Panama, U.S. Military Involvement in
Panama, U.S. Military Involvement in.U.S. military involvement in Panama began even before the Central American nation won its independence from Colombia in 1903. With the 1846 Bidlack‐Mallarino Treaty, the United States agreed to defend Colombia's rule over Panama in exchange for the rights of free transit across the isthmus. In order to uphold the treaty and to protect American interests in the region, U.S. forces landed in Panama as many as ten times before the turn of the century. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland dispatched more than 1,000 Marines and sailors to put down a nationalist uprising, thus launching the largest U.S. expeditionary force since the Mexican War. The other interventions were usually smaller affairs, but their frequency as well as the regular presence of the U.S. Navy in Panamanian waters were harbingers of what would come in the next century.
American military and naval leaders had long dreamed...
[The entire page is 932 words long]
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