Panama Canal Construction


The Construction of the Panama Canal was a huge regional investment project. One scheme had originally been unsuccessfully undertaken by the French. The American scheme in the first decade of the Twentieth Century ultimately succeeded. But both projects sucked in huge quantities of labour from throughout the Caribbean and including the British colonies, especially the relatively close Jamaica. So much labour was lured away that it effected plantation economics as wages had to rise locally but at a time when the price of sugar fell. However, much money was remitted back from the workforce most of whom returned home on the completion of their contracts.


Caribbean | South America


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by Stephen Luscombe