The old and new Panama Canal Zone, and, in fact, the whole country of Panama, would have never come to be what it is today had it not been for the persevering attitude of the black Silver employees. Despite the hardships found by those young black men who first arrived in the area of the canal construction project, some of them as young as fourteen years old, they continued to persevere. Continue reading
After the big strike of 1918-1919 and the general work stoppages that followed, the Chiriqui Land Company would be forced by political pressure to increase the pay of workers on their plantations. The agreements called for better housing and working conditions which improved the lot of the men somewhat. Continue reading
A very old photo of a Westindian washer woman, probably Jamaican, near a work camp in Empire.
West Indian women would remain in their role of supporters to the working men of the plantations. Even I had seen women living the life of wives and temporary live-in women for some men. Continue reading
Posted in West Indian Panamanians
Tagged Base camp, Baseline, boredom, cooks, dress makers, slave wages
Clipart provided by Classroom Clipart
The call to “Stop the Work!” went out up-the-line from Bocas del Toro and spread like wild fire through Chiriqui and the plantation areas of Costa Rica, even reaching remote points in Central America.The action was so far reaching that it surprised even the bosses.The actions brought to remembrance the days of slave uprisings in Jamaica, as black men united and laid down their tools heading home to the shacks or barracks they called home. Later, they would quietly await further instructions of what they should do next. Much to their horror, the stories of plantations being burnt and the precious fruit destroyed by angry exploited workers reached the labor leaders. Continue reading
As I mentioned in the previous post, there were three recognizable groups of women who lived side by side with their men in the frontier areas of early Bocas.
The first large group of women to follow men into this remote outpost, as we have said before, was West Indian women. Black women would become a regular sight in the pueblos and towns near the area of the mines and of the railroad construction. They had become a common sight, one may safely say, during the years before the construction of the first railway from 1850 and would continue to be so until my times in 1956. Continue reading
Image is from the Library of Congress.
So far, we have opened windows to the past, a past witch links us all as Panamanians to the experiences of workingmen who lived over a century ago. We have relived the times when Westindian laborers were introduced into those parts to be the sole work force, to be with them as they entered into hard, dangerous times and terrible working conditions. Those men would battle for labor reform, as we will see later on, and be trampled, battered, arrested and even assassinated in the darkness of the night. Continue reading
Posted in Bocas del Toro, West Indian Panamanians
Tagged Bocas del Toro, pioneer women, railroad days, West Indian women
