Panama Money in Barbados, 1900-1920

On January 18, 1905, hundreds of black men left Barbados aboard a steamer for panama. They were the first Barbadian contract workers dispatched to dog the Panama Canal. In the next decade, 45,000 Barbadian men and women – one-quarter of the islands human population – traveled to the isthmus. They sent home and brought back to Barbados funds in excess of 1 million. The surge of money created irrevocable social changes on Barbados, undermining elements of the island’s antiquated sugar economy...