[XXV-42] It must be confessed that the impression caused by the influx of foreigners, parading the streets, many of them armed with bowie-knives and revolvers, often incited by intoxication and gambling to acts of lawlessness, was not a favorable one. They often appeared to the natives as lawless invaders. The laws were not framed for the emergency, and the authorities were powerless to stop the scandals occurring every day in the streets. Robberies and other crimes among the foreigners themselves were common. Gambling-houses, in violation of law, were publicly kept, exhibiting strange signs, such as Card Room, Owls' Club, etc. Once a crowd of Americans fell upon the small guard of the jail, disarmed it, and set free some of their countrymen. Maldonado, Asuntos Polít. Pan., MS., 2, 5-6. A writer relates that he saw ruffians in 1850 throw filth on religious processions. Once an American rode a mule into the cathedral, and tried to make it drink from the baptismal font. Fortunately Theller, an American resident, interfered. 'Often the dirty red-shirted fellows would stride into the chapels and light their cigars at the altar.' Cal. Chronicle, May 20, 1856.
[XXV-43] The trouble originated in the act of a drunken man named Jack Oliver, who seized a slice of watermelon from a fruit stall, and refused to pay for it. Simultaneously and without preconcertion, fights occurred between parties of passengers and the colored population in various parts of the town. The city was soon in commotion. Residents retired to their homes and barred themselves in. The fights lasted about three hours, when the foreigners were driven into the depot. The negroes, who had formerly been humble and submissive to the whites, remembered on that day the abusive treatment often received by them at the hands of transient foreigners; but did not confine their expressions of hatred to foreigners only, for they transversed the streets crying, Mueran los blancos! They were now ungovernable. They rushed to the Panamá depot—at a moment when from 250 to 300 passengers of both sexes and all ages, landed at Colon from the steamship Illinois, were procuring their tickets for San Francisco—and began firing at the building, hitting one man. The doors were then closed, and some of the passengers armed themselves. It has been stated by eye-witnesses that some of the armed passengers went out and discharged their arms at the black mob before any shot had been fired at the building; but the weight of testimony is against this assertion. U. S. Consul Ward came on horseback, saying that the government at his request would soon send a force to quell the disturbance. The force did come, but instead of affording protection to the passengers huddled in the depot, fired a volley of musketry in their midst, and followed it by others, besides stray shots. The only reasons assigned for this conduct of the force were that it sympathized with the mob, or was awed by it. The latter was the real cause. The active firing from the outside continued about one and a half hours even after it had ceased from the inside. The mob for a time did not succeed in entering the building, but finally broke into the baggage-room, killing and wounding several persons. Fortunately, the rabble was bent more on plunder than slaughter. It is said that even the wounded had their boots pulled from their feet and carried away. Many robberies had also been committed by the negroes in the city, principally in shops and barrooms. S. F. Bulletin, May 1-3, 17, Aug. 30, Oct. 14, Dec. 17, 1856; Cal. Chronicle, May 20, 1856; Sac. Union, May 5, 13, 1856; S. F. Alta, May 2, 3, 18, 1856.
[XXV-44] Totten, chief engineer of the railroad, and Ward, in their protests held Fábrega's government responsible, and claimed damages. They also demanded protection for the passengers and treasure then expected from California on the Golden Gate. Fábrega, upon the latter point, gave the required assurances, recommending that the railroad officials should also adopt precautionary measures. In his report to the supreme government on the 22d of April, 1856, he denied the charges preferred against him by Totten and Ward, declaring that the whole affair had been sudden and unpremeditated; and he, as well as the gens d'armes had the best intentions to protect the passengers, and the firing upon them had been unauthorized, though resulting from the fact that the passengers had continued shooting. He kept to himself, however, that fear for the lives of himself and the few other white people of the city, which were in great peril from the infuriated blacks, had deterred him from attacking the mob. The latter was calmed and dispersed only through the good offices, called for by Fábrega, of the influential men among the negro population. Pan., Gaceta del Est., Apr. 26, May 3, 10, 27, 1856.
[XXV-45] On their landing at Colon, the other steamship was ready at Panamá to receive them and put off as soon as they were on board. They traversed the Isthmus without scarcely setting foot on the soil. Maldonado, Asuntos Polít. Pan., MS., 11-12.
[XXV-46] Corwine's Rep. and Coll. of Evidence, 1-69; U. S. Govt Doc., Cong. 34, Sess. 1, vol. xi., H. Ex. Doc., no. 103, 154-76.
[XXV-47] It stipulated a board of arbitration composed of commissioners of both governments to award upon claims presented prior to Sept. 1, 1859. The total amount of awards N. Granada would pay in equal semiannual instalments, the first, six months after the termination of the commission; and the whole payment to be completed within eight years; each of the sums bearing interest at 6 per cent per annum. To secure said payments, N. G. govt appropriated one half of the compensation accruing to her from the Panamá railroad company; if such fund should prove insufficient, it was then to provide for the deficit from its other sources of revenue. U. S. Govt Doc., Cong. 36, Sess. 2, Sen. Miscell., no. 13, 1-7. After the riot the federal government endeavored to have a force on the Isthmus to protect foreign interests, which it should have done before. Maldonado, Asuntos Polít. Pan., MS., 10-11.
[XXV-48] U. S. Govt Doc., Cong. 35, Sess. 2, H. Ex. Dec., no. 2, 21, 22, vol. ii. pt i.; Id., Id., Sen. Doc., no. 33, x. 1-3.
[XXV-49] Thomas Savage, U. S. acting consul-general at Habana, had sent timely notice of their plans. They were taken with arms, munitions of war, and written proof of their intent.
[XXV-50] Calancha, president of Panamá, pleaded that he had no authority to allow it; the national constitution reserving to the general government of Colombia the control of the foreign relations. Bidwell's Pan. Isth., 207-11.
[XXV-51] They were sentenced by court-martial, their chief to death, and the others to imprisonment at hard labor; the sentence of the first was commuted, and all were released at or before the termination of the war. Hogg et al. v. U. S., 1-22; S. F. Call, Nov. 26, 1864; May 25-31, June 6-8, July 6, 16, 1865; S. F. Bulletin, Nov. 28, 29, Dec. 7, 1864; May 22, 1865.