by Julie Greene
These frictions were indicative of the complex relationship between Panamanians and Americans. Panamanian elites wanted and needed the presence of the United States and its canal construction project, seeing it as a path to modernity and civilization. Yet the American project did not bring the benefits Panamanians had hoped for, and the crowds of Americans flooding into the city streets of Panama often seemed uncivilized and disorderly. In the years after canal construction began, the Panamanian police were often instructed to restore order in Cocoa Grove when violence broke out, using their authority as representatives of the Republic of Panama to calm the behavior of American canal employees, Zone policemen, soldiers, and marines enjoying their off-duty leisure time. Yet when disturbances emerged in Panama City or Colón, when the working masses of Panama made demands, rioted, or went on strike, or when elections caused social disorder, those same American soldiers, marines, or Zone policemen marched in to preserve the power of Panamanian elites. Each side, in short, needed the other, and each side felt disdain for the other.
THE TEMPEST OF PANAMANIAN POLITICS
During the decade of canal construction from 1904 to 1914, Panamanian politics was tempestuous, as conservatives and liberals struggled for control over the government. Conservatives worked to maintain their power as they faced a crescendo of critiques and opposition by liberals and nationalists. Amid the turmoil, however, three themes remained constant: no group reached out effectively to the urban working classes, most of them people of color; the police grew increasingly important for shoring up the regime in power; and Panamanian politics was bound up with the United States in ways that challenged the republic’s independence and caused increasing bitterness.
The first president of the Republic of Panama, Manuel Amador Guerrero, recommended to the United States just as his tenure began in 1904that the Panamanian army be disbanded. A member of the Conservative Party, Amador portrayed the army as beholden to the Liberal forces in his country and requested that the U.S. military and an armed Panamanian police force take the place of the military. Later that year, in the autumn of 1904, an army general demanded resignations of two people in Amador’s government, and U.S. officials feared a coup was looming, so they took action. American soldiers entered Panama City, surrounded the presidential palace, and protected Amador as he disbanded the army. This allowed Amador to solidify his tie with the United States and weaken his opposition. Next Amador took steps to strengthen the Panamanian police and turn the force into a loyal band supporting his rule. He created a national guard as the nation’s police force, invited the New York City police officer Samuel David to Panama to develop “scientific instruction” for them, and then began using the police to suppress popular unrest and intimidate voters on election day. By 1906the police had become a “band of armed partisan supporters,” enforcing the political wishes of Conservatives. During elections the police were known to vote repeatedly and to protect other Conservatives as they voted repeatedly. Meanwhile, the police served also as the sole defenders of their nation’s dignity and security and as the group responsible for maintaining law and order. Their diverse functions sometimes collided with one another, placed them in constant conflict with U.S. citizens and Zone policemen, and made them feared by many canal employees—especially those who lived in Panama. This began the process that, by the 1940s, would make the police a dominant force in the affairs of a fragmented Panamanian nation.22
The police became well known for their aggressive and sometimes brutal tactics, and elites regularly relied on them to suppress strikes or riots by working-class Panamanians and to intimidate voters on election day. From the perspective of U.S. officials, the repeated episodes in which the police used heavy-handed tactics against Americans or non-American canal employees were particularly problematic. During the early years of construction the ICC was “embarrassed” by the “daily or hourly” conflicts over territorial jurisdiction that broke out between Panamanian and Zone policemen. Such difficulties decreased but never disappeared, and American and non-American canal employees came to regard Panamanian policemen with suspicion and fear. Over the years Panamanian police were alleged several times to have beaten West Indian canal employees. Of even greater concern to ICC officials was a pattern of violence committed by Panamanian police against U.S. citizens. In June 1906several U.S. marines and a Navy man were arrested and mistreated by the Panamanian police. On Christmas in 1906a riot broke out in Colón between Panamanian police and American canal workers. In another incident that same year, Zone policemen, themselves not unwilling to use force when they felt it necessary, seemed shocked when they watched three Panamanian police chase an escaped Panamanian prisoner into the Zone and beat him with clubs and a board. Drunk and exhausted from running, he offered no resistance. The Panamanian police hid their badges before beginning to beat the man, knowing that they were violating their own government’s procedures. The three policemen were arrested and put on trial for beating the man and for invading foreign soil. The Canal Zone district court found them guilty and fined each policeman $ 25.23
When Panamanian police manhandled a U.S. citizen, American officials reacted heatedly and, it occurred to many, insultingly. The British consul reported to his Foreign Office that in 1907several U.S. naval officers had entered a brothel in Colón, gotten drunk, and caused a disturbance. They had been arrested by the Panamanian police, and although they were clearly in the wrong, the Panamanian chief of police “was made the scapegoat and was dismissed to appease the wrath of American citizens in the Canal Zone who considered that officers in uniform should be immune from arrest even if they break the laws in a foreign country.” In 1908a fight in a Colón brothel ended with an American sailor stabbed by a Panamanian. The sailor died, and a U.S. investiga-
tion claimed that the Panamanian police had treated him poorly, not providing medical attention or even water in the three hours between the stabbing and his death. U.S. secretary of state Elihu Root sent a note to the president of Panama that, the British consul reported to his superiors, “is rude and insulting, and a warning has been given that the illtreatment of Americans by the Panama police will not be tolerated again.” Back in London, a British official watching relations between the United States and Panama deteriorate commented: “Incidents of this kind are not calculated to increase the popularity of the United States in Central America.”24
In 1908a broad coalition emerged in Panamanian politics that united landowners and wealthy merchants with foreign investors and middle-class merchants. Hoping to profit from the canal project, this coalition rose to power and elected José Domingo de Obaldía to the presidency. However, although Obaldía invited some Liberals into his government, his policies struck many Panamanians as too conservative and pro-American. Indeed, U.S. officials visibly demonstrated their close alliance with his administration. Goethals’s personal investigator noted unhappily after the election that George Shanton, the chief of the Canal Zone police, had ridden his horse in the post-election parade at the lead of the pro-Obaldía forces. Obaldía alienated nationalists and many middle-class citizens, and he angered urban workers by refusing to improve their living conditions and by using the police to suppress strikes.25
Obaldía’s unpopular presidency ended when he died unexpectedly in 1910. He was succeeded by Carlos Mendoza, a Liberal mulatto, whose politics and race provoked a crisis in Panamanian politics and in U.S.-Panamanian relations. Mendoza was said to have black Panamanians as his base of support, wrote Richard Marsh, a junior diplomatic officer representing the United States, and they are “mostly ignorant and irresponsible, unable to meet the serious obligations of citizenship in a Republic.” President Taft, it was said, disliked Mendoza and did not want to see any other Liberal replace him. This was explosive news, suggesting that the United States would not allow Liberals to attain power. The United States pressured Mendoza to resign, and the British consul reported warily: “If that happens, his frien
ds—and he is very popular with the masses—will become very excited, but as four American cruisers are timed to arrive in the Bay when the Assembly meets, and there is a strong military contingent in the Canal Zone, it is unlikely there will be any disturbance of public order.”26
In the end, Richard Marsh secured Mendoza’s resignation by threatening that the U.S. military would occupy and annex his country. Taft and Goethals distanced themselves from Marsh at this point, with Taft declaring, “We have such control in Panama, that no Government elected by them will feel a desire to antagonise the American Government.” British diplomats watched the U.S. missteps with stifled amusement. Most of them believed that Marsh had acted on orders from his superiors, and one noted, “This shows how the U.S.G. treat a ‘sister Republic.’” Another commented, “The sequence of events constitute a chapter of the most extraordinary acts of diplomatic bungling ever perpetrated in the Latin American Republics by U.S. officials.”27
After Mendoza resigned, the United States placed Pablo Arosemena in the presidency but also, as a significant compromise, allowed the well-known nationalist Belisario Porras to become Panama’s minister to the United States, with the idea that he would be the Liberal candidate for the presidency in 1912. A leader of Panama’s Liberal forces in the Guerra de los Mil Días (the Colombian war of 1899to 1902in which Liberals rebelled against the Conservative national government), Porras had opposed the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty on the grounds that it compromised Panama’s sovereignty. Because of this, President Amador had stripped Porras of his citizenship, forcing him to leave the country, which only reinforced his identity as the nation’s leading nationalist. While his leadership over the Liberal and nationalist factions was unrivaled and he possessed strong working-class support, Porras remained the enemy of Conservatives.28
The election of 1912thus emerged as a crucial contest. President Arosemena, originally intended to serve in office only until the next election, decided he enjoyed the position. Although he personally could not run for reelection, he worked to hold on to power by electing his allies. Conservatives nominated a fairly unknown Pedro Díaz and formed a coalition to oppose Porras for the presidency, attempting to discredit the nationalist by accusing him of treason.29 The United States had been involved in Panamanian politics since the republic’s founding—in 1904, for example, it had sent three hundred marines to Panama City and an express shipment of rifles and ammunition to arm the Panamanian police, all in order to help the Conservative candidate Amador win the election. In 1908the United States had forced President Amador to create the Electoral Inquiry Commission, which was dominated by representatives of the United States and which placed Americans in every election district to observe voting and watch for evidence of fraud.30
In the 1910crisis over Mendoza, the United States had helped create tensions and rising nationalism that would make the election of 1912extremely bitter and sometimes violent. Ironically, U.S. officials had by the campaign season of 1912reconciled themselves to the idea of Liberal rule and so worked to ensure a fair election, even though this would mean victory for the Liberal Porras. As a result of these shifting political winds, it was Panamanian Conservatives, especially those organized into the Patriotic Union, who opposed the U.S. role and who became the voice of injured Panamanian nationalism. As in 1908, the United States created an Electoral Inquiry Commission to investigate complaints and observe the voting and counting of ballots. Goethals personally asked the government to postpone its scheduled plan to move half of the marines off the isthmus, and they and members of the Tenth Infantry Regiment fanned out through the country to safeguard the voting.
Meanwhile, Conservative opponents of Porras secretly purchased a supply of rifles from the U.S. War Department, but American election supervisors discovered the rifles. They ordered the disarmament of the Panamanian police and put the entire police force under their own command, sending U.S. Canal Zone police into Panama City to maintain order. Panamanian government officials charged that the United States was sympathizing with Porras and engaging in corrupt activities. Panamanian leaders also took the step of forbidding the right to vote to their police, which caused great resentment. The British consul reported that relations between the parties were “intensely bitter.” Recounting innumerable acts of brutality and lawlessness by Conservatives, the consul concluded, “Never, not even in the worst days of the Colombian regime, has such animosity been in evidence as is shown by some of the officials towards their opponents.”31
With no armed police to enforce a Conservative victory, the Liberal candidate, Belisario Porras, won the municipal elections on July 1, 1912. This meant that Porras would also win the national election to be held two weeks later. Indeed, his Conservative opponent soon withdrew from the election, leaving Porras the unopposed victor, while the Patriotic Union abstained from the election and instead issued a manifesto denouncing the United States for its unfair and corrupt intervention in the election. With Porras as its first nationalist president, Panama seemed poised to assert its authority against American domination. Yet like
his predecessors, Porras owed his victory in part to the intervention of the United States. He would soon learn that the U.S. role in his election had inspired a new nationalism among Conservatives and many other Panamanians as well, and their emotions would soon manifest themselves in explosive ways, complicating his presidency.32
An account by the globe-trotter Winifred James captures how charged conditions became during the election of 1912. She arrived in Panama City on election day, July 1, and found the streets barricaded, hardly any cars on the streets, and the few cabs sitting motionless and unwilling to take her up the steep hill to the Hotel Tivoli. James witnessed a mob of people surging down the street while beating a man, his face covered in blood, and “two little Panamanian policemen who had apparently gone in higher up the Avenida to stem the torrent were being swept along in it like sticks in a mill-race.” Minutes later she watched as another crowd, this one very orderly, marched along the street. They were disciplined and restrained because “heading the procession and marshaling it on either side walked the puttee-legged, khaki-clad, Stetson-hatted Canal Zone policemen—a blessed and peaceful sight.” James’s account captures how the U.S. supervision of the election had transformed relations between the police of the two countries, the chaos and violence of the moment, and why so many Conservative supporters felt an indignant and injured pride in its aftermath.33
THE RIOTS, HONOR, AND SOVEREIGNTY
As U.S. Independence Day dawned just seventy-two hours later, American soldiers and marines were feeling triumphant about their show of force on election day. Many Panamanians remained embittered, particularly but not exclusively policemen and anyone allied with the Conservative cause. Now, as hundreds of U.S. canal employees, soldiers, and marines headed into Panama City early that morning to enjoy patriotic and athletic exercises in celebration of their nation’s independence, conditions had changed. No more Stetson-hatted Canal Zone policemen patrolled the streets—the Panamanian policemen had regained their command. Policemen who had felt humiliation upon being disarmed, disenfranchised, and placed under the supervision of U.S. officials and Zone policemen were eager to reassert their authority as the one armed force of their nation. For many other Panamanians, the U.S. supervision of the July 1 election had reinforced an already simmering anti-Americanism. In this Rashomon-like tale, the two countries constructed vastly different accounts of the events of July 4, and their struggle over the evidence, over how to distribute blame, and over compensation continued for more than three years after the riot. While much remained disputed, certain things are dramatically clear. The riot revealed a deep conflict over notions of honor, respectability, and civilization.
As the thousand or so Americans began arriving in Cocoa Grove in the early afternoon, according to testimony given to U.S. officials who investigated the incident, almost all of them had been drinking, some of t
hem “so much under the influence of drink as not to be able to walk.” The crowd amused itself by throwing “lighted fire crackers into passing carriages, saloons, and houses of prostitution,” yet the partying was no more boisterous than normal.34 According to the United States, the crowd consisted about equally of canal employees and military personnel. Many businesses closed their doors for fear of the destructive potential. After several hours, some men demanded entry into saloons and brothels that had closed. When refused, they attempted to break in the doors. If this failed, some climbed up light poles to reach the balcony, but women deterred them by emptying slop buckets over their heads. This so enraged the American soldiers, marines, and canal employees that they forced their way into bars and demanded alcohol. Meanwhile, an argument started between a Panamanian policeman and some soldiers and marines; as the disagreement escalated into a fight, a crowd rushed to the assistance of the soldiers and began beating the policeman. Other policemen came to his aid, but feeling outnumbered, they fled with the Americans in pursuit. At this point, according to the U.S. investigations, the police opened fire on the U.S. soldiers, and quickly several dozen other police arrived, along with many Panamanian civilians. The battle had now become a free-for-all, but while the soldiers and canal workers used stones, bottles, and anything else they could find as missiles, the police had weapons. According to the U.S. Army investigation, the police “lost their heads completely, and got wild and excited in their actions. They used rifles, revolvers, and clubs more than was necessary.” They moved through the area, beating in doors, shooting or bayoneting and arresting many Americans, forcing others to “take refuge” in a saloon or a house, until they had cleared the district of all of them.35 At the end of the day, twenty men had been injured, most of them U.S. citizens, and one U.S. civilian lay dead, bayoneted by a Panamanian policeman.