Panama

Panama is the skinniest bit of the Americas' waist. It hosts the sibling of the Suez Canal. The 1956 Suez Crisis is a decent choice of bookmark for the end of Britain's age as the preeminent global power. With the backing of the United States, Panama ceded from Colombia in 1903. The US had just defeated Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American war that ended Spain's global power. Panama had been under Spanish rule for almost 300 years (1538 -1821). It had been enormously important to Spain as the easiest way to transport silver from Peru to Europe. It was also the cite of the Darien Scheme - a failed attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by setting up a colony. The failure of this commercial venture, and ensuing debt, was a contributory factor in 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland. An 'independent' Panama allowed the Americans to finance the building of the Panama Canal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. Long live the new global power.

New Edinburgh

Haiti

Haiti is the only nation in the world established after a successful slave revolt. The western part of the island of 'La Española' had been ceded to the French in 1697. This was after a nine-year war between France and a European Alliance. The war mirrored conflict between French & English settlers in America and their respective 'Indian' allies. Sugar cane plantations, worked by slaves brought from Africa, were established by colonists. In the midst of the French Revolution, the Haitian slaves revolted and established the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean. 95% of the population are of African descent, while in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, that figure is around 10% with the majority of the population being of mixed descent. 

General Toussaint Louverture

Leader of the Haitian Revolution

Fought for Spain v France

Fought for France v Spain/Britain

Fought for Saint-Dominigue v France

Guatemala

Africa was carved up by European Nations at the Berlin Conference in 1885. Africa was part of the Old World, and its wholesale colonisation only came after that of the New World. A map of Central America in the 1830s before Napoleonic loosened a crippled Europe's grip is very similar to a map of Africa before the two World Wars loosened a crippled Europe's grip. Despite 'independence', like many African countries (Angola and South Africa), Guatemala then became a pawn in the Cold War. Beginning in the early C20th, Guatemala was run by a series of dictators sponsored by the United Fruit Company and the United States. A 1944 pro-democratic coup led to a decade-long war ended by a US-back dictatorship in 1954. The Guatemalan Civil War ran from 1960-1996, not co-incidentally ending just after Apartheid South Africa's demise.

El Salvador

Land is often used as a tool to define nations. Several different Mesoamerican nations lived in the area we now call the nation of El Salvador before moving on (e.g. Cuzcatlecs, the Lenca and the Maya). The area was conquered and incorporated into the 'Viceroyalty of New Spain'. A viceroyalty is a 'sub-nation' run in the name of a monarch from somewhere else. A foreign sovereign person. It was then part of the Mexican Empire, before that dissolved, and part of the Federal Republic of Central America before that dissolved. In 1841, it became a sovereign state. From 1895-1898 it had a short-lived union with Nicaragua and Honduras called 'The Greater Republic of Central America'. Then that dissolved. In Empires, sovereignty rested in a person and that person wanted more people. To have 'sovereign nations', you have to define a permanent homogenous group of people who want the same thing. Good luck with that. All agreements are temporary.

Independence Protests