May 5, 2023: Hemispheric Histories: The Panama Canal

[April 30thmarks the 75thanniversary of the formal founding of the Organization of American States(OAS). So this week I’ll offer some AmericanStudies contexts for that importantcommunity and a handful of other hemispheric histories, leading up to a weekendpost highlighting some of the many awesome scholars doing hemispheric studies!]

On threetreaties across 130 years that together help tell the story of the famouswaterway.

1)     The Mallarino-BidlackTreaty of 1846: The United States had been involved in the possibility of awaterway cutting through the isthmus of Panama to link the Pacific and AtlanticOceans since at least 1788, when ThomasJefferson proposed the idea while serving as Minister to France. Aftervarious aborted efforts from numerous nations and entities throughout the early19th century, the ball really got rolling when representatives of thePolk Administration negotiated the Mallarino-Bidlack Treatywith the Republic of New Granada (mainly constituted out of Colombia andPanama). The result wasn’t yet a waterway, but rather the Panama Railroad,which was opened in 1855 and did allow for easier travel across the isthmus butwas seen by all involved as a first step toward the eventual goal of a canal.

2)     The Hay-Bunau-VarillaTreaty of 1903: That 1846 treaty had granted the U.S. significant transitrights (hence the railroad), but the question of who had a right to construct awaterway remained in dispute for another half-century. President TheodoreRoosevelt was determined to secure that right for the U.S., and thought he haddone so with the January 1903 Hay-HerránTreaty; but the Senate of Colombia refused to ratify that one. So Rooseveltencouraged Panama to separate from Colombia and become its own nation; whenit did so, he sent Secretary of State John M.Hay back and the result in November 1903 was the more lasting Hay-Bunau-VarillaTreaty, which granted the U.S. the sole right to build and indefinitely administera PanamaCanal Zone. If that all sounds fraught as hell, welcome to 20thcentury U.S. foreign policy!

3)     The Torrijos-CarterTreaties of 1977: Those fraught histories and contexts were (like so muchof that 20C foreign policy) recognized but largely ignored for much of thecentury, but (as with a good bit of that 20C foreign policy) that changed to adegree (significantly, but not entirely) under the Jimmy Carter administration.As that hyperlinked State Department summary notes, Carter respected Panama’sclaims to sovereignty and was determined to do what we could to turn the Canalover; it was a long and torturous process, but the result was a pair oftreaties ratified and signed in September 1977: the PanamaCanal Treaty, which ended the Canal Zone in 1979 and returned the Canalitself to Panama in 1999; and the NeutralityTreaty, which stated that the U.S. could use its military to (as the StateDepartment puts it) “defend the Panama Canal against any threat to itsneutrality, thus allowing perpetual U.S. usage of the Canal.” If that still soundspretty fraught, welcome to the limits of any attempt to truly revise 20thcentury U.S. foreign policy!

Scholartribute post this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Histories, contexts, and/or scholars you’d highlight?