Ch. 10 Section 3
The US & Latin America
Steps Taken to Build the Panama Canal Four Treaties
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850) - US and
Great Britain agreed to jointly build and
maintain a canal across Central America
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901) - the British
gave up their interest in the Central
American canal in return for the
US agreeing to keep the canal
open to all vessels at all times
Hay-Herran Treaty (1903) - proposed
agreement between Colombia and
the US to allow the US to build a
transatlantic canal in Colombia
After they rejected the treaty, President
Roosevelt considered other ways
of gaining the Isthmus of Panama,
such as seizing it by force.
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903) agreement that gave the US a 99 year
lease to build a canal on a 10-mile wide
strip of land across the Isthmus of Panama
With this treaty the US was finally
ready to build the Panama Canal
BUILDING THE PANAMA CANAL
Building the canal proved to be very
dangerous
The first obstacle to overcome was
tropical diseases like malaria and
yellow fever
Much of the canal had to be blasted out of
solid rock with explosives
Some 6,000 lives were lost building
the canal
The Panama Canal was opened on
August 15, 1914 (11 years after signing
the treaty to build it) at a cost of
$375 million
The canal became a “highway between
the oceans”
Changes in Latin America
President James Monroe warned other
nations not to colonize or otherwise
interfere in the Western
Hemisphere
in the Monroe Doctrine (1823)
US began to become
more involved in
Latin American affairs
in the early 1900s
Roosevelt issued the Roosevelt Corollary
(1904) to the Monroe Doctrine making the
US the "police officer" of the Western
Hemisphere
Ways of Taft & Wilson
Taft used dollar diplomacy. Dollar
diplomacy was Taft's plan of influencing
Latin American governments through
economic rather than military intervention
Wilson believed that the US had a moral
obligation to promote democracy in Latin
America. He wanted to protect US
interests in the area by backing a
democratic government.
Wilson sent more troops into Latin
America than any president before him
(including sending US military troops
to intervene in Haiti and the
Dominican Republic where
revolts broke out)