After the opening of Potosí in 1546, silver was shipped north to Panama City and carried by mule train across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios for shipment to Havana and Spain.

In June 1572 the English privateer Francis Drake sacked the colony and in April of the following year he ambushed the Spanish Silver Train, a mule convoy carrying a fortune in precious metals.

Drake captured the town again in 1595 but found little treasure, thereby missing 5 million pesos waiting off the Pacific side.

[1] Nombre de Dios is mentioned by the poet Derek Walcott in The Prodigal: Caravels slid over the horizon.

Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.