Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla
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Philippe Jean Bunau-Varilla (fēlēp' zhäN bünō'-värēyä') (1859-1940), commonly referred to as simply Philippe Bunau-Varilla, was a French engineer and soldier. With the assistance of American lobbyist and lawyer William Nelson Cromwell, Bunau-Varilla greatly influenced the United States's decision concerning the construction site for the famed Panama Canal, a waterway that is, today, vital for trade shipment between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He was also largely responsible for prompting United States President Theodore Roosevelt to promote and provide aid for the Panamanian Revolution, leading to Panama's independence from Colombia. Because these accomplishments, which occurred within a two year period, historians sometimes label him the most successful lobbyist ever to set foot in the American political arena.
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[edit] Nascent career
Bunau-Varilla was born on July 26, 1859 in Paris, France. After graduating at age 20 from the acclaimed École Polytechnique, he remained in France for three years. In 1862 he abandoned his career in public works at the École des Ponts et Chausées and traveled to Panama. He arrived at the isthmus in 1884, newly employed with Ferdinand de Lesseps's Panama Canal Company. Within a year he had worked his way up to the highest position of general management within the organization.
[edit] Early setbacks
After the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt in 1888 due to charges of fraud, Bunau-Varilla was left stranded in Panama. He began a difficult search for new opportunity to again begin canal construction. When the New Panama Canal Company sprang up back in his native France, Bunau-Varilla sailed home, having purchased a large amount of stock. However, as de Lesseps' company had before, the New Panama Canal Company soon abandoned efforts to build the canal, selling the land in Panama to the United States, in hopes that the company would not fail entirely. The U.S. government, then lead by President Grover Cleveland, an anti-imperialist who avoided the canal issue. With the ascension of a more opportunistic leader, Theodore Roosevelt, canal plans resumed in the United States.
[edit] Power of persuasion
Bunau-Varilla, as vociferous as ever, incessantly promoted the construction of the canal. With aid from the New Panama Canal Company's New York attorney, William Nelson Cromwell, he eventually persuaded the government to select Panama as the canal site, as opposed to the popular alternative - Nicaragua. (When opponents voiced their interest in constructing a canal through Nicaragua, which was a less politically volatile nation, Bunau-Varilla actively campaigned throughout the Northeast, carrying pictures and postage stamps of Nicaragua's Mt. Momotombo spewing ash and lava over the proposed route.) Through extensive lobbying of businessmen, government officials, and the American public, Bunau-Varilla successfully convinced the U.S. Senate to appropriate $40 million to the New Panama Canal Company in the form of the Spooner Act of 1902.
[edit] Route to success
Although his company was now in possession of a vast sum of money with which to build the canal, there still remained the issue of Colombian governmental cooperation. When a treaty between the South American power and the United States fell apart in the Senate, Bunau-Varilla began drawing up war plans with Panamanian juntas in New York. By the eve of the war for Panamanian independence, the wily French engineer had already drafted the isthmian nation's constitution, flag, and military establishment, and promised to float the entire government on his own checkbook. Although prepared for a small-scale civil war, Bunau-Varilla was relieved that the affair amounted to little more than the incidental killing of a Chinese civilian and the death of a donkey. As promised, President Roosevelt, on the conjectured day of battle, separated the Columbian forces from the scrappy Panamanian guerrillas with a U.S. naval fleet.
Bunau-Varilla, as Panama's Ambassador to the United States, later entered into negotiatiations with the American Secretary of State John Hay, establishing the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which gave control of the Panama Canal to the U.S.
[edit] Post-Canal accomplishments
In all but the most pedantic of textbooks, Bunau-Varilla's life begins and ends with the Panama Canal. Certainly this was his most significant contribution to history, but his life would go on for another 37 years after his Panama venture.
A quite esteemed and recognized statesmen by World War I, Bunau-Varilla served as an officer in the French army and subsequently parted with a leg at the Battle of Verdun. As an elder lobbyist, he still pursued his life's primary fancy and worked to promote altering the canal from a lock system to a sea-level waterway. He passed away in Paris, France on May 18, 1940.
[edit] Trivia
- One of the more interesting (and certainly most puzzling) aspects of Bunau-Varilla's life was his source of income. Guests to his elegant Paris residence often reflected on the immaculate grandeur of the home. He was known to entertain friends and strategic partners at some of the most pricey locations of his time. Historians, however, have never been able to figure out where he got the money to lead such a grandiose existence. He neither made much money as an engineer during the first Panama Canal project (under de Lesseps) nor inherited significant amounts of relatives or parents. His source of income is a perplexing historical mystery that is still unsolved.
[edit] Sources
- Book Rags
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas A. Bailey. American Pageant. 12th ed. U.S.: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
- McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas (best published resource on Bunau-Varilla)
- Fishman, Edward B. (Bunau-Varilla historian)
