Volume 4 - Ethnicities Magazine - October

The first migration of Afro-Antillean to Panama, one of the many
ethnic groups who were part of the kaleidoscope we are today,
occurred in the mid-nineteenth century, with the California Gold
Rush, which began in 1849. The consequent attraction of wealth
highlighted the need to facilitate the trips between the east and
west coasts of the United States. This raised the urgency to build
an inter-oceanic railway in Panama as the narrowest point in the
Americas, but the problem faced by the engineers of the railway
company was that Panama did not have the amount of workforce
to provide workers for the construction of railway.
This was just about the same time that there was a crisis of
overcrowding in the Caribbean causing labor shortage. These
two combined situations, the need for workers in Panama and
unemployment in the West Indies, explains the influx of Afro-Antillean
to this area of the Isthmus.
Between 1850 and 1855 about 45,000 Jamaicans arrived for the
construction of the railroad. Between 1880 and 1889 manpower
was imported from Jamaica, this time 22 thousand workers for
the French Canal project.
After 1880, banana cultivation in Central America expanded and
the United Fruit Company was established in Bocas del Toro
(Panama) and Puerto Limon (Costa Rica) and the Chiriqui Land
Company. This raised again the need to bring manpower from
Caribbean.
A third event that would cause the Afro-Caribbean immigration
to Panama would, actually, be the attempt of the French to build
a canal as a path of water across the isthmus. By then African-West
Indians had demonstrated their stamina and element
of being good workers in the construction of the railroad as was
seen in their performances in the projects in Bocas del Toro and
Puerto Limon.
Samuel Gutierrez, a prominent scholar of architecture in Panama,
has said: “The golden years of the French Canal exert a great
influence on the city that see its population swell with the rising
tide of new immigrants. In the Historic Center, the plethora of
buildings will occur in 1880, with the expectation of the works of
the Canal. This period leaves its mark on the main artery of the
city, or “Frenchified” sectors like the old Plaza de la Independencia.
Areas beyond what were the novecentistas limits of the Colonial
City are also addressed. The mansard and fittings appear
similar to the architecture of New Orleans or those of former
French colonies of the Caribbean “
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