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Panama The 1903 Treaty and Qualified Independence
Naval operations during the Spanish-American War (1898-1901)
served to convince President Theodore Roosevelt that the United
States needed to control a canal somewhere in the Western
Hemisphere. This interest culminated in the Spooner Bill of June
29, 1902, providing for a canal through the isthmus of Panama, and
the Hay-Herrán Treaty of January 22, 1903, under which Colombia
gave consent to such a project in the form of a 100-year lease on
an area 10 kilometers wide. This treaty, however, was not ratified
in Bogotá, and the United States, determined to construct a canal
across the isthmus, intensively encouraged the Panamanian separatist movement.
By July 1903, when the course of internal Colombian opposition
to the Hay-Herrán Treaty became obvious, a revolutionary junta had
been created in Panama. José Augustin Arango, an attorney for the
Panama Railroad Company, headed the junta. Manuel Amador Guerrero
and Carlos C. Arosemena served on the junta from the start, and
five other members, all from prominent Panamanian families, were
added. Arango was considered the brains of the revolution, and
Amador was the junta's active leader.
With financial assistance arranged by Philippe Bunau-Varilla,
a French national representing the interests of de Lesseps's
company, the native Panamanian leaders conspired to take advantage
of United States interest in a new regime on the isthmus. In
October and November 1903, the revolutionary junta, with the
protection of United States naval forces, carried out a successful
uprising against the Colombian government. Acting, paradoxically,
under the Bidlack-Mallarino Treaty of 1846 between the United
States and Colombia--which provided that United States forces could
intervene in the event of disorder on the isthmus to guarantee
Colombian sovereignty and open transit across the isthmus --the
United States prevented a Colombian force from moving across the
isthmus to Panama City to suppress the insurrection.
President Roosevelt recognized the new Panamanian junta as the
de facto government on November 6, 1903; de jure recognition came
on November 13. Five days later Bunau-Varilla, as the diplomatic
representative of Panama (a role he had purchased through financial
assistance to the rebels) concluded the Isthmian Canal Convention
with Secretary of State John Hay in Washington. Bunau-Varilla had
not lived in Panama for seventeen years before the incident, and he
never returned. Nevertheless, while residing in the Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel in New York City, he wrote the Panamanian declaration of
independence and constitution and designed the Panamanian flag.
Isthmian patriots particularly resented the haste with which BunauVarilla concluded the treaty, an effort partially designed to
preclude any objections an arriving Panamanian delegation might
raise. Nonetheless, the Panamanians, having no apparent
alternative, ratified the treaty on December 2, and approval by the
United States Senate came on February 23, 1904.
The rights granted to the United States in the so-called HayBunau -Varilla Treaty were extensive. They included a grant "in
perpetuity of the use, occupation, and control" of a sixteenkilometer -wide strip of territory and extensions of three nautical
miles into the sea from each terminal "for the construction,
maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection" of an isthmian
canal.
Furthermore, the United States was entitled to acquire
additional areas of land or water necessary for canal operations
and held the option of exercising eminent domain in Panama City.
Within this territory Washington gained "all the rights, power, and
authority . . . which the United States would possess and exercise
if it were the sovereign . . . to the entire exclusion" of Panama.
The Republic of Panama became a de facto protectorate of the
larger country through two provisions whereby the United States
guaranteed the independence of Panama and received in return the
right to intervene in Panama's domestic affairs. For the rights it
obtained, the United States was to pay the sum of US$10 million and
an annuity, beginning 9 years after ratification, of US$250,000 in
gold coin. The United States also purchased the rights and
properties of the French canal company for US$40 million.
Colombia was the harshest critic of United States policy at the
time. A reconciliatory treaty with the United States providing an
indemnity of US$25 million was finally concluded between these two
countries in 1921. Ironically, however, friction resulting from the
events of 1903 was greatest between the United States and Panama.
Major disagreements arose concerning the rights granted to the
United States by the treaty of 1903 and the Panamanian constitution
of 1904. The United States government subsequently interpreted
these rights to mean that the United States could exercise complete
sovereignty over all matters in the Canal Zone. Panama, although
admitting that the clauses were vague and obscure, later held that
the original concession of authority related only to the
construction, operation, and defense of the canal and that rights
and privileges not necessary to these functions had never been
relinquished.
Data as of December 1987
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