Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The panama canal was not built by slaves. They were hired and paid, and while it was chump change to the company it was a fortune to the men, who put up with the conditions to save up some money as they never could at home. Many died in the process, for it was built before we had the massive construction machines we have now. Most were from Barbatos, and many had Irish names, as both Africans and Irish rounded up as 'excess' by the English were both broutht there in the 1600's as indentured/slave labor (by nature the conditions more slave than indentured) and they mixed. By and large, they went home with the money they had saved after the canal was done, with their accumulated money. As pointed out this was long after the importation of african slaves.
Some of the workers who built the Panama RAILWAY were African slaves. Do some research on the Panama Railway. Its existence greatly helped when the Panama CANAL was built later.
There is a history of slavery and African slaves in Panama. However, by the time the Panama Canal was being built, the slaves were no more.
Ferdinand de Lesseps of France used African slaves in building the SUEZ Canal. He tried to build a Panama canal but failed.
The Americans built the Panama Canal and did not use African slaves. If African slaves were still available in the U.S. or Panama, they probably would have been used. Nonetheless, some of the workers on the Panama Canal were ex-slaves.
You have yet to address any issues relevant to this thread with any historically based substantiation. Instead you spout the same right wing trope, or more to the point, tripe.
This is the history forum, I suggest you make an attempt, however feeble to demonstrate the historical incorrectness of my positions.
"Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not his own facts."
Some of the workers who built the Panama RAILWAY were African slaves. Do some research on the Panama Railway. Its existence greatly helped when the Panama CANAL was built later.
There is a history of slavery and African slaves in Panama. However, by the time the Panama Canal was being built, the slaves were no more.
Ferdinand de Lesseps of France used African slaves in building the SUEZ Canal. He tried to build a Panama canal but failed.
The Americans built the Panama Canal and did not use African slaves. If African slaves were still available in the U.S. or Panama, they probably would have been used. Nonetheless, some of the workers on the Panama Canal were ex-slaves.
True. Panama was part of Colombia until 1903. Slavery was abolished in Colombia(which includes Panama) in the 1850s.
Chinese were also another important group that worked on the Panama Railroad as well as the Panama Canal.
A little info about Mexico: Mexico did not need to import many African slaves. Instead, they used the large population of Aztecs. The slaves would be forced to work in mines and plantations. but because of the tropical heat and unsanitary conditions, the population of Native Americans started to crumble. Spain eventually had to turn to African slaves who were more skilled in working tropical heat and in agriculture. but the use of African slaves was very short because of Mexico's Independence. The Mexican Revolutionaries liked to call themselves Mestizo's. After the war the Mestizo's only believed that their race could only be of Native American and European ancestry and excluded Africans by looking at them as outcast. Today there are only a few African Mexicans or "Afro-Mestizo" because of the few Africans brought to Mexico.
During the arrival of the Spaniards in Central America, the Mayans were starting to collapse and there weren't many Native American slaves available. Many African slaves arrived in Panama to help build the Panama Canal and in Guatemala, Honduras (including Belize), Nicaragua and Costa Rica to work in the banana and sugar-cane plantations.
what latin history did you take?
This is not true. Mexico until fairly recently had the largest visible black and Afrodescendant populations. Mexico imported a very large number of African slaves.
And the people that built the Panama Canal were not slaves. Slavery was abolished in Colombia (which Panama was apart of) in the 1850s.
In Central American countries slavery was already abolished by the mid 19th century (aka mid 1800s)
It's a no brainer that slavery would have ended and it would have ended soon. Capital labor curve and all that. Tractors, fertilizers, means of transport.
Look how much manual labor has been replaced by automation.
Plus, and this may be my bias on human nature....if the economics would have favored slave labor, I doubt the institution would have gone away. Sorry, but examples of human greed and exploitation neither started nor stopped with slavery.
It's a no brainer that slavery would have ended and it would have ended soon. Capital labor curve and all that. Tractors, fertilizers, means of transport.
Look how much manual labor has been replaced by automation.
Plus, and this may be my bias on human nature....if the economics would have favored slave labor, I doubt the institution would have gone away. Sorry, but examples of human greed and exploitation neither started nor stopped with slavery.
It would have been cheaper and simpler in the end to pay the workers and let them figure out what to do with those who couldn't. That is how the north did it. But at the time of the war that would not have made much of a dent since there wasn't any. Later the south, settled into medieval mode, did not embrase it for quite some time.
I have a feeling that slavery would have existed long past the point where it was the lesser economic choice since it was do deeply engrained in the culture. What this would have condemned the south to, if it was it's own nation, was third world status while the north embrassed the new and current.
I'm not sure a two nation situation would not have resulted in other wars, either. The choice areas to the west which both desired would still have been fought over and the strongest would have won. The status of those states on the border would also have been different. Would the virtual war in Missouri which began before the war itself have ended? Or Bloody Kansas? I have the feeling it would not have been a 'peaceful' border and perhaps one of the issues would have been the sancuary of escaped slaves which might have been one of the continuing distractions.
This is not true. Mexico until fairly recently had the largest visible black and Afrodescendant populations. Mexico imported a very large number of African slaves.
And the people that built the Panama Canal were not slaves. Slavery was abolished in Colombia (which Panama was apart of) in the 1850s.
In Central American countries slavery was already abolished by the mid 19th century (aka mid 1800s)
some historians and researchers have a different account about that.
Slavery in the Americas has a complicated history, with a number of different threads interweaving through time and place. In this last example, we will briefly consider the contribution that descendants of slaves made to the construction of one of the world’s most astounding accomplishments in engineering: the Panama Canal. The building of the Panama Canal was achieved in several stages. Although Charles V, king of Spain, floated the idea of a canal in Panama as early as 1534, the first serious attempt was carried out by the French in 1880. The French had previously built a railroad through Panama, linking the Atlantic to the Pacific, an undertaking that relied heavily on slave labour. However, the French never finished the canal, and for a number of reasons, this enterprise was abandoned in 1893. The main factor was the extremely high death toll of workers. Exact numbers are unavailable since no detailed records of workers were kept, but it is estimated that a total of 22,000 people died, a large number of whom were descendants of Africans.
The Americans took over the construction in 1904 and completed it in1914. Because of the disastrous consequences of the French canal building attempt, local Panamanians were reluctant to work for the contractors. For this reason, the Americans were forced to recruit workers from the Caribbean. By 1907, more than 20,000 black workers populated the Canal Zone. This led to alarm amongst local Panamanians, who generally thought the newcomers were settling permanently. Racism was part of the everyday existence of the Caribbean workforce. They faced hostility on the part of locals, who continually reminded them of their unwelcome status, and discrimination on the part of the American contractors, who regarded them as nothing more than barbaric animals. Indeed, although slavery had been abolished throughout the Americas for decades, black people were still seen as inferior in the eyes of white Americans.
Due to advances in medicine, hygiene and health care, the death toll during the American construction was far lower than during the previous French attempt. Still, over 5,000 workers died. The working conditions were atrocious, with Caribbean workers housed in hastily-constructed barracks that offered no protection against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Malaria was rife, the work was hard and dangerous and the black workforce was badly treated by American foremen.
The Caribbean workers, like their slave ancestors, were not willing to take this discrimination and abuse lying down. Strikes, disturbances and riots were common, and a number of workers fled into the surrounding jungles. Some workers would meet ships carrying newcomers and warn them about poor living conditions and ill treatment. The shadow of slavery still loomed; new arrivals were warned about the dangers of vaccination, which, they said, left 'an inextinguishable mark thereby forever preventing their leaving the Isthmus'. This was not far from the truth, as the vaccination process did leave a mark, used by American foremen or the authorities to identify runaway workers – much like the branding practices during slavery.
The contribution of the descendants of African slaves to the building of the Panama Canal – as well as the railroad before it – is undeniable; they performed more than 80% of the hard and dangerous work needed to complete it. This fact, though, remains one of the many untold stories of African contributions to historical events.
Kjartan Sveinsson
Senior Research & Policy Analyst
The Runnymede Trust
This is not true. Mexico until fairly recently had the largest visible black and Afrodescendant populations. Mexico imported a very large number of African slaves.
And the people that built the Panama Canal were not slaves. Slavery was abolished in Colombia (which Panama was apart of) in the 1850s.
In Central American countries slavery was already abolished by the mid 19th century (aka mid 1800s)
the French owned the territory that is known today as the Panama Canal and the laws of Colombia and Panama didn't apply to the French and their contractors. The French did used slave labor.
It's a no brainer that slavery would have ended and it would have ended soon. Capital labor curve and all that. Tractors, fertilizers, means of transport.
I swear sometimes that Econ 101 in the hands of some is like giving a load gun to a five year old...
Yes capital/labor curves only tell us at what point the cost of labor exceeds the cost of equipment. In the case of cotton harvesting (as I have already pointed out) a machine capable of efficiently harvesting cotton did not become commercially viable until the post WWII era. Additionally it would appear that you and others are ignorant of the fact that slaves were allowed/required to grow subsistent levels of crops and build their own shacks and provide only the barest minimum of cloth from which they sewed their own cloths so the cost of "providing" for slaves was at a minimum at best.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
