| Maternal Family History in Spain and Panama |
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| Coat of Arms for Galicia in NW Spain |
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| Arias Family Crest - Spain |
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Ancestors of Richard Holt came to Panama in the early 1500's. Pedro Arias de Avila his most notable relative of the early days of Panama was the first governor of Panama. He came from Segovia, Castille in northern Spain. He was married to an intimate friend, a Lady in Waiting, of Queen Isabella, giving him a favored position in the Spanish politico at that time. He had been a noted soldier and became the leader of the first major Spanish expedition into the Western Hemisphere. He founded cities in Colombia, and then in Panama, establishing Panama City in 1519 and then making it his capital in 1524. Between those years he maintained his capital in Nata, Panama in the western part of the country. Most of the family settled in that area.
Family history in Spain
The history of the family is from northern Spain, the Province of Galicia in the northwest portion of the Iberian peninsula. The Spanish dialect is Castillian Spanish from the Castile area. That area of the world was once controlled by the Muslims.
In 711 a Berber Muslim army, under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa into the Iberian peninsula. Roderick, last of the Visigothic kings of Spain, was defeated at the Battle of Río Barbate. By 719 the invading forces were supreme from the coast to the Pyrenees. Their progress north was arrested at a battle fought in France, between Tours and Poitiers, in 732 by the Frankish ruler Charles Martel.
The first years of their rule, the Moors, as the Berber conquerors came to be known, held the peninsula (except for Asturias and the Basque country) as a dependency of the Province of North Africa, a division of the caliphate of Damascus. After 717 the country was ruled by emirs, appointed by the caliphs, who were frequently neglectful of their duties; misrule resulted in the appointment and deposition of 20 successive emirs over the next 40 years.
This state of affairs was ended by a struggle between the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties for control of the caliphate. The last of the Spanish emirs, Yusuf, favoured the Abbasids, but the local officials of the empire supported the Umayyads. The Umayyad faction invited Abd-ar-Rahman I, a member of the family, to become the independent ruler of Spain. In 756 Abd-ar-Rahman founded the powerful and independent emirate, which later developed into the caliphate of Córdoba.
During the establishment of Moorish power, a remnant of Christian rule was preserved in the northern portion of the peninsula. The most important Christian state of the northern peninsula, the small kingdom of Asturias, was founded about 718 by Pelayo, a Visigothic chieftain. Pelayo's son-in-law, Alfonso, conquered nearly all the region known as Galicia, recaptured most of León, and was then crowned Alfonso I, king of León and Asturias.
Alfonso III greatly extended these territories during his reign, which ended in 910. During the 10th century the region of Navarre became an independent kingdom under Sancho I. As the kings of León expanded their domains to the east in the early 10th century, they reached Burgos. Because of the castles built to guard the frontiers of newly acquired territory, this region became popularly known as Castilla, or Castile. Under Count Fernán González (a family name from that region) the region became independent of León, and in 932 the Count declared himself the first king of Castile.
In the 11th century a considerable part of Aragón was captured from the Muslims by Sancho III, king of Navarre, who also conquered León and Castile, and in 1033 he made his son, Ferdinand I, king of Castile. This temporary unity came to an end at Sancho's death, when his domains were divided among his sons. The most prominent of Sancho's sons was Ferdinand, who acquired León in 1037, took the Moorish section of Galicia, and set up a vassal county in what is now northern Portugal. With northern Spain consolidated, Ferdinand, in 1056, proclaimed himself emperor of Spain (from the Latin Hispania), and he initiated the period of reconquest from the Muslims.
Other families names from that region of Spain were Arias, De la Guardia, Guardia, and Gonzalez, all from northern Spain in the area of Galicia and to the East to the French border and to the southwest along the northern coast. All came to the "new world" carrying documents giving them large land grants by Queen Isabella for land in Panama, and some in Colombia.
Dick's maternal grandmother, Clara Gonzalez de Arias was the first in the family in Panama to break the tradition and marry outside Spanish blood lines. She met and married a German engineer, Richard Dinger, from Solingen, Germany who was killed about five years into the marriage in an industrial accident in Honduras. Richard Dinger had been instrumental in developing Panama City's electrical grid under contract to the Americans during the early years of the building of the Panama Canal. His job took him to Honduras to begin an effort in that country and that is where he lost his life.
Some years later, Clara Gonzalez Dinger remarried an American Civil Engineer, Edward L. Galliher, who was on the staff of the Chief Engineer for the Panama Canal, John Stevens. Mr. Galliher was the Chief of the Building Division and was from the State of Massachusetts. He had known John Stevens in the United States and was hired to come to Panama.
Clara Gonzalez Dinger had two young children, Richard Jr. boen in 1909 and Adele born in 1911. Adele was Richard Holt's mother.
Pedro Arias was Dick's most noted ancestor, but not necessarily one to brag about. He was ruthless, and even had his most famous explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa beheaded because he was becoming competition for Pedro. This was even after he had given Balboa one of his daughters in marriage.
From Panama, Arias sent explorers to open South America (Francisco Pizzaro who conquered the Inca nation) and Hernando De Soto (Nicaragua and the United States) and other parts of the Western Hemisphere. One of Arias' daughters was married to De Soto. De Soto died in what is now Arkansas.
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| Galicia in Spain in the Northwest part of the Iberian peninsula. This area of Spain was never conquered by the Romans nor the Moors. These people were very independent, descendants of the Normans and Vikings who had settled this area between trips back and forth to the Scandanavian area. |
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The background of the people in that part of Spain goes back to the days of the Celtics and when the Norman/Vikings asserted themselves along the coast of the north of the peninsula. Some settled in that part of the Iberian peninsula and spent the winters there before heading back to Scandanavia. Invasions of Spain by the Moors and the Romans did not affect Galicia in that they were driven out of that region by those Galicians. People of that region are tall, blonde and blue-eyed people of very white skin. The dialect of Castillian Spanish comes from that region. I have a Castillian accent in my Spanish. People pick it up quickly.
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| The Western Hemisphere or the "New World" as it was called at the time of the opening of this part of the world by the explorers. Columbus sailed south from Spain to the coast of Africa and then westward following the trade winds that blow in that direction, leading him to Central America |
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| The Isthmus of Panama that joins Central America and South America. The eastern portion of the land is dense tropical jungle. The western part is mountainous and consists of coastal plateaus very similar to that kind of ground found in northwestern Spain from where the early settlers had come from |
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The Spaniards settled the western part of the Isthmus starting in the 1500's with a few developments on the Atlantic coast as well. As commerce grew, Pedro Arias directed the establishment of Panama City as a major commerce center. Although the coastline was not conducive to support shipping because of the tides, this became the center of movement into exploration of both parts to the north/west and to the south.
And of course, the ultimate development of the Panama Canal established the center of attention on that part of the country. Columbus had landed in what is now Colon and determined that no human could live there. Others that followed his discovery also agreed with this assessment, but ultimately that is where the Panama Canal was built under the leadership of the President of the U.S. Teddy Roosevelt.
Dick's grandfather, Richard Dinger from Germany, died in 1913 and some years later, his grandmother remarried a wonderful U.S. Civil Engineeer, a huge Irishman, a Civil Engineer, Edward L. Galliher who became the only granddad he knew.
Mr. Galliher worked for John Stevens, the Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal and then under General Goethals who took over that position. He was given the responsibility for the rebuilding of Panama City in 1906, the addition of an eletrical system in the City, a water system, paved streets and a sewer system for the area. He was later to assume the position in the Panama Canal Zone as the Chief of the Building Division and retired from the Canal in 1933 after 27 years of service. He was awarded the President's Medal by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1915 for his service during the building of the Panama Canal from 1906 through 1915.
Maternal relatives held key offices and have been prominent in financial and political matters in Panama since its beginnings. More than 3/4's of the Presidents of Panama have been related to the family. Politics in Panama have a long history of being very troubled. Some of the issues have revolved around the United States having control of the Panama Canal. But many of the problems have been internal and the story is too complicated to cover in this, my web site. The final straw was the ouster of Noriega in 1989 from his position as the military dictator of the country. Now, Panama appears to be on the road to a well run country. With full control of the Panama Canal, a constant source of income is guaranteed for the government. The problem is to make sure that the income is used wisely. Hopefully that will happen.
Both Dick's father and his maternal grandfather were U.S. citizens, and moved to Panama to work on the Panama Canal. Both ended up with key jobs on the Canal, both died in Panama and are buried in the Corozal Cemetery on the former Panama Canal Zone not more than 50 feet apart.
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| Cristobal Colon, AKA Cristopher Columbus who discovered Panama in 1502 to establish the Spanish dominance of that area |
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| Teddy Roosevelt, the American President who envisioned a Canal across the Isthmus of Panama |
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| Church at Nata, Panama, the first church built in the Western Hemisphere. This is the town in which Pedro Arias and the other members of the Holt family settled in 1515, built this church and the town in an area that is much like parts of Spain. This photo is by Cheryl Holt taken some years ago. |
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