Papers presented by Joan Flores-Villalobos since 2019
2020 Charlotte, North Carolina
"The Value of Death: Federal Compensation in the Panama Canal, 1904-1914"
Joan Flores-Villalobos, The Ohio State University
Abstract:
The promise of jobs and wealth during an economic depression in the Caribbean lured more than 120,000 West Indians to Panama for the construction of the Canal from 1904 to 1914. Some West Indians indeed made their fortune during construction, but an estimated death toll of 25,000 laborers instead found rampant tropical diseases and industrial accidents that left them maimed or dead. This presentation explores how both the American Canal administration and the mostly female West Indian relatives of the deceased learned, thought about, and accounted for the financial repercussions of the many deaths that marked the Canal construction period. Using newspaper accounts, Harbour Master’s Reports, and over four hundred petitions sent to British and American administrators during the construction period by West Indian women, I tease out these two divergent visions of the “value” of a worker’s death. These sources show how Canal authorities calculated the worth of a worker’s lost labor in financial terms, shaping the first U.S. federal accident compensation law. More importantly, these deeply personal petitions show how West Indian women used extended kinship networks to learn about the financial afterlives of their relatives and about the diverse techniques they could use to receive compensation.