The Panama Canal in Time of Peace

1940 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-637
Author(s):  
Norman J. Padelford
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Canal Zone ◽  
Isthmus Of Panama ◽  
Construction Operation ◽  
Interoceanic Canal

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.

The Panama Canal

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.

The Right to Fortify the Panama Canal

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-619 ◽  
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.”

Diplomacy of the Quarter Deck

1914 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colby M. Chester
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Important Influence ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Construction Work ◽  
Isthmus Of Panama ◽  
Naval Officers ◽  
National Defence ◽  
Different Parts

The building of the Panama Canal has not been a one man’s work by any means. In its inception the preparation of the field, the elimination of impossible routes, and in the actual construction work, it has drawn forth some of the best brains of the country.Noted engineers from civil life have had an important influence in determining the locality best suited for the purpose, and also in the plans adopted for building the canal; and the names of these men will go down in history as a part of its constructive force. But as the principal object of building the canal was to augment means for the national defence, it was eminently proper that the Army and Navy of the United States should have paramount influence in its establishment. For nearly forty years naval men have been engaged in surveying different parts of Central America and the Isthmus of Panama to find a practical route which should offer the fewest obstacles in cutting a channel between the two oceans. Finally, by a process of elimination, which brought the problem to a choice between the Nicaragua and Panama routes, the construction of a canal was actually begun by an American company on the Nicaragua line, and the work of construction put in the charge of naval officers.

Public Opinion and the Future of U.S.-Panama Relations

1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orlando J. Pérez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
System Support ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Isthmus Of Panama ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Military Presence

Using survey data and interviews, this study examines Panamanian attitudes toward the United States and toward the central issues in US.- Panama relations. It also compares Panamanian attitudes with opinions toward the United States in the rest of Central America. The study finds that nationalism, system support, anticommunism, and, for the mass public, ideology are the most important variables in determining support for the United States. Elites are more nationalistic and less accommodationist toward the United States than the mass public. Concern about the politicization and misuse of the Panama Canal and adjacent lands has led many in the general public to support a continued US. military presence on the Isthmus of Panama.

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

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.

The Canal Fortifications and the Treaty

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 620-638 ◽  
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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