Panama Canal

Throughout the 1800s, American and British leaders and businessmen wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The French tried to build the canal first from 1881 to 1889, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps. Before this project Ferdinand built the Suez Canal, which connected Marseille and India which was 6000 miles less travel than the usual route.

The Americans had already done surveys of the area and were convinced with a lock system in Nicaragua. The Lesseps (Ferdinand de Lesseps) announced his new idea to cut through America in the Panama. He said that cutting though the Panama will be the shortest route. The only problem was that it had mountains, rivers, jungles, volcanic rock, malaria, yellow fever and more.

Adolphe Godin de lepinay pointed out that it was easy to build the Suez for the Lesseps because it was a flat desert, re-routing the existing Chagres river would be an impossible task. He also suggested that the land can be bridged with artificial lakes and locks. Everyone laughed at him and respected what the Lesseps believed. In an international press conference many voted for the Lesseps to build it in the Panama.

A French company was set up to start the job. Using the Caribbean and Indian workers the jungle was being chopped at 1881. The annual rainfall in Panama can be 3 meters; mudslides will make any progress undone. Due to yellow fever and malaria the death toll was 40 per day. It spread very quickly just like the Corona virus now. In 1889 the French company went bankrupt and the work came to a halt. 8 hundred thousand investors lost their money and 23000 people their lives.

The canal was untouched until Theodore Roosevelt was elected a decade later. For the US navy to access the pacific-ocean the canal would be the only way. Again the Panama vs. Nicaragua debate was back on, the Panama won again. The problem was that the Panama was owned by Colombia. The US refused to sign any treaty where they didn’t have complete sovereignty. In 1903, Colombia was in a political unrest, at that time US used it as the best time. US gave the opportunity for Colombia to be independent and the canal will be in theirs. Colombia signed the treaty, in 1904 the work began. The plan by Joseph Ripley and Alfred Noble was an adaptation of de lepinay. After continuous work the canal was completed on August 3rd 1914.

In the next blog, I will be talking about the working of the Panama.