Santa María la Antigua del Darién was a Spanish colonial

Spanish colonization of the Americas

Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...

 town founded in 1510 by Vasco Núñez de Balboa

Vasco Núñez de Balboa

Vasco Núñez de Balboa was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World.He traveled to the New World in...

, located in present-day Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 approximately 40 miles south of Acandí

Acandí

Acandí is a town and municipality in the Chocó Department, Colombia by the Caribbean sea.-History:The name Acandí derives from the Acandí tribe which means "River of Stones". The first foundation of the town of Acandí originated in c...

. After Pascual de Andagoya

Pascual de Andagoya

Pascual de Andagoya was a Spanish Basque conquistador. He was born in the village of Andagoya, in the valley of Cuartango , in Spain....

, a Spanish-Basque conquistador under the direction of Panama governor Pedrarias Dávila

Pedrarias Dávila

Pedrarias Dávila y Ortiz de Cota , was a Spanish colonial administrator...

, founded Panama City

Panama City

Panama is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,272,672, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of the same name. The city is the political and administrative center of the...

 in 1519, Santa María la Antigua del Darién was abandoned and in 1524 was attacked and burned by the indigenous people.

Darién is a wild region in the extreme east of the country, bordering Colombia on the east, Kuna Yala (San Blas) on the north, the Pacific Ocean on the south, and the Province of Panama in the northwest. It was also the site of the Darién scheme

Darién scheme

The Darién scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "New Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s...

, a colonization

Scottish colonization of the Americas

Scottish colonization of the Americas consisted of a number of failed or abandoned Scottish settlements in North America, a colony at Darien, Panama, and a number of wholly or largely Scottish settlements made after the Acts of Union 1707, and those made by the enforced resettlement after the...

project.