Anthony S. JohnsonTHE ORIGINS of the relationship between Jamaica and the Central American Isthmus will probably never be fully known. For some reason, however, every period of Jamaica's history has found significant relationships with that area known today as the Republic of Panama.
There are nine main episodes which illustrate the closeness of our relationship. It started with Columbus on his third voyage visiting Central America, and naming an area Bocas del Toro. Later, he rescued a beautiful local woman who explained that she had been blown off course while fishing with her husband. She had been captured by local people, had escaped, and wished to return to her native Jamaica. So the first Jamaican women to enter the pages of history, did so from Panama.
Then in the area of the infamous buccaneers, the city of Panama was ravaged in the 17th Century by Jamaican marauders and Kingston became a danger spot for the Spanish citizens and traders. By the 18th Century, however, there was an asiento with Spain and soon, Kingston became a thriving port of call for vessels from the region. An entrepot trade of vast proportions brought great profit to the manufacturers of Birmingham, the traders of Kingston and tools, silks, lace and fineries to the senores and senoras.
The nine major episodes are:
1. The construction of the Panama Railway 1850-1855
2. The banana industry 1835 to the present.
3. The travels of Edward and Mary Seacole 1850 - 1852
4. The French Canal effort 1881 - 1890
5. Chinese emigration from Panama to Jamaica 1854 - 1885
6. The food export trade from Jamaica to Central America 1880 - 1914
7. Construction of the Canal 1904 - 1914
8. Devastating death toll among West Indians 1852-1914
9. Recruitment of Jamaicans during World War 11.
Construction of
the railway
The world's first public railway was completed in Manchester, England in 1830 and the Kingston to Spanish Town Railway was completed in 1845. Jamaicans therefore had a head-start on the world in terms of the knowledge of building railways.
When the American businessman, W.H. Aspinwall gained a contract from the Republic of New Grenada to build a line across the Isthmus, he could have made Jamaica his first port of call.
Instead, he tried native Americans, but they found the hostile swamps too difficult and so be brought people from the USA, China and even a group of Irishmen. Only then did they try West Indian islands, and it was this labour force that did the trick. The town of Aspinwall, starting point of the great enterprise was later renamed Colon, and from that time has been a centre of Jamaicans.
The Railroad provided safe passage across the formerly deadly and dangerous Isthmus for both people and cargo wishing to traverse from the North Atlantic to the Pacific - where lay the salt petre of Chile, the gold of California and the great cities of Central America. By 1856 the railway had declared a substantial profit, and the region became the hub of business.
The Jamaican labour force, however, did not return in full, despite being requested to do so. There are no records, but at least 5,000 Jamaicans had been employed and from this point, there are constant records of Jamaicans on the island of Bocas del Toro and across the border, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and even Nicaragua.
It is likely that the establishment of the international banana industry is Jamaica's greatest contribution to t he world. It started with the artificial breeding of the Gros Michel Banana at Belleview in St. Andrew by a Frenchman, Jean Francois Pouyatt in 1835. The Gros Michel is a long, succulent very sweet fruit unlike any banana found in nature. It was the Jamaican-bred fruit that started the worldwide taste for bananas.
The banana
industry
Pouyatt's family lived in Jones Town for the next hundred years. But Jamaicans were addicted to eating plantains, and bananas remained a minor crop until American schooners started taking Gros Michel fruit from Bocas del Toro to New Orleans in small quantities in the 1850s. All are agreed that Jamaican fishermen had taken those suckers to Bocas and cultivated them for food.. Until about 1920, when Panama Disease obliterated it, the Gros Michel would be the only banana variety shipped from the Caribbean and the world.
Lorenzo Dow Baker created a sensation in 1870 by landing this succulent delicacy in New England from Port Morant, Port Antonio and Bowden and a tremendous new trade developed. Baker and Andrew Preston formed the Boston Fruit Co., which bought out the huge Costa Rican plantations manned by Jamaicans to form the United Fruit Company in 1899 and today, Chiquita Inc.
For 40 years, Jamaica remained the world's largest producer of bananas, followed by Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Guatemala, using almost 100 per cent Jamaican labour in each country.
Anthony Johnson is an Opposition Senator.
