Trabajos De Investigación

Teddy Roosevelt and The Panama Canal

“life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living”

March 4th of 1905 was a special day for Teddy Roosevelt. This was the day in which he would become president in his own right (Miller).When Teddy Roosevelt's took the role of a president after the assassination of McKinley, it was well understood that his main idea was toimperialize the United States. He believed that building a canal in Latin America would be a good way to imperialize ads this would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and would be much quicker and more efficient than having to go around the bottom tip of South America. Roosevelt was determined to build this canal and would keep pushing for it until he got his way. He faced many obstacles,but his determination enabled him to overcome them. “he really believed he was the american flag” will say senator Platt, who did not believe in Roosevelt’s imperialistics moves. But to his surprised, and with much help, the imperialistic Roosevelt would would build one of the most important canals in the world, The Panama Canal (Morris).

The idea of building a canal to connect the seas wasn’toriginally Roosevelt’s idea. In fact, this idea was around since Spanish colonial times, but the United States took interest in the subject too as they expanded westward. In 1846 a treaty was signed granting the United States transit rights across the Isthmus of Panama, as long as they guaranteed neutrality in Panama and Columbia. In 1848, Great Britain and the United States had great interest inbuilding the Nicaragua Canal, a route other than across the Isthmus of Panama. The Clayton-Buwler Treaty of 1850, in which Great Britain and the United States promised that any canal in Central America would be politically neutral, ended the rivalry between the two countries. Credit of the idea for building a canal can be given to Cornelius Vanderbilt. H realized he could make quite a profit fromthe canal. The United States found it imperative that they had control over a canal in Latin America, but did not know whether to build one in Nicaragua or Panama. Later, in 1878, a French company under Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was an ambitious man who built the Suez Canal, was granted the rights to build a sea-level canal in Panama. De Lesseps thought building the Panama Canal would be as easy asthe Suez Canal, but he would soon find out that this was not the case. They started building in 1881, but faced many problems such as disease, construction problems, and poor financing and soon went bankrupt. In 1901 the rights were then transferred to another French company, under leaders William Nelson Cornwell and Phillipe Bunau-Varilla. Cornwell and Bunau-Varilla were determined to build acanal, and worked very hard to persuade the United States into helping them to build a canal in Panama instead of Nicaragua. At the same time, the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was signed between Great Britain and the United States, giving the United States the right to build an isthmian canal. The U.S. proposed to Congress to build a canal in Nicaragua, but then an explosion of Volcano Martinique thatkilled nearly 40,000 people caused the Americans to lose interest in Nicaragua, and gain interest in Panama. To gain the rights to building a canal in Panama though, the United States had to acquire rights from Colombia, but Colombia offered an outrageous price that Americans weren?t willing to pay. With help from the United States, in 1903 Bunau-Varilla revolted against Colombia, which was thebeginning of the Panamanian Revolution. The United States sent a warship, the USS Nashville, to Panama which created trouble for Colombia and prevented them from reveling the outbreak. Panama later gained its independence and granted rights to the U.S. to build the Panama Canal.

After many failed French attempts, Roosevelt knew that building the Panama Canal would not be easy. He knew that before...