ABSTRACT
Extensive research and debate on the sources and kinds of labor and control were reviewed in the years before the beginning of work on the canal proper. Brigadier General Peter C. Haines, an original member of the nine-man commission for exploration between 1899 and 1901 and a member of the seven-man second Isthmian Commission, was charged with the responsibility of evaluating the feasibility of acquiring and retaining each of the labor types employed in the previous ventures. In reality, the job and wage distinctions served as a surrogate color line among canal labor by dividing the work force between unskilled, imported, low-wage black workers paid in Panamanian silver currency, and white. Written descriptions focusing on the role and contribution of labor in the entire process, or covering the specific topic of the imported black workers who built the canal, were virtually nonexistent.
