Novita

Nóvita grew in the wet forest country of Chocó, among rivers carrying gold-bearing sediment toward the San Juan. The settlement moved from the Tamaná River to the Nóvita stream in 1709 as mining expanded. In 1739 it became the capital of the new province of Chocó. Its river routes linked mines in the forest with the colonial centres of Popayán and the wider markets of New Granada.

Gold production in the eighteenth century depended heavily on enslaved Africans, taken to remote workings owned by merchants and landholders. Their labour helped make Nóvita a centre of a wealthy mining district, while Indigenous communities continued to inhabit the surrounding rivers. The wealth extracted from the forest flowed far beyond it, but the people compelled to work the deposits and those who made homes along the waterways shaped the region’s enduring communities.