The Thousand Days War
The Thousand Days War (1899–1902) was one of the many armed struggles between the Liberal and Conservative Parties which devastated Colombia and Panama during the 19th century. This last civil war ended with the signature of the "Treaty of Wisconsin". However, the Liberal leader Victoriano Lorenzo refused to accept the terms of the agreement and was executed on May 15, 1903.
On July 25, 1903, the headquarters of the Panamanian newspaper "El Lápiz" were assaulted by orders of the military commander for Panama General José Vásquez Cobo, brother of the then Colombian Minister of War, as a retaliation for the publication of a detailed article narrating the execution and protests in Panama. This event damaged the trust of Panamanian liberals in the Conservative government based in Bogotá, and they later joined the separatist movement.
In 1903, the United States and Colombia signed the Hay-Herran Treaty to finalize the construction of the Panama Canal but the process was not achieved because the Colombian congress rejected the measure (which Colombia had proposed) on August 12, 1903. The United States then moved to support the separatist movement in Panama to gain control over the remnants of the French attempt at building a canal.
Read more about this topic: Separation Of Panama From Colombia
Famous quotes containing the words thousand, days and/or war:
“To kill ten thousand of the enemy you will lose three thousand of your own.”
—Chinese proverb.
“She has not grown uncivil
As narrow natures would
And called the pleasures evil
Happier days thought good....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Soldier, there is a war between the mind
And sky, between thought and day and night. It is
For that the poet is always in the sun,
Patches the moon together in his room
To his Virgilian cadences, up down,
Up down. It is a war that never ends.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)