Hi, I’m the History Guy. I have a degree in history and I love history,
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The human penchant for violence is fairly obvious when you understand that there are actual
historical events called the War of the Bucket and the War of the Stray Dog that were actually wars
that were precipitated by a fight over a bucket and a fight over a stray dog. And when you look
in the annals of war started for trivial things, you really do have to consider the 1856 Watermelon
War. And even though war is really not an appropriate title, it was really more of a riot,
the fact that a riot that size could be spurred over a five cent piece of watermelon, really
gives a good illustration of how small things can precipitate large events. And not only that but
the 1856 Watermelon War is a great illustration of an important piece of the history of American
intervention in Central and South America in the 19th century, and it deserves to be remembered.
To understand the Watermelon War you have to start by understanding the importance of the
Isthmus of Panama to American history. America acquired the territory of Alta California from
Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the end of the Mexican War in 1848. And that
seemed to fulfill America's dreams of Manifest Destiny, we were truly a bicoastal nation,
but there was a problem and that is that there was no simple way to get from the population
centers on the east coast to the new territories on the west coast. And the best way to do that
was not actually to try to cross the vast American Center, which was still wild and had very little
route of transportation, but instead to take a steamer from the east coast to Panama. Cross
Panama at its narrowest point and then take another steamer from Panama to California.
And thus the Isthmus of Panama, which was at the time part of the country of New Granada,
was strategically and economically important to the United States because it saved the
freight and passengers from having to take the difficult and dangerous route all the way
around South America to get to California. And to secure that interest, in 1846 the
United States signed a treaty with New Granada which was called the Bidlack-Mallarino treaty.
New Granada, which included at the time both the modern-day countries of Colombia and Panama,
interests in signing this treaty was to protect their claims to the area that's called Panama.
It was a restive little republic, there were frequent rebellions and the government was
afraid that some European power would realize the economic importance of the territory of
Panama and so it would involve themselves in one of these rebellions in order to take Panama
away. US interests were represented by the US Minister to Panama, a man named Benjamin Bidlack,
and essentially what the treaty did is it granted America transit rights across the Isthmus,
and in exchange, we recognize new Grenada's claim to the territory of Panama, and we promise to use
US military force to guarantee the neutrality of the Isthmus of Panama. What this was really
intending to do was to use the threat of US military force to prevent European powers from
involving themselves in the internal affairs of New Granada. But in practice what it ended up
doing was giving the United States an excuse to use the threat of US military force to involve
ourselves in the internal affairs of New Granada. And in 1847 Congress first voted to subsidize a
mail steamer route which would carry US mail from the east coast to the Atlantic coast of Panama,
and pick up that mail on the Pacific coast with a different steamer and carry that to San Francisco.
But a crossing across Panama at the time was not exactly easy. The Panamanian rainforest receives
an average of a 130 inches of rain a year, and so traveling across the Isthmus of Panama,
even at its narrowest point, included a dangerous and risky ride in a native dugout canoe, up the
unpredictable Chagres River, and then a long ride on a mule train through disease-infested jungles,
often on washed out roads. And the entire path was frequented by bandits who would rob the travelers
and disappear off into the rainforest. The obvious answer was to build a railroad across Panama,
and as early as the 1820s, engineering studies were done to see if that was
possible. And it really seemed like it wasn't. The terrain, jungles and forests and mountains,
was simply not conducive to trying to build railways. But the economic potential was so
vast that an American company, between 1849 and 1855, managed to build the Transoceanic Panama
Railway. At the time, the astronomical cost of three million dollars. It was a marvel of
engineering to build across all that terrain but it was extremely dangerous, and it was fraught
with disease and as many as 10,000 workers died building the Panama Railway. And those bandits
we talked about, who were called the darieny, plagued the construction of the railway. They
were constantly robbing the railway workers, and so finally the railway company hired a former
Texas Rangers name was Randolph Runnels, and with the tacit approval of both the New Granada and
the American government he took a bunch of railway agents and he tracked down captured
and publicly hung the bandits and thus he earned the terrifying nickname El Verdugo, The Hangman.
With the new railway you could cross Panama by train in just about five hours. And on April 15th
1856, a group of about a thousand passengers, most of them Americans, were taking that route.
They were dropped off on the Atlantic coast by the mail steamer USS Illinois, and they were going to
take the train across to the Pacific coast, where they would be picked up by the mail steamer John L
Stevens. But trouble started at the very beginning because when they got off the boat in Panama,
apparently the passengers bought copious amounts of alcohol, and a five hour train ride later,
they were all well inebriated. And then when they got to Panama City, they had a
wait. See Panama City wasn't a deepwater port, and the ships could not anchor in Panama City,
they had to anchor out at islands in the bay, and he had to take a ferry across to those islands.
But the ferry could only operate at high tide, and so the train arrived around 7:00 but the
passengers, who were all drunk in Panama City, could not catch their ferry until around 11:00.
The trouble was all started by a drunk American named Jack Oliver. Oliver took a slice of
watermelon from a street vendor and refused to pay the price of five cents. The vendor grew angry and
eventually drew a knife on Oliver, and so Oliver drew a revolver. And someone in the crowd tried
to tackle Oliver, to take away his revolver, and it went off and struck someone else in the crowd,
and that sparked a riot. Where essentially, the Native Panamanians ran all over town destroying
foreign businesses and attacking anyone who didn't look like a local. The police were called and at
first it looked like they might be able to get control of the crowd, but in all the fighting,
a shot rang out from the train station which was American owned and struck one of the
police officers, and so the police joined in the riot. So you've got a mob attacking the station,
and the station that's packed full of Americans that are seeking shelter, but who are also mostly
armed, and so it looks like it's going to be a bloodbath. When within the middle of all of this,
a train pulls up. The station manager had used the Telegraph to call the railway for
help. And out of the train, with a bunch of armed railway agents, stepped El Verdugo. And Runnels
stood up to the crowd and said, “Put down your weapons!”. And his reputation was so powerful,
that essentially the mob just ran away and the riot ended. In the end, 15 Americans were killed
and two native Panamanians were killed, and the government of New Granada eventually made
a settlement of around $400,000 to pay to the families of the dead and the damage to
the stores and to the train station. All over a slice of watermelon that cost just five cents.
But the real question is why the population was willing to riot so easily,
and the answer is that there was a lot of tension because of the economy. When
the railroad was being built there was lots of work, but as soon as the railroad was completed,
all that work building the railroad went away. And the employees that were left with the railroad,
operating the railroad and its stations were mostly Americans. And all those people who
made their living supporting the crossing across Panama, the people that wrote those dugout canoes,
the people that led those mule trains, the people that operate the many hotels and restaurants along
the way all were out of work. Unemployment was high and the population blamed America,
and that's why the riot occurred. But the strategic importance of Panama to America
hadn’t reduced, and because of the riot and justified by the Bidlack-Mallarino Treaty,
America demanded military concessions, which included the right to build military bases on
the islands off of Panama City. And the US would continue to occupy military bases in Panama,
clear until 1999. And justified by the treaty, America would engage in a number of military
interventions in Panama until eventually America supported a revolt against New Granada to create
an independent Panamanian state, because we thought that that would be easier for us to
get permission to dig the Panama Canal. And of course that revolutions exactly what the Bidlack
Mallarino treaty was signed, in order to prevent. And so, that slice of watermelon would continue
to impact affairs in the region for more than a hundred years, and it deserves to be remembered
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