The panama canal

Sonia Maria’s Daily

The Panamanian Canal
Reason for the event?
Since the United States began to feel an upcoming conflict with Spain, we were prepared to go to war. They decided to send the USS Oregon from California to Cuba only there was one issue.. The voyage would take over 60 days and 14000 miles to land on Cuba. Not only that but in this process the USS Oregon had to stop in South America multiple times to fuel up on coal. At this point the U.S new it was time for a change. They found a way to cut their voyage nearly in half by making a canal that connected the Atlantic to the Pacific. This makes transporting goods, and essential supplies a much quicker process.

Incidents leading up to the event...
The French were really the masterminds behind this constructions. They started the entire process towards making the canal but in the process, they ran into some issues and went bankrupt. Later on the U.S decided to pick up were the French left off. After getting everything approved in the U.S, Colombia denied us of any right to the property on which the construction was being done. This led up to the Panamanian people rebelling and winning their independence. This now allowed the U.S to finally get a start on completing the canal.

What occurred during the construction?
The construction finally began in 1904 with over 40,000 workers on the construction site. These workers had to deal with not only jungle weather but as well as all the dangerous jungle wildlife there was out there. There was very high temperature, unstable land, and very frequent rain. Sometimes if would rain so often that the river would flood; making construction very difficult. Therefore they built a dam to help with the over flow of water and this defiantly but them back on track with the construction. Despite the numerous accounts for trying to make work conditions safer, over 5,000 workers died due to diseases and accidents on the job.

Results of the Canal…
The construction of the canal cost America over $375 million dollars, only now their voyage was only 40 miles to their destination. They cut the trip by 8,000 miles which is more than half of wat it would have been before. This canal helped the U.S move about much quicker and we had the full support of Latin America. Although in 1914 (official opening) the canal was guarded by the U.S military, it now belongs to the Panamanians but is still used as a trade route for the U.S.