Panama: 20th Century Developments

Panama entered the 20th century as a newly independent republic, separating from Colombia in 1903 with United States support in a move tied directly to the construction of an interoceanic canal. The United States received rights to a ten-mile-wide Canal Zone bisecting...

Nicaragua: 20th Century Developments

For much of the 20th century, Nicaragua was governed by the Somoza family, whose hereditary dictatorship began in 1937 when Anastasio Somoza García took the presidency after helping organize the National Guard, a force originally formed under United States oversight....

Mexico: 20th Century Developments

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920 ended the long rule of Porfirio Díaz and reshaped the country’s political and social order, producing the Constitution of 1917 with its provisions for land reform, labor rights, and secular education. Out of this upheaval...

Jamaica: 20th Century Developments

Jamaica entered the twentieth century as a British Crown Colony with limited local political representation. Widespread labor unrest in 1938, driven by poor wages and living conditions on sugar estates and in the docks, spurred the formation of Jamaica’s two...

Honduras: 20th Century Developments

In the first decades of the twentieth century, Honduras’s economy and politics became closely tied to U.S. banana companies, particularly the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit, which built extensive plantations, railroads, and ports along the Caribbean...
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