Anthoine de Gogorza, Louis Lacharme, and the forgotten origins of the Panama Canal

Abstract

Abstract The story of the Panama Canal is often framed as a morality tale juxtaposing French tragedy and American triumph (or imperialism). What gets lost in this depiction is a pair of adventurous entrepreneurs, Anthoine de Gogorza and Louis Lacharme, whose efforts led Ferdinand de Lesseps to his doomed canal project. This article shows how the roots of the Panama Canal emerged from the forests of Colombia’s Sinú River Valley, whose settlement, in turn, was fostered by the search for canal routes in the Darien. Yet despite the spatial proximity of these two regions, their overlooked connections were woven together through the ‘lifepaths’ of de Gogorza and Lacharme as they moved from France to Colombia and around the globalizing Atlantic of the nineteenth century. Following their movements, in turn, sheds light on the overlooked figure of the foreign speculator, the business of exploration, and marketing the tropics.