History article review 1 page.
International Labor and Working-Class, Inc.
Spaniards on the Silver Roll: Labor Troubles and Liminality in the Panama Canal Zone,
1904-1914
Author(syf - X O L H * U H H Q e
Source: International Labor and Working-Class History, No. 66, New Approaches to Global
Labor History (Fall, 2004yf S S 8
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Labor and Working-
Class, Inc.
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll: Labor Troubles
and Liminality in the Panama Canal Zone,
1904-1914
Julie Greene
University of Colorado at Boulder
Abstract
This article examines the experiences of Spanish workers during the construction of the
Panama Canal by the United States from 1904 to 1914. Spaniards engaged in a wide range
of protest actions during the construction years, from strikes to food riots to anarchist
politics. Employing Victor Turner's concept of liminality, the article highlights the mu
tability of the Spaniards' position and identity and examines several factors that shaped
their experiences: the US government's policies of racial segregation and the injustices
Spaniards experienced; the political and racial identities they brought with them from
Spain; and their complex racial and imperial status in the Canal Zone. Spaniards pos
sessed a remarkably fluid racial identity, considered white or nonwhite depending on
circumstances, and that shifting status fueled their racial animosities as well as their
protests.
In July of 1911, during the construction of the Panama Canal by the United
States, common laborers from Spain working on the infamous Culebra cut re
fused to do certain kinds of work and demanded the right to eat on the job. Span
ish workers in several other gangs made a similar protest, and soon a strike in
volving dozens of gangs had begun. The foremen suspended these more than 500
workers for insubordination, and the incident blossomed into the biggest strike
on the canal during the entire construction period (1904 to 1914yf O 7 K L V V W U L N e
formed part of a wave of labor militancy that spread through the labor camps and construction towns of the Canal Zone and that included an assertive anar
chist movement. Spaniards stood at the center of these labor actions; they were
by far the most likely workers to engage in strikes, riots, or anarchist politics dur
ing the construction years. This paper will examine the nature and causes of this
remarkable labor militancy among Spanish workers in the Canal Zone.
Panam? has long served as a crossroads of transnational cultural relations
and imperial adventures. In the 1820s British planters, accompanied by their
slaves, began homesteading there. During the California Gold Rush, construc
tion of a highly profitable railroad turned the Isthmus into an important point of
connection between the laboring worlds of the Atlantic and Pacific. In the late
nineteenth century the French government tried for nine years to build a canal
before its effort ended disastrously, while innumerable banana plantations
International Labor and Working-Class History No. 66, Fall 2004, pp. 78-98 ? 2004 International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc.
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 79
emerged farther north. In 1903 the United States forcefully entered the stage.
Led by President Theodore Roosevelt, the government supported a group?in
cluding representatives of the New Panama Canal Company?plotting a revo
lution of independence from Colombia. After the revolution succeeded, the US
negotiated a treaty with the new republic of Panam?, giving the former absolute
control over the huge strip of land known as the Canal Zone, and proceeded to build the canal between 1904 and 1914. The United States maintained the Canal
Zone as its colony until a treaty in 1979 began to return it to the government of
Panam?. Only in December 1999 did Panam? finally resume complete control over the Panama Canal.2
The decade of canal construction provides a dramatic window into US colo
nial policies and working-class experiences during the era of the "New Imperi
alism." To be sure, US politicians and bureaucrats had little time for imperial
self-reflection. They were determined to carry out the construction project, one
of the most demanding in world history, efficiently and successfully. It required
the ability to manage a workforce from all over the world that reached numbers
as high as 45,000 workers at a single time. US government officials created a rigid
system in order to divide and control this diverse group of workers. Known as
the gold and silver rolls, this system divided workers based upon their race, cit
izenship, and level of skill, into two very different categories. "Gold" employ
ees, normally white US citizens, received high pay and many luxurious perks
which were off limits to the "silver" workers, most of them black Caribbeans.
Spaniards fit uneasily into this system. As "white" men on a silver roll nor
mally reserved for blacks, and as members of a once triumphant empire now
contributing to building the US canal, Spanish workers felt profoundly liminal,
caught between different worlds, empires, and races. Anthropologist Victor
Turner developed the concept of liminality in the 1960s as a way to capture peo
ple, typically outsiders, whose identity is very much in flux. They inhabit a con
tradictory position, being simultaneously part of and yet not part of the existing
structures, which makes them, he argued, structurally invisible. The concept of
liminality helps us highlight both the mutability of the Spaniards' position and
identity, and the fact that it hinged on several factors that were in turn highly flu
id. This paper will explore those factors: the US government's policies of racial
segregation and the injustices Spaniards experienced as a result of those poli
cies; the political and racial identities they brought with them from Spain; and
their complex racial and imperial status in the Canal Zone. Spaniards possessed
a remarkably fluid racial identity, considered white or nonwhite depending on
circumstances, and that shifting status fueled their racial animosities. They also
came to the Zone as citizens of an empire and nation looked down upon by the
US. These elements shaped the way Spaniards experienced life as well as the na
ture of their resistance. Migrants from a dying empire to one newly emergent,
Spanish workers found much to dislike in the Zone and in the US government's
policies and they responded with strikes, food riots, and anarchist protests.3
When construction got underway in 1904 the Canal Zone became a spec
tacular site of working-class endeavor and imperial construction, drawing mi
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80 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
grants from dozens of countries around the world, from Barbados to China, from
Greece to India, from Scotland to Turkey and Venezuela. From the very begin
ning the "labor question" loomed larger than any other for US government of
ficials as they contemplated how to build the canal most efficiently. As the canal's
first Chief Engineer, John Stevens, proclaimed: "the greatest problem in build
ing a canal of any type on the Isthmus ... is the one of labor. The engineering
and constructional difficulties melt into insignificance compared with labor."4
Government officials debated at length the virtues of various kinds of workers,
ranking their efficiency by race and nationality. West Indians had supplied most
of the labor during the French effort to build a canal, so they remained a natur
al choice for the United States. Yet many engineers believed their labor to be in
ferior. Stevens, for example, complained: "I have no hesitancy in saying that the
West Indian Negro is about the poorest excuse for a laborer I have ever been up
against in thirty-five years of experience."5 Lacking an alternative, US govern
ment officials relied mostly on West Indians, especially Barbadians and Ja
maicans, to fill the unskilled jobs. But dissatisfaction with Caribbeans fueled
their interest in southern Europeans, especially Spaniards, who became the sec
ond largest source of common laborers. For skilled labor, engineers turned pri
marily to white workers from the United States who would number ultimately
between five and six thousand in the Zone and perform such jobs as steam shov
el drivers, machinists, and foremen. Finally, small numbers of skilled workers
also came from Panam?, from Northern European countries like Britain and
Germany, and from the Caribbean.6
Although civilians would build the Canal, the US military's fingerprints lay
all over the project. Many of the men in command in the Canal Zone were on
leave from the US Army, such as Colonel George Washington Goethals, Chief
Engineer and Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICCyf I U R P X n
til the completion of the canal.7 The gold and silver system these officials adopt
ed for managing labor originated at the highest levels of the US federal govern
ment and quickly flowered into an all-encompassing form of segregation. The
government paid silver employees far less, fed them unappetizing food, and
housed them in substandard shacks where vermin and filth prevailed. Gold
workers earned very high wages and terrific benefits, including six weeks paid
vacation leave, one month paid sick leave every year, and free travel within the
Zone. The government also developed an attractive social life in the Zone and
provided it at no or low cost to white US employees, hiring bands and vaude
ville acts to perform regularly throughout the Zone and building grounds for
baseball and other games. YMCA clubhouses throughout the Zone provided
white US citizens with reading rooms, bowling alleys, and gymnasiums. Finally,
the system of segregation heralded by this system was not limited to the payroll.
Government officials cracked down, for example, on sexual practices or cohab itation that crossed racial lines.8
Government officials struggled during most of the construction period to
define the nature of the silver and gold system, disagreeing among themselves
even about the reasons for its existence. Some thought it designed to give work
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll
81
ers from the North special perks that would help them withstand the tropical cli
mate (giving them, for example, extended paid vacations so they could return
homeyf 2 W K H U V W K R X J K W L W P H D Q W W R V K R Z T X L F N O \ D Q G H D V L O \ K R Z P D Q \ E O D F N R r
white workers the government employed at any time, or to avoid conflicts be
tween workers of different races.9 Over time, however, the system changed rad
ically. As the government began constructing the canal in 1905, the gold/silver
system remained quite fluid. Many skilled Europeans, Afro-Caribbeans, and
African Americans won inclusion on the gold roll during these early years. In
1907, the system became more racial in nature, as the government ordered that
all "colored employes" be shifted from the gold to the silver rolls, with the no
table exception of "colored policemen, school teachers, and postmasters." Yet
this still did not clarify the situation. What about Spaniards or Italians, whom
the government called "semi-white?" What about Panamanians or West Indians
who claimed to be white? And on which roll did black US citizens most easily
belong? Problems like these vexed the Canal administrators and for years offi
cials refused to issue a specific written policy, preferring to decide each case as
it came along.10
In early 1908 President Roosevelt stipulated in an executive order that
gold-roll employment would be limited to US citizens, except in cases where
none were available. Later that same year, Roosevelt added that Panamanian
citizens would also be eligible for gold jobs. Finally in 1909 Goethals got the last
word, reinterpreting Roosevelt's executive order in ways which defined the sys
tem by citizenship and by race. The gold system would consist of all US citizens
and "a few Panamanians." Other "white employees (i.e., not native to the trop
icsyf F R X O G E H H P S O R \ H G Z K H Q Z K L W H 8 6 F L W L ] H Q V Z H U H Q R W D Y D L O D E O H 7 K H V H G e
cisions clarified the situation for Spaniards, Italians, and other southern Euro
peans: they would all be classified as silver workers, receiving the lower pay and
housing that accompanied that designation.
With the government imposing such unrelenting segregation, workers' lives
on and off the job varied tremendously according to their position in the silver/
gold rolls, and the ways workers exercised agency varied radically as well. In this
racialized empire not only did white US workers dominate, enjoying a great ar
ray of perks and luxuries restricted to them alone (and indeed, they gradually
evolved into key enforcers of the racial systemyf W K H \ D O V R G H Y H O R S H G H I I H F W L Y e
means of protecting and extending their powers and rights.12 The US govern
ment desperately needed these skilled workers, needed to avoid costly deser
tions, and wanted the canal project always to remain a popular cause among the
taxpaying citizens back home. To improve their position in the Zone, skilled
workers relied not on strikes but on their unions?most of them powerful and
politically effective ones, like the International Association of Machinists or the
Steam Shovel and Dredgemen's International Union?to press their case before
the government. These circumstances gave white US citizens tremendous lever
age in the Zone. Government officials worked hard to make them happy, pro
viding entertainment precisely in hopes of preventing demoralization, and en
couraging US citizens to bring their families to the Canal Zone in hopes this
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82 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
would help create stable and satisfying communities (towards this end they dou
bled the amount of free housing and furnishings allotted to male employees if
their wives joined themyf 3
The experiences of silver workers differed radically from their gold coun
terparts, of course, and although Spaniards and other southern Europeans re
ceived better treatment than West Indians (significantly higher pay, for exam
pleyf D O O V L O Y H U P H Q F R Q I U R Q W H G O R Z Z D J H V D Q G H [ S H U L H Q F H G H [ F O X V L R Q I U R m
YMCA clubhouses and other perks reserved for white US citizens. When asked
why the state did not furnish amusements for silver workers, Chief Engineer
John Wallace responded "These silver men are most all colored, and they flock
by themselves, and have their own methods of recreation." But Wallace was sug
arcoating a more punitive situation. Not only did the government not provide
entertainment for silver workers, it also set strict curfews and attempted to lim
it socializing as much as possible. Silver workers received no paid vacation or
sick leave. The government did grant them medical benefits, but doctors at
tended to them with little urgency and this, combined with harsher working and
living conditions, resulted in a much higher death rate among silver workers?
and particularly among West Indians.14
Although West Indians had their advantages in the eyes of US officials
(chief among them being their gentlemanly style, disinclination to cause trouble,
and the fact that most, thanks to British colonialism, spoke Englishyf W K H L U S H r
ceived lack of energy led the United States to seek European alternatives dur
ing the earliest days of construction. An easy source of workers immediately
manifested itself amidst the turmoil generated by the decline of the Spanish em
pire. In the years after the War of 1898, Spanish immigration into Cuba soared.15
Peninsulares, as the Spanish immigrants were called, enjoyed many privileges in
Cuba, often winning the best-paying jobs and economic opportunities that were
not available to cre?les or people of color. They could be found working in every
sector of the economy, as businessmen and merchants, as skilled workers in ur
ban industries like cigarmaking, but the majority of them flooded into rural ar
eas to take jobs in railroad construction or, most commonly of all, in the bur
geoning sugar industry. Those Spaniards who ended up in rural occupations
found the working conditions harsh and the pay lower than they had hoped for,
and they probably composed the most likely candidates for US recruiting agents
seeking to lure able workingmen to the Canal Zone. The agents visiting Cuba
sought one thousand men, but US employers in Cuba fought bitterly not to lose
their Spanish workers and so, in the end, canal officials succeeded initially in
bringing only about 500 men to the Canal Zone.16
Impressed with the Spaniards' efficiency, Canal officials contracted to im
port nearly eight thousand more of them. Officials sent recruiting agents direct
ly to Spain and to centers of migrant labor such as Marseilles, France. In Spain,
agents focused their efforts in the larger cities but also in the depressed regions
of the northwest. The number of Spaniards in the Canal Zone declined over the
years, but as late as 1912 there remained more than four thousand of them. Most
apparently came from Galicia, a depressed area in northwestern Spain where
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 83
subsistence agriculture could not support the growing population (especially
during a time of declining agricultural pricesyf Z L W K V P D O O H U Q X P E H U V F R P L Q g
from nearby Asturias and the Basque country. Andalusia, an impoverished
southern region of large estates and landless peasants, also likely provided re
cruits, as it was a common target for government-sponsored labor contracting.
More generally, Spain sent huge numbers of migrants to the Americas between
1870 and 1914, ranking ahead of all other European countries except for Britain
and Italy. Spanish immigrants rarely journeyed to the United States, preferring
to land in Cuba, Panam?, Argentina, or Brazil. Galicia contributed more immi
grants to the Americas than did any other region of Spain at the turn of the twen
tieth century, losing roughly half its population during the decades between 1850
and 1930. The rise of commercial agriculture and industrialization and the tu
multuous changes associated with them explain this mass exodus of Spaniards.
Recent research suggests that Spanish immigrants were typically not the most
indigent, but rather working people with ambition who saw in the vast changes
around them an opportunity to make a better life. Jose C. Moya found, for ex
ample, that those who left were more often literate than were those who re
mained behind, and that a fierce desire to save money and return home to pur
chase the land they rented influenced many immigrants.17
Arriving in the Canal Zone, Spanish workers were startled by the harsh
conditions and the poor treatment they received. Recruiting agents had blan
keted their towns with leaflets promising spacious houses, pleasant hotels, the
ability to bring one's family and receive special married housing, healthful food,
and a variety of recreational activities. In reality, as an investigation carried out
by the National Civic Federation elaborated, much of this was patently false.
Canal officials rarely provided them with married housing, but gave them ragged
or torn window screens (allowing insects and disease into their homesyf I R X O Z a
ter, stale food, and no recreational opportunities. Spaniards learned that the
pleasant hotel pictured in the leaflet excluded all but white US citizens. On the
job, they found foremen who typically spoke no Spanish and who insulted and
mistreated them, long hours (twelve hour days or longer were commonyf D Q H x
pectation that they would work even in the heaviest downpours and accept dan
gerous working conditions without protest, no provision made for families of in
jured or killed workers, and, of course, grave inequalities in terms of what
benefits were afforded to gold employees but not to them.18
The position of Spaniards in the Canal Zone?both in terms of the identi
ties ascribed to them by others and in terms of their own consciousness?was
awkward, complex, and highly mutable. They inhabited a liminal sphere both in
terms of their racial identity and their status as imperial citizens. In the Canal
Zone they were both white and nonwhite, yet, simultaneously, neither white nor
nonwhite. How they would be considered depended a great deal on the exact
circumstances. Sometimes US government officials referred to them, along with
Italians or Greeks, as "semi-white." At other times, especially when compared
to black Caribbeans, they become unambiguously "white."19 These racial iden
tities were linked closely to the legacy of empire. The US government consis
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84 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
tently perceived Spaniards as common, low, and only questionably civilized. In
large part, this resulted from the War of 1898, when US journalists vividly
reimagined Spaniards as "monstrous brutes," as either uncivilized or weak and
effeminate, any of which made it easier to perceive them as less than white.20
Spaniards' liminal status can be seen not only in the identities ascribed to
them by others, but also in the ways they experienced and expressed their own
racial identity. Spaniards clearly chafed at their status as "white" men working
on the low-status silver roll, an employment roll often defined precisely as being
for nonwhites. And it must have been difficult to see themselves so completely
differentiated from other white men?excluded from hotels, restaurants, and
gymnasiums, or forced to stand in the line for "coloreds" at the post office. Yet
they felt little affinity for their comrades on the silver roll, and fought repeated
ly and bitterly with other Europeans and with Caribbeans. As time went on,
moreover, their bitterness toward whites on the gold roll seems to have declined
while their animosity toward black Caribbeans became ever more pointed.
Like Caribbean workers, Spaniards possessed no unions, could not appeal
to the US Congress, and could not threaten the canal officials by saying they
would quit (because there existed such a surplus of unskilled workersyf ' H V S H r
ate for help, they called often on the Spanish Consul, the representative of the
Spanish government in Panam?, for assistance, and he responded energetic
ally?though not necessarily successfully. In 1907, for example, Spanish Consul
Juan Potous petitioned the US officials regularly with concerns about accidents,
demands for investigation and for compensation to the families of those killed.
In October of that year a gang of workers at Miraflores (see Map 1yf O R D G H G a
railroad car with large and heavy timber, while several Spaniards stood atop the
pile of logs. To unload the car, the foreman simply attached a rope to a log near
the bottom and pulled it out, bringing down all the logs and the workers stand
ing on top of them. Several Spaniards were hurt, one of them dragged by the
logs, breaking his neck and one arm. Consul Potous demanded an investigation.
US government officials complained privately about the "continual interference
of the Spanish Consul with the laborers...." They worried he was hurting dis
cipline and encouraging Spanish workers to believe they would win better treat
ment by going to an outside authority. Publicly, officials responded that the workers' carelessness caused such accidents.21
A few weeks after this incident, Spaniards initiated the first major strike on
the canal. More than one hundred men laid down their tools, complaining about
an abusive foreman and unacceptable food. Although the workers immediately
appealed to the Consul for assistance, they had decided his help alone would not
suffice. They described their foreman as somebody "we bear with great patience
in spite of his vile language, unfit for an educated man...." Indeed, "we com
plied with his orders notwithstanding the insults flung at the Spaniards merely be
cause they are Spaniards. " This same foreman discharged one worker although
the latter had "worked with ardor," simply because "he complained of the food
furnished by the ICC. This food can hardly be compared with that furnished in
the penitenciary. [sic]" Soon after this the foreman suspended another man for
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 85
Map of Panama Canal Zone and Republic of Panama, from Frank A. Gause and
Charles Carl Carr, The Story of Panama: The New Route to India (Boston, 1912yf
a minor offense, and after such a pattern of "outrage" the strike began. Two days
later, US officials sent Italian workers to take the place of the striking Spaniards,
assigned a cadre of police to prevent any trouble between the two European
groups, and threatened to evict the Spaniards from their housing if they were
not back on the job by noon of that same day. While the paper trail related to
the strike runs out at this point, we can guess the Spaniards returned to work and ended their strike.22
Trouble with foremen led to many of the frequent strikes. Spaniards often
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86 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
complained of foremen who spoke no Spanish or abused them verbally or phys
ically. In 1907 an Italian foreman took charge of a Spanish gang near the con
struction town of Culebra. The Spaniards resented the Italian's authority over
them, and ultimately they attacked the man and beat him. When police arrest
ed a dozen Spaniards for this crime and took them off to jail in the nearby town
of Empire, a group of about 200 fellow workers stopped work and headed to
ward town to liberate them. As the Spaniards marched toward Empire, they at
tempted to convince other workers to join them, but their effort failed. Instead,
police and several foremen met them as they approached town and convinced
them to turn back. Of the Spaniards arrested, all but one was convicted and re
quired either to pay a fine or serve time in jail.23
While strikes rooted in tensions on the job continued, with time two other
grievances emerged: the quality of food, and the role played by black Carib
beans. Repeatedly Spaniards rioted against food or conditions in the mess halls.
They assaulted cooks who failed to prepare food to their liking, they rioted to
protest the absence of Spaniards among the cooking staff in their mess halls, and
occasionally they quit work to press their protest about the food. Government
officials made some effort to hire Spanish cooks for the Spanish mess halls, yet
they remained overall relatively unsympathetic to all the complaints. As Major
William Sibert, who headed the Atlantic Division of the canal, declared, "the
food is better than is ordinarily consumed by people of the class in question."24
When food problems became enmeshed with racial hostilities, the result
ing conflicts proved more difficult for police to handle. A major riot broke out
in 1907 at a newly built mess hall for Spaniards in the construction town of Bas
Obispo as a result of new government rules regulating where people could sit
while dining. When one worker sat contrary to the rule, a black Caribbean wait
er tried to instruct him, whereupon the Spaniard hit him. Then a worker named
Angel Negrati jumped onto a table and proclaimed, "Kill the negroes!" Many
Spanish workers followed Negrati by jumping upon tables and throwing plates
and glasses while their compatriots attacked and beat the mess hall steward. Po
lice arrived to find the mess hall empty, window screens torn out, lamps de
stroyed, and "the floor almost entirely covered with stones, cups, saucers,
plates, and etc., which had been thrown at the mess steward and his assistants."
On a hillside near the mess hall sat about 200 Spaniards, "evidently contented
with what they had accomplished." Police sent the mess steward over to the hill
side to identify the riot leaders. When he pointed out the first man, "the whole
bunch of Spaniards arose as one man and said that we could not take him, but
we did, after drawing our revolvers and warning them that we would shoot the
first man who attempted to rescue the prisoner." In this way they arrested the
twelve men perceived as leaders. Later that night Spaniards again congregated
at the mess hall and stoned the building. The Chief of Police considered the in
cident the "most serious affair of this kind that has yet happened on the Isth
mus . . . "25
Spaniards also reacted with hostility when black Caribbeans worked, lived,
or commuted to work in too close a proximity to them. As early as 1907 Span
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 87
ish workers at Pedro Miguel threatened a strike, demanding better food and that
"all the negroes [be] taken away from their camp."26 In 1909 crowded labor
trains caused a riot between Spaniards and Barbadians, with both sides using
clubs and rocks as weapons. Although normally "white" and "colored" workers
were given different cars to ride, Barbadians had begun encroaching on cars nor
mally reserved for whites because their own had become intolerably crowded.
When the police tried to stop the riot, the Spaniards began attacking the police
as well. The police then arrested several rioters. Some 400 Spaniards refused to
work as a result, insisting that they would wait for the Spanish Consul to arrive.
In angry speeches, workers declared the Consul must achieve justice or they
would call upon "all the Spaniards on the Canal Zone to lay down their shovels
and organize for the protection of their common rights." These workers de
manded the release of their compatriots from jail and that blacks be prohibited
from riding in their train cars. The chief of police acted quickly to respond to the
Spaniards' complaints, ordering the officer in charge to "see that the white la
borers, who I understand are much in the minority, are not imposed upon in any
way by the colored laborers."27
The US government attempted to keep workers segregated by their race
and citizenship, both in transportation and housing. While West Indians and Eu
ropeans often shared the same labor camp, for example, US officials segregated
each group to different parts of the camp. Likewise, the government built com
pletely separate mess halls for West Indians and Europeans. When circum
stances prevented complete segregation, conflicts flared. In 1911, the govern
ment assigned a large group of Barbadians to quarters at Cirio camp that had,
until that moment, been totally inhabited by Spanish workers and families. Thir
ty-nine Spanish workers petitioned the US government to get rid of the Barba
dians, saying the latter were thieves and nuisances in terms of "sanitary and
moral conditions." The government conceded that when the Barbadians had
first entered the camp, the bathhouses were not clearly labeled according to gen
der, and in some cases male Barbadians had entered a bathhouse and startled a
Spanish female. But the government declined to move the Barbadians out of the
camp. By August of that same year, racial animosities had grown more bitter and
the Spanish, as we'll see below, had become a major concern for canal officials.
This time, Barbadians arrived in the town of Paraiso and needed quarters. The
police visited some of the most influential European laborers to say they would
need to house the Barbadians in the same building with Spanish workers. When
other Spaniards learned of the situation, they threatened trouble if the govern
ment brought Barbadians into the building. Fearing a major conflict, the police
quartered the Barbadians in an empty building for the night, lacking even beds
or bedding, then moved them the next day to quarters in a building filled with
East Indians. The East Indians protested fiercely against this arrangement, but
with less impact. After housing the two groups together for nearly two weeks,
the government found new quarters for the East Indians.28
In short, as one policeman observed, "Race feeling ... here is at fever heat
and is liable to develop seriously at any moment."29 What explains the intense
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88 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
racial animosity in the Canal Zone? Workers certainly brought a sense of racial
identity and hostility with them from their country of origin. Racism was hard
ly unknown in Spain. Reflecting how mutable racial identities can be, Gali
cians?or, as they were often known, Gallegos?were special targets of ethnic
hatred. In the mines of Asturia in Spain, which began to receive large numbers
of Galician immigrants after 1911, tensions quickly flared. Galicians became the
lowest group in the ethnic hierarchy that emerged. Scholars have hypothesized
that Asturians identified Galicians with the Guardia Civil, a militarized law en
forcement agency that was increasingly used to put down strikes from the late
nineteenth century onwards, and that this became a reason for the ethnic hos
tility shown them. The special animosity toward Galicians has been observed in
other parts of Spain as well. As the anarchosyndicalist leader Angel Pesta?a,
who grew up in Basque and Leon mining towns, commented "Where this 'race
(razayf K D W U H G
Z D V P R V W Q R W D E O H Z D V E H W Z H H Q W K H J D O O H J R V D Q G W K H U H V W 7 K e
gallegos were the butt of all the jokes ..." Even songs captured this hatred:
"They say that a gallego has died,
If only twenty more would die.
The more gallegos who die, The more hides for oil."30
In the Canal Zone, US officials regularly referred to all Spaniards as gallegos,
and yet we know that the migrants came not only from Galicia but from many
other parts of Spain. Thus gallego seems to have become a blanket term, one of
ten carrying a negative connotation, for any Spaniard.31
Once in Panam? the racial identity of Spaniards became more complex.
One can only imagine how differently they must have felt when enjoying their
leisure time away from the Canal Zone, footloose in the entertainment districts
of Panam? City. There they not only spoke the language, they were also living
representatives of the empire that had colonized Panam?, Colombia, and much
of Latin America. As Europeans they must have stood high on Panama's racial
hierarchy, seen not only as white men but as members of a race of conquerors,
and as such, as members of a racial aristocracy. Those who came to Panam? from
Cuba had experienced there a wide range of privileges based upon their racial
and imperial identity. In the Zone, however, their racial identity mutated into
another, more complicated form. No longer conquerors, they faced a new im
perial power, one that owed its hegemony to victory in a war that destroyed the
Spanish Empire, that looked down upon them, that refused to speak their lan
guage, that classed them as racial inferiors nearly comparable to people of
African descent, and yet, contradictorily, left their exact position within the
structured racial hierarchy of the Canal Zone distinctly unclear.32
The US government's labor and racial policies greatly shaped relationships
and animosities in the Canal Zone. Through the silver and gold rolls, the gov
ernment elevated racial hierarchy, and the privileges, jealousies, and tensions
that hierarchy generated, into a central tool of labor management in the Canal
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 89
Zone. The segregated rolls encouraged diverse groups to compete against one
another for higher status. The government also pitted workers against one an
other as a means of labor control, thereby complicating the racial hierarchy in a
way that created anxiety. Canal officials carried out a systematic campaign to re
place certain white skilled workers (such as firemenyf Z L W K O H V V V N L O O H G E O D F N : H V t
Indians, to the fury of white US workers. When possible, officials also used "our
higher grade silver men as pacemakers to shame our high grade mechanics in to
doing a fair day's work ..." With time the government realized that employing
many different races and nationalities on the construction project was in itself
an effective means of labor control, and foremen would commonly request both
a Spanish gang and a West Indian one, so that, as one put it, "I could keep them
both on their metal by rivalry between the two."33
The government placed Spaniards in particular in a complicated position
relative to Caribbean workers. It originally paid them well because officials had
believed that they would work twice as efficiently as Caribbeans. As time went
on, however, officials ruefully noted that West Indians were doing more work
than the Spaniards. This led the United States to begin replacing Europeans with
black Caribbeans during the final years of construction; with time, Spaniards
would suspect a plot underfoot to replace them altogether with blacks.34 Faced
with such developments, Spaniards increasingly felt compelled to position them
selves against black Caribbeans in order to move higher in the Zone's racial hi
erarchy.
1. This shot of Culebra cut was taken near the town of Bas Obispo just after an acci
dental explosion of dynamite which killed twenty-three workers, on Dec. 12,1908.
Photograph taken by Ernest Hallen, United States National Archives.
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90 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
2. Spanish canal workers eat their lunch at Culebra cut in September, 1913.
Photograph taken by Ernest Hallen, United States National Archives.
All this helps explain the wave of labor militancy among Spanish workers
in 1911, and the connections between that militancy, anarchist politics, and the
growing racial hostility that pervaded the Zone. The big strike that began our
story emerged quickly. The rebellious workers worked in Culebra cut, the nas
tiest spot in all the Zone, where they struggled to deal with the constant slides,
avalanches of mud sweeping over labor gangs in mere seconds. One sub-fore
man described this as "the hardest place in the Canal to work on. Nine times out
of ten you got to work noon hours, or got to work night time. You got to work
hard, because the Canal is sliding in there ... we got to work the men hard?
sometimes in mud and water up to their waist?and it is pretty hard."35
Insubordination began spreading on July 22,1911, among different gangs
working the Culebra cut. In the following days more than three dozen gangs re
fused to follow orders, sat down on the job when prohibited from eating, or oth
erwise showed their determination to improve working conditions. Although
striking workers had complaints to varying degrees against all the foremen, in
creasingly they focused on one from the United States named Pike, the foreman
for about 200 of the workers. They accused him of arriving at work drunk and
drinking rum on the job, throwing stones at them, verbally abusing them, mak
ing them work in heavy rain, and punishing West Indians by kicking or pushing
them. The Spanish workers also reasserted their right to eat on the job, a prac
tice that had previously been allowed them.36
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 91
After some two hundred workers from Miraflores joined the strike in sym
pathy, bringing the total number of strikers close to eight hundred, workers be
gan holding mass meetings to decide their demands and strategy. At these meet
ings representatives from other construction towns, like Las Cascadas, Empire,
Pedro Miguel, and Gorgona, in addition to Culebra and Miraflores, spoke and
contributed to a petition demanding that the government take action. In re
sponse Goethals decided to remove foreman Pike temporarily from the job, and
to allow workers to resume eating on the job. He also instructed foremen to stop
using abusive language, and ordered officials to interview workers and hear their
charges against Foreman Pike. After much discussion, the strikers returned to
work the morning of August 3,1911. Soon thereafter the Committee appointed
by Goethals interviewed a few dozen workers and heard their charges. After re
flection the committee decided that the charges were not sufficiently corrobo
rated, and, perhaps more to the point, they decided that keeping Pike on the job
would not result in a significant number of desertions. With Goethals's approval
they reappointed Pike to his original position. This represented a major defeat
for the workers, for by this time the strike had ended and many activists had been
encouraged to leave the Canal Zone.37 Yet other strikes continued to break out
across the Zone, almost all of them among Spanish workers.38
Amidst this wave of labor militancy, with many strikes defeated but some
important demands won, Spanish workers grew increasingly politicized and po
litically active. Anarchism began spreading as an organized movement across^
the Canal Zone, winning hundreds of followers among the Spaniards. What in
formed the Spaniards' resistance and politics in the US Canal Zone? Workers
brought with them from Spain a rich tradition of rebellion and political protest,
ranging from violence against property and other spontaneous acts to organized
efforts to create associations and build schools. In Galicia, for example, peasants
had begun withholding rent payments as early as the eighteenth century in or
der to fight efforts by landowners to renew their leases. In the early nineteenth
century this strategy in Galicia blossomed into a more organized rent strike.
Peasants and urban residents similarly rioted against those who charged overly
high prices for food. A wave of food riots spread in 1904 and 1905, for example,
just before Spaniards began heading to the Canal Zone.39
Anarchism came along with such rebellions. It flourished in Spain after the
mid-nineteenth century, especially in the region of Andalusia, and wherever
Spanish immigrants traveled in the Americas it tended to follow them?to
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Ecuador, Cuba, Florida, and the Panama
Canal Zone, among other places. Spanish immigrants moved amidst an inter
national world of radical politics, their ideology, strategy, and tactics shaped not
only by experiences constructing the canal or time spent in Spain, Cuba, and sim
ilar sites of international migration, but also by the ideas of a vibrant social and
political movement. In both Spain and Cuba, anarchism became the dominant
ideology among workers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen
turies, and although the movements differed in important ways, there were also
close ties between them and Spanish anarchist periodicals were distributed
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92 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
widely in Cuban cities. Anarchists in Cuba built effective unions, led strike
movements, created schools and workers' associations, and published newspa
pers. They strove to build unity between workers in different industries and of
different levels of skill, and they were unusually supportive of women's strug
gles. They also made antiracism into an important part of their movement, tak
ing an unprecedented stand for solidarity between peninsulares, cre?les, and
people of color. Strong links would emerge between anarchism in the Canal
Zone and its counterparts in other places, especially Cuba and Spain, but im
portant differences as well. As the example of Cuba suggests, anarchism typi
cally emphasized building solidarity across boundaries of skill, status, race, eth
nicity, and nationality. In the Panama Canal Zone, anarchism took a different
form, becoming a movement limited to one group?unskilled male Spanish im
migrants?and never developing an antiracist approach.40
According to US officials, a belief in the principles of anarchism arrived in
the Canal Zone along with the very first Spanish workers in 1906. It appears to
have become an organized movement only in 1911 as the wave of labor protests
climaxed. By the autumn of that year, anarchist clubs existed in Rio Grande, Pe
dro Miguel, Las Cascadas, Corozal, Culebra, Empire, Gatun, Libertador, and
Gorgona?in short, in almost every town where a significant number of
Spaniards resided. One close observer of the movement believed it had more
than 800 members across the Isthmus and, he noted, "But for requiring mem
bers to pay dues their organization would undoubtedly be much larger than it
is." Even Chief Medical Officer William Gorgas commented on the ubiquitous
movement, observing that hospitalized Spaniards always included anarchist
pamphlets among their reading materials.41
Bernardo Perez, a Spaniard who had previously spent time in Cuba, stood
at the center of this anarchist movement. Perez published an anarchist newspa
per, El Unico, in Col?n, and was, according to a police spy, "an excellent orator,
a well-educated man, and one who appears to have a great deal of experience
along this line." He possessed a vast knowledge of labor conditions and anar
chist organization around the world, and used this knowledge effectively in mass
meetings to educate and motivate his listeners. Aquilino Lopez, a younger man,
assisted Perez. Lopez had only been in the Zone for three months, and "while
he is very enthusiastic in the propaganda, very earnest in his efforts to convince,
it can be seen that he is young in experience, and lacks the training of his com
rade, Bernardo Perez." Lopez demonstrated his earnest enthusiasm when he
tried to convince a government official that anarchists were not the bomb throw
ers suggested by their enemies. Lopez described anarchists as deeply opposed
to the Catholic Church and to drunkenness, gambling, war, and prostitution;
they advocated reading and education, international peace, and vegetarian
ism.42
In mass meetings and in the pages of El Unico Perez sounded fiercer than
Lopez. Calling for more readers, Perez promised that by supporting his news
paper "you will have contributed to burying the clericalism which poisons your
conscience, capitalism which sucks your blood, and the State which chokes your
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 93
life." In another article, he declared "We are the junior brothers of those who
were hung in Chicago, Vergara, Paris ... and of those who were shot in Warsaw,
Barcelona, Buenos Ayres and in Japan ..." Thus Perez placed the Canal Zone's anarchist movement within an international context. He also attended to the
specific concerns of canal workers. He demanded public meeting rooms for their
organizations, decried deportations of strikers, and attacked the US government
for the abuses of its foremen, for overcrowding workers, and for treating them
like slaves. Contradicting his own internationalism, he echoed the concerns of
the mass of Spanish workers by focusing attention on the threat black
Caribbeans seemed to represent. Declaring that "we should arise when they re
place us by negroes," Perez argued that the government had already begun mov
ing on such a plan. If Spanish workers failed to unite, the black Caribbeans
would gradually overtake them and they would "have to go about the Isthmus
begging." Other speakers developed similar themes. One, in a pointed attack on
the government overseeing the canal construction, declared "We are scorned.
The American Government despises us. It spits on us."43
The anarchists continued meeting throughout the autumn of 1911 and at
least through the spring of 1912, and Perez continued to publish El Unico. One
leaflet distributed by the anarchists reflected a sense of grisly humor, noting that
a coming meeting would include refreshments such as "Monks' heads, Friars'
Juice, Fried Priests' Heart, Tenderloin of Colonel, and Iced Jesuits' blood."
These dark images were matched by occasional threats of violence as the anar
chist movement grew. In letters and postcards a few anarchists and disgruntled
employees threatened to "BLOW UP THE WORKS" or dynamite the locks.
And a rumor spread through the Canal Zone that someone had threatened to
assassinate Chief Engineer Goethals.44
The threats of violence increased pressure on the government to respond
aggressively. Catholic priests in the area, at least those who had the government's
ear, demanded that the government repress the anarchist movement ruthlessly.
Some within the government, most notably M.H. Thatcher, who headed the de
partment of civil administration, agreed. Calling Perez an outlaw who was en
couraging violence, Thatcher urged strong action against him. Gradually, how
ever, most in the government argued for a tolerant policy. The Spanish Consul,
who believed that there was nothing threatening about the movement, joined
them. The most influential voice, ultimately, appears to have been Goethals's
chief clerk, who read over the spy reports and then assessed the anarchist threat
for his boss. He declared that the anarchists were not inciting their followers to
violence. "They believe that the present organization of society is unjust, and
that their class suffers most from the injustice. What intelligent human being
would deny this?" Although he believed their activities could lead to a strike or
encourage an assassination attack, he noted the government's powerful police
and military presence in the Zone, and doubted officials would have any trou
ble repressing either of those. Most emphatically, he warned that suppression
would only keep the movement alive. And so the government took no steps to
prohibit mass meetings, and did not deport Perez or any other anarchists?even
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94 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
though they had routinely deported strike leaders in the past. Officials contin
ued to watch the Spanish workers carefully, keeping all of them, and especially
their leaders, under tight police surveillance. In March 1912, the final piece of
evidence regarding anarchism available to us notes simply, after a correspondent
had informed Goethals that an anarchist meeting would soon take place, that
the government refrained from interfering with any such meetings. Interesting
ly, the government took a stronger stance against strikers than against anarchist
agitators.45
After early 1912, Spanish workers in the Canal Zone seem to have sus
pended their strikes, riots, and anarchist meetings. What happened? We can only
guess at the nature of the denouement that followed the conflicts of 1911, be
cause no more mention of Spanish workers exists in the voluminous records kept
by the Isthmian Canal Commission. One might argue that the government's
strategy worked: leniency killed the movement. Yet the basic conditions re
mained the same, and it seems improbable that all tensions and grievances would
abruptly disappear. A more likely possibility is that the Spaniards' nightmare
may have come true and the US government moved ahead rapidly with its plan
to replace Europeans with black Caribbeans. We know that the government had
begun this process already by 1911 and that Spanish protests focused precisely
on that phenomenon. Furthermore, all the strikes and anarchist agitation must
have encouraged the US government to proceed as fast as it could with this strat
egy, in order to eliminate the troublesome Spaniards. Thus it appears likely the
silence of Spaniards resulted from their losing jobs, and hence their place in the
Canal Zone, to West Indians.
Before their movement ended, however, Spanish workers had launched an
articulate protest, one expressed through political agitation and through labor
actions, against the US government's policies in the Canal Zone. Theirs would
stand as the most effective resistance movement until the great silver workers'
strike of 1920. The Spaniards enjoyed only the rare victory amidst many defeats.
Yet they fought against the inhumanity of foremen and the absurdity of US gov
ernment policies on the job. They struggled to win better food. They opposed
police and judges who seemed to them to abuse their authority. And they ex
pressed great hostility towards black Caribbeans whom they saw, increasingly,
as the government's best weapon against their efforts to organize.
In all these battles one can sense how the liminal identity of Spaniards both
shaped and was shaped by the conditions they encountered. Spanish workers
came to Panam? with a sense of themselves based upon their culture, politics,
imperial status, and racial or ethnic identity. Once in the Canal Zone, they con
fronted new conditions that challenged their identity in every way and made
them feel poignantly the marginality of their position. The US government's
harsh policies, and especially its system of racial segregation, cast Spaniards into
an awkward position, one where their inferiority was made clear while their pre
cise status remained uncertain. This uneasy situation ensured that their strug
gles would involve racial hostilities and competition. While the internationalist
ideals of anarchism might have encouraged cooperation with men of different
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll
95
races and nationalities, harsh realities in the Canal Zone pushed the Spaniards'
protest in a different direction. Facing their liminal position in a complex racial
hierarchy, these men became increasingly focused on differentiating themselves
from black Caribbeans and proving their superiority as a way to improve their
status and clarify their racial and imperial identity.
NOTES
*This paper was researched and written with generous support from the American Coun cil of Learned Societies. For comments on this manuscript I am very grateful to Nicola Miller, Eric Arnesen, Carol Byerly, Christopher Boyer, Bruce Calder, John Enyeart, Leon Fink, Don na Gabaccia, Michael Hanagan, Tobias Higbie, Susan Hirsch, Ren?e Johnson, R. Todd Lau gen, Susan Levine, Marcel van der Linden, James Maffie, and Diana Paton. 1. A.S. Brook, General Inspector, Memo for Mr. Zinn, July 28, 1911; Paul S. Wilson, "Memo re. the European laborers of the Culebra District..." July 28,1911; Chairman George Goethals, "Notice to the Spanish Laborers on Strike," August 2,1911: all Records of the Sec ond Isthmian Canal Commission, 2-P-59, United States National Archives, Record Group 185, College Park, Maryland (hereafter cited as ICC Recordsyf . 2. On the history of Panam?, see Aims McGuinness, "In the Path of Empire: Land, La bor, and Liberty in Panam? during the California Gold Rush, 1848-1860," (Ph.D. Diss., Uni versity of Michigan, 2001yf 0 L F K D H O / & R Q Q L I I % O D F N / D E R U R Q D : K L W H & D Q D O 3 D Q D P D 4 1981 (Pittsburgh, 1985yf 0 D U F R $ * D Q G " V H J X L $ O H M D Q G U R 6 D D Y H G U D $ Q G U " V $ F K R Q J D Q G , Y " n Quintero, Las Lucas Obreras en Panam?, 1850-1978, 2a edition (Panama City, 1990yf 6 W H Y e Marquardt, "'Green Havoc': Panama Disease, Environmental Change, and Labor Process in the Central American Banana Industry'" American Historical Review (Feb. 2001yf . 3. This article has been influenced by in James R. Barrett and David Roediger's "Inbe tween Peoples: Race, Nationality and the 'New Immigrant' Working Class," Journal of Amer ican Ethnic History (Spring 1997yf 0 \ S H U F H S W L R Q R I 6 S D Q L V K Z R U N H U V L V Y H U \ F O R V H W R W K H L r notion of "inbetween-ness." With the concept of liminality, however, I hope to highlight the mu tability of Spaniards' position and also detach it from purely racial considerations. Spaniards' marginalization was linked closely not only to race but also to nationality and their position in an imperial world. On liminality, see Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndem bu Ritual (Ithaca, 1967yf H V S H F L D O O \ & K D S W H U ) R X U % H W Z L [ W D Q G % H W Z H H Q 7 K H / L P L Q D O 3 H U L R d in Rites de Passage," 93-111; for useful discussions of Turner's concept see Brian Morris, An thropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text (Cambridge, 1987yf H V S H F L D O O \ ; and Donald Weber, "From Limen to Border: A Meditation on the Legacy of Victor Turner for American Cultural Studies," American Quarterly, 47 (3yf 6 H S W ) R U D U D W K H U G L f ferent way of using liminality to understand working people's actions, see Eric Rothenbuhler, "The Liminal fight: mass strikes as ritual and interpretation," in Jeffrey C. Alexander, ed., Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies (Cambridge, 1988yf 7 K R P D V * X J O L H O P R
V U e cent book, White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945 (Oxford, 2003yf D O V R U H Y L V H V % D U U H W W D Q G 5 R H G L J H U
V W K H V L V ' L V W L Q J X L V K L Q J E H W Z H H Q U D F H D Q G F R O R U " Guglielmo argues that Italians in the US were never consistently perceived as non-white but that they were, nonetheless, perceived as racially inferior. His argument is quite persuasive for Chicago, but in the highly stratified environment of the US Canal Zone things played out rather differently. Southern Europeans were clearly classified as inferior and this involved a racial judgment as well as judgments about nationality, ethnicity, class, and imperial status. 4. US Senate, Investigation of Panama Canal Matters: Hearings before the Committee on Interoceanic Canals of the United States Senate, 50th Congress, 2d Session, Document No. 401, vol. Ill, (Washington, 1907yf Y R O ' D Y L G 0 F & X O O R X J K Q R W H V L Q 7 K H 3 D W K % H W Z H H Q W K H 6 H D V : The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 (NY, 1977yf W K D W Z R U N H U V F D P H W R W K H = R Q H I U R m ninety-seven different countries around the world (471yf . 5. Stevens quoted in Conniff, Black Labor on the White Canal, 25. 6. Hearings Concerning Estimates for Construction of the Isthmian Canal, for the Fiscal Year 1911 (Washington, 1910yf 0 H V V D J H I U R P W K H 3 U H V L G H Q W R I W K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V 7 U D Q V P L W W L Q J W K e Report of the Special Commission Appointed to Investigate Conditions of Labor and Housing of Government Employees on the Isthmus of Panama, 60th Congress, 2d Session, Document No.
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96 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
539 (Washington, 1908yf D Q G 4 X D U W H U P D V W H U
V ' H S D U W P H Q W & H Q V X V R I W K H & D Q D O = R Q H 0 R X Q t Hope, Canal Zone, 1912yf H V S H F L D O O \ . 7. David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas; Michael Conniff, Black Labor on a
White Canal.
8. On efforts to police sexual relations between white men and "native or colored women," consult ICC Records, 62-B-248 Part 1, Box 364. 9. Assistant Chief Engineer J.G. Sullivan to D.W. Bolich, Aug. 4, 1906, ICC Records, 2 F-14, "Transfers, Gold to Silver"; E.A.M. Mcllvaine to Mrs. William Swiget, Jan. 1,1916, ICC Records, 28-B-233, Part I. 10. For this and the preceding paragraph see ICC Records, 2-F-14, especially: E.S. Bisson, General Auditor, to Charles E. Magoon, Sept. 4,1905; Assistant Chief Engineer to D.W. Bolich, August 4, 1906; M.G. Tucker, Chief Clerk to General Manager, to E.P. Shannon, Secretary to Vice President, Sept. 1, 1906; H.W Reed to John F Stevens, Feb. 15, 1907; Hiram J. Slifer to Major D.D. Gaillard, Feb 12,1908. 11. During this same period diplomatic maneuvering established that Puerto Ricans, while not considered eligible for the same privileges as US citizens, would be given preference over other aliens. The government thus ensured that colonial subjects would benefit from their sta tus. President Roosevelt's Executive Order, Feb. 8,1908; Executive Order, by Authority of the President, Dec. 23, 1908; George Weitzel, American Charge D'Affairs, American Legation, Panama, to Goethals, Nov. 17,1908; Goethals to Heads of Departments, Nov. 23,1908; all pre ceding from ICC Records, 2-E-ll, on employment of aliens. ICC Records, Isthmian Canal Commission Records, 2-F-14, especially George W Goethals to W.W Warwick, Nov. 16,1909. 12. See Julie Greene, "As I am a True American: White U.S. Workers, Race, Empire, and Citizenship in the Canal Zone, 1904 to 1914," unpublished paper presented at the Organiza tion of American Historians annual conference, Memphis, April 4, 2003. 13. US Senate, Investigation of Panama Canal Matters, Hearings before the Committee on Interoceanic Canals of the U.S. Senate, 59th Congress, 2d Session, Document No. 401, vol. Ill (Washington, 1907yf D Q G 6 X S S O H P H Q W W R + H D U L Q J V & R Q F H U Q L Q J ( V W L P D W H V S D V V L P , and 347-48; Supplement to Hearings on the Panama Canal, Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals (Washington, 1908yf . 14. Investigation of Panama Canal Matters, 616,798; G. Bonhamy, Consulate of France, to Charles Magoon, Nov. 16,1905, ICC Records, 2-P-69. 15. A note on terminology: the so-called "Spanish-American War" is now customarily re ferred to as the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War. As even this cumbersome title does not fully grasp the spatial reach of this conflict (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.yf , U H I H U W R L W V L P S O \ D s the War of 1898.
16. On Spaniards in Cuba, see Louis A. P?rez, Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution (Ox ford, 1988yf $ G D ) H U U H U , Q V X U J H Q W & X E D 5 D F H 1 D W L R Q D Q G 5 H Y R O X W L R Q & K D S H O + L O O , 1999yf - R D Q & D V D Q R Y D V % U H D G R U % X O O H W V 8 U E D Q / D E R U D Q G 6 S D Q L V K & R O R Q L D O L V P L Q & X E D , 1850-1898 (Pittsburgh, 1998yf - D F N V R Q 6 P L W K ( X U R S H D Q / D E R U R Q W K H , V W K P L D Q & D Q D O 0 D U F h 25,1907, ICC Records, 2-E-3. 17. See Jackson Smith, "European Labor on the Isthmian Canal," March 25, 1907, ICC Records, 2-E-3; Census of the Canal Zone, 30; Jose C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850-1930 (Berkeley, 1998yf 6 D O Y D G R U 3 D O D ] " Q / R V ( V S D " R O H V H n America Latina, 1850-1990 (Madrid, 1995yf : D O W H U 1 X J H Q W & U R V V L Q J V 7 K H * U H D t Transatlantic Migrations, 1870-1914 (Bloomington, IN, 1992yf $ G U L D Q 6 F K X E H U W A Social History of Modern Spain (London, 1990yf < R O D Q G D 0 D U F R 6 H U U D / R V R E U H U R V H V S D " R O H s en la construcci?n del Canal de Panam?: la emigraci?n espa?ola hacia Panam? vista a trav?s de la prensa espa?ola (Panam?, 1997yf . 18. Gertrude Beeks, "Report for the National Civic Federation," issued to William H. Taft, Jan. 28,1908, especially pp. 43-46, ICC Records, 28-A-5; and "Statements made by a Del egation of European Laborers," Aug. 9,1911, ICC Records, 2-P-59. 19. The Assistant Chief Engineer referred to Europeans as semi-white in a letter to D.W. Bolich, August 4,1906, ICC Records, 2-F-14: "The point that I have always maintained is that in deciding whether or not a white foreigner, or semi-white foreigner (Dagoyf V K R X O G E H S X W R n a gold basis is the fact as to whether or not they would take or whether or not they need, a trip to the States every year. We know that many of these men who have always lived in the trop ics, or that come from warm climates, do not require a trip to the States, nor would they take it if they were given the opportunity. They would simply lay around the Isthmus and be less effi cient for work when their vacation was over than they were when it started." For an example
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Spaniards on the Silver Roll 97
where Spaniards are unambiguously referred to as white, see Acting Chief of Police to Com manding Officer, Culebra, Feb. 25,1909, ICC Records, 2-P-59. 20. Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease, eds., Cultures of United States Imperialism (Durham, NC, 1993yf H V S H F L D O O \ W K H D U W L F O H E \ $ P \ . D S O D Q % O D F N D Q G % O X H R Q 6 D Q - X D Q + L O O ; Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (New York, 1899yf . 21. Juan Potous to Joseph Blackburn, Oct. 5,1907; G. Garibaldi to Joseph Bucklin Bish op, Oct. 16, 1907; Joseph Blackburn to Juan Potous, June 18, 1907: all ICC Records, 2-P-69. Only very rarely did the French or British Consul get involved to assist Caribbean workers, and I have seen no evidence of involvement by the Italian or Greek Consuls. 22. Spanish workmen to Juan Potous, Oct. 30,1907; Potous to Joseph Blackburn, Oct. 31, 1907; and governmental memo, Nov. 1,1907: all ICC Records, 2-P-69. 23. George Shanton, Chief of Police, to H.D. Reed, Executive Secretary, Feb. 26, 1907; S.B. Schenk to George Shanton, Feb. 26, 1907; Benjamin Wood to George Shanton, Dec. 13, 1906: all ICC Records, 2-P-59. 24. William Sibert to Joseph Blackburn, September 6, 1907; George Shanton to Black burn, June 1, 1908; A.K. Evans, Zone Policeman, to George Shanton, May 2, 1907: all ICC Records, 2-P-59. 25. J.P. Cooper, Sergeant, Zone Policemen, to George Shanton, March 13, 1907; George Shanton to H.D. Reed, March 14,1907: ICC Records, 2-P-59. 26. Clipping from the Panam? Sunday Sun, March 31, 1907; Stanley Ross, Zone Police man, to George Shanton, May 2,1907: ICC Records, 2-P-59. 27. Sgt. Kennedy to George Shanton, Chief of Police, Feb. 25, 1909; Capt. G.A. Porter, Acting Chief of Police, to Commanding Officer of Culebra, Feb. 26, 1909; Porter to Juan Po tous, Feb. 26,1909; Charles Palacio, Zone Policeman, to Porter, Feb. 26,1909: ICC Records, 2
P-59.
28. Memo, March 7,1911, to Col. C.A. Devol, Chief Quartermaster; Devol to Chairman Goethals, March 17,1911; J.B. Cooper, Zone Policeman, to Chief of Division, August 24,1911; M.J. Thatcher to Goethals, Sept. 9, 1911; Devol to Goethals, Sept. 12, 1911: all ICC Records,
28-B-233.
29. George Shanton to Redd, Executive Secretary, April 9,1907, forwarding a letter writ ten by G.H. Skinner, Zone Police, ICC Records, 2-P-59. 30. Shubert, Social History of Modern Spain, 124-25. 31. Jose C. Moya found this to be the case in Argentina as well. See his Cousins and
Strangers, 15. 32. On the decline of the Spanish empire and its impact on Spanish immigrants see Se bastian Balfour, The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898-1923 (Oxford, 1997yf D Q G - R U G L 0 D O u quer de Motes Bernet, Espa?a en la Crisis de 1898: de la gran depresi?n a la modernizaci?n econ?mica del siglo XX (Barcelona, 1999yf ) R U W K H H [ S H U L H Q F H V R I 6 S D Q L D U G V L Q & X E D R U $ r gentina, see Casanovas, Bread, or Bullets!; and Moya, Cousins and Strangers. 33. See Julie Greene, "Race and the Tensions of Empire: The United States and the Con struction of the Panama Canal, 1904-1914," unpublished paper presented at the Johns Hopkins Conference "Between Two Empires," November, 2000; and George Brooke to Goethals, Feb. 1,1909, ICC Records, 2-P-49/P; Jackson Smith, memo, March 25,1907, ICC Records, 2-E-3. 34. US Congressional Hearings Supplement, Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals, United States Senate, 62nd Congress, 1908, p. 90. 35 "Notes of Investigation held on Sunday, July 30,1911, in Office of Division Engineer at Empire Regarding Complains [sic] of Spanish Laborers in Culebra District," p.6, ICC Records,
2-P-59.
36. A.S. Brouk, memo to Mr. Zinn, July 28,1911; Petitions of the Strikers, n.d.; Jose Buigas de Dalmau, Spanish Consul, to Goethals, July 28, 1911: ICC Records, 2-P-59. Traditionally Spaniards drank only coffee at breakfast time. Prohibiting eating on the job meant they would eat nothing between 6:20 a.m., when they arrived on the job, until lunchtime at 1:00 p.m. 37. J.P Fyffe to M.H. Thatcher, Head of Dept. of Civil Administration, Aug. 3, 1911; George Goethals, "Notice to the Spanish Laborers on Strike," Aug. 2, 1911; for the workers' petition to the government see La Asamblia A La I.C.C., n.d.; Goethals to D.D. Gaillard, Di vision Engineer, Aug. 7, 1911; "Notes of Investigation Held on Sunday, July 30,1911"; C.A.S. Zinn, Acting Division Engineer, to Joseph Little, Superintendent of Construction, July 31,1911: all ICC Records, 2-P-59. 38. A. Cornelison to Assistant Division Engineer, August 10,1911; Cornelison to Division Engineer, Sept. 2,1911: both ICC Records, 2-P-59.
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98 ILWCH, 66, Fall 2004
39. Shubert, Social History of Modern Spain (90-103,193-96yf . 40. See especially Casanovas, Bread, or Bullets!; and also Temma Kaplan, "The Social Base of Nineteenth-Century Andalusian Anarchism in Jerez de la Frontera," Journal of Inter disciplinary History 6,1, Summer 1975,47-70; George Reid Andrews, "Black and White Work ers: Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1928," The Hispanic American Historical Review 68,3, Aug. 1988, 491-524; Shubert, Social History of Modern Spain, 97-99; George R. Esenwein, Anarchist Ide ology and the Working-Class Movement in Spain, 1868-1898 (Berkeley, 1989yf 5 D \ P R Q G & D U U , Spain, 1808-1975 (Oxford, 1982yf ( G Z D U G 0 D O H I D N L V $ J U D U L D Q 5 H I R U P D Q G 3 H D V D Q W 5 H Y R O X W L R n in Spain: Origins of the Civil War (New Haven, 1970yf ( U L F + R E V E D Z P 3 U L P L W L Y H 5 H E H O V 6 W X d ies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, 2nd Edition (NY, 1963yf ; Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and their Latin Neighbors in Tampa, 1885-1985 (Urbana, 1987yf 0 D [ L Q H 0 R O \ Q H X [ 1 R * R G 1 o Boss, No Husband; Anarchist Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Argentina," Latin American Perspectives 13,1, Winter 1986,119-45; Barry Carr, "Marxism and Anarchism in the Formation of the Mexican Communist Party, 1910-1919," The Hispanic American Historical Review 63,2, May 1983, 277-305; John M. Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931 (Austin, 1978yf 9 L F H Q W H ' " D ] ) X H Q W H V / D F O D V H R E U H U D H Q W U H H O D Q D U T X L V P R \ U H O L J L " Q 0 H [ L F o City, 1994yf $ Q W R Q 5 R V H Q W K D O 7 K H $ U U L Y D O R I W K H ( O H F W U L F 6 W U H H W F D U D Q G W K H & R Q I O L F W R Y H r Progress in Early Twentieth-Century Montevideo," Journal of Latin American Studies 27,2, May 1995, 319-41; Jose C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers. 41. Paul Wilson to Joseph Bucklin Bishop (Secretary of the ICCyf $ X J : L O O L D m Gorgas to Goethals, Sept. 9,1911: ICC Records, 2-P-59. 42. Wilson to Bishop, Aug. 31, 1911; Corporal #5, Zone Police, to Chief of Police, Sept. 19,1911; Father Collins to Goethals, Oct. 13, 1911: ICC Records, 2-P-59. 43. El Unico, Suplemento al n?mero 1, Sept. 12,1911; P.V. (Police spyyf W R & K L H I R I 3 R O L F H , Sept. 25, 1911; F.H. Sheibley to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Sept. 25, 1911: ICC Records, 2-P-59. 44. Father Collins to Goethals, Oct. 10, 1911; FB. alias Punatazot to Goethals, Nov. 6, 1911; R.J. Cochran to Goethals, Oct. 24,1911; C.A.M. to the Chairman, August 17,1911: ICC Records, 2-P-59. 45. Father D. Quijano to Charles Mason, Sept. 26,1911; Father Henry Collins to Goethals, Oct. 13,1911; Gorgas to Goethals, Sept. 30,1911; M. H. Thatcher to Goethals, Sept. 29, 1911; J.K.B. to Goethals, n.d.; Eugene T. Wilson to Acting Chairman, March 21,1912: ICC Records,
2-P-59.
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