The “Interests of Civilization”?: Reaction in the United States against the “Seizure” of the Panama Canal Zone, 1903-1904

The rights secured by the United States through the conclusion of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty and the Hay-Varilla Convention afforded the United States legal bases upon which to embark upon the excavation, construction, operation and protection of an interoceanic canal in the Isthmus of Panama. They formed a foundation for the erection of a vast edifice of powers and jurisdiction over the Panama Canal, the Canal Zone, and over vessels and persons in and about the Canal.

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The Panama Canal

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.260 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Michael E. Donoghue

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Historical Memory ◽

The United States ◽

Panama Canal ◽

High Status ◽

Canal Zone ◽

And Gender ◽

Major Factors ◽

The U.S

The United States’ construction and operation of the Panama Canal began as an idea and developed into a reality after prolonged diplomatic machinations to acquire the rights to build the waterway. Once the canal was excavated, a century-long struggle ensued to hold it in the face of Panamanian nationalism. Washington used considerable negotiation and finally gunboat diplomacy to achieve its acquisition of the Canal. The construction of the channel proved a titanic effort with large regional, global, and cultural ramifications. The importance of the Canal as a geostrategic and economic asset was magnified during the two world wars. But rising Panamanian frustration over the U.S. creation of a state-within-a-state via the Canal Zone, one with a discriminatory racial structure, fomented a local movement to wrest control of the Canal from the Americans. The explosion of the 1964 anti-American uprising drove this process forward toward the 1977 Carter-Torrijos treaties that established a blueprint for eventual U.S. retreat and transfer of the channel to Panama at the century’s end. But before that historic handover, the Noriega crisis and the 1989 U.S. invasion nearly upended the projected transition of U.S. retreat from the management and control of the Canal. Early historians emphasized high politics, economics, and military considerations in the U.S. acquisition of the Canal. They concentrated on high-status actors, economic indices, and major political contingencies in establishing the U.S. colonial order on the isthmus. Panamanian scholars brought a legalistic and nationalist critique, stressing that Washington did not create Panama and that local voices in the historical debate have largely been ignored in the grand narrative of the Canal as a great act of progressive civilization. More recent U.S. scholarship has focused on American imperialism in Panama, on the role of race, culture, labor, and gender as major factors that shaped the U.S. presence, the structure of the Canal Zone, as well as Panamanian resistance to its occupation. The role of historical memory, of globalization, representation, and how the Canal fits into notions of U.S. empire have also figured more prominently in recent scholarly examination of this relationship. Contemporary research on the Panama Canal has been supported by numerous archives in the United States and Panama, as well as a variety of newspapers, magazines, novels, and films.

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The Right to Fortify the Panama Canal

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2186362 ◽

1911 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 615-619 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Eugene Wambaugh

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

General Principle ◽

The United States ◽

Prima Facie ◽

Suez Canal ◽

Panama Canal ◽

Canal Zone ◽

The Republic ◽

The Right

As a canal is part of the territory of the country through which it passes, the general principle of sovereignty gives to that country, and to that country alone, the right of fortification. This general principle is capable of modification by treaty. Thus, as the Suez Canal is wholly in Egypt, a right of fortification resided with Egypt, or with its suzerain, Turkey; and, in order to destroy the right, there had to be express provisions in the Constantinople Convention of 1888 — “ respecting the free navigation of the Suez Canal ” — to which Turkey was a party. In that treaty as to Suez, there was ample recognition of the prima facie right and duty of the local country to protect the canal. Similarly, the right to fortify the Panama Canal would still reside with the Republic of Panama, and not with the United States, if the convention of 1903 with Panama did not grant to the United States control of the Canal Zone, with all the rights which the United States would possess if it were the sovereign, and “ to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights.” The treaty specifically adds that “ the United States shall have the right * * * to establish fortifications.”

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Spaniards on the Silver Roll: Labor Troubles and Liminality in the Panama Canal Zone, 1904–1914

International Labor and Working-Class History ◽

10.1017/s0147547904000183 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 66 ◽

pp. 78-98 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Julie Greene

Keyword(s):

Racial Identity ◽

The United States ◽

Panama Canal ◽

The Political ◽

Canal Zone ◽

Racial Identities ◽

Panama Canal Zone ◽

Food Riots ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Us

This article examines the experiences of Spanish workers during the construction of the Panama Canal by the United States from 1904 to 1914. Spaniards engaged in a wide range of protest actions during the construction years, from strikes to food riots to anarchist politics. Employing Victor Turner's concept of liminality, the article highlights the mutability of the Spaniards' position and identity and examines several factors that shaped their experiences: the US government's policies of racial segregation and the injustices Spaniards experienced; the political and racial identities they brought with them from Spain; and their complex racial and imperial status in the Canal Zone. Spaniards possessed a remarkably fluid racial identity, considered white or nonwhite depending on circumstances, and that shifting status fueled their racial animosities as well as their protests.

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The Panamanian Assumption of Full Control of the Administration and Operation of the Panama Canal

Leiden Journal of International Law ◽

10.1017/s0922156500000443 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 695-707

Author(s):

Marjoleine Zieck

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

20Th Century ◽

The United States ◽

Panama Canal ◽

Legal Basis ◽

Canal Zone ◽

Full Control ◽

Primary Responsibility ◽

New Millennium

Approximately the entire 20th century, the Panama Canal (including a strip of land bordering the canal known as the ‘canal zone’) was essentially controlled by the United States, a control which included the primary responsibility for its defence. With the onset of the new millennium, however, the canal reverted to exclusive Panamanian control. This contribution will briefly recall the legal basis of this watershed which dates from 1977 and indicate if the United States retains any residual powers as regards the Panama Canal in particular its defence.

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The Canal Fortifications and the Treaty

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2186363 ◽

1911 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 620-638 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Crammond Kennedy

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Great Britain ◽

The United States ◽

Point Of View ◽

Panama Canal ◽

International Peace ◽

Canal Zone ◽

The World ◽

The Subject ◽

Territorial Rights

Connected as it is with the progress of the present phenomenal movement for international peace, the question whether the Panama Canal should be permanently fortified as part of its construction and before it is opened to the commerce of the world, is of the highest importance; and for this reason the views and conclusions of the commissioners who considered the subject under authority of Congress in 1899–1901, when negotiations were in progress between the United States and Great Britain for a new agreement to take the place of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, are of the gravest public interest and are worthy of the most considerate attention. It was not until November, 1903, that the Isthmian Canal Zone came under “ the perpetual control ” of the United States by the treaty of the 18th of that month with the new-born Republic of Panama; but, for some years prior, the United States had been considering the acquisition of a strip of territory in the Isthmus, and the construction of a waterway between the two oceans, on its own responsibility, at its own cost, and under its own control. It was from this new point of view that the Canal Commission of 1899–1901, of which the late Admiral Walker was president, made its investigations and report; and it was to open the way to the accomplishment of this enterprise without a violation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and with the consent of Great Britain, whose interests in the physical union of the Atlantic and Pacific were second only to those of the United States, that the negotiations then pending between the two governments had been commenced and were subsequently carried on until they resulted in the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which was signed on November 18, 1901, proclaimed February 22, 1902, and is now in force. It antedated by some months the passage of “ the Spooner bill,” which provided for the purchase of the rights and property of the New Panama Canal Company (De Lesseps’ successor in France) and for the acquisition of the necessary territorial rights from Colombia, or, failing that, from Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

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On the Economic Cost to Panama of Negotiating a Peaceful Solution to the Panama Canal Question

Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs ◽

10.2307/165486 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 509-521

Author(s):

Alfred E. Osborne

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

United States Of America ◽

Economic Cost ◽

The United States ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Panama Canal ◽

Popular Opinion ◽

Canal Zone ◽

Treaty Negotiations ◽

The Republic

Negotiating a treaty between two sovereign nations is no simple matter. Even when there is consensus that a new accord is long overdue, a solution acceptable to both governments and their most vocal constituencies is most elusive and often difficult to conclude within a reasonable period of time. This is especially true when there is strong popular opinion aroused on both sides. Discussions usually drag on, and while diplomats publicly agree that “progress is being made,” there are significant political and economic benefits unrealized by either or both countries involved in the negotiation proceedings (Lopez Guevara, 1976).The present treaty negotiations between the Republic of Panama and the United States of America is a case in point. That Panamanian public opinion is aroused on the Canal issue is indicated by the 1964 Canal Zone border incidents in which twenty-one Panamanians and three Americans died and by subsequent demonstrations.

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