Building the New Panama Canal

In 1534, a survey was ordered by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain for a route through Central America that would shorten the voyage for ships traveling to and from Spain. . Even with the primitive state of cartography of the day, it wasn’t hard to see how such a canal would facilitate trade and travel by eliminating the lengthy, dangerous shipping route rounding Cape Horn. (Today it’s known that a ship sailing from New York to San Francisco via the canal travels 6,000 miles (9,500 km); or less than half the 14,000 miles (22,500 km) route around Cape Horn.)
The Spanish conquistadors had been looting South and Central American since their successful subjugation of the Incas and the Aztecs; and had accumulated enough silver to support their exploring ships and crews. Swifter travel would have been an important advantage to extend their ransacking of native cultures, if the ships were able to deliver their plunder more quickly to Spain. As the conquistador Bernal Diaz observed: “We came to serve God and our Majesty, … and also to get rich.” Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Although the concept of a canal crossing Central America dates back to the early 16th century, the first attempt to construct a canal began in 1880 under French leadership. Ferdinand de Lesseps headed the project, but the valiant French led efforts were overwhelmingly unsuccessful, concluding with the disastrous loss of over twenty one thousand, nine hundred workers to the equatorial heat, stress of the labor and tropical diseases.
It was said the workers had only -one chance in five- of surviving the diseases they were likely to get from mosquito bites – mostly malaria and yellow fever. Unfortunately, the hospitals built in Colon and then in Panama City did not help, since they were encouraging massive mosquito larval growth by their medical practice of leaving standing water in and around the unscreened buildings.

French Laborers who worked on the Panama Canal during 1881 – 1904 http://czbrats.com/Builders/FRCanal/frenchera.htm
Although the French received the concession for constructing the Canal from Colombia in May, 1876, the first French company’s attempt to construct a waterway across the Isthmus was doomed to failure because the project was initiated by promoters and speculators, men without the engineering attitudes. Too many of the best engineers left the Isthmus after short service, or died, and the constant changes in leadership made it difficult to have an effective organization to lead or to do the work.

French equipment abandoned on the track side… in Panama http://czbrats.com/Builders/FRCanal/frenchera.htm
In 1898, the second French canal construction company, known as the New French Canal Company, had few choices – abandon the project or sell it. Company directors decided to proffer a deal to the most likely taker – the United States of America for one hundred million. The United States bought the canal company and their equipment from the French for $40 million through political finagling between France, Colombia and the United States on June 28, 1902.

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