The Watermelon Riot: American Empire and Manifest Destiny In December 1846, against the backdrop of a burgeoning Washington, D.C., two figures convened to sign a pivotal document that would redefine the geopolitical landscape of the Western Hemisphere for the ensuing century. Benjamin Alden Bidlack, the U.S. chargé d'affaires to New Granada, a pragmatic individual who ascended through Democratic Party politics in Pennsylvania, sat opposite Manuel María Mallarino, New Granada's minister plenipotentiary. Mallarino, an intellectual, jurist, and poet, embodied his nation's elite aspirations for republican enlightenment and global recognition. The treaty, signed on December 12, 1846, initially appeared to be a standard commercial agreement between two allied republics, replete with typical language of "perpetual peace, friendship, commerce and navigation." However, embedded within its thirty-five articles were the genesis of a relationship that would evolve from a minor dispute over fruit into an act of imperial dominance, transforming a small Central American nation into an American protectorate. The Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty thus marked the initial moment when Manifest Destiny, cloaked in the guise of republican solidarity, extended its influence across the narrow isthmus connecting two continents.