Originally published at IntellectualCapital.com
By K. Daniel Glover
The wee hours of Dec. 31 by tradition are a time of celebration for people everywhere. Complaints of nitpicking numerical purists aside, that tradition becomes all the more significant when the last digit of the calendar year is changing from nine to zero — the unofficial end of a decade, a century and/or a millennium.
We are fast approaching one of those milestone dates — Dec. 31, 1999 — and the world is preparing for one big party. Some countries have more reason to celebrate than others, though, and Panama is one of them. At the start of 2000, new millennium or not, Panamanians will be rejoicing at their new-found freedom to control the canal that cuts through their nation.
That date will mark the official end of American imperialism in Central America, an era that arguably reached its zenith 96 years ago this month, with the signing of a hastily negotiated treaty giving the United States the right to build and control the Panama Canal “in perpetuity.” How the United States managed such a one-sided treaty is a fascinating tale indeed — and one worth examining as a subsequent 1977 treaty that promised to relinquish the canal to Panama is about to take effect.
Choosing the best route
Long before President Theodore Roosevelt selected the then-Panamanian region of Colombia as the site for a canal connecting the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, the U.S. government desired such a waterway. Congressional Quarterly pegged federal interest to the presidency of Andrew Jackson, who in the 1830s sent Charles Biddle to explore canal routes through Nicaragua, two countries to the north of Panama.
The 1855 construction of a railroad across the Panamanian Isthmus, made possible by an 1846 deal between the United States and Colombia, heightened pressure for action. Commercial interests dreamed of a more direct oceanic trade route. And in 1898, with the United States warring against Spain in Cuba, Americans recognized a military need for the canal — to get battleships from one U.S. coast to the other, without having to go around South America.
The voyage of one ship in particular, the USS Oregon, changed the dynamics of the canal debate. Newspapers chronicled the Oregon’s 12,000-mile journey around Cape Horn for more than three months, and canal advocates noted that a canal would have cut 8,000 miles from the trip.
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