Know Your Canal 2019 Events

A collaboration between SAMAAP and the Panama Canal Administration for more than thirty years.

The Society of Friends of the Afro-Antillean Museum of Panama (SAMAAP)
is pleased to invite you to participate in our dinner and gala dance, culminating activity of the week “Know Your Channel,” which is celebrated annually to commemorate the anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal and recognize the contribution of men and women of African descent in its construction, or operation and in the development of Panamanian society.

Bilingual religious worship
Saturday August 10th – 10:30am

Bilingual religious worship in the Berea Adventist Church, Calle 11, Parque Lefevre, Panama City.

Panama Canal 105th Anniversary Gala Event
Saturday August 17th – 7pm

This activity will culminate the week “Know Your Canal” which will be held in the Hall of the Wyndham Hotel in Albrook Mall.

The following distinguished members of our community will be our honorees for this gala occasion:

Argénida Barrios:
Docente universitaria, activista comunitaria y exdiputada de Colón.

Irving Saladino:
Winner of the first Panamanian gold medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

Ana Bennett:
Educator specialized in teaching English at secondary and university levels.

Marion Martin:
First dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Panama.

Jorge Quijano:
Distinguished Panama Canal Administrator 2012-2019

Price: $ 55 (tickets on sale until Saturday, August 3).

Dress:
Semi formal ladies and gentlemen jacket and tie. Dinner will be served at the start of the event.

Verónica D Forte		6754-4929
Melva Lowe de Goodin		224-8858
Arcelio Hartley		6672-4548
Enrique Sanchez		6533-0399
Carmela de Gobern		6675-4507
Gloria Branch		224-6648

Each year, this week is scheduled around the 15th of August and has been a collaboration between SAMAAP and the Panama Canal Administration for more than thirty years. The celebration begins on Sunday with attendance at a church service, for as good West Indian descendants, we are conscious of the mercies of God and thankful for being at this place and time. Other activities during the week include bulletin board contests at primary schools, intercollegiate speech contests, film presentations, and cultural programs at secondary schools. The week-long celebration culminates with a gala event in honor of outstanding citizens of the community.

In 1989, Cedric Gittens, a SAMAAP member who had witnessed burials at sea, came up with the bright idea to organize an aquatic pilgrimage on a launch on Canal waters as part of the “Conozca Su Canal” celebration since West Indians had worked, died and were buried in the waterway. This idea was put to the then Panama Canal Administrator, Fernando Manfredo, who gave his full support, so from that year, this pilgrimage was incorporated into the “Conozca Su Canal” celebration and has continued to be an integral part of the week’s activities.

During the pilgrimage, the ceremony includes musical groups, words from a pastor and a representative of the Panama Canal Administration, who provides an explanation of the history, operation, and now the expansion of the Canal. Praise is given to God for blessings received, and flowers are left on Canal waters in remembrance of our ancestors. This ceremony has attracted documentary seekers, researchers, film makers and reporters from all over the world. It has helped to disseminate knowledge of the Canal, its history, and its operations, which is the objective of “Conozca Su Canal”

Photograph of West Indian workers arriving on SS Ancon in the Port of Cristobal in Colon, Panama to work on the canal. The Ancon was the first ship to make the crossing through the canal once completed in 1914. Many West Indians workers gave their live during the construction of the Panama Canal in the early years of the last century.

During the construction phase of the canal “the blacks had the pick-and-shovel jobs; the whites occupied the trades and had professional and supervisory roles.

People came from all over the world — the United States, Europe, Asia, Panama, Latin America and the Caribbean — to work on canal construction but recruiters targeted West Indian laborers. According to the museum, more than 31,000 Afro-Caribbean people worked on the canal during the American construction with most coming from Barbados (19,900), Martinique (5,542), Guadalupe (2,053) and Trinidad (1,427).

Europe, in contrast, sent only 11,873 laborers and Latin America, 2,163.
Black laborers suffered from malnutrition, lived in filthy barracks or huts and were vulnerable to the poisonous snakes, malaria and yellow fever that plagued the so-called “Fever Coast.” All told, at least 20,000 workers died — a disproportionate share of them black — during the French era. During U.S. construction of the canal, disease and accidents claimed 5,609 lives. Black workers accounted for 4,500 of the deaths.