Panama's Separation from Colombia
The Hay-Herran Treaty, signed in January 1903 and ratified by the US Senate in March, would have granted the United States a renewable 100-year lease over a canal zone across the Panamanian isthmus, then a department of Colombia. Colombia's senate unanimously rejected the treaty on 12 August 1903, fearing a loss of sovereignty over the terms. President Theodore Roosevelt, determined to secure a canal route after years of French failure and rival Nicaraguan proposals, gave tacit approval to a Panamanian separatist conspiracy that had been agitating for autonomy for decades. On 3 November 1903 Panamanian conspirators declared independence; the US-run Panama Railroad stranded Colombian troops sent from Colón, and the arrival of the USS Nashville deterred further Colombian military response. Washington recognised the Republic of Panama on 6 November. Days later, the French engineer Philippe Bunau-Varilla, self-appointed as Panama's minister plenipotentiary and acting without instructions from Panama's own delegation, signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty on 18 November 1903, granting the United States a canal zone in perpetuity on terms more generous to Washington than Panamanian negotiators had sought. The treaty directly enabled construction of the Panama Canal between 1904 and 1914. Roosevelt was unapologetic about the episode, later telling an audience that he had 'took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal but to debate me.'
- Year: 1903 CE
- Category: Political
