Panama Canal Document Based Question

Directions:

Examine the following documents and come up with positive and negative effects of the Panama Canal. Write a well-planned essay.

Document 1

Teddy Roosevelt Courtesy of the Theodore Roosevelt Center

Document 2• A treaty ratified by the Senate February 23, and proclaimed February

26, 1904. • ARTICLE I• The United States guarantees and will maintain the independence of the

Republic of Panama. • ARTICLE II• The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use,

occupation and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of said Canal…

• ARTICLE III• The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power

and authority … which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory...

• ARTICLE V• The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity a

monopoly for the construction, maintenance and operation of any system of communication by means of canal or railroad across its territory between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean…

Source: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/panama/pan001.htm

Document 3

1905 Fumigation Car Source: http://www.canalmuseum.com/photos/panamacanalphoto006.htm

Document 4• A statement by Rafael Reyes, who served as a General in the

Colombian military before being elected president of Colombia in 1904.

• Panama has become independent, has organized a government, has induced a few powers to prematurely recognize her sovereignty, has usurped rights which do not belong to her in any case, and has ignored the debts, which weigh heavily upon Columbia…because the government of the United States has desired it; because, with its incomparably superior force, the United States has prevented the landing of Colombian troops destined to reestablish order after our having exhausted every possible means of friendly understanding… …the United States has not respected our rights in that strip of land which Columbia considers as a divine bequest for the innocent use of the American family of States; and, finally, because the Government of the United States, invoking and putting into practice the right of might, has taken from us by bloodless conquest-but by conquest, nevertheless-the most important part of national territory…

Source: http://www.c-span.org/classroom/pov/povlp_sheridan.asp#I