[The Hispanic Nations of the New World by William R. Shepherd]@TWC D-Link bookThe Hispanic Nations of the New World CHAPTER IX 21/31
Paper money, issued in unlimited amounts and given a forced circulation, made the distress still more acute.
Then came the hardest blow of all.
Since 1830 Panama, as province or state, had tried many times to secede from Colombia.
In 1903 the opportunity it sought became altogether favorable. The parent nation, just beginning to recover from the disasters of civil strife, would probably be unable to prevent a new attempt at withdrawal. The people of Panama, of course, knew how eager the United States was to acquire the region of the proposed Canal Zone, since it had failed to win it by negotiation with Colombia.
Accordingly, if they were to start a "revolution," they had reason to believe that it would not lack support--or at least, connivance--from that quarter. On the 3d of November the projected "revolution" occurred, on schedule time, and the United States recognized the independence of the "Republic of Panama" three days later! In return for a guarantee of independence, however, the United States stipulated, in the convention concluded on the 18th of November, that, besides authority to enforce sanitary regulations in the Canal Zone, it should also have the right of intervention to maintain order in the republic itself.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|