From central Panama, native colonies joined to create country (6)
I believe the answer is:
nation
'country' is the definition.
(I know that country can be written as nation)
'from central panama native' is the wordplay.
'from' becomes 'emanative' (I've seen this before).
'central' indicates the central letters.
'panama native' becomes 'ion' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The central letters of 'emanative' are 'nat'.
'nat'+'ion'='NATION'
'colonies joined to create' is the link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nation that I've seen before include "Large community in one place under one government" , "Country, state" , "Turkey?" , "A federation of tribes, as Native Americans say" , "People of a country" .)