The Panama Canal - It's Something To See

The Dark Side of American Imperialism and the Panama Canal

Featured in this postcard image is the payroll train for the African-descended employees. During the construction days of the Panama Canal, from 1904 to 1914, the sight of payroll trains were a common sight. The payroll of the Panama Canal was divided into two categories: the Gold roll and the Silver roll.



The Gold roll was the name for the payroll trains used to pay white Americans, mostly professionals and executives of the Isthmian Canal Commission (the name of the organization tasked with building the canal). The Gold roll trains were nicely decorated The Silver roll was for African-descended workers regardless of citizenship. Thus, by decree of the US Federal Government, ethnic segregation was enforced under the not-so-subtle metallic appellations.

Segregated housing was also provided for the African-descended population. One area, just outside of the big city of Colon was officially named Silver City, and as such was a symbol of the inequality of treatment among even US Citizens of differing ethnic backgrounds.

There were some highly valuable employees who were African American and US citizens. These were hired on the Gold roll. Being on this payroll plan brought with it many amenities such as free housing, paid trips to the US to alleviate the discomfort of an intensely tropical country (no air conditioning), free deliveries of ice to the home, better service (if they could get it) at the various stores and post offices in the Canal Zone.

In 1952 a wind of change came over the Canal Zone, long after the Gold and Silver rolls of construction days had past. Governor F.K. Newcomer of the Canal Zone, decided to poll the residents of Silver City (approximately 1280 households at the time). The residents were given six city names to choose from. They chose the name of Rainbow City (owing partially to the very colorful, if tiny, homes in this neighborhood).

Soon after the Carter-Torrijos treaties went into effect, Rainbow City was turned over to the Republic of Panama, and to this day is still the colorful township of Ciudad Arco Iris (Rainbow City in Spanish).

Here is your reward for reading my dense tale . . . the flip side.


If you end up wanting to learn more about the struggles of African Americans from all countries that worked on the Panama Canal, this is an fascinating resource.
http://www.archives.gov/publication...a-canal.html

Good /interesting popst, though you might want to edit "the struggles of African Americans from all countries"

Thanks, Moonbird. People from Central and South America do consider themselves to be Americans, though most people in North America are used to hearing the term "American" as applying to people from the United States of America.

smauggie nice write up on the card..looks good !!

Thankyou for that, really interesting. My husband travelled through the Panama Canal whilst travelling by ship from Australia to England (or possibly the other way round, or maybe even both!) as a boy, and has some postcards. It's an area I'd like to look into more.

smauggie yes its sad that we treated our Central and South American so shabbily..in my lifetime we seemed to side with the playboy dictators as long as our bananas and coffee were inexpensive..education would be the key...but I do not think that educating the peasants is very high priority !

I have found another piece of the puzzle.

This is a cover mailed from Empire, Canal Zone with a 1906 2 cent red and black Canal Zone overprinted stamp. It is tied by a doubled duplex cancel dated April 2, 1907.



The cover is somewhat damaged, but what really drew me to it was the corner card. The Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) was a commission created by the president Theodore Roosevelt for the purpose of overseeing the construction of the Panama Canal. In truth there were three versions of the commission which was eventually disbanded once canal construction was complete to be replaced by the Panama Canal Company.

As a Canal Zone township, Empire sat on the edge of the planned canal during canal construction. The township was not only home to ICC offices, but a US Army unit.

This cover was mailed by an official working in the Disbursing Office of the ICC. Responsible for all human resource responsibilities including payroll ensuring the timely and accurate distribution of pay to canal employees. Empire was one of the towns where payroll trains were laded with gold and silver coin, and the disbursing office was specifically in charge of delivering their precious cargo.

Smauggie..its interesting I met a fellow who lives in Rhinebeck who said he is a Panamanian...but he speaks the kings English not Spanish...he said his fathers family was from Jamaica and hired to work on the canal..we live and learn !!

Speaking of the ICC (Isthmian Canal Commission) and Empire I came up with this photo. I believe this may be the first time it is published on the Internet.

President Taft is visiting the Panama Canal. This picture was taken in 1907 (prior to his presidency) while he was visiting canal construction. The person nearest the photographer (to the right of Taft) in the US Army uniform is Col. George Goethals, Chief Engineer of canal construction at that time.



Taft was sent to Panama and later to the Philippines at the request of TR to ensure everything was going smoothly.

Edit: I meant to add that the road they are walking on goes right down to the bottom of the canal. Empire was situated right at the edge of the canal near the center of the canal.

Smauggie, Nice little collection and good research, thanks for posting.

Thanks for showing Smauggie.

Thanks guys.

Smauggie, I received this card yesterday from the California-Panama expo...the add said something about the completion of the trolley line to the expo...if you are interested I don't have to make anything on the card...they must have made cards like iron in 1912, its been through the mail and looks brand new..99 years young !

heres the address side !

Very interesting material .

Regards from Argentina.

Luciano

What a great story and postcard.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

Dianne