The Hay-Herrán Treaty & the Panama Canal

 

            Before the tracks of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads met in 1869, the only practical way for Americans to travel between their nation’s Atlantic and Pacific shores was by ship around the southern tip of South America.  More important to the American Navy, it had no quick way to get its ships from one ocean to the other.

 

            To solve this problem, digging a canal across the narrow part of Central America was considered.  Different routes were investigated, and one across that part of Colombia known as the Panamanian isthmus looked to be the best one.  Negotiations were begun between the United States and Colombia, and on January 22, 1903, a treaty was signed by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and Colombian foreign minister Tomás Herrán (hence the name “Hay-Herrán Treaty”).  In exchange for an up front payment of $10 million dollars and nine annual payments of $250,000, Colombia agreed to lease a strip of land across Panama to the United States for the new canal. 

 

            Alas, it was not to be.  It might have been concern by Colombia for the potential loss of its sovereignty over the leased land.  Or a belated regret that maybe they had settled too cheaply.  Or maybe it was a mixture of both.   For whatever reason, the Colombian congress slow-walked ratification of the treaty, hoping to get a better deal.  The Hay-Herrán Treaty never was ratified, and exasperated over what it considered Colombian treachery, America gave up dealing with Colombia and looked to another way to get the land to build the path between the seas.

 

            The result was American support for a movement for Panama to gain its independence from Colombia, so America could deal with a newly independent nation, thought to be more receptive than Colombia.  The failure of the Hay-Herrán Treaty and the subsequent interference by America in Colombia’s Panamanian province suggested the Monroe Treaty, effective though it may have been to keep Europe from meddling in the affairs of Western Hemisphere nations, would not stop America from doing that very thing.

 

            Was this interference by America right or wrong?  Some argue it was wrong, because  the problem was not European influence in the Americas, but a difficult Colombian government.  Other contend the many benefits from the canal would be shared by all countries in the Western Hemisphere, and that if America did not build the canal, some European country would (France already had tried and failed, and French company still had the rights from Colombia to do so) and thereby obtain the influence the Monroe Doctrine was created to prevent.

 

            In 1977, the United States agreed to a timetable for the return to Panama of sovereignty over the Panama Canal, and today Panama controls that territory.  But the canal is still there.