Route of Leisure: U.S. Imperialism, Scientific Research, and Tourism in the Caribbean

How did a historical route of commerce, exploration, and military conquest become a route of leisure travel in the twentieth century? This paper describes the convergence of U.S. imperialism, scientific research, and the rise of mass tourism in the Caribbean. In the first decades of the twentieth century, U.S. popular perceptions of the American tropics shifted – from viewing the region as a diseased and malevolent backwater to that of an attractive site for vacationing. My paper examines the life histories of U.S. colonial officials and natural scientists on the Isthmus of Panama in the first decades of the twentieth century to better understand this transitional period, seemingly from dangerous frontier to pampered resort. Both natural scientists and U.S. colonial officials, I argue, played key roles in the creation of a route of leisure travel in the Caribbean.

The modern-day experience of Caribbean tourism is deeply entangled in the region’s colonial past. Historians, in recent years, have revealed the important relationship between the history of U.S. imperial expansion and the field of tropical science. The role of imperialism and science in the formation of tourism networks, however, has surprisingly been understudied. The travel decisions of U.S. scientists and colonial officials were instrumental in the development of a particular “culture of tourism” shrouding the Caribbean region. News of their adventures circulated widely in the U.S., stimulating and seemingly guiding the public’s fascination with the tropics. Just as soldiers and frontiersmen, like Buffalo Bill, opened up and introduced the U.S. public to the American West, it seems U.S. colonial officials and natural scientists filled a similar role for the circum-Caribbean. My paper examines some of the specific social connections that allowed a route of colonialism to become a route of tourism.