[April 30th marks the 75th anniversary of the formal founding of the Organization of American States (OAS). So this week I’ll offer some AmericanStudies contexts for that important community and a handful of other hemispheric histories, leading up to a weekend post highlighting some of the many awesome scholars doing hemispheric studies!]
On the
U.S.’s relationship to three of the many hemispheric conferences that together
created the OAS.
1)
The
Congress of Panama (1826): When Venezuelan rebel and statesman Simón Bolívar
assembled representatives from a number of South and Central American nations
in Panama City in June and July, 1826, President
John Quincy Adams and his Secretary of State Henry Clay wanted the United States
to have a presence there (and indeed pushed Bolívar to secure a formal
invitation). Unfortunately, internal conflicts in the U.S. delayed their
delegation, as Southern states were wary of supporting a conference at which
many attending nations had outlawed slavery. The U.S. did eventually send two
representatives, but one (U.S. Minister to the Republic of Colombia Richard
Clough Anderson Jr.) died en route and the other (longtime Congressman John
Sergeant) arrived after the conference had concluded its proceedings. An
inauspicious start to what has remained a fraught U.S. relationship to these
hemispheric gatherings and communities.
2)
The First International
Conference of American States (1889-90): Perhaps in part because of that
frustrating relationship to the 1826 conference (which ultimately didn’t
produce the consistent hemispheric community that Bolívar hoped for, for lots
of reasons that are far beyond this post), when the next such formal gathering
happened more than half a century later the United States took the lead in
organizing and hosting it. In 1881, inspired directly by Henry Clay and his “Western Hemispheric idea,” then-Secretary
of State James
G. Blaine invited all the nations in the Hemisphere to come to a conference
in Washington; subsequent politics led Blaine to be replaced as Secretary of
State and the conference to stall, but he never gave up on the idea, and when
Blaine was once again appointed Secretary of State by President Benjamin
Harrison he was able to bring it to fruition. A great deal was discussed and
debated at the conference, but there’s no debating its legacy, as the final
item in this list helps illustrate.
3)
The Ninth International
Conference of American States (1948): Building on what was begun at that
1889-90 conference, this hemispheric community and blossoming organization met
regularly over the next half-century. During World War II those meetings took
on a new sense of urgency and purpose, as reflected by a new agreement signed
just after the war, the 1947 Inter-American Treaty
of Reciprocal Assistance. And just a year later, between March and May,
1948, U.S. Secretary of State George
Marshall (architect of the unfolding Marshall Plan in Europe) led the 9th
International Conference, which met in Bogotá and at which 21 nations signed the
Charter for an even more formal community, the Organization of American
States. They also adopted the American
Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, a human rights manifesto which
complemented the newly created United Nations to help guide this important
post-war global period. I think Simón Bolívar would be proud.
Next hemispheric
history tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Histories, contexts, and/or scholars you’d highlight?
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