Panama History - A Brief Overview

Panama's history has been shaped by its strategic location between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. The native Cuevas and Cocole tribes quickly disappeared after the Spanish arrived with their weapons and diseases in the early 16th century. Panama City, on the Pacific coast, thrived as Spain conquered and plundered Peru. Caravans loaded with gold traveled overland across the narrow isthmus from Panama City to be loaded on galleons bound for Spain. However, this wealth attracted pirates and, in the early 1700s, Panama's Caribbean shore was dotted with so many pirate strongholds that shippers chose instead to sail around Cape Horn to Peru. Panama's importance rapidly declined, and Spain did not contest its inclusion as a province of Colombia when that country won its independence from Spain in 1821.

Panama Canal History

The history of the Panama Canal is fascinating. In the 1880s, Colombia made a treaty with France for the construction of a canal across Panama's narrow isthmus, but yellow fever claimed the lives of more than 22,000 workers over a five-year period, and construction was halted. Over Colombia's objections, one of the French investors negotiated a deal to have the United States construct a canal just at the time that Panama's independence movement needed tactical and financial assistance. When Panama declared its independence from Colombia in November 1903, U.S. troops were already present to "protect" the new government. In return for constructing a canal, the new Panamanian government granted U.S. control over rights on either side of the canal "in perpetuity," and U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt's "Panama Doctrine" began with the eradication of mosquitoes, which carried malaria and yellow fever. The Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and has remained an important shipping route ever since. In 1921, the United States paid Colombia US$25 million in exchange for revoking all claims on Panama, and in 1936, the United States finally gave up the legal right to use its troops outside the borders of the Canal Zone. With the onset of World War II, the canal became one of America's most valuable strategic assets and was heavily protected by fleets of U.S. warships.