Pan-Americanism
Pan-Americanism is a pan-nationalist movement that seeks to create, encourage, and organize relationships, an association, and cooperation among the states of the Americas, through diplomatic, political, economic, and social means. The term Pan-Americanism was first used by the New York Evening Post in 1882 when referring to James G. Blaine’s proposal for a conference of American states in Washington D.C., gaining more popularity after the first conference in 1889. Through international conferences, Pan-Americanism embodies the spirit of cooperation to create and ratify treaties for the betterment in the Americas. Since 1826, the Americas have evolved the international conferences from an idea of revolutionary Simon Bolivar to the creation of an inter-America organization with the founding of the Organization of American States.
History
Following the independence of the United States of America in 1776 and the independence of Haiti in 1804, the struggle for independence after 1810 by the nations of Hispanic America evoked a sense of unity, especially in South America, where, under Simón Bolívar in the north and José de San Martín in the south, there were co-operative efforts. Francisco Morazán briefly headed a Federal Republic of Central America, a union between El Salvador, Panama, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Early South American Pan-Americanists were also inspired by the American Revolutionary War, in which a suppressed and colonized society struggled, united, and gained independence. In the United States, Henry Clay and Thomas Jefferson set forth the principles of Pan-Americanism in the early 19th century by advocating for Latin American independence, with Jefferson's Governor of Louisiana, James Wilkinson, suggesting an alliance between the independent nations of Mexico, Cuba, and Peru with the US against Napoleon and Spain. Soon after the Spanish American wars of independence drew to a close, in 1823, James Madison and the US government declared through the Monroe Doctrine a new policy concerning interference by Europe in the affairs of the Americas by stopping any future European conquest or reconquest of the newly independent Latin American countries.In the 19th century, South American military nationalism came to the fore, making Pan-Americanism goals seemingly impossible for the Americans. Venezuela and Ecuador withdrew in 1830 from Gran Colombia, the Central American Federation collapsed in 1838 as the union fell into a civil war, Argentina and Brazil fought continually over Uruguay, all three combined in the Paraguayan War to defeat Paraguay, and Chile defeated Peru and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific.
However, during that period, Pan-Americanism existed in the form of a series of Inter-American Conferences. These conferences were a passion project for Simon Bolivar, who wanted to create an international assembly that houses representatives from Spain's old colonies. On December 7, 1824, Bolivar invited the newly independent colonies of Spain, as well as the US and Brazil, to participate in an Assembly of Plenipotentiaries that would be held in Panama on June 22, 1826. However, only Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and Central America sent delegates to the congress, as the others sent delegates too late and Brazil was at war with Argentina. The US planned on sending delegates but one died before reaching and the other arrived too late for the assembly. The Panama Congress of 1824 ended with 31 treaties, including mutual defense between American nations, the abolition of slavery, commercial trade, and no foreign nation could impede on the sovereignty of another nation.
The following conference was not held until 1847 when fears of Spain retaking Ecuador and other former colonies prompted Latin American countries to do another congress in Lima, Peru. Only Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, and Chile sent representatives. Mexico and the US did not send delegates because of the Mexican–American War. The conference created four treaties, including mutual defense, reduced tariffs, and rules of war, but the congresses of the countries refused to ratify the treaties.
In 1856, the third congress was held in Santiago, Chile. Initiated by US expansionism after the US efforts to try and economically annex the Galapagos Islands from Ecuador and American William Walker's filibustering expedition in Nicaragua, which saw Walker bring back slavery to Nicaragua and made English its official language. On September 15, 1856, the Continental Treaty of Santiago sought to curb US expansion in Latin America, and was quickly signed by Ecuador, Peru, and other Latin American countries. 1856 also saw the Congress of Washington where US representatives to Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Venezuela called for an alliance between all the countries south of the Rio Grande in Texas and secure aid for the fight against William Walker, though never ratified.
The last congress to be held before the first International Conference of American States was in Lima, Peru on November 12, 1864. Plans to assemble started in 1861 when Spain annexed the Dominican Republic and signed a treaty with France and England to send troops to Mexico to recollect their debts. The objective was to discuss defense, boundaries, commerce, mail services, population data, and how to settle conflicts with arbitration. While Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela Guatemala, Ecuador, and El Salvador all attended. Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Paraguay, Panama, Honduras, and Costa Rica did not. The congress wrote two treaties: The Treaty of Union and Alliance, which would create an alliance between the nine nations that participated, and the Treaty for the Conservation of Peace, which dealt with mandatory arbitration, reciprocal trade, navigation, and mail exchange. Like most of the congressional treaties, the latter went unratified by the states.
The first modern Pan-American gathering was the or First International Conference of American States held in 1889-90 at Washington D.C, which was first proposed by James G. Blaine. Blaine was an advocate for bringing peace to the Americas and wanted a strong commercial relationship between the Americas that would enable the US to compete with European manufacturers. All countries invited joined the conference, except for the Dominican Republic because a treaty of arbitration and commercial reciprocity between the United States and the Dominican Republic in 1884 was never ratified by the United States, leading the Dominican to state they were not at liberty to enter a new discussion. The delegates met on October 2, 1889, with Blaine’s introduction declaring that the United States believes in cooperation and friendship not force, and invited the delegates to go around the United States to see the real America, which the delegates accepted. Treaties for arbitration of disputes and adjustment of tariffs were adopted, and the Commercial Bureau of the American Republics, which later became the Pan-American Union, was established.
Subsequent meetings were held in various South American cities. In Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and many more. In 1933, the seventh, and one of the most important conferences was held in Montevideo, Uruguay. The 30’s was filled with instability as the Stock Market Crash plummeted export prices, oppressive dictators, and brewing tensions between states. All 21 states sent their delegates, except for Costa Rica, who declined because they did not want to pay for a delegate in such a terrible economic time. The conference issued that the congress had to immediately sign five peace pacts, including the Kellogg Pact which would outlaw wars. The conference also brought up the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States treaty, which would not allow any state to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another state, and was adopted unanimously and countries quickly ratified it.
In the 20th century, US President Franklin Roosevelt embraced a robust formulation of Pan-Americanism during World War II through the establishment of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Following his Good Neighbor Policy, Roosevelt endeavored to foster the development of peaceful commercial and cultural relations between the American Republics through the skillful use of cultural diplomacy. FDR would also go on to say “the essential true qualities of a true Pan-Americanism must be the same as those which constitute a good neighbor.” After the Montevideo conference, he defined the new US policy as now being against armed intervention, ushering a new era of foreign policy towards Latin America.
The ninth conference held in Bogota, Colombia, in 1948, saw the creation of the Organization of American States and the Pact of Bogota. The OAS aimed to strengthen peace, ensure peaceful disputes, organize common action against aggression, seek solutions to political and economic problems, and promote economic and social development throughout. The Pact of Bogota stated that states must resolve disputes peacefully and try to settle their disputes amongst themselves before taking it to the UN security council. The tenth conference in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1954, would be the last conference under the name Inter-American Conference, although the OAS continues to hold special meetings to discuss wars outside of the Americas or issues that have common interest to the member states. The OAS has a general assembly that is similar to the one Inter-American conference had and met every five years, but updated this policy in 1971 to meet once a year.
Evolution
The intended liberalization of commercial intercourse did not occur, but collaboration was extended to a series of areas, such as health, geography and history, child protection and children's rights, rights of the woman, indigenous policies, agriculture, collective continental defense, economic aid, infrastructure works and peacekeeping, and human rights.The American states also adopted a series of diplomatic and political rules, which were not always respected or fulfilled, governing relations between the countries like arbitration of disputes, peaceful resolution of conflicts, military non-intervention, equality among the member states of each organism, and in their mutual relations, decisions through resolutions approved by the majority, the recognition of diplomatic asylum, the Private International Law Code, the inter-American system of human rights.