Like a lot of the Spaniards who played key roles in the conquest of the Americas, Vasco Núñez de Balboa was an opportunistic scoundrel.
He came from the ranks of minor nobles — privileged enough to dream of glory but far enough down the social and economic ladders to understand that he wouldn’t be able to achieve it in Spain. So he set off to seek his fortune in the New World in 1500, eventually settling in Hispaniola, the first major Spanish colony. Balboa tried to make something of himself as a pig farmer there, but it didn’t work out; he ended up deep in debt, avoiding arrest and bankruptcy by sneaking onto a ship headed for the mainland.
The expedition intended to help out a colony that had recently been founded in modern-day Colombia. By the time they arrived there, the colony was falling apart; Balboa helped to convince the remaining settlers, including Francisco Pizarro, to relocate further north, to a place they called Santa María de la Antigua, a small town on the Isthmus of Panama that would become the first real Spanish settlement on the American mainland.
Balboa quickly rose to the top of the small society in Santa Maria, taking advantage of disputes between various factions of colonists to become “captain general” of the colony in 1511. He conducted himself like many other Spanish conquistadors, sometimes trading with the native people of Panama and sometimes engaging in hideous cruelty against them. He was famous for using his war-dogs to intimidate people, as depicted in this 1594 woodcut:
Balboa heard from the local native people that there was another sea to the south and west, and that a wealthy civilization lay across that sea (perhaps the Inca Empire). He sent to Spain for men to help him conquer the gold-rich kingdom; the crown complied but put someone else in charge of the new force. Balboa once again took impulsive action — before 2,000 new soldiers could arrive from Spain, he took a small force south. They only had to travel a few dozen miles before arriving at the Pacific Ocean. Many of the old illustrations show Balboa wading into the water to claim the Pacific for Spain:
Balboa’s trip to the Pacific wasn’t all that impressive, I guess. He hadn’t discovered anything — he was a tourist, guided by native people who knew all about the geography of the region. And he would soon be outmaneuvered by his political enemies; he was beheaded for treason and cruelty to native people in 1519.
Like the rest of the Americas, Panama would go on to be colonized by the Spanish and, briefly and disastrously, by the Scottish. But Balboa’s trek through the jungle had demonstrated to the outside world Panama’s most valuable characteristic: it is narrow, and those who could figure out how to cross it would unlock immensely valuable shortcuts for travel and trade.
People dreamed of the Panama Canal for centuries before it became a reality. Anyone who could read a map understood that a water route across Panama would open up lucrative opportunities, but people who had actually been to the isthmus understood why this was easier said than done. Canal builders would have to contend with high elevations, thick jungles, and deadly tropical diseases. Even today, parts of the isthmus lack roads and cell service, posing terrible risks to people who try to travel through it.
After the conquest of Peru (executed by the same Francisco Pizarro who was rescued by Balboa), King Charles of Spain commissioned a survey of a possible canal route. The surveyors told him that there was no feasible path across the mountainous isthmus. Two and a half centuries later, Thomas Jefferson pressured Spain to dig a canal; again, it was deemed impossible. It wasn’t until the American gold rush in the middle of the nineteenth century that available technology and financial incentives made a canal seem like more than a pipe dream.
The first attempt to create a link between the Atlantic and Pacific across the isthmus was a railroad, built by an American company, in the 1850s. The project was treacherous — thousands of workers died as they waded through alligator-infested swamps, dealt with flooding rains, and fought off disease-carrying insects. The railroad was finally finished in 1855, although it had to be constantly rebuilt because its wood elements rotted so quickly in the steamy jungle.
Despite all this, the railroad was considered a success — it never lacked passengers or cargo looking to cross the isthmus.
The railroad’s success, along with new technology and Ferdinand de Lesseps’ success in building the Suez Canal, made a Central American canal seem possible by the late 1800s. Unfortunately, de Lesseps couldn’t succeed in Panama as he had in Egypt. He attempted to dig a canal that was entirely at sea level (making locks unnecessary), but this proved impossible. Over 20,000 workers died, mudslides undid their work, and the French government covered up the company’s financial problems. The whole enterprise imploded in 1889 amidst public trials and upheaval in the government. This contemporary political cartoon compared the enthusiasm around the canal to biblical worship of the golden calf:
The canal was abandoned less than half finished, and most of the French equipment was left to become part of the landscape:
After the French failure in Panama, there was a brief flirtation in the United States with a canal route through Nicaragua:
Political cartoonists urged William McKinley to roll up his sleeves and get to work in Nicaragua:
But in the end, the Panama route seemed like a better choice for two reasons — first, the railroad was already there; and second, the United States could more easily influence politics there.
When the Spanish left in 1821, the isthmus was made part of the new nation of Colombia. Panamanians weren’t always content to be part of Colombia — there were dozens of secession attempts during the nineteenth century — but it would take outside help to finally create the nation of Panama. In 1903, with American encouragement, Panamanian rebels declared independence. The presence of a U.S. gunboat kept Colombia from stopping the rebellion, and one of the first acts of the new Panamanian government was to turn around and sell a strip of land to the United States for the building of a canal.
The Americans’ maneuvers were anything but subtle, and political cartoons around the world mocked their blatant land grab:
The Americans deployed better equipment than the French had used in their attempt to build a canal, but the project was still a monumental task. It would take almost ten years and kill over 5,000 workers.
The most difficult section of the canal project was the so-called Culebra Cut, which dug through the highest-elevation terrain. You can see the challenge in this cross-section diagram from the official handbook of the canal:
This photo gives some sense of the enormity of the task:
As you can see in the caption of the above photo, the project was plagued by landslides. This cross-section from the handbook shows the planned width of the canal along with the eventual excavations as the walls kept collapsing on the workers:
Workers used 60 million pounds of dynamite at the Culebra Cut. This chart, compiled in 1910, gives some sense of the amount of soil and rock that was removed — and how much bigger the American effort was than the French one had been:
One obstacle to the canal-building effort was a shortage of workers. Who would want to work long hours in the tropical sun in a disease-ridden, landslide-prone environment? This cartoon “joked” that America should send its criminals to do the labor. Note the similarity to the Culebra Cut photo above, and the mosquito nets on some workers’ heads:
Another suggested that America send its “idle rich” and worthless politicians:
In reality, most of the work was done by poorly-paid immigrant laborers. The first wave of workers was from southern and eastern Europe, but many of them brought ideas about labor organizing that management didn’t want to contend with. The second wave of workers, who completed the canal, were mostly from the Caribbean.
American racial attitudes dominated the canal zone; workers were often segregated, with decent conditions for white workers:
And less luxurious quarters for everybody else:
When it finally opened in 1914, the canal was hailed as a great achievement:
I quite like this bird’s-eye-view of the completed project:
Here’s a photo of one of the first vessels to travel through the Gatun Locks:
But the grand opening was overshadowed by the beginning of World War I, which obliterated the feeling of progress that the canal had embodied.
I’ll leave you with one more cartoon about the canal (there were a lot of Panama Canal cartoons). Even before the canal had been finished, wags were speculating about the fact that this great industrial achievement would be overshadowed by another advance — the nascent aviation industry.
It didn’t quite happen this way — the Panama Canal still sees heavy use, especially after a 2016 widening that allowed it to accommodate bigger vessels. Well over 10,000 ships pass through it every year, including 40% of the United States’ container traffic.
It took five centuries, imperialist shenanigans, millions of dollars, and thousands of lives to make the Panama Canal a reality. The canal’s 50-mile crossing of the isthmus of Panama saves ships an 8,000-mile trip around South America, but it’s important for more than its logistical efficiencies. The canal played a key role in making the twentieth century a globalized one by enabling international commerce. It also helped to make the 1900s the American century, connecting the east and west coasts and helping the U.S. Navy to dominate both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Balboa must have known, as he splashed in the waters of the Pacific, that he had stumbled upon a tantalizing geographical opportunity, but he couldn’t have imagined how history would play out on the isthmus of Panama.
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Ironically, this huge enterprise has also inspired dictator Ceaușescu to initiate a similar action in Romania, the Danube - Black Sea canal; many lives were lost or shortened, many dissident intellectuals were deployed to work there, separated from families and condemned to a horrible, next to slavery condition. It's a shame how history owns such moments, even though the results are in some cases welcome.