Today in History: The Panama Canal was placed under Panama’s control
In October 2006, Panamanian voters approved a $5,25 billion plan to double the canal’s size by 2015 to better accommodate modern ships.
On this day in 1999, the United States, in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, officially handed over control of the Panama Canal, putting the strategic waterway into Panamanian hands for the first time.
Crowds of Panamanians celebrated the transfer of the 81km canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and was officially opened when the SS Arcon sailed through on 15 August 1914.
In 1880, a French company run by the builder of the Suez Canal, started digging a canal across the Isthmus of Panama (then a part of Colombia). More than 22 000 workers died from tropical diseases such as yellow fever during this early phase of construction and the company eventually went bankrupt, selling its project rights to the United States in 1902 for $40 million.
President Theodore Roosevelt championed the canal, viewing it as important to America’s economic and military interests. In 1903, Panama declared its independence from Colombia in a US-backed revolution and the US and Panama signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, in which the US agreed to pay Panama $10 million for a perpetual lease on land for the canal, plus $250 000 annually in rent.
Over 56 000 people worked on the canal between 1904 and 1913 and over 5 600 lost their lives. When finished, the canal, which cost the US $375 million to build, was considered a great engineering marvel and represented America’s emergence as a world power.
In 1977, responding to nearly 20 years of Panamanian protest, US President Jimmy Carter and Panama’s General Omar Torrijos signed two new treaties that replaced the original 1903 agreement and called for a transfer of canal control in 1999. The treaty, narrowly ratified by the US Senate, gave America the ongoing right to defend the canal against any threats to its neutrality.
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