With the exception of Belize, Panama is the
Central American nation with the strongest historical links to Africa and
the Caribbean. The first link comes from the long history of African slavery
in Panama, although the number of slaves was small by comparison to Caribbean
plantations. The second link and the most important comes from the thousands
of West Indian immigrants. These peoples came for the building of
the Panama railroad and canal, giving way to the modern Panamanian working
class.
After Spain's conquest at the beginning of the
16th century, Panama became the main passageway for the Spanish to ship
gold from Peru to Spain. However, having decimated the indigenous Indian
population of Cunas, Chocos and Guaymis, the Spaniards were forced to bring
in slaves from Africa to transport the gold and work on small farms. Many
of these slaves escaped and formed rebel communities of cimmarones (Maroons)
in the eastern mountains. They were led by the "Black King" Bayano. He
defied the authority of the Spanish and collaborated with English pirates
against them.
For the next 300 years, the small population
of Panama remained concentrated in the narrowest part of the isthmus with
an important commercial center at Portobela. Several of the slaves were
freed through manumission, while the diminished Amerindian population lived
free but isolated in the jungles and mountains and on the San Blas islands.
Unions between Africans, Spaniards and Indians gradually produced a predominantly
black and mulatto population which identified itself as Panamanian. It
was a society plagued with racial and class animosities, where the Indians
were at the bottom of the social ladder and the "elite" bragged about
its one-quarter Spanish blood. Descendents of the freed blacks held considerable
prestige within the society and played an important role in defining this
national Panamanian culture. The native black population came to be referred
to as negro colonial to distinguish it from the negros antillanos who arrived
after independence.
By the 19th century a new era of Panamanian history
began as North American capital took over the country, importing its own
foreign labor force. 3,000 Chinese and 4,000 other foreign laborers entered
around 1850 for the building of the Panama railroad. From 1881, when the
French began digging the canal, to 1914 when the U.S. completed the project,
some 83,000 foreign workers entered Panama. The majority of them came from
the English-and French-speaking Caribbean islands. A final wave came during
the Second World War to work on U.S. military bases in the Canal Zone.
Over 20,000 canal construction workers died during
the French digging alone. Others eventually returned to their countries
or migrated to the United States. However, those that remained and their
descendants were numerous enough to have a permanent impact on Panamanian
society.
With the completion of the major work on the
canal in 1913, some 5,000 workers were transferred to the United Fruit
Company's banana plantations in the western province of Bocas del Toro.
Around 1929, there were some 24,000 West Indians in Bocas, although their
number fell when United Fruit transferred most of its operations to Chiriqui
province on the Pacific. Most of the West Indians, however, congregated
in Panama City and Colon, the terminal points of the canal. In addition
to the West Indians, the banana company used the labor of the Guaymi Indians.
Cultural separateness of the West Indians and
their special position as workers for the North Americans led to friction
with the native Panamanians. The West Indians felt they had little in common
with the latinized Panamanian campesinos, even though the majority of them
were also black. The Panamanians, on the other hand, tended to view the
antillanos as pawns of the Americans who had facilitated the takeover and
division of the country by the U.S..
During the Second World War, the Canal Zone became
the scene of a huge U.S. military build-up. Fourteen military bases and
130 air and intelligence facilities were installed, ostensibly for defense
of the canal but in fact as a permanent U.S. military presence in the region.
In 1968, General Omar Torrijos came into power
through a coup, advancing the canal-sovereignty issue as a key part of
his revolution. His program defined in the 1972 constitution was not radical,
but it challenged the political power of the oligarchy and brought working-class
and campesino sectors into an alliance with the government. Most importantly,
Torrijos launched a major campaign to integrate the country's diverse ethnic
sectors into a unified society. In 1981 Torrijos died and both his social
programs and the tentative national unity fell apart. He was followed by
three different presidents and three heads of the National Guard, who tried
to hold Torrijos's popular support while retreating from his progressive
policies. By 1983, the General's reformist constitution had been replaced
and many popular programs and laws still on the books were no longer
used. Today, young Panamanians of West Indian descent are active in putting
an end to the days when the West Indian community remained aloof from national
struggles.
See
CIA Demographics
Back
to AFRO TROPICAL