Roosevelt And The Panama Canal

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Roosevelt and the Panama Canal Alfred Mahan had written in “The Influence of Sea Power upon History,” that national greatness depended on supremacy in all oceans. When Theodore Roosevelt took office his ideals agreed somewhat with Mahan’s ideas. The decision of The United States to construct a canal across Panama resulted largely from the efforts of Philippe Bunau-Varilla and William Nelson Cromwell. These two men were prominent in the Panama revolution of 1903 took on the task of finding a buyer. Thus, they conducted a lobby to convince the American leaders of the superiority of the Panama Canal route over Nicaragua because there were volcanoes there, whereas Panama did not have any volcanoes. In the senate vote taken on June 19, 1902, was 42-34 in favor of Panama. Panama was an isolated province, and its inhabitants often rebelled against the government of Colombia. While the Colombian senate was debating and rejecting the canal treaty with the United States, a group of Panamanians was plotting a revolution. Although Roosevelt did order U.S. Navy ships in the Caribbean and Pacific to sail nearer to Panama, he was in certain ways, manipulated by Bunau-Varilla, who suggested that a revolution, establishing an independent Panama, might be the way to secure the elusive canal treaty and was conspiring with the Panamanians was plotting the revolution. The U.S. warship Nashville docked at Colon on the Caribbean side launched a bloodless takeover of Panama. Roosevelt was manipulated by Bunau-Varilla all along because after the revolution, the revolutionary government appointed Bunau-Varilla to negotiate a canal treaty with the United States in exchange for American protection of the newly independent nation. After Hay and Bunau-Varilla signed the canal treaty, it gave the United States the right to construct and operate the canal with and a guarantee of Panama’s
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