The Path Between the Seas

by David McCullough

The United States was empowered to construct a canal through a zone ten miles in width (in contrast to a zone of six miles in the Hay-Herrán pact). Colón and Panama City were not to be part of the zone, but the sanitation, sewerage, water supply, and maintenance of public order in these terminal cities were placed under United States control. Further, four little islands in the Bay of Panama—Perico, Naos, Culebra, and Flamenco—were granted to the United States and the United States had the right to expropriate any additional land or water areas “necessary and convenient” for the construction, operation, sanitation, or defense of the canal. In return the United States guaranteed the independence of Panama. The French canal company was granted the right to transfer its concessions and property (including the Panama Railroad) to the United States and the compensation to Panama was to be the same as offered earlier to Colombia—$10,000,000 on exchange of ratifications and an annual annuity of $250,000 that would commence nine years later. The most significant difference, however, between this and the earlier treaty was contained in Article III, which specified that Panama granted to the United States within the canal zone “all the rights, power and authority . . . which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory . . . to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power or authority.” T...