The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 positioned the United States as a global power, but the U.S. didn’t complete the feat single-handedly. It required land from Panama, equipment and information from the failed earlier effort by the French, and, importantly, tens of thousands of laborers from around the Caribbean. Decades later the Panamanians finally gained control of the canal zone and then the canal itself, but the labor – and sacrifice – of the Afro-Caribbean workers still deserves greater recognition. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Julie Greene, Professor of History at the University of Maryland, and author of Box 25: Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Through the Panama Canal,” composed by J. Louis Von der Mehden and performed by Prince’s Band on January 7, 1914, in New York; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Panama Canal,” photographed by Harris & Ewing in 1913; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Additional Sources:

• “The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal,” by Julie Greene, Penguin Publishing Group, 2010.
• “Building the Panama Canal, 1903–1914,” Office of the Historian, US Department of State.
• “Panama Canal: Topics in Chronicling America,” Library of Congress.
• “History,” Panama Canal Authority.
• “Chief Engineers of the Panama Canal,” PBS American Experience.
• “How the Panama Canal Took a Huge Toll On the Contract Workers Who Built It,” by Caroline Lieffers, The Conversation, April 18, 2018.
• “Why the Construction of the Panama Canal Was So Difficult—and Deadly,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, Originally published October 25, 2021, and updated September 15, 2023.
• “The Panama Canal: The African American Experience,” by Patrice C. Brown, Federal Records and African American History (Summer 1997, Vol. 29, No. 2).
• “Panama Canal Centennial online exhibition,” University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries.
• “The Panama Canal and the Torrijos-Carter Treaties,”Office of the Historian, US Department of State.

In 1686, Susannah Mingo, Elizabeth Atkins, Dorothy Spendlove, and their children, all of whom were half-siblings, along with some of their children's other half-siblings and their children's father, boarded a ship headed from Barbados to England, where they would live out their lives. It wasn’t unusual for a plantation owner like John Peers to impregnate both his enslaved Black laborers and his white servant, but it was unusual for him to acknowledge his illegitimate offspring, baptize them, bring them and their mothers with him across the ocean, and provide for them in his will, all of which John Peers did. This week we look at the story of a Barbados family, not via its patriarch, but rather through the lives of the five women who bore his children – Susannah, Elizabeth, Dorothy, and John's wives, Hester Tomkyns and Frances Knights (née Atkins). Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jenny Shaw, Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama, and author of The Women of Rendezvous: A Transatlantic Story of Family and Slavery.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode music is “Calypso Island - P5,” by Audio Beats, purchased under Pond5's Content License Agreement; the Pond5 license authorizes the licensee to use the media in the licensee's own commercial or non-commercial production and to copy, broadcast, distribute, display, perform and monetize the production or work in any medium. The episode image is “A representation of the sugar-cane and the art of making sugar,” by John Hinton, 1749; the engraving is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Additional Sources:

• “On Barbados, the First Black Slave Society,” by Sir Hilary Beckles, Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, April 8, 2017.
• “Barbados profile - Timeline,” BBC News, January 4, 2018.
• “Barbados: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide,” Library of Congress.
• “Barbados parts way with Queen and becomes world’s newest republic,” by Michael Safi, The Guardian, November 30, 2021.
• “Inside Barbados’ Historic Push for Slavery Reparations,” by Janell Ross, Time Magazine, July 6, 2023.

Henry Christophe, one of the heroes of the Haitian Revolution, was, from 1811 to his death in 1820, King Henry I of the Kingdom of Haiti, the first, last, and only King that Haiti ever had. This week we look at Christophe’s meteoric rise from being born enslaved on an island hundreds of miles from Haiti to fighting in the American Revolution to serving as a general in the Haitian Revolution to being king of all he surveyed, until it all came crashing down around him. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University and author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Maestro Walter's Brass Band, Final March - JEZI OU KONNEN,” by Félix Blume, from Death in Haiti; the audio is available under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0. The episode image is a portrait of Henry Christophe from 1816 by Richard Evans; the painting is in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

• “The Haitian Revolution Timeline,” by Kona Shen at Brown University, 2022.
• “The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.
• “How Toussaint L’ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution,” by Kedon Willis, History.com, Originally posted August 30, 2021, and updated, August 18, 2023.
• “Inside the Kingdom of Haiti, ‘the Wakanda of the Western Hemisphere,’” by Marlene Daut, The Conversation, Originally published January 23, 2019, and update November 16, 2022.
• “Rare document sheds light on historical black queen,” The University of Central Lancashire, September 26, 2019.
• “Atlantic freedoms: Haiti, not the US or France, was where the assertion of human rights reached its defining climax in the Age of Revolution,” by Laurent Dubois, AEON, November 7, 2016.
• “The Play That Electrified Harlem,” by Wendy Smith, Library of Congress.