The Panama Files, Part 1: The Vote · Rigorous Rabbit Holes

The rabbit hole

The extra context that didn't fit in the Short. Little numbers link to the sources below.

This write-up covers Part 1 only. No spoilers for the parts that haven’t come out yet.

Why the vote was so strange

A vote of 74 to 8 sounds like a landslide. Look closer at who was in the room 9:

136 delegates were invited. 38 didn’t vote at all, and 16 abstained.
Of the 74 yes votes, only 19 came from engineers 10. Most of the room were diplomats, not engineers 10.
Only one of those 19 engineers had ever been to Central America 10.
The five delegates from France’s own engineering society? Not one voted yes. Gustave Eiffel (yes, that Eiffel) voted no 11.
Nearly half the committee walked out before the vote 12.

Critics saw the congress as a ceremony to legitimize the concession and a decision de Lesseps had already made 18. We don’t know why each person abstained or left, so we don’t guess.

The man who said “locks”

Adolphe Godin de Lépinay was chief engineer in France’s Department of Bridges and Highways 19, and the only French delegate who had ever built anything in the tropics 8. His plan: dam the river to make two big lakes, and use locks to lift ships about 80 feet up and over. And he warned that a long dig through those swamps would kill the workers 8.

His plan wasn’t really rejected. In the words of the Linda Hall Library, it was “not so much rejected as ignored” 8.

Why not Nicaragua?

Panama looks like the obvious spot: it’s the narrowest point on the map. But the map hides the hills and the river. The US Navy had surveyed several routes in the 1870s, Panama included, and in 1876 an American commission came out in favor of Nicaragua 3, 4.

One of the US surveyors, Aniceto García Menocal, came to Paris, called a sea-level canal impracticable, and abstained 15.

The 30× deal before a single shovel

Who owned the right to dig in Panama in the first place? Colombia (Panama was part of Colombia then) had granted an exclusive 99-year concession on March 20, 1878 14. It was won by Lucien Wyse, whose surveys were paid for by a private group, the Türr Syndicate 16.

In 1879 the syndicate sold its rights to de Lesseps’s brand-new public company. Its directors made more than 3,000% on their money, more than 30 times what they put in, before any digging started 13. The syndicate’s head, General István Türr, was Wyse’s brother-in-law, and he then sat on the new company’s board for seven years 16, 17.

What the record doesn’t show: whether de Lesseps himself profited from that sale. Sources disagree about his role in the syndicate, and we haven’t found one that says he made money from it, so we don’t claim it.

Why ten years after Suez?

Suez opened in 1869 1. The Panama push came in the mid-1870s, once the United States was surveying canal routes and France wanted to lead 3. In 1876 the Geographical Society of Paris formed a canal committee headed by de Lesseps 20. The surveys, the concession and the Paris congress followed.

And in between, de Lesseps married and started a family of twelve children 2.

Sources

Every claim in the Short and in this write-up, numbered, with where it comes from. Spot a mistake? Email hello@rigorousrabbitholes.com and we'll fix it in public.

Source being added marks a claim we're still attaching a source to.

The Suez Canal opened in 1869 with grand celebrations, with France's Empress Eugénie there; Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman behind it, became a national hero. Source being addedStandard history; specific citation still to be attachedIt was opened in Egypt, by the Khedive, and built by de Lesseps's French-led Suez Canal Company. The painting shown in the Short is Édouard Riou's real 1869 watercolor of the opening.
A week after Suez opened, de Lesseps, then 64, married a woman about a third his age; they had twelve children.Wikipedia: Ferdinand de Lesseps (link to come)Louise-Hélène Autard de Bragard. Their daughter Ferdinande was born in 1872.
By the late 1870s America was surveying for a canal across the Americas, and France wanted to get there first.Panama Canal Authority (Early Plans); Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Archives (link to come)President Grant ordered US Navy survey expeditions in 1869 (surveys 1870 to 1875) of Tehuantepec in Mexico, Darién, Nicaragua, and Panama along the railroad line.
A US commission came out in favor of a route through Nicaragua in 1876.Panama Canal Authority (Early Plans) (link to come)
The route across Panama crosses the continental divide and a river that floods violently.Panama Canal Authority; Linda Hall Library (link to come)The river is the Chagres.
In May 1879, 136 delegates met in Paris to decide how to build the canal, with de Lesseps presiding.Panama Canal Authority; Wikipedia (link to come)The International Congress for the Study of an Interoceanic Canal, from May 15, 1879.
The plan was to dig straight through at sea level, with no locks, like Suez.Panama Canal Authority; Linda Hall Library (link to come)
Engineer Adolphe Godin de Lépinay, the only French delegate who had built in the tropics, proposed locks and two lakes instead, and warned that a long dig through the swamps would kill the workers.Panama Canal Authority; Linda Hall Library (Panama Canal exhibit) (link to come)His plan raised ships about 80 feet with locks, behind two dams forming two big lakes. Linda Hall: it was "not so much rejected as ignored."
The vote: 74 yes, 8 no, 16 abstaining, 38 absent.Panama Canal Authority (link to come)
Of the 74 yes votes, only 19 came from engineers, and only one of those had ever been to Central America.Panama Canal Authority (link to come)Most members of the congress were diplomats, not engineers.
None of the five delegates from France's own engineering society voted yes, and neither did Gustave Eiffel.Panama Canal Authority (link to come)Eiffel voted no. Godin de Lépinay also voted no.
Nearly half the committee had walked out before the vote.Panama Canal Authority (link to come)
The men who'd won the rights from Colombia sold them to de Lesseps's new company for more than thirty times what they'd put in, before a single shovel went in.Wikipedia: Lucien Napoléon Bonaparte-Wyse; David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas (1977) (link to come)The syndicate's directors made "more than 3000 percent" on their investment.
Colombia granted the exclusive rights (the Wyse Concession) on March 20, 1878, for 99 years.Linda Hall Library; Panama Canal Authority (link to come)
Aniceto García Menocal surveyed both Nicaragua and Panama for the US Navy, called a sea-level canal impracticable, and abstained.Panama Canal Authority (Early Plans) (link to come)
The rights were bought by a private group, the Türr Syndicate, which paid for Lucien Wyse's surveys from 1876 to 1878; it sold them to de Lesseps's new public company, organized August 17, 1879.Wikipedia: Lucien Napoléon Bonaparte-Wyse; David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas (link to come)Formally the Société Civile Internationale du Canal Interocéanique de Darien, headed by General István Türr. Wyse was a director from 1875, and Türr's brother-in-law.
Türr then sat on the new public company's board from December 1880 to December 1887.Türr's 1908 obituary, via entreprises-coloniales.fr (link to come)
Critics saw the congress as a ceremony to legitimize the concession and de Lesseps's decision.Panama Canal Authority (link to come)
Godin de Lépinay was chief engineer in France's Department of Bridges and Highways.Panama Canal Authority (link to come)
In 1876 the Geographical Society of Paris formed a canal committee headed by de Lesseps.Panama Canal Authority; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Archives (link to come)