1. Panama Canal in the News
Historical Perspective
On the many workers' lives lost trying to build it:
Who were they and where did they come from?
2. First Attempt (French)
In the 1880s, the French tried but failed to build a Panama Canal.
They finally gave up in 1889, after years of fighting a recalcitrant landscape, ferocious disease and spiralling costs
AND the deaths of 22,000 workers! .
archive.ph/8FqKi
3. From Suez to Panama
Ferdinand de Lesseps's success in building the Suez Canal in 1869 was utterly derailed by the abysmal failure of his subsequent effort to build the Panama Canal due to disease.
Bankruptcy!
800 thousand people had invested their savings in the project!
4. The Dead Workers and Engineers
The Engineers were from France
The Workers were mainly from the West Indies, chiefly Jamaica, but with also many Chinese "Coolies"
pancanal.com/en/the-french-…
5. This project had a large turnover of labor!
Laborers were mostly Jamaicans & Men from the Antilles, South American Indians & Chinese, all controlled by Frenchmen.
The maximum force employed at any one time was reached in 1884 with more than 19,000.
web.mst.edu/lib-circ/files…
6. Malaria took more lives than Yellow Fever
Both were constant & attentive!
The sick avoided the hospitals whenever possible because of its reputation for propagating disease
St. Charles Ward, Ancon Hospital where 1200 Frenchmen Died of Yellow Fever
journalpanorama.org/article/mosqui…
7. The Death Toll
Much of the death toll was never recorded.
Along with yellow fever and malaria cases, there were an estimated 27,000 labourers and engineers killed between 1881 and 1889.
web.mst.edu/lib-circ/files…
8. Is De Lesseps a Canal Digger or a Grave Digger?
Asked Harpers Weekly at the time.
"Torrrential Rain, Devastating Floods, Millions of Tarantulas, Bugs, Rats and Snakes, not to mention Mosquitoes, Yellow Fever and Malaria"
web.mst.edu/lib-circ/files…
9. Beyond the Chagres River
Are paths that lead to death
To the fever’s deadly breezes,
To malaria’s poisonous breath!
Beyond the tropic foliage,
Where the alligator waits,
Are the mansions of the Devil
His original estates!
James Stanley Gilbert
journalpanorama.org/wp-content/upl…
10. "This country is literally poisoned"
The climate was deadly and ceaseless rains triggered mudslides that buried Caribbean workers alive.
3/4 of French engineers died within 3 months of arriving.
30 - 40 workers a day died in 1882 & 1883
history.com/news/panama-ca…
11. Who Died (1)
“it is recorded that under French control of the Canal project, 12,875 workers were on the payroll, of which 10,844 were British Afro-Antilleans: 9,005 Jamaicans, 1,344 Barbadians and 495 Saint Lucians”.
elfarodelcanal.com/en/ethnic-grou…
12. Who Died (2)
After the Afro-Antillean, Spanish participation was the most important. According to official records of the time:
"8,298 Spaniards were hired for the construction of the Panama Canal, most of them Galicians, but also from the Basque Country and Asturias”
13, Who Died (3)
Panamá’s Chinese immigrants arrived after a hellish journey from their homeland. Sailing from Shantou on ships called “floating hells” because of the inhumane conditions of the journey, many of these workers later died of tropical diseases & committed suicide
14. No Opium!
Recruiting agents "promised them heaven & earth & opium & many arrived duped or with contracts that they had no intention of fulfilling“
After construction of the railroad, many went into the construction of the French Canal.
revista.drclas.harvard.edu/the-chinese-of…
15. Then the Americans Came & Built it
Between 1904 & the end of construction in 1913, the US recorded the deaths of 5,855 canal workers.
When combined with the deaths from the French venture, it amounted to 500 lives lost for each mile of the canal.
history.com/news/panama-ca…
16. "Culebra Gorge" nicknamed “Hell’s Gorge"
"the Culebra Cut was a cauldron of noise where risks of death ranged from drowning to electrocution. Workers blasted away with upwards of 60 million pounds of dynamite which could ignite prematurely in the tropical Panamanian climate"
17. Quinine
Workers were often deafened as a side effect of using quinine to ward off malaria, which led to deadly railroad accidents
One fell trying to hop on a train & the wheel of another train cut his body right in two "as if chopped with a machete"
history.com/news/panama-ca…
18. Forgotten Casualties
The workers lived like second-class citizens, subject to a Jim Crow-like regime, with bad food, long hour, low pay & constant danger.
In the 1980s, filmmaker Roman Foster went looking for these workers; most were in their 90s.
theconversation.com/the-panama-can…
19. Fosters’s film Diggers (1984)
This documentary highlights the men from the Caribbean who laboured on one of the most dangerous areas, the Culebra Cut, but received no recognition.
20. Artificial Limb Boom
by 1912, A.A. Marks supplied more than 200 artificial limbs, paying for an ad in The New York Sun:
"celebrating how their limbs helped the many men who met with accidents, premature blasts, railroad cars"
theconversation.com/the-panama-can…
21. Public Health Lessons From The Panama Canal
In this essay from the September 1913 issue of Popular Science, Dr. John Silas Lankford from the University of Texas describes "The Lesson Of Canal Zone Sanitation"
popsci.com/article/techno…
22. Learning from Failures
1. A large part of the eventual success on the part of the USin building a canal at Panama came from avoiding the mistakes of the French
2. A lack of knowledge of sanitation & tropical diseases contributed greatly to the demise of the French endeavor
23. US success at Panama benefitted from:
1. Twenty years of advances in health, medicine, hygiene, engineering & construction.
2. The project left behind by the French. In 1903, 30% of the work was complete & the French left behind high quality materials, buildings, & work.
24. Some Historical Video Clips
Panama Canal Operations, 1913-1914
youtube.com/watch?v=WOXKNv…
Construction of the Panama Canal [1913-1914]
(Reel 1-5 of 5)
youtube.com/watch?v=Dnfz8e…
Construction of the Panama Canal [1913-1914]
(Reel 2-5 of 5)
youtube.com/watch?v=rA9kPf…
25. Today is the 25thm🎄Christmas Day🎅
Why not say a prayer for the souls of those 27,000 men who died building the Panama Canal under infernal conditions, and be grateful that this was not our fate in this lifetime.
That Canal is Theirs!
unroll the Panama Canal @threadreaderapp
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