1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136711903321

Autore

McGuinness Aims <1968->

Titolo

Path of Empire : Panama and the California Gold Rush / / Aims McGuinness

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca : , : Cornell University Press, , 2008

Baltimore, Md. : , : Project MUSE, , 2021

©2008

ISBN

1-5017-0733-7

0-8014-7538-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (264 pages) : illustrations, maps

Collana

The United States in the World

Disciplina

327.730728709/034

Soggetti

Watermelon Riot, Colón, Panama, 1856

Americans - Panama - History - 19th century

Electronic books.

California Gold discoveries

California History 1846-1850

Panama History 19th century

Panama Foreign relations United States

United States Foreign relations Panama

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-242) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Prelude : April 15, 1856 -- Introduction : in the archive of loose leaves -- California in Panama -- The Panama railroad and the conquest of the Gold Rush -- Sovereignty on the isthmus -- "We are not in the United States here" -- U.S. empire and the boundaries of Latin America -- Conclusion : conversations in the Museum of History -- Coda : with dust in our eyes.

Sommario/riassunto

Most people in the United States have forgotten that tens of thousands of U.S. citizens migrated westward to California by way of Panama during the California Gold Rush. Decades before the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, this slender spit of land abruptly became the linchpin of the fastest route between New York City and San Francisco-a route that combined travel by ship to the east coast of Panama, an



overland crossing to Panama City, and a final voyage by ship to California. In Path of Empire, Aims McGuinness presents a novel understanding of the intertwined histories of the California Gold Rush, the course of U.S. empire, and anti-imperialist politics in Latin America. Between 1848 and 1856, Panama saw the building, by a U.S. company, of the first transcontinental railroad in world history, the final abolition of slavery, the establishment of universal manhood suffrage, the foundation of an autonomous Panamanian state, and the first of what would become a long list of military interventions by the United States.Using documents found in Panamanian, Colombian, and U.S. archives, McGuinness reveals how U.S. imperial projects in Panama were integral to developments in California and the larger process of U.S. continental expansion. Path of Empire offers a model for the new transnational history by unbinding the gold rush from the confines of U.S. history as traditionally told and narrating that event as the history of Panama, a small place of global importance in the mid-1800s.