Page 297 - The Rough Guide to Panama (Travel Guide)

History CONTEXTS 295
era in foreign control: within a year, the first US military intervention in Panama had
taken place (see box opposite).

The French canal venture
In 1869 the opening of the first transcontinental railway in the US reduced traffic through
Panama, but the completion of the Suez Canal that same year made the long-standing
dream of a canal across the isthmus a realistic possibility. Well aware of the strategic
advantages such a waterway would offer, the French secured a concession to build a canal,
as well as purchasing the Panama Railroad, from the New Granadan government. In 1881,
led by ex-diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, the driving force responsible for the Suez Canal,
the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique began excavations.
Despite de Lesseps’ vision and determination, the “venture of the century” proved to
be a disaster, not least because of his technical ignorance and arrogance. In the face of
impassable terrain – forests, swamps and the shifting shales of the continental divide –
the proposed sea-level canal proved unfeasible, while yellow fever, malaria and a host of
other unpleasant diseases ravaged the workforce. In 1889 the Compagnie collapsed;
$287 million had evaporated as a result of financial mismanagement and corruption,
implicating the highest levels of French society. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary
French investors lost everything.

The War of the Thousand Days
At the end of the nineteenth century the simmering feud between the Conservative
and Liberal parties erupted into a bloody three-year civil war called the War of the
Thousand Days (Guerra de los Mil Días). Though there were ideological differences –
ruling elite Conservatives supported strong central government, limited voting rights
and close bonds between Church and State, whereas the merchant class and educated
Liberals wanted more decentralized, federal government, universal voting rights and a
greater division between Church and State – there were also many factions within each
party. The violence was triggered by alleged election fraud by the landed Conservatives
in their bid to remain in power, but by the time the bloody conflict had ended in 1902,
claiming a hundred thousand lives, it was hard to pinpoint what much of the fighting
had actually been about. It’s also unclear whether key Liberal protagonists were
motivated more by the desire for separation than social justice; regardless, most
Liberals were subsequently elevated to the status of nationalist heroes.
The initial Liberal revolt was led by Belisario Porras, the popular exiled lawyer, who
later won three periods of office as president of Panama. With the support of the
presidents of Nicaragua and Ecuador, Porras entered western Panama on March 31,
1900, with an invasion force commanded by Colombian Emiliano Herrera, at the
insistence of President Zelaya of Nicaragua. Their antagonism was a major factor in
the ultimate Liberal failure. Moving towards Panama City, they gathered numerous
supporters, but slow progress allowed reinforcements to arrive from Colombia. On
arrival outside the capital, Herrera rejected Porras’s attack plan and led a botched
single-pronged assault on the city in which a thousand died. Though the Conservatives
reasserted their authority, small bands of Liberal sympathizers ran riot in the interior,

1850–55 1881 1902
The California Gold Rush French architect Ferdinand de Lesseps End of three-year civil war between
prompts construction begins excavations for the Panama Canal. the Conservative and Liberal parties
of the Panama Railroad Some twenty thousand workers die – La Guerra de los Mil Días – which
across the isthmus. before the venture is abandoned in 1889. claimed one hundred thousand lives.

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