Pearls are what brought the Spanish conquistadors to the more than 200 islands of the Archipelago de las Perlas in the early 16th century.

    Around 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa learned from the natives of the Panama mainland about the existence of this string of islands. Balboa wrote to the King of Spain: "There are many islands in this sea. They tell me that there are pearls in abundance, of great size, and that the natives possess baskets filled with them."

In the 17th and 18th centuries, pirates used Contadora, and many of the smaller islands such as this one (visible from the decks of the Villas at Contadora), as bases. From these islands they plundered passing ships and Spanish colonists on the mainland

     Later that year, Balboa took 190 men to discover the sea and the islands. He conquered the natives and returned to mainland Panama in 1514 with loads of pearls and diamonds.

     Two years later, Gaspar de Morales and Francisco Pizarro led another expedition to the islands. These Spaniards killed all of the native Indians and brought in African slaves to harvest the pearls. The island that was used for counting the pearls before shipping them back to Spain was named Contadora, which is Spanish for "counting house."

     For the next few hundred years, beginning in the 17th century, the Bay of Panama, where the Pearl Islands sit, was the setting for pirate adventures unsurpassed anywhere in the New World.

     The islands were the perfect hideout for pirates who wanted to attack passing ships and the Spanish territories of Panama, Mexico, and other points in Central and South America.

     One of the most famous sackings was Henry Morgan's 1671 plundering and burning of Panama City.

     Sir Francis Drake, another of the world's most famous pirates, used these waters and islands to terrorize Spanish settlers on Panama's Pacific coast before returning to England with honors and riches.

     Today, there's little evidence that the pirates and the Spanish conquistadors were ever here. On the island of Saboga, however, which is located half a mile west of Contadora, a Spanish church and a stone dam, both built in the 18th century, still stand.

     Until the 20th century, the islands remained sparsely inhabited, mostly by the descendants of the African slaves.

     Then, in the 1960s, a Panamanian named Gabriel Lewis Galindo bought the island and established the basic infrastructure, including water, electricity, an airstrip, a marina, and a property division.

     In the early seventies, he built a 60-bungalow complex overlooking the sea. Next came the 150-room Hotel Contadora, built in 1975, followed by the private homes that dot the island today.