The Americans say that they built the Panama Canal but the voices of 25,000 dead labourers say otherwise. We will probably never know the exact toll from Barbados, but the historians who I have read agree that the bulk of labourers on the project were black Bajans. The history section of the Panama Canal Authority website confirms this also.
The photo above was taken September 2, 1909 and shows the deck of the S.S. Ancon arriving in Panama with 1500 Bajans to work on the canal. How many eventually returned to Bridgetown and how many are buried in nameless graves in Panama? I wonder if our Barbados Museum has any records or if no one bothered to record the names of black men and women who left the island for Panama.
There is much information available on the net and you owe it to yourself to learn something of our ancestors who left home to work on the greatest construction project of the time.
Further Reading…
Panama Canal Authority Website
BBC: Panama Canal Gallery
The Silver People Chronicle Blog – The story of West Indian people of Panama
Barbados Free Press 
Americans claim they built it, because they paid the cost … a lot of Barbadian’s went to Panama at the time for economic reasons ‘almost’ the same way African, Guyanese and others are coming to Barbados now.
History of Panama Canal and how and who built it was never a secret, the number of men who never returned to the islands they came from may not have been recorded, but most death were.
Unknown is the amount of Men and Women from Barbados and Jamaica who settled in Panama and raised families.
You have a lot of Dark Skinned people in Panama and it’s a good bet that a lot have Barbadian ancestry.
The History of the Panama Canal has always been shown in documentaries, written about in numerous books and always been a good read.
Path between the seas. Some 700 pages of compelling reading. Never has a history book held me in such a grip.
Also read Los Angeles Times, 12 March 2008, book review by Tim Rutten of Matthew Parkers’s book ‘PANAMA FEVER’.
The human toll was ‘conservatively estimated at 250,000 lives, or 5,000 dead for every mile of canal’.
Also interesting that Senator John McCain, the Republican Presidential candidate was born in the Panama Canal Zone.
*****************
BFP Says
Hi Adrian
I saw that article and although the book might be a good read, the journalist who wrote the review accidentally added a zero to the death toll. I checked with a few sources, including the Panama Canal Administration and that 250k figure is out by ten times.
Marcus
PS: I am currently working on bringing a group of travel agents and tour operators from Panama to Barbados for the re-DISCOVER the Caribbean Show in April.
There is a new, four times weekly, DIRECT service with COPA Airlines from Panama to Port of Spain and given time, hopefully we can extend it to Barbados.
In 1965 on my way to Santiago, Chile (the first of many trips to Latin America) I met an old Bajan man who was in his nineties. He told me that he had travelled to Panama at the turn of the Twentieth Century to work on building the Panama Canal. Sadly, all I could give him a a memento of the West Indies was a copy of the Trinidad Guardian that I had bought in Trinidad.
In those days, air travel to Panama required an overnight stay in Trinidad, and a journey through Caracas on the following day. On subsequent trips, I found it easier to travel to Miami and make a same-day connection in the afternoon.
My grandmother’s first husband went to Panama leaving her pregnant with her third son. He soon stopped corresponding or providing any financial support. He never returned to Barbados, and it was subsequently discovered that he had started a new family in Panama.
One of the sad things about Bajans who migrated to Panama is that their offspring had difficulty in integrating with the mestizo community, or moving up the social ladder. As late as 1975 many of them were still living in the original barracks on the outskirts of Panama City that housed the original canal workers.
On the brighter side, migration to Panama, in the words of the report of the Moyne Commission (Cmd.6607) was included among “the large possibilities of emigration that existed before the war of 1914-18 (which) afforded such relief that the total numbers in the island actually actually declined by some 20,000 between 1896 and 1921. “
“Los Negros Estupendos!”
Not only black men; many black bajan women like my great grandmother followed their husbands to the golden city. They faced inhumane conditions, jim crow, tropical diseases of every description, but “still they rise”…
***********
BFP says,
Hi degap,
Yes, our little blurb failed to reflect that truth and we have now changed it. Thanks for pointing out a needed change in the story. That’s what we love about blogging!
Thank you Marcus for the correction.
I must admit I was staggered by the quoted figure.
I too am trying to get hold our a copy of the book.
Its a facinating part of Barbadian history.
If I also read correctly the reason President Theo. Roosevelt visited Barbados in 1913 was to thank the country for their help completing the canal.
When I was growing up, it was commonplace to meet older Bajan men who had worked on the canal. The lack of knowledge today in Barbados about our major contribution to “The Bajan Canal” is indeed regrettable — I make a point of always informing my students at Cave Hill of some of the key aspects.
Actually, although tens of thousands of Bajans worked on the canal, and tens of thousands of workers perished in the effort, comparatively few of those who died were Bajans. The reason is that the vast majority who died did so of yellow fever during the failed French phase of the effort in the 1880s. Most of the labourers in the French effort were from Jamaica, Martinique and Guadeloupe, and they died by the thousands. Wikipedia suggests that as many as 22,000 died during the French effort (which accomplished about 1/4 of the canal’s length), but only about 5,609 during the ten years (1904-1914) of the American effort.
By the time that the U.S. took over the effort (about 20 years after the French abandoned it), the mosquito as the cause of yellow fever had been discovered (largely as a result of the efforts in Cuba of Cuban physician Carlos Finlay and Walter Reade of U.S. Veterans’ Hospital fame). As a result, the first order of business when the U.S. began work was to clean away brush, drain standing water, put screens on doors and windows, and distribute mosquito nets.
Because Jamaica is much closer to Panama than is the U.S, the Americans also wanted to use Jamaican labourers. But so many Jamaicans had either died in Panama, or been stranded there when the French effort collapsed, Jamaica refused to even allow recruiting on the island. As a result, Barbados (with a high unemployment rate at the time) was targeted for recruitment.
Although yellow fever was now almost insignificant, the work was still dangerous, and many Bajans still died of what would today be called “industrial accidents.” Some died of malaria and dysentery. But very few died of yellow fever. Considering that there were undoubtedly more Bajans employed in the U.S. effort than any other single nationality (probably about 40% of the total work force), under three thousand seems like a reasonable estimate of Bajan deaths.
The work was hard and, no doubt, lonely. And racial discrimination was standardized through the payment of whites in gold, but blacks in silver (thus the title of Bajan author Velma Newton’s wonderful history, “The Silver Men: West Indian Labour Migration to Panama, 1850-1914”).
But it wasn’t all bad — according to David McCulloch’s book “The Path between the Seas”, many Bajans not only consistently sent money back to their families, but also became highly skilled in operating the heavy equipment. Two famous Panama-born athletes of Bajan descent are the Hall of Fame baseball player Rod Carew and, of course, the great batsman George Headley (Bajan father, Jamaican mother).
BFP, I am very glad to see you reminding us all of this largely forgotten aspect of our heritage. I would love to see some future Barbados government (perhaps in cooperation with Panama) erect a statue in Bridgetown in memory of all the Bajans who worked and sacrificed for the world’s greatest civil engineering project of the 20th century.
I guess money talks!
A pity Owen Arthur was not born as yet……so that he would have been part of those labour gangs to Panama !
I do hope as part of the sentence for his CRIMES against BAJANS that he be paraded daily up & down BROAD STREET in socks only !
That no – teeth ARCH – CRIMINAL !
Looks like the “Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination” was packed out the other night with people listening to Owen.
CBC carried some of it in the news last night.
BFP,
This is a very important part of our (my) story. Although many men forsook wives, women, and children when they left the cane fields of St. Peter et al for Panama, many more did not, so Bajan women and children endured the same inhumane conditions.
Deep Midwicket is right…”I would love to see some future Barbados government (perhaps in cooperation with Panama) erect a statue in Bridgetown in memory of all the Bajans who worked and sacrificed for the world’s greatest civil engineering project of the 20th century.”
You would think that now after Barbadian independence from England that they want to honor those heroes who helped in a major way to build the Panama Canal …
“Authorities on the Island of Barbados finally authorized large-scale recruitment leading to a total recruitment of 19,900 laborers, reportedly approximately 10 percent of the population and between 30 and 40 percent of the adult males.”
This is something in the masses of the Egyptian Pyramids and the Great Wall of China and History has forgotten who built them.
Let’s not forget those Barbadian Men and Women who helped build history, find the resources for a Monument that will last a life time to remember the achievement our ancestor’s help build.
How many of the Barbadian populace remember anything about the Panama Canal and who helped to built it…It’s really sad.
A large Monument would leave a lasting impression for our Youth, Countrymen and Visitor’s…How many photos are taken of Nelson’s Monument Daily and it’s not even representative of the actual Barbadian’s who made Barbados what it is today, it’s more of what the Confederate Flag meant to the Southern US States.
Barbadian’s achievements should be displayed as well.
There should be two monument’s built, one in BridgeTown and the other in Panama where tourist and other likes can see for eternity.
That no – teeth ARCH – CRIMINAL !
……………………………………………………………………………….
Jerome. It is quite sickening about your behaviour towards Mr. Arthur. You fail to raise pertinent logic about Mr. Arthur’s management of the country. Yes, certain critical mistakes were made by his ministers, but you constantly insult and degrade the gentleman every time you pen an article.
I know that the leader of this administration is embarrassed with people of your kin, who pretend to be a supporter of the party, using insults and derogative language every time you write.
Even the Prime Minister is showing statesmanship in honouring the former Prime Minister. Also Mr. Hartley Henry find time to compliment Mr. Arthur. I don’t have problems with anyone being critical of a public figure, but we can do without your unnecessary gutter talk.
Your abuse is equal to vile behaviour.
Tell me Why
March 13, 2008 at 4:55 pm
That no – teeth ARCH – CRIMINAL !
Jerome. It is quite sickening about your behaviour towards Mr. Arthur.
Your abuse is equal to vile behaviour.
**************************************
Tell Me why,
That is a problem for your NEGROCRATIC & INDENTURED SERVANT……..backside !
Always remember….who threw the FIRST STONE of abuse & vile bahaviour !
Yuh DRIFTWOOD & GOON SQUAD…..WILD BOY !
***********
BFP Auntie Moses Say
Settle down Jerome. You too, Tell Me Why.
Both a you gonna be tossed out ta sleep in the canefield for de night and den you BE SORRY!
YOU BETTA WATCH OUT!!!! Herself not be foolin’!!!
BFP Auntie Moses Say
Settle down Jerome. You too, Tell Me Why.
………………………………………………………………………………..
My comments are clean and with debatable contents, I was just encouraging Jerome to be a statesman with his language. So why the threat.
TMY
Please release, me let me go – BFP
BFP Auntie Moses Say
Settle down Jerome. You too, Tell Me Why.
Both a you gonna be tossed out ta sleep in the canefield for de night and den you BE SORRY!
YOU BETTA WATCH OUT!!!! Herself not be foolin’!!!
*************************************
Auntie Moses,
Thanks for the advice !
I am off to a meeting to help Lionel C. Hill get out of that terrible situation that the Owen gov’t put him , his company and staff in !
Could you ” Tell Me Why ” Owen & his gov’t was so UNCARING……..Auntie Moses ?
The DEMS……are better for BARBADOS by FAR !
I am sorry for Hill Milling. But how come that ADM Barbados and Roberts Manufacturing was able to get monthly buffers to subsidise cost. Why was Hill and Simplex omitted from the equation? Again, we might be looking at protecting foreign investors.
Meet you at the meeting, Jerome? Are you the new advisor for the Ministry of Trade???????????
Seems commenters getting jobs. How about me!!!!!
I would not be surprised if the British Colonial Office had the names of every one of those 19,900 males who left our shores to work on the Panama Canal. Also the names of wives who left with them.
Our colonial masters were punctilious about such matters, and losing 30% to 40% of the males of working age from one of its treasured colonies would be a matter of considerable import.
They may also have kept records of those that returned, and who died there either while working or having opted not to return. Very often in such migrations the workers had to be guaranteed repatriation at the end of their labours. Others may have used an entiitlement to emigrate to the U.S.A.
Is there perhaps a Research Office in HMG who could put us on the track of this vital part of our social history? It may all be there in Kew Gardens Records Office wrapped in a red tape.
As a first step in giving our role in the Canal its proper due, a plaque recording the basic details could readily be added to the Independence Arch which a high proportion of visitors would read on their stay with us. One more factoid to show Barbados unique and a reason to make their visit here a memorable one.
You Political over lappers sure know how to ruin a good blog…
The man couldn’t have been that bad, he kept getting re-elected and now that he’s retired why shouldn’t the Ex-Prime Minister get on the lecture circuit…and often, to voice other opinions…it’s freedom of speech.
US President’s do it, the good and the bad are all honored after retirement, people move on they don’t keep harping on mistakes made him or his staff…It won’t change anything.
Fact is there should a Library built in honor of the Man…He will be in Barbadian and Worldwide History books for life, something that I think the majority of you will ever achieve.
Meet you at the meeting, Jerome? Are you the new advisor for the Ministry of Trade???????????
*********************************************
To be correct……Consultant for Trade & Investment .
My fees ?
A public service for the good of country.
Just delete my the post awaiting moderation…I just get frustrated reading post unwarranted for what I think is an important blog about the history of our forefathers.
Year ago now, at a Women’s Writer’s Conference in Miami I believe, I met a lady called Ana Sisnet.
She is this awesome lady who is doing work to demystify the Internet for ordinary women, and training women to use computers and closing the digital divide.
In fact, meeting her played a large part in me starting to use the internet, and when I got into it I felt like I was already late in 1995.
Ana and I hung out more than once over the conference days, and we chatted about our backgrounds etc. Turns out, her father (or grandfather) was a Barbadian who went over to build the Canal and never left.
She was born in Panama, and told me of the large Barbadian descended population living in Panama. People who speak with Barbadian accents, and how words and such survived. I’ve since then met a small number of these Panamanian-Bajans, and the one thing seems constant… they are searching to find their roots in Barbados.
Since my own grandfather went off to help build the Canal, we have our own stories as well.
I’d be very interested in reading more about the Barbadian ex-pats in Panama.
Thank you for posting this BFP. I do hope Ana Googles and finds it some day.
pandora
March 13, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I would not be surprised if the British Colonial Office had the names of every one of those 19,900 males who left our shores to work on the Panama Canal. Also the names of wives who left with them.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Check down at the Archives.
I can’t remember exactly what book it was in but I do recall looking through a list of names and ages of people who went to Panama to build the canal.
At the time I was looking for an ancestor who an elder in my family had told me went to Panama.
He would have been about 40-60 at the time.
When I saw the ages, mostly 18 -26 years old and could not find the name, I realised that elder had been spinning a yarn and probably had no intention of ever speaking about that particular member of the family.
I suspect he may well have been an embarrassment to the family back then.
Rather than tell me he had to “run out of the island”, I was given the Panama story.
…… at least I wasn’t told he had gone to Brasil like Millie!!
Many Bajans who went to Panama ended up going to the US and entering through Ellis Island.
ellisisland.org can be used to check names too.
pandora “I would not be surprised if the British Colonial Office had the names of every one of those 19,900 males who left our shores to work on the Panama Canal. Also the names of wives who left with them.
Our colonial masters were punctilious about such matters, and losing 30% to 40% of the males of working age from one of its treasured colonies would be a matter of considerable import.”
That was alot of man power leaving the island in wholesale lots.
Someone kept records, the Brits, shipping companies, the companies that hired the men and women.
Also the ones who came back had to be documented, the ones who made it back had good money for they’re labor…good money for that era.
I read somewhere that those who did come back brought businesses and some brought plots of land from those same colonial masters at high rates, but most were successful and that was good.
Those 19,900 or more should be honored somewhere on Barbados, that Canal is definitely history and was well needed for the pacific trade.
It’s still a major trade asset and will be long into the future, it a history that will never be erased.
Let’s don’t forget the men who built it and made it happen…honor them.
To be correct…Consultant for Trade & Investment .
My fees ?
A public service for the good of country.
………………………………………………………………………………….
Cut the crap Jerome. Even if you represented the BMA or BIDC you will be paid. But I have a sneaky feeling that you are one of the new advisors. You are the third of the partisan supporters to be drafted into this new administration.
I am a Panamanian Westindian (that is how we came to be called and is pronounced that way in criollo Panama). I also author the blog The Silver People Chronicle, which I started specifically to document not only my ancestors’ (Jamaican) role and contributions to the building of the Panama Rail road, the Banana Industry (Plantation network in Central America) and the Panama Canal (both the French and American participation). Even after the opening of the Canal in 1914 we continued to work and make the canal and the zone the efficient model of operation that it is today. Remember that a lot of the initial clean and sanitation of the urban areas of Panama was done by the West Indians.
Presently we, of the Silver People Chronicle, are doing extensive research on old burial sites and records where the “Silver” West Indian workers are buried. We find most places abandoned and in danger of disappearing completely. We need your support letters to assist us in our work to maintain these sites as a World Cultural Heritage. We thank all of you who have posted commentaries and are interested in this subject. Please visit our site and leave a comment or e mail us with a letter of support.
********
BFP say
Hello Roberto
All the best in your quest to keep the memory of the Silver People alive. We are now listing your blog on our sidebar.
george
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i have a big interest in this
my older relatives -grand parents and their siblings went to panama—then to cuba -trinidad and tobago
i have relatives in those places for sure so i am looking forward to adrian loveridge’s exercise
incidentally they came back and bought lots of property that is supposed to pass down the family line-unfortunately there are problems with this situation right now.
Asiba-The Buffalo Soldier
March 15, 2008 at 1:19 am
incidentally they came back and bought lots of property that is supposed to pass down the family line-unfortunately there are problems with this situation right now.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
…. lawyers, …. right??
The other reason for the whole Panama Canal by the United States was an attempt at mass deportation of America’s Black population… With the needs of the former African slaves in America coming to an end, the Panama Canal was used as a way of sending a huge number of blacks out of the United States permanently….
That was one of the goals of the Panama Canal programme…
Prior to Panama, the United States wanted to deport most of Americas black population to Liberia…
J.Payne
You would need to explain why many black West Indians moved to New York and availed themselves of an open door policy.
I had a great grandfather who did that.
NY NY was accepting immigrants from all over the world at about the time when the canal was being built. When it was complete, many laborers moved there.
I would more accept that the US was booming and needed every hand it could get to develop its industry and supply world markets.
This created the need for the Panama Canal and gave West Indian Blacks the opportunity to escape the limited opportunities and make a life in Panama and in the Big Apple.
Deporting blacks and doing without their labour would have been counter productive for America.
Re: John
>> You would need to explain why many black West Indians moved to New York and availed themselves of an open door policy.
I had a great grandfather who did that.
<> John: I would more accept that the US was booming and needed every hand it could get to develop its industry and supply world markets.
This created the need for the Panama Canal and gave West Indian Blacks the opportunity to escape the limited opportunities and make a life in Panama and in the Big Apple.
Deporting blacks and doing without their labour would have been counter productive for America.
<<
As the US became more and more computerized and had more machinery to do farm labour the need for all this labour (which blacks had traditionally done in those times.) had wained… Hence why Blacks in the deep southern USA started moving to the North (to areas like Chicago, Detroit, New York, etc.) To work in factories.
Although it would seem counter productive it was the policy of Abraham Lincoln (for example) to try and to expel all free blacks from America. According to several documentaries looking at the research America had a fear the states would “become like Brazil and Latin America” mixed race. The United States purchased Liberia in Africa for the express purpose of the United States government’s plan to deport black Americans back to Africa in the 1800s. You can read the actual history of Liberia to see this.
One quick source I found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
Also keep in mind just because someone is a worker in America doesn’t mean historically they weren’t wronged. During World War II millions of Japanese-Americans were forced into internment camps in the United States… A large number of Chinese persons were used to build the railroads in the Western mountains of the United States as well and still were second class citizens after linking the country. After the USA seized Puerto Rico- there was a programme carried out there of forced sterilization of the islands’ women during the mid 1900s… None the less there was also the Tuskegee study of black men who were allowed to die from Syphilis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male
According to the documentary I saw on the Panama Canal on either LinkTV or PBS, the parts of Panama where many of the blacks that helped on the Panama Canal had settled like the neighborhood of El Chorillo were the same areas in 1989 that had a large scale massacre carried out…. U.S. troops stationed there burned parts of the city to the ground and killed thousands during the invasion that year.
J. Payne
There seems to have been a number of reasons Liberia was founded. I did not find in my brief reading about it that it was stated American Policy to send American Blacks there but there were some Americans who supported it, and for many reasons, some of which you cite.
Mostly it appears to have been as a result of the will of the FREE persons of colour who chose this route as a solution to their troubles. About 13,000 went between 1821 and 1867, fewer than the 20,000 Bajans who went to Panama.
Here is something I found about the society which organised the colonialisation, long before Marcus Garvey and the Black Star Line, I think around the time of Panama.
“The American Colonization Society (in full: The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America) was an organization that helped in founding Liberia, a colony on the coast of West Africa, in 1821 and transported free blacks there from the United States. During the next 20 years the colony continued to grow and establish economic stability. In 1847, the legislature of Liberia declared itself an independent state.
Some charged that the ACS was a racist society, while others point to its benevolent origins and later takeover by men with visions of an American empire in Africa, although both black and white Americans were a part of the ACS.[citation needed] The Society closely controlled the development of Liberia until 1847, when it was declared to be an independent republic. By 1867, the ACS had assisted in the movement of more than 13,000 Americans to Liberia, whose descendants came to be called Americo-Liberians. The organization was formally dissolved in 1964.[1]
The society was supported by Southerners fearful of organized revolt by free blacks, by Northerners concerned that an influx of black workers would hurt the economic opportunities of indigent whites, by some who opposed slavery but did not favor integration, and by many blacks who saw a return to Africa as the best solution to their troubles.”
i still don’t know howmuch they made while working.
This sounds like important history that needs to continue to be revealed to the world. This history of Bajan contributions to building the panama canal should be a permanent part of Panamanian History. We must also remember that there was a very large Afro-Latino population in Panama even before this happned. The Afro Latinos of Panama weren’t just “darkskinned”…… they were and still are Black people (you don’t have to be 100% pure african to be black). Most Black Panamanians are Descendents of Enslaved West Africans that the Spaniards forced out of africa and into slavery in Panama, as early as the 1500’s. This of course happened in all of Latin America as well. We should never forget or gloss over the history of any oppressed people. Also, all Americans don’t say that they build the Panama Canal. There are Americans that support and empathize with the history and struggle of Bajans that built the panama canal.
I would certainly like to see before I died a memorial in the honor of those brave 1500 souls from Barbados who left these shores to help shape history today.
Vasco Stevenson– London
There were in fact 20,000 Barbadians who went to Panama with the understanding, like the West Indians from other islands, that they would earn money and be able to support their families. In all about 100,000 blacks from the Caribbean were involved. Remember that many blacks were already there from the failed French attempt. What is also not mentioned is that many were actually murdered by their racist supervisors. This history has to be kept alive. perhaps you should also look at the history of the Garifuna.
I would like to know more about this. I have visit Barbados and now want to know more about the people who went to build the Canal. I wonder what in Barbados now is a direct result of that? Did the people but land, start business or send someone to school who went on to lead in Barbados, become a doctor and so and so.
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The eldest brother of my mother’s mother went to Panama, and remained there and was alive in Colon up until the early 1950’s. Our family name, a fairly unusual one is still alive in Colon. I have an original document, which was owned by my grandmother, then my aunt and now by me which document’s my great uncle’s presence in Panama, I will give it to the University, or the Archives some time.
My grandmother’s husband (my step-grandfather was also a Panama man.
And in the village in which I grew up there were at least 2 Panama men alive and well up until about the time of Barbados’s Independence (1966)
the Panama men were a little better off than others in the community, and I recall that they were all sharp dressers.
My name is RONALD BRESSANT. MY GRANDFATHER, CARL BRESSANT, WORKED IN PANAMA AT TIME OF THE PANAMA CANAL. HE WAS FROM BARBADOS. OUR NAME MAY HAVE
CHANGED FROM BRIZANT TO BRESSANT. I’M VERY MUCH INTERESTED IN HIS JOURNEY. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIS DOCUMENTS. I HAVE AN UNCLE STILL LIVING, HE’S 90 SOMETHING AND VERY ALERT BUT I’M TRYING THIS ROUTE ALSO. MY GRANDMOTHER SUPORTED MARCUS GARVEY. THE BOOK THAT I READ ABOUT GARVEY EXPOSED THE HARSH TREATMENT OF THE BAJAN PEOPLE IN PANAMA AND THE CANAL.
Donna L.
I am a Panamanian. My grandmother was born in panama and so were both of my parents. My great-grandparents came to Panama from Barbados to build the Canal in 1904. We know absolutely nothing about our relatives in Barbados. One of the problems is the language barrier. Many Barbados descendants in Panama are not fluent in English. Communication becomes an issue. I was educated in the US I left Panama to attend the University in the US, so I learned English. I have tried to get my great-grandparents birth certificate from Barbados. I sent the fee and information twice and received no response;. I know I sent it to the proper government office in Barbados because I checked with the Barbados Embassy in Washington, DC. We want to get in contact with the families in Barbados but it is very difficult. We have tried so many things to no avail. I am no alone. Many families in Panama would like to know also. Any suggestions? Last names are Hinds, Griffith, Rollins and Jones.
I didn’t how deep the situation was back then. I
wish you the best on your quest.
There were different phases in connection with the Panama Canal. To fully understand the issues you have to start with the reasons for the canal then move on to the railroad (1850 – 1855) followed by the French attempt (1881 – 1889) and lastly the Americans (1904 – 1914). During the railroad phase there were diverse workers but most of the 1200 blacks came from Jamaica. Turn over was very high and between 1850 and 1855 the number of deaths is estimated at between 6,000 and 12,000. remember that no records were kept for blacks, only whites. Among those who died were 600 of the 800 Chinese who were working on the railway at the time. These 600 actually committed suicide. The remaining 200 were shipped to Jamaica, which started the Chinese presence in that country. The French phase was the worse of all with about 22,000 deaths and black Jamaicans accounting for about 15,000 of them. There is a lot more about this that can be said. The American phase started in 1904 when Barbadians were recruited due mainly to the Jamaican Government imposing a tax of £1 on anyone wanting to go to Panama. The idea was to discourage jamaicans from going due to what had happened during the French phase. About 19,900 Barbadians were CONTRACTED to go to Panama but about 60,000 Barbadians of both genders went. So there were two communities developing. One contracted to work in the Canal Zone (under American control and Jim Crow laws and etiquette) and a parallel community outside the Zone. The Canal was officially opened in 1914 and between 1904 and 1920 just under 6,000 Barbadians died there. I actually make presentations here in the UK about this aspect of Black History which some would rather forget. visit my website (www.blackhealth.co.uk) and select Events & Engagements from the menu to see where and when these and other presentations will be taking place.
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHERE CAROLL BRIZANT ORIGINALLY CAME FROM. HE WAS MY GRANDFATHER FROM BARBADOS WORKING ON THE CANAL. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO GET THE JAMAICAN & COLUMBIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE CANAL.
Researching my family history – check out https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2193241 for the United States, Panama Canal Zone, Employment Records and Sailing Lists, 1905-1937 – a searchable database with pictures
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