Tapaje

The rivers of the southern Colombian Pacific descend through humid forest toward the sea. In the nearby Telembí basin, Barbacoas developed as a colonial settlement and centre of gold mining. Francisco de la Parada y Zúñiga established a settlement near the meeting of the Telembí and Guagüí in 1600, and a formal foundation followed in 1612. River routes connected the mining district with the Pacific lowlands.

Gold mining drew enslaved Africans to the region, where their labour was used to work deposits in streams and riverbeds. Indigenous communities had inhabited the forest country before the mines expanded. The waterways supplied transport and food as well as gold, and communities formed along their banks in a landscape of heavy rain and dense vegetation.