CONTEXTS - The Rough Guide to Panama - page 436

tricked into captivity by the rebels. On November 3, 1903, the Republic of Panama was de-
clared and immediately recognized by the US, whose gunship standing offshore prevented
Colombian reinforcements from landing to crush the rebellion.
The canal
A new canal treaty was quickly negotiated and signed on Panama's behalf by the slippery
Bunau-Varilla, who had managed to get himself appointed a special envoy, theoretically only
with negotiating powers. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty gave the US “all the rights, power
and authority…which [it] would possess and exercise as if it were the sovereign”, in perpetu-
ity over an area of territory - the Canal Zone - extending five miles (8km) either side of the
canal. In return, the new Panamanian government received a one-off payment of $10 million
and a further $250,000 a year. (Of particular interest to Bunau-Varilla was the $40 million
the French canal company received for all its equipment and infrastructure.) Even American
Secretary of State John Hay admitted the treaty conditions were “vastly advantageous to the
US and we must confess…not so advantageous to Panama”. Panama's newly formed national
assembly found the terms outrageous, but when told by Bunau-Varilla that US support would
be withdrawn were they to reject it - a claim he invented on the spot - they ratified the treaty,
and work on the canal began.
It took ten years, 56,000 workers from 97 countries and some $352 million to complete
the task, an unprecedented triumph of organization, perseverance, engineering and, just as
crucially, sanitation, during which time chief medical officer Colonel William Gorgas es-
tablished a programme that eliminated yellow fever from the isthmus and brought malaria
under control. As a result the death toll , though still some 5600 workers predominantly of
West Indian descent, was substantially lower than it would otherwise have been. Meanwhile
the two men in charge, John Stevens , a brilliant railway engineer, and his successor Ge-
orge Goethals , a former army engineer, managed to solve the problems that had stymied
the French. The idea of a sea-level canal was quickly abandoned in favour of constructing
a series of locks to raise ships up to a huge artificial lake formed by damming the mighty
Río Chagres. Stevens was responsible for maximizing the potential of the railway, devising
an ingenious pulley system that enabled them to excavate over 170 million cubic metres of
earth and rock, three times the amount removed at Suez. The 13km Gaillard Cut , which ran
through the continental divide, required a mind-boggling 27,000 tonnes of dynamite. The end
result, overseen by Goethals, was the largest concrete structure, earth dam and artificial lake
that the world had ever seen, accomplished with pioneering technology that set new stand-
ards for engineering. On August 15, 1914, the SS Ancón became the first ship to officially
transit the canal, which was completed six months ahead of schedule.
An enormous migrant workforce , at times outnumbering the combined populations of
Panama City and Colón, was imported to work on the canal's construction, and many of these