Panama Declares Independence From Colombia

A Canal Nobody Would Sign

At the start of the twentieth century the United States wanted a canal across the narrow isthmus of Panama, which was then a province of Colombia. A French company had failed to build one in the 1880s, and the United States moved to buy its assets. In January 1903 Secretary of State John Hay and the Colombian diplomat Tomás Herrán signed a treaty that would have given the United States a long lease of a strip of land in return for ten million dollars and a yearly payment. Colombia’s Senate rejected it in August 1903, saying the price was too low and the loss of sovereignty too great.

A Revolution With Foreign Friends

Panamanian separatists, led by figures such as Manuel Amador Guerrero, saw independence as the way to get the canal and its benefits. They were encouraged by Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer with a financial stake in the old canal company, who traveled to Washington and lobbied the Roosevelt administration. President Theodore Roosevelt did not promise to support a revolt, but the American government sent warships, and when the uprising began, the cruiser USS Nashville was off Colón on the Caribbean coast. Its presence discouraged Colombian forces from moving across the isthmus to put down the rebellion.

November 3 and Its Aftermath

On November 3 the revolutionaries proclaimed an independent Panama, almost without bloodshed. The United States recognized the new republic on November 6. Bunau-Varilla, who had been named Panama’s representative in Washington, signed the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty on November 18, before the Panamanian delegation arrived. It gave the United States control of a canal zone about ten miles wide, in effect permanently, in exchange for ten million dollars and an annual payment. Many Panamanians objected that no Panamanian had signed the agreement.

Legacy of an Isthmus

The canal opened in August 1914 and changed world shipping. Colombia long protested the loss of Panama, and in 1921 the United States paid it a sum of twenty-five million dollars. Resentment in Panama over the American-controlled Canal Zone grew through the century and led to the Torrijos–Carter treaties of 1977, which arranged a transfer of the canal. Panama took full control on December 31, 1999. The events of November 1903 remain a central example of how great-power interests shaped the birth of a small country.

Three Holidays in November

Panama marks the separation from Colombia on November 3, a national holiday known as Separation Day. The following day is Flag Day, and on November 28 the country celebrates its independence from Spain, which it won in 1821 before joining the republic of Gran Colombia. The sequence of holidays reflects the country’s layered history of independence, union, and separation. For many Panamanians the story of 1903 is a source of pride in a nation created on the isthmus, as well as a reminder of how the canal and its control have shaped the country’s politics ever since.