Under a reign of an Indian chief named Nata, Nata was indeed once rich in gold and that was also the reason for its demise. In 1515 an Indian chief, whose territory covered much of what would later become northern Code Province, informed the Spanish conquistadors Alonso Perez de la Rua and Gonzalo de Badajoz of the wealth of his neighbor to the southwest. Naturally, the conquistadors went after Nata’s gold, especially since he was said to have few soldiers to protect the gold. The story goes Perez and his 30 men arrived first; Badajoz and his 130 men were not far behind. Perhaps a bit overanxious, Perez and his party soon found themselves amid a large Indian settlement. Retreat was impossible, but Perez grabbed the Indian chief and threatened to kill him, and thus forced Nata to tell his warriors to back off. Then Badajoz and his well-armed soldiers showed up, and Nata was forced to surrender a large quantity of gold. The Christians remained for two months in the village named after the chief before they headed south and plundered more villages. Two years later, the Spaniards, led by Caspar de Espinosa, returned to Nata and established one of the earliest European settlements on the isthmus.The Indians, meanwhile, were enslaved. As an incentive to settle in Nata, the ruthless Spanish governor Pedro Arias de Avila divided the village and its Indians among 60 soldiers who agreed to start a pueblo there, of which eventually grew Nata of today.
