With the month of February
here, there is a day of love
approaching of which I have a special treat for my
blog
readers. Still as this is early in
the month which celebrates
Black history, I have to take the time to speak on
interesting
but untold Black history.
Black doesn’t always stand for
African, Black doesn’t even necessarily
stand for American
, Black is not a complexion of a race of people. Black does
stand for the standard of
appreciation that they were set at in a
system to prevent this race of people
from achieving equal
success with others who at one time prevented their own
race
from achieving equal success by various means of pitfalls,
conquering and
unfair advantages. This story presented
for
you now is the history of the Panama Canal being built from a
group of
wonderfully focused, hardworking people from a tiny
Island in the West Indies,
whose flag bears the colors of the
sea and sun, and has the fork of Neptune
(God of the Sea), the
tiny Island of Barbados.
In 1975, Barbados was the only
Black country to make the list as the world’s
most-free
nations, so it should come as no surprise that out of this nation
came the largest group of workers to construct the Panama
Canal. At this time Panama was simply a small
subsection of
Colombia.
The first attempt to
build the Panama Canal was by the French
in 1888, only to end in failure. In 1878, the Geographical
Society of Paris
negotiated a treaty with the Colombian
government, which granted exclusive
rights to the French to
build an inter-oceanic canal through Panama, joining
the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the narrowest point of the
Isthmus that
joins North and South America.
In 1879 a number of
proposals were put forward for its exact
route. One design envisaged an
artificial lake in Panama that
would be accessed at either end by locks, but
this was rejected
in favor of a one-level sea-canal. The sea-canal was the
choice of Ferdinand de Lesseps - of Suez Canal fame - who
used his fame and
position to make sure his choice was
adopted. The company chosen to run the
project was the
French Compagnie Universelle.
Without the locks to keep the
mighty ocean’s water controlled, it is
easy to perceive why
the French attempt to construct the Canal was a failure.
The Compagnie
Universelle realized the importance that the
Panama railroad would have for
their project, and so bought
control of it in August 1881. This purchase costing
more than
$25 million dollars, used about a third of the resources
available,
and despite its key importance, the railroad was
never properly used by the
French engineers to move waste
out of the way.
By 1883, the French had 20,000 laborers at
work, but they had trouble
digging up even a 10th of the
2,000,000 cubic meters of earth called for in the
company's
projections, and the work was plagued by disasters. The
French canal
builders' quick excavation method of chopping
the tops off hills in their path
and piling the dirt on either side
led to disastrous landslides.
By 1884, yellow fever was killing 200 laborers
each month.
By 1887, the French had picked up the pace, but they were
running
out of money.
The project collapsed two years later
after a stock lottery
garnered only a fraction of the $100
million needed to continue.
By 1887, it was clear
to the French that the sea-canal route
would never work, and de Lesseps
reluctantly agreed. A public
subscription to raise funds for a revised project
that year
failed, and the shareholders of the French Panama Canal
Company
decided to dissolve it in early 1889. Later,
Ferdinand and Charles de Lesseps
were both indicted for
fraud.
After years of
negotiation, the US Congress bought the Canal
project from the French for $40
million dollars. It was time
for the
United States to attempt to make the Panama Canal a
reality. This is how an age
old lie and misconception that
Americans have built the Panama Canal came to
form. This is
in no way the truth. America
simply was the front money to
the real estate deal for their economic benefit. There are
documented accounts, pictures, and
even paychecks to prove
this. There are
also accounts of 25,000 dead workers, to prove
otherwise. President Roosevelt spoke Panama into
plotting its
independence from Colombia under the protection of the U.S.
army. He paid Panama the money to pay
off Colombia for its
independence. Then
Roosevelt signed a treaty which gave
American sovereignty over the zone of the
Panama Canal.
Panama had been suckered
into selling out by the dream of
independence and protection by the U.S.
Many may ask, “What is
the wrong in having Black workers to
build the Canal and rid the South American
jungles of
Mosquitoes?” this is a great feet. The jobs of skilled workers
were reserved for American
Anglo Saxon workers. None of
the workers
from any other waters than from the West Indies
could survive. The
problem was that, Engineer John Stevens
viewed Black workers as lazy and
decided to incite a system
of segregation known as “Gold member and Silver
member”.
These workers
were never told
that they would
not be paid in
gold because of
their color and background. These workers
were made inferior by being paid
in Sterling Silver. Sterling
Silver was
only accepted in inferior stores and there had to be
significantly more Silver
earned to pay for goods. This
practice
of inferior wages doubled the work for Black canal
laborers. Sending of this silver back to families into
the West
Indian economy that used British pounds became more of a
burden than a
blessing. It also increased the value of gold and
lowered the value of silver
although assuring that silver would
be traded regularly. Silver paid employees received not sick
leave, medical pay, or vacation. This
was segregation to
dehumanize them. This
was inflicted by John Stevens an
Anglo American engineer chosen to head the
project was bred
in American racist stereotype against any Black person. Can
you imagine the pain and insult in the
soul and conscious of
these Black workers?
Most of the Canal's workforce during the US
construction
period in the early 20th century arrived in Panama from the
West
Indies, on board the steamship Cristobal. The City of
Colon, from its early history
since the 1820′s, had been
populated mainly by West Indian families. Many were
associated with the Panama Railroad or the Panama Canal
Zone. The Silver Roll,
the ranks of the real working people of
the nearby Canal
Zone, reflected some important figures in my
imaginary census of the
students found at any of the public
elementary and secondary schools of that
time.
It was evident even
then
that, in many ways, the
West Indians were in
the majority. Overall, the
visible numbers of black
West Indian people
outnumbered the Latinos
and the
mixtures within both and also the black and other
people such as the Chinese,
and East Indians. With
backgrounds within all of the races it still appeared
that West
Indians overshadowed all other races in Panama right up until
those
times.
Panama's population was
relatively sparse, and the Americans
discovered that there was no surplus labor
anywhere in the
republic for the Canal's construction. It became clear that the
higher grades of skilled labor would have to come from the
United States,
whilst for the rest of the workforce the islands
of the Caribbean were a
logical source.
However, the Caribbean
governments were reluctant to allow
recruiting, because at the end of the
French period of
construction, many of the West Indian laborers had been
stranded in Panama, and they had to be repatriated at their
governments'
expense.
The Barbados government
finally agreed to large-scale
recruitment, however, and eventually there were
some 19,900
Barbadian laborers working on the Canal project. This was
reportedly some 10 per cent of the population of Barbados,
and nearly 40 per
cent of the island's adult men. Later,
workers were also recruited from
Martinique and Guadeloupe.
Jamaica refused to
allow any recruiting, and placed a tax of
one pound sterling on anyone wishing
to work in Panama. This
meant that the Jamaican workers in Panama were mostly
skilled workers, as only they could afford the tax.
West Indian Laborers left over from the French
effort and
new Anglo American laborers were to begin work. In 1905
Bajan, and a few Jamaican workers
were hired to fumigate the
huge infestation of mosquitoes of the Panamanian
jungles. In
1909, 1500 laborers arrived from the tiny Island Barbados of
the
West Indian sea, into the Cristobal, port in Colon,
Panama. The Gaillard Cut began construction from 1907 and
proceeded until 1913. The men worked 14
hour shifts and
lived in make shift villages in the jungle.
With the outbreak
of
yellow fever
taking lives and
many West
Indian workers and local tribes feeling
this brotherhood of
companionship, poverty, family and everyday living
together,
the West Indian workers and the local Indian tribes began a
show of
black magic that scared the Anglo American workers
so bad that they began to
flee Panama in the hundreds. Today
these
West Indian and local Indian tribes are celebrated in the
Panama
Carnivals. This caused for visits by
none other than
President Roosevelt himself, after which engineer John
Stevens
decides to quit.
George Washington
Goethals of the
American Army Engineer Corp took over.
Gold wage workers decided that they were
entitled to a 40%
raise and decided to strike.
Goethals deported these workers
and any others asking for wage increase.
The Gaillard Cut was needed to link the
artificial Gatun Lake
with the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks that brought
ships
into the Canal from the Atlantic. The Cut represented the
Canal builders'
biggest challenge because although it is only
13.7 kilometers or 8 miles long,
it required the digging of a
channel through Panama's highland region, the
Continental
Divide. This channel had to be dug into hard rock and shale,
rather
than into soft earth. More than a
hundred million cubic
yards of disposable rock resulted from the Culebra Cut,
and it
all had to be dumped. Part of it was used to join a series of
four small
islands in Panama Bay, to create a breakwater.
More was used to claim nearly
500 acres from the Pacific
Ocean, on which the town of Balboa was built and the
rest was
taken to big waste dumps in the jungles of Panama. In January
1913, a
huge landslide at Cucaracha caused 2,000,000 cubic
yards of earth to spill into
the Cut. It was then decided to flood
it, in order to finish constructing the
channel by dredging. The
last steam shovel lifted the last rock on 10 September
1913,
and in that same week, six huge water pipes at Gamboa were
opened,
allowing the Cut to be partially flooded.
On 10 October, 1913,
the US President Woodrow Wilson
pressed a button in Washington - sending the
signal to Panama
to blow out the dyke that separated the Cut from Gatun Lake
to
the west, and allowed water to completely flood the Cut for
the first time.
Then on 10 December 1913, the old French
dredger Marmot opened up
the channel for shipping for the
first time by clearing the remaining waste
from the channel's
bottom.
West Indian Silver wage workers would be
killed. They
would spend their Sundays
removing parts of their friends and
family from the ruble being cleared for the
Canal Project.
The collection of their
friends, and family members, still bring
tears to the eyes of the elders who tell
the story. Eventually,
Goethals extended
the railroad tracks out to Mt. Hope
Cemetery, so that the bodies could be
exposed of easier.
When one of their
workers died, the family and friends would
drink rum, and wale out old English gospel
hymnals to the
deceased while the fire burned through the night hours. This
practice would curl the flesh of the
Anglo families and
workers. The Anglo
Americans swore that it was the dance of
the witches, putting a curse on them
for their wrongs. Anglo
Americans came
and left frequently.
To keep the Anglo
Americans, the American
government tried to keep
them as comfortable as
possible, investing in baseball games, town halls, restaurants,
banquet halls. Still there were no unions allowed or freedom
of speech.
Most West Indians that built the Canal went
onto new homes
in the West Indies and South American countries with not
much
more money than they left Barbados with when the first
went into Panama. This is why most Bajans share the same
Grandparents or Abuelos as others from South American
Countries, like Panama,
Colombia, Honduras, Belize, etc.
For repatriation of West Indians who
had labored on the
had been violated,
particularly with regard to their work
hours, wages and overtime promised ,
medical benefits, and
the fact that few workers ever saw their earnings report
throughout their experience with the ICC. By the same token,
not included in the statistics are the
salient facts attached to
the U.S. government’s dealings with this large group
of people
(as opposed to machinery).
A great many
repatriates were being “shipped back” in
pathetic physical condition with
numerous infirmities after
having been, literally, worked to death. Also, for
too many,
repatriation would mean the end of the flow of Panamanian
Silver
dollars back to their home towns, making them now an
unwelcome burden
instead of an asset for their island
economies.
During the period between
1914 and 1921, a total of 13,319
West Indians were repatriated, but during that
same period
9,070 (new workers) arrived on the Isthmus. Although the
Canal
authorities repatriated those laborers who were
unemployed to the Islands of
Barbados and Jamaica, it is said
that many “arranged,” somehow, to return to
the Isthmus since
Panama did not have restrictive immigration laws at that
time.
After apprising
themselves of this trend, Canal Authorities
“suggested” to the government of
Panama and the local British
authorities that they had to adopt pertinent
measures to stop
this immigration by West Indians. The growth of the West
Indian
population in the Canal Zone and the cities of Panama
and Colon at both ends of
the Canal exceeded the necessity
for manual labor and with the reduction of
labor in the Canal
as well as in the business sectors in Panama, in general,
unemployment worsened, as much for the West Indians as for
the Panamanians.
In trying to lessen the
problem in 1933 Panama appealed to
the U.S. Department of State arguing
that the government of
the United States had a great interest in the
repatriation of the
“foreign elements” it had brought to Panama and which had
invariably become elements of competition for Panamanian
workers and a burden
for the government of the Republic of
Panama. On February 24, 1933, Dr. Ricardo J.
Alfaro,
Minister of Panama in Washington, had an interview with the
Secretary of State of the United States, Henry L. Stimson, in
which he
explained to him the difficult situation in which the
Panamanian worker as much
as the national government had
been placed with the presence in Panama and
Colon of a great
number of foreign workers who had arrived on the Isthmus
under
contract who, in their majority, were West Indian.
Minister Alfaro asked the Department of State
to favorably
consider the recommendations of governors Harry Burgess
and Julian
L. Schley that the U.S. Senate move to allocate
B/.150, 000 to repatriate these
foreign workers.
The governors of the
Canal insisted on the fact that the excess
of West Indian “elements” in the
terminal cities constituted a
liability to Panamanian interests and to
relations between
Panama and the United States and that it was advisable, for
the
joint interests of both governments, to apply remedies that
were advisable
and practical to the situation.
The continued
insistence on the part of the Panamanian
government produced its expected
results in 1934 when the
Congress of the United States authorized an allocation
of
$150,000 to repatriate the unemployed West Indians and their
families who
had offered at least three years of service to the
government of the United
States or to the Panama Railroad
Company. In addition to boat passage, a sum of
B/.25.00 was
paid to each unmarried man and B/.50.00 to those men with
families.
Immediately upon
allocation of the said amount, 2,723 people
were repatriated, amongst these l,
660 employees and 1,063
members of their families. Once this sum was spent an
additional B/.50, 000 was allocated in 1950 to continue with
the program. Between 1904 and 1953 the government of the
United States repatriated 22,901 people from the Panama
Canal Zone.
Today we have
those
families that have remained in Panama
of West Indian descent calling themselves
the "Silver
Community". They pursue equal
rights. They demand to be
counted by
Census, and be paid equal fair wages. They
take
pride in their West Indian as well as Latino culture and
heritage.
I myself am always
content in wearing Silver jewelry instead
of Gold. You can check out any of my links of research
usage
for this story, if you’re eager to check out the story for
yourself.
Bibliography
With Valentine’s Day upon us, I wouldn’t want to short
anyone the option of finding love. To
some people love should be found in good memories, and to some of us, we create
love by recreating our fantasies. 
With her disposition
determination and attention to detail, I’m pretty sure that she’d be a
natural. Most of the time these shows
are angled to make prostitutes look bad.
Whether it is or not, is not my call, but I agree with it being a safe,fair
practice. She usually has to stand up
for the rights of sex workers and their clients, taking a political stand point. The most fun or enjoyable work that I’ve
watched Courtney perform on camera besides her photo shoots is seen here.
