Portobelo, Porto Bello , or Puerto Bello , town, central Panama, on the Caribbean Sea. The site, an excellent harbor, was visited by Columbus. The town was founded in 1597. A thriving colonial city, it was connected by a stone highway with Panama city; both ports were the points of transshipment for riches from the Spanish Pacific domains. Believed impregnable-Sir Francis Drake died of fever before he could capture it and was secretly buried in the bay-Portobelo was, nevertheless, sacked by English buccaneers (William Parker in 1601, Sir Henry Morgan in 1688, and Edward Vernon in 1739). With the building of the trans-Panama railroad (1848-55) and finally the digging of the Panama Canal, Portobelo declined.