Throughout the long decade for the construction of the canal many workers had worked in harsh conditions and had sacrificed their time, and for some, their lives for the creation of a better future in terms of world trade and travel. The workers battled through harsh living conditions, diseases, and a demand to work at a variety of jobs throughout the work zone. The U.S. were a major help in recruiting thousands of workers for the construction of the Panama Canal. These workers included people from all over the world from places like Panama, the West Indies, Europe, and Asia. Pay and standards of living for the workers in panama related to which social group they belonged with. Most of the workers had stayed in barracks built long ago by the French while others who could not afford those stayed in tents, boxcars, and even barns. The wet weather and jungle life that these workers were exposed to caused for poor hygiene throughout the area. Due to this, workers faced serious threats from deadly diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, and typhoid. Death tolls would rise and much more were hospilitized. The U.S. workers were often used less due to being disease prone and they demanded higher wages. Skilled laborers from the U.S. were also promised much more than what the West Indian canal workers did.
The apartheid system governed every aspect of a worker's life. Workers were distinguished between skilled and unskilled at the start but then it had evolved into a racial divide. Workers either belonged to the Gold roll where you were paid gold coins, earned vacation days, and better housing, or you belonged to the Silver roll. This is where you would be payed local panamanian silver and the majority of the workers were on this pay roll. Lastly, laborers could be tasked to virtually any project in the canal zone, each with unique dangers and each requiring its own set of skills. Dynamiting became a very dangerous job for workers in the canal because of the instability of the explosives. In terms of physical abuse, labor in the excavation of the Culebra Cut was very taxing on the workers. Each day workers moved miles of construction track and filled the 160 spoil trains that ran in and out of the Cut. Even though imporvements were made throughout the construction period, at least 25,000 workers died during the combined French and U.S. construction periods of the Panama Canal.
This picture is an example of what the living quarters
for the West Indies in Cristobal looks like. As you can see, very muddy, wet, and unsanitized.
The apartheid system governed every aspect of a worker's life. Workers were distinguished between skilled and unskilled at the start but then it had evolved into a racial divide. Workers either belonged to the Gold roll where you were paid gold coins, earned vacation days, and better housing, or you belonged to the Silver roll. This is where you would be payed local panamanian silver and the majority of the workers were on this pay roll. Lastly, laborers could be tasked to virtually any project in the canal zone, each with unique dangers and each requiring its own set of skills. Dynamiting became a very dangerous job for workers in the canal because of the instability of the explosives. In terms of physical abuse, labor in the excavation of the Culebra Cut was very taxing on the workers. Each day workers moved miles of construction track and filled the 160 spoil trains that ran in and out of the Cut. Even though imporvements were made throughout the construction period, at least 25,000 workers died during the combined French and U.S. construction periods of the Panama Canal.
This picture is an example of what the living quarters
for the West Indies in Cristobal looks like. As you can see, very muddy, wet, and unsanitized.