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.
Henry Larcom Abbot
"Brig. Gen. Henry Larcom Abbot, coauthor of a classic work on the hydrology of the Mississippi River, began his involvement with the Panama Canal as a member of the new French canal company's Comité Technique and Comité Statutaire, from 1897 to 1900. While the United States was assuming responsibility for building the Canal, Abbot worked for the French company as a consulting engineer during the transitional period, dividing his time between Paris and the isthmus. After the Americans assumed control of the project Abbot served from 1905 to 1906 on the Board of Consulting Engineers, a body appointed by Theodore Roosevelt and charged with the preparation of a plan for canal construction. The majority of the board recommended a sea-level canal. The minority report, probably written largely by Abbot, helped to persuade Roosevelt and Secretary of War William Howard Taft to adopt a plan for a lock canal. Abbot's last service to the canal was as a member of the Panama Canal Slide Committee in 1915."