Afro-Panamanian
In 1904 when the construction of the Panama Canal was taken over by the United States for the failure of the French company, will again resort to the West Indian worker. Although between 1904 and 1914 the vast majority of Afro-West Indians who arrived in Panama did a one-year contract with the idea of returning to their home islands once the offshore project, after construction of the canal many Afro-Antillean stayed in Panama. Afro-West Indians who remained in Panama many got jobs in the Canal Zone and became the largest immigrant group in Panama. On the subject of Afro-Antillean Panama, Leslie B. Rout said that when the canal was opened in 1914, some 20,000 African-West Indians remained in Panama.
History of the Panama Canal
The 1848 discovery of gold in California and the rush of would-be miners stimulated US interest in building a canal between the oceans. In 1887, a United States Army Corps of Engineers regiment surveyed canal possibilities in Nicaragua. Two years later, the Maritime Canal Company was asked to begin a canal in the area and chose Nicaragua. The company lost money in the panic of 1893, and its work in Nicaragua ceased. In 1897 and 1899, the United States Congress charged a canal commission with researching possible construction; Nicaragua was chosen as the location both times.