The cover of Maid in Panama depicts a West Indian higgler as a “mammy.” Her skin is an exaggerated ink-black, her body is large, her face round, and she wears a servant's uniform, including headscarf and apron. The higgler walks across an open field carrying a tray of tropical fruits on her head, with a background of palm trees, a placid river, and fluffy clouds.
This essay explores the archival presence of West Indian women in the archives of the Isthmian Canal Commission, the biggest repository of original documents regarding the construction of the Panama Canal. Using a 1909 photograph of a nude black West Indian woman found in a file labeled “Freak Letters,” it considers the difficulties of recovering historical subjects structured by imperial frameworks of productivity and perversity, tracing instead the counternarratives of mobility, affect, and self-determination that might have shaped this black woman’s life. Using this approach, the essay uncovers the archival logic behind “Freak Letters” and recreates the woman’s milieu, highlighting her mobility and diasporic connections. It argues that this woman’s embodied intervention simultaneously confirms and challenges the narratives of US empire that sexualized and limited her. Ultimately, the essay seeks to build an empathetic, archipelagic counterdiscourse as the basis for our explorations of subjects historically silenced or denigrated.
There has been little historiographical attention to working-class banking in the Caribbean. This article adds to the scholarship by considering the founding and use of the Barbados Savings Bank by working-class Black Barbadians. Colonial administrators hoped the bank would teach formerly enslaved Barbadians how to properly transition into the free wage labor force and sought to encourage household arrangements dependent on a male breadwinner who would use the bank for long-term savings. Using the new depositor ledgers of the Barbados Savings Bank, I argue that everyday Barbadians instead used this financial institution as a family repository of targeted savings for the purpose of emigration, defying colonial desires of a dependent workforce organized in patriarchal single-income households.
analizar los elementos que constituían la categoría de "honor" en la Ciudad de Panamá durante la época siguiente a la construcción del Canal y en relación a la raza y el género; y entender cómo las mujeres inmigrantes afro-antillanas negociaban estas expectativas de honor. Metodología: la investigación se sustenta en el análisis de los códigos legales de Panamá para definir el "honor" como construcción socio-cultural y entender las ansiedades morales sobre la inmigración antillana. Se analizan también los casos de la corregiduría de Calidonia en la Ciudad de Panamá para observar la intervención de las mujeres afroantillanas en el ámbito público y legal del Estado. Originalidad: además de analizar una fuente documental novedosa, como los casos de corregiduría de la ciudad de Panamá, este artículo compila la historiografía sobre el honor en Latinoamérica y muestra cómo se desarrolló este concepto en Panamá durante la incursión imperial estadounidense y la construcción del Canal, y cómo las mujeres inmigrantes afroantillanas navegaron los discursos de honor panameños a través de sus vulgares riñas públicas, en las que afirmaron sus propios valores morales y estatus social. Conclusiones: los casos muestran que las mujeres antillanas no luchaban por el honor, sino por la reputación y la valía personal, presentando un contra-discurso a las nociones dominantes de honor y virtud. Con sus vulgares pleitos públicos, obligaron a una institución local a escuchar sus quejas y así negociaron una forma de pertenencia ante el nuevo Estado panameño, reforzaron sus vínculos sociales y defendieron sus reputaciones.
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