The History of the Panama Canal: The Truth about Separatism

Once upon a time, a company with French capital began the work to build a canal through the Isthmus of Panama, back in 1880. For this, they turned to their subordinates in the Panama Railroad Company: lawyer José A. Arango, a resident of the company, and Manuel Amador Guerrero, a railroad official. They prepared the plan, but giving the Colombian Congress until the last moment to approve the Herrán-Hay Treaty. When the Colombian Senate decided not to approve the treaty but to propose that the United States wait until 1904 for the French to lose their concession, Cromwell began to execute his Plan B and summoned Amador Guerrero to New York at the end of August. They waited to act until October 30, when the Colombian Congress closed its sessions without approving the treaty. The arrival of the USS Dixie in Cristóbal on November 5 with 500 American soldiers was decisive. Whoever imagines the "founding fathers" leading the people against the "Colombian oppressors" had better stop reading children's stories. The first thing they managed was an extension to complete the work. The French managers of the company turned out to be scoundrels who stole millions of francs from the unsuspecting middle-class investors in France who bought shares in this company, believing the canal would flood them with riches. Note the date. But a scoundrel is never anything but a scoundrel, so these gentlemen never intended to, nor did they raise sufficient capital to complete the work. A situation against which generations of Panamanians who did fight for independence, such as the heroic youths of January 9, 1964, had to fight. The separation would only happen if the treaty was not approved and had no other motive than the treaty. In 1892-1894, they set about reorganizing the company under another name, the New Interoceanic Canal Company. The law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, which still exists, was well-connected to capitalists like J.P. Morgan, General Electric, and other high-weight businesses on Wall Street. Very few at the university level realize that there was a third culprit: corruption. Yes. It is claimed they invested 3.5 million dollars in shares that they would resell to their government for 40 million dollars. This is where Cromwell's role became key. With what rights, when they only possess a concession that expires in a year and a bit of scrap metal in a half-dug hole? Elementary school children in Panama know that "it was the mosquito's fault that produced yellow fever." They were only looking to buy time to sell their "rights" to a third party and thus squeeze out the last drop of the business. That was their opinion in mid-1903, regardless of whether some changed later. The photograph that describes the fact is that the raising of the Panamanian flag in Colón on November 6 was carried out by an American intelligence officer in full dress, named Murray Black. The other photograph is given by the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty, signed not coincidentally 15 days later, which contained everything reprehensible in the Herrán-Hay Treaty, but worsened. The government of the United States of America. In 1894, the French had the good idea to hire one of the most influential lawyers in the politics and business of the nascent American empire: William Nelson Cromwell.