Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in the Plaza de Armas (today's Plaza de Francia) of Panama City. Six months later Panama
separated from Colombia.
PEDRO PRESTÁN AND THE FIRE OF COLÓN
Another ugly episode between Liberals and Conservatives and a further example of US in-
tervention resulted in the public hanging of
Pedro Prestán
, a Liberal revolutionary who
took advantage of the absence of Colombian troops in Colón - they had headed over to
Panama City to quell an attempted coup - to seize control of the city. After looting busi-
nesses to raise money, he and his band of rebels purchased arms from the US, which ar-
rived on a steamship that anchored in the bay. When the steamship agent refused to unload
the arms, Prestán took the agent, US consul and several other Americans
hostage
, threat-
ening to kill them if the US naval vessel stationed nearby landed troops and if the arms
were not handed over. Though the weapons were promised and the hostages released, the
Americans reneged on the deal. Fleeing to Monkey Hill outside the city, Prestán and his
poorly armed combatants fought with the Colombian troops now back from Panama City.
The rebels were routed and the
city caught fire
; built entirely of wood, it was totally en-
gulfed in flames, killing eighteen and leaving thousands homeless. Prestán, who had fled
by boat to his native Cartagena, became the scapegoat. Many of his men were rounded up
and
executed
while Prestán himself was captured, tried and convicted by a partisan jury,
and left to hang above the railway tracks in Colón.
Separation from Colombia
Despite the French canal debacle, the dream of an interoceanic waterway remained as strong
as ever. The US government took up the challenge; President
Theodore Roosevelt
, in par-
ticular, felt that the construction of a canal across Central America was an essential step to
becoming a major sea power. At first the favoured route was through Nicaragua, but the per-
suasive lobbying of Philippe
Bunau-Varilla
, former acting director and major shareholder
in the French company, swung the Senate vote in Panama's favour. His masterstroke was to
buy ninety Nicaraguan stamps that showed an erupting volcano - a major argument against
the Nicaragua route - and send one to each senator just three days before the vote. In 1903
a
treaty
allowing the US to build the canal was negotiated with the Colombian government,
whose senate refused to ratify it, understandably wary that the US would not respect their
sovereignty. Outraged that “the Bogotá lot of jackrabbits should be allowed to bar one of the
future highways of civilization”, Roosevelt gave unofficial backing to Panamanian secession-
ists.
In the event, the
separation
was a swift almost bloodless affair with only one casualty. The
small Colombian garrison in Panama City was bribed to switch sides and a second force that
had landed at Colón agreed to return to Colombia without a fight after its officers had been
