addition to presenting a comprehensive species list, we propose the synonymy of Dictyota pfaffii Schnetter with D. friabilis Setchell and D. jamaicensis W. R. Taylor with D. crenulata J. Agardh and discuss other taxonomic problems regarding the Caribbean Dictyotales.

Mosquitoes, models, and dengue

In the last 10 years dengue has spread markedly through Latin America and the Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil). The mosquito Aedes aegypti has taken advantage of increased urbanization and crowding to transmit the dengue virus. The mosquito infests tires, cans, and water jars near dwellings. The female mosquito practices multiple, interrupted feeding. Thus, mosquito infesting and feeding practices facilitate dengue transmission in crowded conditions. Factors contributing to the spread of dengue include numbers of infected and susceptible human hosts, strain of dengue virus, size of mosquito population, feeding habits, time from infection to ability to transmit virus for both vector and host, likelihood of virus transmission from human to mosquito to human, and temperature (which affects vector distribution, size, feeding habits, and extrinsic incubation period). Public health models may use simulation models to help them plan or evaluate the potential impact of different intervention strategies and/or of environmental changes (e.g., global warming). Other factors contributing to the dengue epidemic are international travel, urbanization, population growth, crowding, poverty, a weakened public health infrastructure, and limited support for sustained disease control programs. Molecular epidemiology by nucleic acid sequence analysis is another sophisticated technique used to study infectious diseases. It showed that dengue type 3 isolated from Panama and Nicaragua in 1994 was identical to that responsible for the major dengue hemorrhagic fever epidemics in Sri Lanka and India in the 1980s. Public health officials must remember three priorities relevant to dengue and other emerging infections: the need to strengthen surveillance efforts, dedicated and sustained involvement in prevention and control needs at the local level, and a strong public health infrastructure at the international, national, and local levels to maintain support for surveillance and control activities.

Tangible and mythical places in Jos� M. Arguedas, Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez, and Pablo Neruda

The geographic backdrop of the work of three noted South American writers is reviewed under the stylistic categories of tellurism, mythical realism and magical realism. The acute sense of place demonstrated by these authors is explained on the basis of ethnical roots, collective mental constructs and colonial experiences. Jose Maria Arguedas has offered a poignant socio-mythical interpretation of the rise and fall of Chimbote, Peru's major fishing port in his postumous novel El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo which is useful to grasp the problems of that country. The atmosphere of Caribbean Colombia has been recorded with great vigor in several novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Tellurism acquires a particular significance in three poems of Neruda which are presented as examples of his poetic views of physical Chilean landscapes and the select use of vocables.

Geographic-Specific Genotypes or Topotypes of Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus Type I As Markers for Early and Recent Migrations of Human Populations

Publisher Summary Kuru is one of the better-known paradigms of “place diseases,” or diseases occurring in high incidence in geographically restricted or delimited regions. From the study of kuru among the stone age fore in the Eastern Highlands of Papua, New Guinea, came the discovery of unconventional agents or slow viruses that cause neurodegenerative diseases in humans. In a similar fashion, the study of another place disease, a fulminating hematological malignancy in southwestern Japan, called adult T-cell leukemiailymphoma, led to the discovery of and etiological association with an exogenous replication-competent human retrovirus, human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I). This initial frontier of HTLV-I research was expanded by the serendipitous discovery that endemic tropical spastic paraparesis, also known as Jamaican neuropathy and paraparesia espastica el Pucifico, another place disease in the Caribbean basin and Colombia, was also caused by HTLV-I. A clinically indistinguishable spastic myelopathy, designated HTLV-I-associated myelopathy, was later recognized among HTLV-I-seropositive individuals in southern Japan, and presently, HTLV-I-associated myelopathy and HTLV-I-positive tropical spastic paraparesis are considered to be the same disease. The study of diseases in populations isolated by the virtue of geography, culture, and/or genetics can also provide insights into the evolution and dissemination of the etiological agent. From the studies of HTLV-I infection in an isolated recently contacted group in the fringe highlands of Papua, New Guinea, and among the lifelong residents of the Solomon Islands has come an augmented perspective on the emergence, evolution, and global dissemination of this lymphotropic retrovirus. In addition, these studies in Melanesia have led to the realization that HTLV-I may, in certain instances, serve as a biological marker for the early and recent migrations of human populations.

Tropical myeloneuropathies: the hidden endemias.

Tropical myeloneuropathies include tropical ataxic neuropathy and tropical spastic paraparesis. These disorders occur in geographic isolates in several developing countries and are associated with malnutrition, cyanide intoxication from cassava consumption, tropical malabsorption (TM), vegetarian diets, and lathyrism. TM-malnutrition was a probable cause of myeloneuropathies among Far East prisoners of war in World War II. Clusters of unknown etiology occur in India, Africa, the Seychelles, several Caribbean islands, Jamaica, and Colombia. Treponemal infection (yaws) could be an etiologic factor in the last two. Tropical myeloneuropathies, a serious health problem, are multifactorial conditions that provide unsurpassed opportunities for international cooperation and neurologic research.

Epizootiology of bluetongue virus: Transmission cycle, vectors, and serotypic distribution in the Americas

Bluetongue is an infectious, insect-transmitted viral disease of domestic and wild ruminants which was first described by Spreull in South Africa in 1905. The virus was first isolated and identified in the USA from sheep in California in 1952, and from cattle in Oregon in 1959, although “mycotic stomatitis” a clinical syndrome identical to bluetongue had been described as early as 1904. Since then bluetongue virus activity has been confirmed serologically or virologically in almost every part of the USA. Bluetongue virus appears to be enzootic in ruminants in the Western USA and in Florida, with occasional epizootic incursions into the northwestern, north central, and eastern states. The northeastern USA and Canada generally appear to be bluetongue free. Serologic or virologic documentation of bluetongue activity in ruminants is available from some of the Caribbean islands, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. The primary transmission cycle in the USA involves the biting gnat, Culicoides variipennis . Experimentally, the virus has been isolated from the semen of rams and bulls, and a transplacental transmission cycle has been demonstrated from infected pregnant cows to the fetus. Calves which are infected in utero may become persistently or latently infected carriers and viremia may be activated by the feeding of noninfected C. variipennis . Field evidence documenting the natural occurrence of these phenomena are available. The major proven biologic vector of BTV in the USA, C. variipennis , is found throughout the USA except for southern Florida, and occurs north into Canada and south into Mexico. This species is not found in the Caribbean islands, or in Central or South America. The vectors outside of the USA in the western hemisphere are not known. Experimentally, the oral susceptibility of C. variipennis females to infection with bluetongue virus has been shown to be genetically and environmentally influenced. Naturally occurring populations have been shown to vary in their oral susceptibility to BTV according to their geographic distribution. In the Western states where BTV is enzootic, the indigenous populations of C. variipennis are moderately to highly susceptible to oral infection with BTV. In the northeastern USA where BTV is not active, the natural C. variipennis populations are resistant to oral infection with BTV. Laboratory studies suggest that environmental conditions influence this resistance. Currently in the USA, four BTV serotypes, 10, 11, 13, and 17, are known to exist. All four serotypes have been isolated from ruminants or insects in California, Colorado, Montana and Nevada. Serotype 4 has been isolated from cattle which were being imported to the USA from Brazil. Viral isolates have not been reported from animals elsewhere in the Western hemisphere. Multiple serotypes have been shown to occur in the same ruminant at the same time.

A Note on Payments Relations between Latin American and EPU Countries

PART OF LATIN AMERICAN TRADE with countries of the European Payments Union is conducted on a dollar basis, part on a sterling basis, and the remainder on the basis of other currencies. The payments, clearing, and compensation arrangements of Latin American countries with Europe differ widely from country to country and are subject to frequent change, making difficult a precise division of Latin America into "dollar area" and "nondollar area" countries. Some Latin American countries which have "Bilateral Accounts" with the sterling area are "dollar countries" insofar as continental European countries are concerned. Other Latin American countries, however, which are classified in the "American Account" group of the sterling area, have bilateral arrangements with some continental countries. Certain bilateral payments agreements between Latin American and European countries provide that freely disposable U.S. dollars shall be used as the means of effecting commercial payments (e.g., the agreement between Uruguay and Italy and that between Peru and Western Germany). Other agreements, in contrast, employ the U.S. dollar as a unit of account ("restricted" dollars); the mechanism of current settlements, however, is designed to avoid payment in freely disposable U.S. dollars, and only final settlement at the termination of the agreement is to be effected in freely disposable U.S. dollars, other agreed currencies, or gold. (See Table 1.) With countries that are classified in the American account group by the U.K. Exchange Control, U.K. trade is in effect conducted on a dollar basis, under a mechanism whereby the United Kingdom makes payments in sterling which is convertible into dollars whenever the recipient country so requests. In this group are the Central American countries, the Caribbean countries, and Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The Latin American countries included in the American account group of the sterling area do not coincide exactly with the countries

A Study of Human Salmonellosis in North and South America 1

SummarySix thousand eight hundred and two Salmonella strains from 500 outbreaks and isolated cases were studied. The strains originated from the United States, the Caribbean Islands, Venezuela and Colombia. The distribution of the Salmonella types was discussed. The source of infection could be traced in 79 outbreaks to cases of disease, human carriers, fowl, pork, eggs, water and rodents contaminating food in storage. Examination of food samples collected in Illinois and in Puerto Rico showed a higher number of samples infected in the Caribbean. Food inspection lessens the danger of salmonellosis.

Racial Succession in the Colombian Choco

HE greater part of the Pacific seaboard from Panama to western T Ecuador was never effectively occupied by the Spaniards.' To this day, indeed, the rain-forest area between shore line and Andes remains a region of sparse human population, as well as one in which the original armed contest between white and red men has been succeeded by a struggle, biological rather than warlike, in which red and black peoples are the chief competitors. As Eder2 has written, large parts of Colombia once overrun by conquistadors and missionaries have ever since remained all but untraveled by white men. In this second phase, however, the native Indian of the Choc6 has become a steady loser to the introduced African, and the ultimate inequality is likely to prove more marked than that of the earlier and overt conflict between aborigines and Caucasians. Various fates overtook the groups of Indians with whom the Spanish conquerors came in contact in the Caribbean, Panama, and northern Colombia. Caribs and Chibchas, for example, were exterminated, either in warfare or in subsequent enslavement. The Cuna, on the other hand, successfully resisted encroachment from the beginning and, after conclusion of a large-scale migration from the Pacific to the Atlantic side of Darien, have maintained both independence and racial integrity to the present day. The Choc6 tribes, of the Pacific watershed and the San Juan-Atrato Valley, at first resisted; next, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, they partly capitulated, mainly as a result of the enmity between themselves and the Cuna ;3 but subsequently, in 1726, they violently threw off the Spanish yoke that threatened complete subjugation. After that date the Choc6 peoples retained a large measure of security, from aloofness even more than from combativeness, until a new source of danger appeared in a negro population capable of outbreeding them in their own territory. Records are hazy and conflicting as regards the density of population in Darien4 during pre-Spanish times, but Wafer, in i68i, found conditions to be as follows: