History of the Panama Railroad-Overview   History: Historical Overview (A brief history of Panama) History of the Panama Railroad The Panama Railroad and the US Mail The Panama Railroad and the Panama Canal The Panama Canal Towing Locomotives Historical Overview: (A brief history of Panama) Columbus and the Discovery of Panama Balboa and the discovery of the Pacific Ocean Nombre de Dios Colony of Panama The Camino Real Francis Drake Portobelo Henry Morgan Panama's economic decline Independence from Spain The California Gold Rush and the Railroad The Kiss of the Oceans Meeting of the Atlantic and Pacific Artist: C.A.DeLisle, 1910 "Here the oceans twain have waited All the ages to be mated,__ Waited long and waited vainly, Though the script was written plainly: This, the portal of the sea, Opes for him who holds the key; Here the empire of the earth Waits in patience for its birth." --James Jeffrey Roche THE HISTORY OF the Panamanian isthmus, since Spaniards first landed on its shores in 1501, is a tale of treasure, and treasure seekers, of clashes among empires, nations, and cultures; of adventurers and builders; of magnificent dreams fulfilled and simple needs unmet. "O Land of Love and Pleasure, Of soft and languorous days, Of brilliant flowers and sunny hours, How shall I sing thy praise?" There is a breath of ancient poetry about Panama--this slender stip of land which nature forged for her uses during some crises in her conflict with time and change. ---- Thus it was found by Columbus, washed on the eastern shores by the turbulent tides of the Atlantic, and by Balboa, looking toward the sunset with the placid Pacific flowing past. There is perhaps no region in the world, of similar areas, which has been allotted so important a role in the world's commerce, nor is there a region of similar area, that possesses so many places replete with history, romance and tropical beauty -- as the Isthmus of Panama. a Columbus and the Discovery of Panama: Rodrigo de Bastidas, a wealthy notary public from Seville, was the first of many Spanish explorers to reach the isthmus discovering the islands of San Blas off the coast of Panama. Sailing westward from Venezuela in 1501 in search of gold, he explored some 150 kilometers of the coastal area before heading for the West Indies. "Aqui hace su manida Don Rodrigo de Bastidas, Que con crüeles heridas Acabó la dulce vida. "Tuvo pujanza y valor, De riquezas copia harta, Y ansi fué gobernador Primero de Santa Marta," --Juan de Castellanos. Cristopher Columbus "Push off, and sitting well in order, smite The surrounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the Western stars, until I die." --Alfred Tennyson. A year later, Christopher Columbus, on his fourth voyage to the New World, touched several points on the isthmus. Christopher Columbus was the first white man to visit Panama's mainland. "Chains for the Admiral of the Ocean! Chains For him who gave a new heaven, a new earth, As holy John had prophesied of me, Gave glory and more empire to the Kings Of Spain than all their battles! Chains for him Who push'd his prows into the setting sun, And made West East, and sail'd the Dragon's Mouth, And came upon the Mountains of the World, And saw the rivers roll from Paradise!" --Alfred Tennyson. He visited Navy Bay which encircles the island of Manzanilla on which the city of Colon is located. As the island presented a very depressing aspect, Columbus did not consider effecting a settlement at this point, sailing away to a point fifty miles west of Colon and made a settlement which he named Belen. Here he left his brother Diego with one hundred men. The settlers remained there for some time and the sad story of the privations, hardships, and the final destruction of the entire group by the Indians, is one of the most pathetic in the history of early colonization. The Indians in the region of Belen at the time of Columbus' discovery were very friendly; they wore plates of gold suspended around their necks and weighted their fishing nets with gold nuggets. When Columbus returned to Spain, his report was that Panama was the richest of all his discoveries. Vasco Núñez de Balboa "Before him spread no paltry lands To wrest with spoils from savage hands; But, fresh and fair, an unknown world Of mighty sea and shore unfurled." --Nora Perry. Balboa and the discovery of the Pacific Ocean: Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a member of Bastidas's crew, had settled in Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) but stowed away on a voyage to Panama in 1510 to escape his creditors. At that time, about 800 Spaniards lived on the isthmus, but soon the many jungle perils, doubtless including malaria and yellow fever, had killed all but 60 of them. Finally, the settlers at Antigua del Darién (Antigua), the first city to be duly constituted by the Spanish crown, deposed the crown's representative and elected Balboa and Martin Zamudio co-mayors. Balboa proved to be a good administrator. He insisted that the settlers plant crops rather than depend solely on supply ships, and Antigua became a prosperous community. Like other conquistadors, Balboa led raids on Indian settlements, but unlike most, he proceeded to befriend the conquered tribes. He took the daughter of a chief as his lifelong mistress. The Indians with whom Balboa became friendly told him of a great sea just a few days travel away, and it was his burning desire to find this sea that inspired Balboa to march into the wild, steaming jungles of Panama. On September 1, 1513, Balboa set out with 190 Spaniards--among them Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca Empire in Peru--a pack of dogs, and 1,000 Indian slaves. Vasco Núñez de Balboa takes possession of the South Sea "When, with eagle eye, he stared at the Pacific, And all his men Gathered round him, with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak of Darien." After twenty-five days of hacking their way through the jungle, the party gazed on the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Balboa, clad in full armor, waded into the water and claimed the sea and all the shores on which it washed for his God and his king. His discovery would alter history and finally lead to the building of the Panama Canal. Balboa returned to Antigua in January 1514 with all 190 soldiers and with cotton cloth, pearls, and 40,000 pesos in gold. Meanwhile, Balboa's enemies had denounced him in the Spanish court, and King Ferdinand appointed a new governor for the colony, then known as Castilla del Oro. The new governor, Pedro Arias de Avila, who became known as "Pedrarias the Cruel," charged Balboa with treason. In 1517 Balboa was arrested, brought to the court of Pedrarias, and executed. a Nombre de Dios In 1510 Diego de Nicuesa, another Spanish explorer, established the settlement of Nombre de Dios. Nicuesa had his fill of the country west of Belen, so he followed the coast to the eastward. A sailor who had been with Columbus, told Nicuesa that they must be in the neighborhood of a fine harbor, named Puerto Bello, where the old Admiral had left an anchor sticking in the sand, near which was a spring of cool water at the foot of a large tree. After some search, Puerto Bello was entered, and the anchor, spring, and tree found. The Spaniards foraged for something to eat, when the Indians killed twenty of their number and drove the rest back in confusion. Discouraged at the prospect of making a settlement at Puerto Bello, the governor resumed his search to the eastward. After sailing about seven leagues, they came to a harbor. The country looked fruitful and the shore seemed to present a favorable location for a fortress. "Paremos aqui, en nombre de Dios!" (Let us stop here, in the name of God) exclaimed Nicuesa. His followers, seeing a lucky augury in his words, decided to call the place Nombre de Dios, even before a landing was effected. Because of the presence of bellicose Indians, the colony was moved, at the instigation of Balboa, northeast across the Atrato River and was given the name Santa María la Antigua del Darién. It became the first permanent settlement on the isthmus. Colony of Panama In 1519 Pedrarias moved his capital away from the debilitating climate and unfriendly Indians of the Darién to a fishing village on the Pacific coast (about four kilometers east of the present-day capital). The Indians called the village Panama, meaning "plenty of fish." Panama (the first European settlement on the west coast of the  hemisphere), became the centre of commercial activity and the springboard for the conquest of Peru. The colony,   became an important part of Spain's mercantile system, attaining the rank of audiencia in 1538. a The Camino Real The Spanish completed a seven-foot wide road known as the Camino Real (Royal Road) across the isthmus of Panama. They used this route to transport the thousands of tons of gold and silver which they plundered from Peru and Mexico. Along this trail, traces of which can still be followed, gold from Peru was carried by muleback to Spanish galleons waiting on the Atlantic coast.The increasing importance of the isthmus for transporting treasure and the delay and difficulties posed by the Camino Real inspired surveys ordered by the Spanish crown in the 1520s and 1530s to ascertain the feasibility of constructing a canal. The idea was finally abandoned in mid-century by King Philip II (1556- 98), who concluded that if God had wanted a canal there, He would have built one. Francis Drake "Sir Francis Drake, and he was TWO And Devon was heaven to him. He loved in his heart the waters blue And hated the Don as the Devil's limb-- Hated him up to the brim! At Cadiz he signed the King's black beard, The Armada met him and fled afeard, Great Philip's golden fleece he sheared; Oregon knew him, and all that coast, For he was one of America's host-- And now there is nothing but English speech, For leagues and leagues, and reach on reach, From California away to the Pole; While the billows beat and the oceans roll, On the Three Americas." --Wallace Rice Francis Drake From 1572 to 1597, the English buccaneer, Francis Drake was associated with most of the assaults on Panama. Sir Francis Drake, "gentleman pirate and adventurer," was the first bucaneer to attack the fortress at Nombre de Dios. "I have brought you to the mouth of the treasure house of the world," Drake told his men when they made their famous attack upon the King's Treasure House, and the concrete evidence of the truth of this statement they saw lying in heaps of golden and silver bars before them, too heavy for one man to carry. This attack proved unsuccessful because of a wound Drake received. Shortly afterward an attempt was made by Drake and his men to intercept and rob the treasure train as it passed across the Isthmus, but this attempt also was unsuccessful. However, Drake and his companions were undaunted and with renewed energy made a subsequent attack upon the treasure train while transiting the Isthmus on the Camino Real. Their plans were well-laid this time, and they succeeded in capturing a large amount of gold. Drake returned to England and shortly afterward in 1597, sailed back to Caribbean waters with a strong naval force. Aboard the graceful Golden Hind, he sailed into the harbor of Nombre de Dios and did not depart until the town was plundered, burned and destroyed. Portobelo Portobelo With the final destruction of Nombre de Dios by Francis Drake, the atlantic terminus of the trans-isthmian route was moved to the hamlet of  Portobelo. One of the best natural harbors anywhere on the Spanish Main (the mainland of Spanish America), overlooking the calm bay discovered and named by Christopher Columbus in 1502. This was probably the best position on the Atlantic coast that could have been chosen as the next stronghold to store the King's gold. Here on the shores of the beautiful landlocked harbor, commanding a full view of the ocean and affording a ready means of intercourse with the interior, traversed by the Camino Real, the Spaniards built a fort they deemed impregnable. Portobelo then became the centre of Spain's commerce in the New World and the site of great ferias. Panama's own contribution to the loading of the fleet was relatively small. Gold production was never great, and little exportable surplus of  agricultural and forest products was available. Nothing was manufactured; in fact, Spain discouraged the production of finished goods. The colony's prosperity, therefore, fluctuated with the volume of trade, made up largely of Peruvian shipments. When the Inca gold was exhausted, great quantities of silver mined in Peru replaced gold in trade for 150 years, supplemented eventually by sugar, cotton, wine, indigo, cinchona, vanilla, and cacao. Old Panama, Oil on canvas by: Edwin Deakin, 1883 Picture courtesy:Carol Gerten "Loudly the cracked bells, overhead, Of San Francisco ding, With Santa Ana, La Merced,Felipe answering; Banged all at once, and four times four, Morn, noon, and night, the more and more Clatter and clang with huge uproar, The Bells of Panama --Edmund C. Stedman. Panama's Prosperity at its Peak Despite raids on shipments and ports, the registered legal import of precious metals increased threefold between 1550 and 1600. Panama's prosperity was at its peak during the first part of the seventeenth century. This was the time of the famous ferias (fairs, or exchange markets) of Portobelo, where European merchandise could be purchased to supply the commerce of the whole west coast south of Nicaragua. When a feria ended, Portobelo would revert to its quiet existence as a small seaport and garrison town. Panama City also flourished on the profits of trade. Following reconstruction after a serious fire in 1644, contemporary accounts credit Panama City with 1,400 residences "of all types" (probably including slave huts); most business places, religious houses, and substantial residences were rebuilt of stone. Panama City was considered, after Mexico City and Lima, the most beautiful and opulent settlement in the West Indies. During the first quarter of the seventeenth century, trade between Spain and the isthmus remained undisturbed. At the same time, England, France, and the Netherlands, one or all almost constantly at war with Spain, began seizing colonies in the Caribbean. Such footholds in the West Indies encouraged the development of the buccaneers--English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese adventurers who preyed on Spanish shipping and ports with the tacit or open support of their governments. Because of their numbers and the closeness of their bases, the buccaneers were more effective against Spanish trade than the English had been during the previous century. The volume of registered precious metal arriving in Spain fell from its peak in 1600; by 1660 volume was less than the amount registered a century before. Depletion of Peruvian mines, an increase in smuggling, and the buccaneers were causes of the decline. Henry Morgan "Oh what a set of Vagabundos Sons of Neptune, sons of Mars, Raked from todos otros mundos, Lascars, Gascons, Portsmouth tars, Prison mate and dock-yard fellow, Blades to Meg and Molly dear, Off to capture Porto Bello Sailed with Morgan the Buccaneer!" --Edmund C. Stedman. Restored "Aduana Real" at Portobelo Henry Morgan: Eighty years had passed since Nombre de Dios had been completely destroyed. Many attempts had been made by the English buccaneers and pirates to take Porto Bello, but the guns of the powerful fort had more than justified the Spaniards' belief that their massive fort was capable of repelling attack either by land or by sea. Henry Morgan, had been sold into bondage in Barbados at an early age. His years of hardship had hardened and embittered him. Brooding in a tropical prison he matured in him imagination vast and daring plans to become a pirate -- a terror of the sea. These plans he carried out so successfully that he became one of the greatest characters in the history of sea robbers. In 1668, after his release from prison, he went to Jamaica, the rendevous of pirates and buccaneers, and from that point he assembled his ships and four hundred and sixty men, "the scum of the seven seas, reckless and ruthles, hardened adventures, a motley crew," and sailing into the harbor of Porto Belo, made his famous and daring attack. The Spaniards, though taken by surprise, made a gallant defense, but they were no match for Morgan and his desperate men. The Governor was killed, all the gold and treasures taken, and for fifteen days Morgan and his companions occupied the city. Morgan and his band of pirates sailed away, (with a promise to return within twelve months and visit Panama city) leaving behind death and destruction, taking with them every vestige of the coveted gold, and Porto Bello still stands, one of the most interesting ruins in the New World. The treasure house is empty, the banquet halls where men "gloried and drank deep" are deserted. The old Fort San Geronimo charged with a lofty mystery of stillness, rich only in romance now, where the wealth once stored was greater than Ophir's hoard. Restored "Aduana Real" at Portobelo (view from the sea side) The Fort San Lorenzo Still standeth San Lorenzo there, Aye faithful at his post-- Though scoffing trees in every breeze Their prime and vigor boast; His garrison is but the shades Of soldiers of the past, But it pleaseth him, alone and grim, To watch until the last. --James Stanley Gilbert After the destruction of Portobelo, the Spaniards, discouraged but undaunted, decided to abandon their once powerful stronghold and accordingly removed to San Lorenzo, which defended the beautiful Castle Chagres, occupying an incomparable position at the mouth of the Chagres River. When it was decided to make the this point the next base for the King's treasure, the fort was strengthened, enlarged, heavily fortified and strongly garrisoned; and here the treasure, safely guarded by the powerful guns of San Lorenzo, awaiting the arrival of the Plate Fleet to come with its armed convoy to transport the treasure to Spain. In December 1670, Morgan returned to Panama waters and made the famous attack on Fort San Lorenzo. Of the four hundred Spainiards in the fort there were only thirty left and ten of them were wounded. The ruins of the old fort guarding the Chagres and overlooking in the indefinite distance, the blue water of the Caribbean, rise up majestically from the crest of the steep rock cliff against which the turmoil of the waves beats unceasingly. the once powerful moated fortress, the dungeons and the castle are overgrown with the lament green of the jungle, but still vibrant with memories of a historic past. His great success in accomplishing the fall of San Lorenzo served to stimulate Morgan, to further victories, and as Panama City was the real objective of the expedition, the conquerors began their march across the Isthmus. Morgan's men sacking Panama City Ruins of Old Panama The passage throught the jungle was difficult. They could find no provisions on their line of march, and it was a half starved, blood-thirsty army of desperate men that swept down upon the city. On January 29, 1671, Morgan appeared at Panama City.The Spaniards were not prepared for such a deadly onslaught. With 1,400 men he defeated the garrison of 2,600 in pitched battle outside the city, which he then looted. The officials and citizens fled, some to the country and others to Peru, having loaded their ships with the most important church and government funds and treasure. Panama City was destroyed by fire, probably from blown up powder stores, although the looters were blamed. After 4 weeks, Morgan left with 175 mule loads of loot and 600 prisoners. Old Panama, that populous city containing before its destruction twelve thousand buildings, cathedrals with plate fillings of solid gold, eight monasteries, the Royal Palace of the Viceroy, two hundred palatial residences, the hospital, the King's stable and a slave market, lay in utter ruin. Two years later, a new city was founded at the location of the present-day capital and was heavily fortified. Henry Morgan sailed away victorious, and with his spoils he became a hero. He was knighted and, as His Brittanic Majesty's Governor of Jamaica ended his days honorably in the service of his king. The buccaneer scourge rapidly declined after 1688 mainly because of changing European alliances. By this time Spain was chronically bankrupt; its population had fallen; and it suffered internal government mismanagement and corruption. Map of Scottish Colony Influenced by buccaneer reports about the ease with which the isthmus could be crossed--which suggested the possibility of digging a canal--William Paterson, founder and ex-governor of the Bank of England, organized a Scottish company to establish a colony in the San Blas area. Paterson landed on the Caribbean coast of the Darién late in 1698 with about 1,200 persons. Although well received by the Indians (as was anyone not Spanish), the colonists were poorly prepared for life in the tropics with its attendant diseases. Their notion of trade goods--European clothing, wigs, and English Bibles--was of little interest to the Indians. These colonists gave up after six months, unknowingly passing at sea reinforcements totaling another 1,600 people. The Spanish reacted to these new arrivals by establishing a blockade from the sea. The English capitulated and left in April 1700, having lost many lives, mostly from malnutrition and disease. In Spain Bourbon kings replaced the Hapsburgs in 1700, and some liberalization of trade was introduced. These measures were too late for Panama, however. Spain's desperate efforts to maintain its colonial trade monopoly had been self-defeating. Cheaper goods supplied by England, France, and the Netherlands were welcomed by colonial officials and private traders alike. Dealing in contraband increased to the detriment of official trade. Fewer merchants came to the Portobelo feria to pay Spain's inflated prices because the foreign suppliers furnished cheaper goods at any port at which they could slip by or bribe the coastal guards. The situation worsened; only five of the previously annual fleets were dispatched to Latin America between 1715 and 1736, a circumstance that increased contraband operations. Panama's temporary loss of its independent audiencia, from 1718 to 1722, and the country's attachment to the Viceroyalty of Peru were probably engineered by powerful Peruvian merchants. They resented the venality of Panamanian officials and their ineffectiveness in suppressing the pirates (outlaws of no flag, as distinct from the buccaneers of the seventeenth century). Panama's weakness was further shown by its inability to protect itself against an invasion by the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua, who attacked from Laguna de Chiriquí. Another Indian uprising in the valley of the Río Tuira caused the whites to abandon the Darién. The final blow to Panama's shrinking control of the transit trade between Latin America and Spain came before the mid-eighteenth century. As a provision of the Treaty of Utrecht at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, Britain secured the right to supply African slaves to the Spanish colonies (4,800 a year for 30 years) and also to send 1 ship a year to Portobelo. The slave trade provision evidently satisfied both countries, but the trade in goods did not. Smuggling by British ships continued, and a highly organized contraband trade based in Jamaica -- with the collusion of Panamanian merchants-- nearly wiped out the legal trade. By 1739 the importance of the isthmus to Spain had seriously declined; Spain again suppressed Panama's autonomy by making the region part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (encompassing present-day Colombia, Venezula, Ecuador, and Panama). In the same year, war broke out between Britain and Spain.     A British military force took Portobelo and destroyed it. Panamanian historians maintain that this attack diverted Spanish trade from the trans-isthmian route. The Seville-Cádiz monopoly of colonial trade had been breached by royal decrees earlier in the century, and precedent was thus furnished for the merchants of the Latin American colonies to agitate for direct trade with Spain and for intercolonial trade. After 1740 the Pacific coast ports were permitted to trade directly via ships rounding Cape Horn, and the Portobelo feria was never held again. Panama's economic decline Relaxing the trading laws benefited both Spanish America and Spain, but Panama's economic decline was serious. Transit trade had for so long furnished the profits on which Panama had flourished that there had been no incentive to develop any other economic base. After the suppression of its audiencia in 1751, Panama became a quiet backwater, a geographically isolated appendage of New Granada, scarcely self-supporting even in food and producing little for export. Independence from Spain Lacking communication except by sea, which the Spanish generally controlled, Panama remained aloof from the early efforts of the Spanish colonies to separate from Spain. Revolutionaries of other colonies, however, did not hesitate to use Panama's strategic potential as a pawn in revolutionary maneuvers. General Francisco Miranda of Venezuela, who had been attracting support for revolutionary activities as early as 1797, offered a canal concession to Britain in return for aid. Thomas Jefferson, while minister to France, also showed interest in a canal, but the isolationist policies of the new United States and the absorption of energies and capital in continental expansion prevented serious consideration. Patriots from Cartagena attempted to take Portobelo in 1814 and again in 1819, and a naval effort from liberated Chile succeeded in capturing the island of Taboga in the Bay of Panama. Panama's first act of separation from Spain came without violence. When Simón Bolívar's victory at Boyacá on August 7, 1819, clinched the liberation of New Granada, the Spanish viceroy fled Colombia for Panama, where he ruled harshly until his death in 1821. His replacement in Panama, a liberal constitutionalist, permitted a free press and the formation of patriotic associations. Raising troops locally, he soon sailed for Ecuador, leaving a native Panamanian, Colonel Edwin Fábrega, as acting governor. Panama City immediately initiated plans to declare independence, but the city of Los Santos preempted the move by proclaiming freedom from Spain on November 10, 1821. This act precipitated a meeting in Panama City on November 28, which is celebrated as the official date of independence. Considerable discussion followed as to whether Panama should remain part of Colombia (then comprising both the present-day country and Venezuela) or unite with Peru. The bishop of Panama, a native Peruvian who realized the commercial ties that could be developed with his country, argued for the latter solution but was voted down. A third possible course of action, a union with Mexico proposed by emissaries of that country, was rejected.   Panama thus became part of Colombia, then governed under the 1821 Constitution of Cúcuta, and was designated a department with two provinces, Panamá and Veraguas. With the addition of Ecuador to the liberated area, the whole country became known as Gran Colombia. Panama sent a force of 700 men to join Bolívar in Peru, where the war of liberation continued. The termination of hostilities against the royalists in 1824 failed to bring tranquillity to Gran Colombia. The constitution that Bolívar had drafted for Bolivia was put forward by him to be adopted in Gran Colombia. The country was divided principally over the proposal that a president would serve for life. The president would not be responsible to the legislature and would have power to select his vice president. Other provisions, generally centralist in their tendencies, were repugnant to some, while a few desired a monarchy. Panama escaped armed violence over the constitutional question but joined other regions in petitioning Bolívar to assume dictatorial powers until a convention could meet. Panama announced its union with Gran Colombia as a "Hanseatic State," i.e., as an autonomous area with special trading privileges until the convention was held. Simon Bolívar In 1826 Bolívar honored Panama when he chose it as the site for a congress of the recently liberated Spanish colonies. Many leaders of the revolutions in Latin America considered the establishment of a single government for the former Spanish colonies the natural follow-up to driving out the peninsulares. Both José de San Martin and Miranda proposed creating a single vast monarchy ruled by an emperor descended from the Incas. Bolívar, however, was the one who made the most serious attempt to unite the Spanish American republics. Although the league or confederation envisioned by Bolívar was to foster the blessings of liberty and justice, a primary purpose was to secure the independence of the former colonies from renewed attacks by Spain and its allies. In this endeavor Bolívar sought Britain's protection. He was reluctant to invite representatives of the United States, even as observers, to the congress of plenipotentiaries lest their collaboration compromise the league's position with the British. Furthermore, Bolívar felt that the neutrality of the United States in the war between Spain and its former colonies would make its representation inappropriate. In addition, slavery in the United States would be an obstacle in discussing the abolition of the African slave trade. Bolívar nevertheless acquiesced when the governments of Colombia, Mexico, and Central America (see Glossary) invited the United States to send observers. Despite the sweeping implications of the Monroe Doctrine, President John Quincy Adams--in deciding to send delegates to the Panama conference--was not disposed to obligate the United States to defend its southern neighbors. Adams instructed his delegates to refrain from participating in deliberations concerning regional security and to emphasize discussions of maritime neutrality and commerce. Nevertheless, many members of the United States Congress opposed participation under any conditions. By the time participation was approved, the delegation had no time to reach the conference. The British and Dutch sent unofficial representatives. The Congress of Panama, which convened in June and adjourned in July of 1826, was attended by four American states--Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Peru. The "Treaty of Union, League, and Perpetual Confederation" drawn up at that congress would have bound all parties to mutual defense and to the peaceful settlement of disputes. Furthermore, because some feared that monarchical elements sympathetic to Spain and its allies might regain control of one of the new republics, the treaty included a provision that if a member state substantially changed its form of government, it would be excluded from the confederation and could be readmitted only with the unanimous consent of all other members. The treaty was ratified only by Colombia and never became effective. Bolívar, having made several futile attempts to establish lesser federations, declared shortly before his death in 1830 that "America is ungovernable; those who served the revolution have plowed the sea." Despite his disillusion, however, he did not see United States protection as a substitute for collective security arrangements among the Spanish-speaking states. In fact, he is credited with having said, "The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of Liberty." Three abortive attempts to separate the isthmus from Colombia occurred between 1830 and 1840. The first was undertaken by an acting governor of Panama who opposed the policies of the president, but the Panamanian leader reincorporated the department of Panama at the urging of Bolívar, then on his deathbed. The second attempted separation was the scheme of an unpopular dictator, who was soon deposed and executed. The third secession, a response to civil war in Colombia, was declared by a popular assembly, but reintegration took place a year later. A Fortyniner "The eastern sky is blushing red, The distant hill-top glowing, The river o'er its rocky bed In idle frolic flowing. 'Tis time the pic-axe and the spade Against the rocks were ringing, And with ourselves the golden stream A song of labor singing. --J Swett. 1857 The California Gold Rush and the Railroad Even before the United States acquired California after the Mexican War (1846-48), many heading for California used the isthmus crossing in preference to the long and dangerous wagon route across the vast plains and rugged mountain ranges. Discovery of gold in 1848 increased traffic greatly. In 1847 a group of New York financiers organized the Panama Railroad Company. This company secured an exclusive concession from Colombia allowing construction of a crossing, which might be by road, rail, river, or a combination. After surveys, a railroad was chosen, and a new contract so specifying was obtained in 1850. The railroad track followed generally the line of the present canal. The first through train from the Atlantic to the Pacific side ran on the completed track on January 28,1855. The gold rush traffic, even before the completion of the railroad, restored Panama's prosperity. Between 1848 and 1869, about 375,000 persons crossed the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 225,000 crossed in the opposite direction. Prices for food and services were greatly inflated, producing enormous profits from meals and lodging. The railroad also created a new city and port at the Atlantic terminus of the line. The town that immediately sprang up to accommodate the railroad offices, warehouses, docks, and shops and to lodge both railroad workers and passengers soon became, and remains, the second largest in the country. United States citizens named it Aspinwall, after one of the founders of the Panama Railroad Company, but the Panamanians christened it Colón, in honor of Columbus. Both names were used for many years, but because the Panamanians insisted that no such place as Aspinwall existed and refused to deliver mail so addressed, the name Colón prevailed. The Watermelon War The gold rush and the railroad also brought the United States "Wild West" to the isthmus. The forty-niners tended to be an unruly lot, usually bored as they waited for a ship to California, frequently drunk, and often armed. Many also displayed prejudice verging on contempt for other races and cultures. The so-called Watermelon War of 1856, in which at least sixteen persons were killed, was the most serious clash of races and cultures of the period. In 1869 the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States. This development reduced passenger and freight traffic across the isthmus and diminished the amount of gold and silver shipped east. During the height of the gold rush, however, from 1855 to 1858, only one-tenth of the ordinary commercial freight was destined for or originated in California. The balance concerned trade of the North Americans with Europe and Asia. The railroad company, because of its exceptionally high return on a capitalization that never exceeded US$7 million, paid a total of nearly US$38 million in dividends between 1853 and 1905. Panama received US$25,000 from Colombia's annuity and benefited from transient trade and some inflow of capital. Continue to:History of the Panama Railroad   Home | History | Maps | Picture Galleries | Amazing Facts | Panama Railroad Travelogues | | Quotes | Present | Future | Links | Credits | Site-map | News |