The Historic Variety of Names of the City of Colon and the Colon Province

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Colon Province has bright green tropical tree covered hillsides on the calm, central Caribbean Coastline of Panama. The coastlines on both sides of the City of Colon have been named by their proximity to the Panama Canal. The Northwestern shore of the Panama Canal entrance is most often called Costa Arriba (shore above); while the coastline that is Southeast of the City of Colon is referred to as Costa Abajo (shore below), for reasons you can see by looking at the map.

The Province and the Capitol City are both called Colon today. Yet in 1848, the city then called Manzanillo Island was named Aspinwall, to commemorate the name of one of the Panama Railroad’s originators. But the government of Colombia (then called New Granada) insisted that it should be known as Colon, to honor the explorer.

There was great resistance and the controversy continued for 38 years. Finally, the Colombian postal department refused to deliver mail addressed to Aspinwall and the controversy stalled. Since 1890 the town and the Province have been known as Colon, in honor of the Italian sea captain known in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón; the explorer celebrated in the English language as Christopher Columbus.

Perhaps the choice of continuing to use the explorer’s name for the City and Province is unusual; considering the changes in society’s views of the behind the scenes plans for his missions and the long term effects of his four visits. But there will always be some people who will want to change the names and others who won’t. And it will depend upon the current majority viewpoints “whether Columbus is seen as arch-villain of the modern era for bringing genocide and pollution to an unsullied earthly paradise or as someone worthy of sainthood,” for being a successful explorer.

Source: http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/bib/SHREVE01.BIB