The end of the Spanish-American War led to the start of the Banana Wars.

The Watermelon War was a riot that occurred in the morning of April 15, 1856, in Panama City, then the capital of Panama State in the Republic of New Granada. After an American was caught stealing a watermelon, a verbal conflict started, which escalated later, resulting in robbery, brawls and shootings. The incident came to be recognized as a symbolic and historical allegory for frictions that accompanied the relationship that built the trans-isthmian railroad, then a transoceanic canal.