Unofficial Ambassadors: Afro-Panamanian Activists, Treaty Revision Debates, and National Silences

In 1955 and 1977 the governments of the United States and Panama came to specific agreements regarding the Panama Canal.  The 1955 Treaty was noteworthy because it for the first time addressed worker concerns, albeit to a limited extent.  The 1977 Treaty forever changed the structure of the Canal, ultimately transferring authority of the Canal from the United States to Panama.  While these treaties are acknowledged as either successes or failures, depending on particular nationalists and political perspectives, what is less known is the central role played by Afro-Panamanians in ensuring that these treaty discussions came to be.  National silences, in Panama and the United States, have facilitated this lacuna in the historical memory of the canal debates.  Looking through the personal papers of activists, in addition to coverage of the discussion by the Afro-Panamanian press in Panama, in this paper I examine how Afro-Panamanians took on the role of unofficial ambassadors within Panama and the United States.  In Panama they did so through direct communication with political officials, often providing them with key demographic information on working conditions in the Canal.  In the United States, Afro-Panamanians who made cities like New York home, informed their neighbors and their religious and civic leaders on the history of the Panama Canal, insisting on the need for a just resolution that would finally repair fissures in U.S.-Panamanian relations.  With the centennial of the building of the Panama Canal approaching, understanding the silenced histories, in addition to the disagreements, debates and discussions connected to the Canal, offers an important opportunity to revisit an important chapter in United States and Latin American history and the role played by people of color in this history.