On the evening of April 15, 1856, an American named Jack Oliver took a slice of watermelon from a Panama City vendor, José Manuel Luna, and refused to pay the dime he owed. Oliver, being American, drew a pistol to settle the matter. A bystander grabbed the gun and ran, and within hours, Panama City had turned into a battlefield.
By the time it ended, at least 15 Americans and two Panamanians were dead, the hotels and railroad station were burning, and the telegraph lines had been cut. The fight had been building for a year. The Panama Railroad opened in 1855, putting the local boatmen and mule drivers who once ferried Gold Rush travelers across the isthmus out of work.
The United States treated the riot as grounds to land troops on the isthmus and, in an 1858 treaty, to extract roughly $500,000 in reparations from New Granada.
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