Monthly Archives: December 2007

Culebra Cut- Part I

Posted on December 7, 2007 by | 4 Comments
Top image is a map view of the Panama Canal Route
showing the location of Culebra Cut
Bottom image shows a very early photo of
Culebra Cut in all it’s ominous splendor.


At a gathering of visiting congressmen a few days after his appointment in Panama (March 31, 1907) Colonel George W. Goethals, the new Chief Engineer, remarked, “I now consider that I am commanding the Army of Panama, and that the enemy we are going to combat is the Culebra Cut and the locks and dams at both ends of the Canal…” Continue reading →

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Posted in Panama Canal, West Indian Panamanians

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What of Their Adaptability and Strength!?

Posted on December 4, 2007 by | 1 Comment
Image is from a painting of a “blast” at Empire about 1910


The first ten years of the canal construction work had black labor under constant applied negative forces by the canal administrative system, as we have noted earlier. However, the black labor force, rather than become so deformed as to attack the system, became even more efficient in their conduct so as to withstand the stress upon the group. Continue reading →

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Communal Life in the “Black” Zone

Posted on December 1, 2007 by | 1 Comment
Image shows an early Culebra “Silver” School (1905)
courtesy of Mr. George W. Westerman


Construction of the “Big Ditch” once again became the priority project despite the feelings and attitudes of the white Americans. The “character set” of racist America, however, surfaced in the whole country of Panama. The Westindian* community, with their Black American counterparts, lived and somehow blossomed in the places set aside for them on the Black United States Canal Zone. Still being dug out where mountains once lay dormant, not a ship, as yet, had traveled the trench. Continue reading →

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Posted in Silver People of Panama, West Indian Panamanians

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