Tag: Columbia

On a Canal

Ferdinand de Lesseps is a name you don’t recognize most likely, but you definitely know his work and his impact on the world. de Lesseps was a French diplomat and civil servant who led the French organization that built the Suez Canal in the 1800s. The canal was a modern phenomenon at the time since the desire for a connection by sea from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea is as old as history. Over the millennia, many civilizations tried but failed to cut a channel between Africa and Asia, and it was mostly the organizational work of de Lesseps that accomplished what no one else had been able to do. As a result, the man became a major hero to the French Republic and an international celebrity.

Thus, it made perfect sense for him to be the one to lead the next effort to build an important canal, this time across Central America. Such a canal would connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. If built, the channel would save over 8,000 miles of sea travel by saving ship traffic from having to go all the way around the tip of South America to get to the other side. The potential savings of time and money were astronomical. All that de Lesseps had to do was to carve a ditch of about 50 miles across one of the most narrow points in Central America, across the isthmus of Panama.

It was with great fanfare, therefore, that the great canal builder de Lesseps was on hand in Panama to be the one to turn the first shovel of dirt, symbolizing the start of work on the project when construction began. But conditions in building the canal in Panama were remarkably different than those in the Suez. To start with, the construction was met with what seemed like insurmountable difficulties. Their equipment was good and modern, but it was mostly too small to do the task. One excavator said it was like digging a well with a teaspoon. The equipment would have been fine for the sands of the Suez, but, faced with the rock and mud of the Panamanian jungle, the machines bogged down quickly. There were landslides because of the rainy season when water poured down the hillsides of the construction sites. And when it wasn’t raining, it was scorchingly hot.

And then there were the tropical diseases, specifically the twin evils of yellow fever and malaria. Remember that this was in the late 1800s, in the period before vaccines and any types of proper treatment of scourges. Yet, despite these impediments and setbacks, the effort eventually removed more than 75 million cubic yards of dirt and rock. de Lesseps visited the construction sites and encouraged the workers that they were making good progress and that their efforts would be remembered forever in history.

de Lesseps local guide and on-site project manager was a man named Philippe Bunau-Varilla. Bunau-Varilla would become the most important Panamanian involved in building the canal. He was the one who organized the local workers and made all the arrangements for the logistical necessities like food, shelter, and facilities. And he was the mediator between the local/federal authorities in Columbia (who owned the land at the time )and the foreigners who were financing and overseeing the process of building the canal. Importantly, and unlike de Lesseps, Bunau-Varilla was an engineer. He disagreed with de Lesseps’s concept of making the canal a sea-level project rather than using locks. He understood that locks meant more cost but, ultimately, a much more simple process and a faster construction time.

By 1902, the work done by de Lesseps had produced the basic framework and route for the canal. However, because of the sicknesses of the location as well as construction accidents, over 20,000 workers had lost their lives in the effort. Investment money had dried up. Interest had waned in the work. It needed fresh eyes and a new perspective. And, by then, the aged Ferdinand de Lesseps had died. An offer from another investor came in, an offer to purchase all the equipment and the rights to complete the project. After almost no deliberation, the organization accepted the offer and sold out. This new investor then completed the canal in short order, using Bunau-Varilla’s idea for locks.

And who was that new investor?

Of course, it was President Teddy Roosevelt and the United States Treasury Department.

On The Liberator

Ok, there’s no catch here and no surprise ending–this post is about Simon Bolivar, the South American liberator and “founding father” of much of that continent. To dismiss or pigeon-hole him as South America’s version of George Washington doesn’t do the man justice. He is largely responsible for the freeing of most of Spain’s colonies in that continent from Madrid’s control. And that almost-constant war against Spanish colonialism framed most of the man’s 47 years on earth. He won victory after victory against the Spanish, and paved the way for the eventual independence of many modern nations.

How many people can say that they were the president of not only one, not only two, but three different nations? Yes, at one time, Bolivar was the chief executive of Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia.

At the same time.

Bolivar was a disciple of the humanist Enlightenment philosophers who believed in the essential rights of men. While his ideas met strong resistance in most quarters, it seems that he was for the removal of the system of slavery in all of South America. His detractors said that this position wasn’t without a selfish reason; Bolivar needed soldiers to fight the Spanish, and he was happy to take newly liberated slaves into his ranks. To be fair, for his time, Bolivar was remarkably progressive in his treatment of other races, a trait that was lacking in the leadership of many other democratic republics of that time (looking at you, America).

He also recognized the United States’ version of federalism as the optimal model for a united Latin American nation one day, but he was also practical enough to realize that Spanish colonial influence and the political and social organization system that combined large landowners and the power of the Catholic Church made such unification almost impossible. Before he died of tuberculosis, he felt a failure for not uniting the disparate countries and cultures.

And it’s not fair to say that Bolivar accomplished all he did on his own. A confluence of several factors beyond his control certainly made his successes in getting the various Spanish colonies their independence. Among these factors were the weakening of Spain’s power in the Americas due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars as well as Britain’s threats of retaliation if Spain made too much of an effort to re-assert its dominance over the South American continent (The Monroe Doctrine said the same thing, but the infant American republic lacked the military teeth to make this stick). Besides, other important military leaders in the various areas of the continent aided him in his liberation activities including Jose de San Martin from what is now Argentina.

But it’s also not an understatement to say that Bolivar was the right man at the right time. History is often made by these confluences of person and period, timing and personality.

I’ll leave you with one more factoid. Besides the nation of Bolivia bearing his name, did you know that one other nation in South America is named after him? Yes, it’s true.

The official name of Venezuela is the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela.