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Black Americans and the State in Turn-of-the-Century Guatemala*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Frederick Douglass Opie*
Affiliation:
Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Extract

In May 2006, foreign-born workers, largely from Latin America, mobilized across the United States in response to calls from anti-immigrant groups for tougher federal policies against illegal immigrants. About 400,000 protested in Chicago, 300,000 in Los Angeles, and 75,000 in Denver. In fifty cities between Los Angeles and New York, workers organized walkouts, demonstrations, and rallies in an effort to show just how important they were to the smooth operation of the U.S. economy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2008

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Footnotes

*

Many thanks to Jason Colby and David Woolner for commenting on earlier drafts of this article. In addition I am grateful to the two anonymous readers engaged by The Americas who provided encouraging comments and helpful feedback.

References

1 Washington Times, May 2, 2006.

2 Guardian, May 2, 2006.

3 Providence Journal, June .14, August 3, 2006.

4 From an online newspaper, http://immigrationoutpost.com/the-sandman-motel, April 30, 2006.

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6 The neglect of people of African descent is noted by Ramos, Danilo Palma in “El Negro en Las Relaciones Etnicas de La Segunda Mitad del Siglo 18 y Principios del Siglo 19 en Guatemala” (Tesis de Licenciado en Historia, Escuela de Historia, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 1974), p. 16.Google Scholar The historiography of blacks in Latin America is discussed in Woodward, Ralph Lee Jr., “The Historiography of Modern Central America since 1960,” Hispanic American Historical Review 67, no. 3 (Winter 1987): pp. 468–85,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Andrews, George Reid, “Afro-Latin America: The Late 1900s,” Journal of Social History 28, no. 2 (Winter 1994): pp. 363379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Important contributions to Afro-Hispanic scholarship include Pérez-Medina, M.A., “The Situation of the Negro in Cuba,” Negro: Anthology Made by Nancy Cunard, 1931–1933, edited by Cunard, Nancy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1934);Google Scholar Rout, Leslie B. Jr., The African Experience in Spanish America: 1502 to the Present Day (London: Cambridge University Press, 1976);Google Scholar Whitten, Norman E. Jr. and Torres, Arlene, eds., Central America and Northern and Western South America, vol. 1 of Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean: Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998);Google Scholar Conniff, Michael L., Black Labor on a White Canal: Panama, 1904–1981 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985);Google Scholar Bourgois, Philipe I., Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989);Google Scholar Wright, Winthrop R., Café con Leche: Race, Class, and National Image in Venezuela (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990);Google Scholar Gillick, Steven Scott, “Life and Labor in a Banana Enclave: Bananeros, the United Fruit Company and the Limits of Trade Unionism in Guatemala, 1906–1931” (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1995);Google Scholar Gordon, Edmund T., Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African Nicaraguan Community (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998);Google Scholar and Opie, Frederick D., “Adios Jim Crow: Afro-North American Workers and the Guatemalan Railroad Workers' League, 1884–1921” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1999).Google Scholar New works on Central America include Harpelle, Ronald N., The West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001)Google Scholar and Putnam, Lara, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).Google Scholar

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18 Gudmundson, Lowell and Lindo-Fuentes, Héctor, Central America, 1821–1871: Liberalism before Liberal Reform (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995), pp. 87, 88, 127.Google Scholar

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23 Meléndez, Armando Crisanto and Savaranga, Uayujuru, Adeija Sisira Gererun Aguburigu Gari-nagu: “El Enojo de Las Sonajas; Palabras del Ancestro” (Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Graficentro Editores, 1997), pp. 1520;Google Scholar Solien Gonzalez, Nancie L., Black Carib Household Structure: A Study of Migration and Modernization (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), pp. 1920.Google Scholar

24 Gonzalez, , Black Carib Household, p. 33.Google Scholar

25 Gonzalez, , Black Carib Household, pp. 35, 15–20.Google Scholar

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27 L. P. Pennypacker, Inspector Engineer, to Jose M. Amerlinck, Technical director of the Ferrocarril del Norte, November 11, 1897, Zacapa, pp. 100–103, MF Correspondencias M. S. Miller Camacho Pennypacker Amerlinck y Ferrocarriles 1897 Legajo 15819.

28 Penney, William T., “Notes and Comments on Travels through Mexico and Central America, Being the Personal Happenings to and Experiences of Yours Sincerely,” Guatemala City, 1913, pp. 112,Google Scholar 134, 141. Indexed as the “Penney Manuscript” at the Latin American Library, Tulane University, Rare Book and Manuscript Department, New Orleans, Louisiana. Hereafter cited as Penney.

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35 El Norte, April 20, 1893, Año 1 No. 1, HBNG

36 El Norte, February 7, 1893

37 El Norte, April 30, 1893, June 10, 1893, June 17, 1893.

38 Penney was born in Quebec, Canada, in 1865. At the age of twenty, he formed a partnership to build bridges in Mexico. Penny relocated to Guatemala City in the late 1890s, where he continued to manage the company alone. While in Guatemala, he became identified with the construction of the Northern Railroad. El Libro Azul de Guatemala, eds. Bascom Jones, Colonel J., Soto Hall, Maximo, Scoullar, William T. (New Orleans: Searcy and Pfaff, LTD, 1915), p. 134.Google Scholar

39 El Libro Azul, p. 155.

40 El Libro Azul, pp. 89–91.

41 Stuart Lipton American Consul General Guatemala City, “Annual Report on Commerce and Industries for 1914,” May 2, 1915, RG 84 vol 183.

42 El Norte, Livingston April 20, 1893 Año 1 No. 7 Colleccion de Venezuela HBNG.

43 Pedro Ramos Jefatura Politica y Comandancia de Armas de Departamento de Jalapa a Ministerio de Gobernacion y Justicia Feburary 2, 1897 Jalapa, MGJ Legajo 28935 Año 1897.

44 Douglass Opie, Frederick, “Foreign Workers, Debt Peonage and Frontier Culture in Lowland Guatemala, 1884 to 1900,” Transforming Anthropology, volume 12, no. 1&2 (2005), pp. 4344.Google Scholar

45 Lipton to Harris, January 19, 1915, RG 84, vol. 183; Hugh R. Wilson to Secretary of State, October 21, 1912, RG 59, Box 3838; Garrard Harris, 1914, RG 84, vol. 179.

46 Williams, John L., “The Rise of the Banana Industry and Its Influence on Caribbean Countries” (Worcester, Massachusetts: Clark University unpublished Masters of Arts Thesis, 1925), pp. 120.Google Scholar

47 At one time, Keith had 1,000 Chinese, 1,700 black and white U.S. nationals from New Orleans, 1,500 Italians, 600 Jamaicans, 500 Hondurans, and 400 Dutch West Indian subjects from the island of Curaço in his workforce. Opie, “Adios Jim Crow,” see Note 11.

48 Harpelle, , The West Indians of Costa Rica, p. 13;Google Scholar Bourgois, , Ethnicity at Work, p. 47;Google Scholar Echeverri-Gent, , “Forgotten Workers,” p. 280;Google Scholar Putnam, , The Company They Kept, p. 40.Google Scholar

49 Putnam, , The Company They Kept, p. 44.Google Scholar

50 Putnam, The Company They Kept.

51 Mack, Gerstle, The Land Divided, A History of the Panama Canal and other Isthmian Canal Projects (New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 1944), pp. 338339.Google Scholar

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54 Statement of Ernest Willis to Dennis, July 5, 1897, RG 84, vol. 7, pp. 169–71.

55 Wm. Rockwill, assistant secretary of state, to D. Lynch Pringle, consul general, January 12, 1897, RG 84, vol. 26 .

56 Dennis to Beaupré, October 29, 1898, RG 84, vol. 76, pp. 1–3.

57 Thomas Perry and John Green to President William McKinley, August 25, 1898, RG 84, vol. 27.

58 Vincent Lamantia to N. C. Blanchard, governor of Louisiana, January 19, 1905, RG 84, vol. 145, pp. 1–3.

59 Dispatch from Edward Reed to the Guatemala City Consular, June 9, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40, p. 1; Reed to Owen, June 18, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40, p. 1.

60 Dispatches from Reed to Kent American, October 24, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40, pp. 1–3.

61 H. Remsen Whitehouse Guatemala City Consular to James B. Porter Assistant Secretary of State RG 59 Micro Copy No T-337 Dispatches From United States Consuls in Guatemala, 1824–1906 Roll 5 Jan 25, 1883-April 28, 1886, Guatemala City, May 24, 1885 no 41 p. 1–7 plus three enclosures, May 24, 1885 article from El Guatemalteco on Decree No. 330; Map showing the district opened for colonization by Decree of May 15, 1885.

62 Echeverri-Gent, , “Forgotten Workers,” 284285.Google Scholar

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64 James Smith to Dennis, August 17, 1904, RG 84, vol. 39.

65 Will Glover, August 20, 1910, record group 59 1910-29, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland (hereafter cited as RG 59 1910–29), box 3834, dispatch 469.

66 Evans to Reed, May 20, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40.

67 Kent to assistant secretary of state, June 19, 1907, RG 84, vol. 122.

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72 Reed to Winslow, May 23, 1903, RG 84, vol. 39; Ira L. Penix to Lipton, October 20, 1915, RG 84, vol. 182; Jay McCall, consular agent, Puerto Barrios, to Lipton, November 3, 1915, RG 84, vol. 182.

73 Reed to Kent, February 23,1909, RG 84, vol. 138, p. 221; Henry Collins to American council general (hereafter ACG), January 25, 1909, RG 84, vol. 40.

74 Reed to Kent, September 22, 1907, RG 84, vol 122, Dispatches to State Department 1907 American Consulate General, pp. 201–202.

75 H. B. Hodgedon, manager and general superintendent of the Ferrocarril Central, to MF, December 9, 1894, Ministerio de Fomento (hereafter MF), Legajo 15861, AGCA, p. 3; William Douglass, Jessie Jackson, and Junicus Thompson to President William McKinley, June 17, 1898, RG 84, vol. 27, nos. 31–69.

76 Wm. Rockwill to Pringle, January 12, 1897, RG 84, vol. 26.

77 It appears that the unnamed author of the letter was Ernest Willis of Monroe, Louisiana. The author identified himself as being from Monroe.

78 Letter by anonymous author, 1897, Jefatura Política de Alta Verapaz (hereafter JPAV), packet 1, AGCA.

79 George Chapman, Henry Williams, Jim Johnson, Henry Willison, T. Tazerend, Will Dully, and John N. Misanys [sic] to the secretary of the U.S. Navy, September 1896, RG 84, vol. 25, no. 82, pp. 1–2.

80 Chapman, Williams, Johnson, Willison, Tazerend, Dully, and Misanys, September 1896, pp. 1–2; Douglass to McKinley, June 17, 1898.

81 Penney, p. 66.

82 Reed to William P. Kent RG 84 vol 122 Dispatches to State Department 1907 American Consulate General September 22, 1907 Livingston, pp. 201–202.

83 George Walters, September 16, 1907, RG 84, vol. 40.

84 Reed to Kent, September 22, 1907, RG 84, vol. 122, pp. 201–202.

85 Reed to Kent, September 22, 1907

86 Echeverri-Gent, , “Forgotten Workers, p. 286.Google Scholar

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89 Reed to Kent, October 26, 1907, RG 84, vol. 40.

90 Sands to Kent, November 19, 1907, RG 84, vol. 85, p. 1.

91 Reed to Sands, January 25, 1908, RG 84, vol. 140, pp. 38–39.

92 Consuls to American consul general, Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, From Consuls, February 28, 1910 to December 30, 1910, McCreery American Legation Tegucigalpa, Honduras, G. H. Watts, American vice consul, Puerto Cortés, Honduras, to Owen, May 18, 1910, RG 84, vol. 48.

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96 Carl G. Haitman, consular agent, Champerico, to Owen, August 1, 1904, RG 84, vol. 20, pp. 1–3.

97 George Phillips & Co. to Sarg, March 4, 1885, RG 59, microcopy no. T-337 DUSCG, 1824–1906, roll 5, pp. 30–33.

98 Dennis to Pringle, February 6, 1897, RG 84, vol. 72, despatch no. 186, pp. 2, 4–6, 8–12, 14, 16.

99 Hitt to Secretary of State, June 1, 1911, RG 59 1910–29, box 3835, pp. 2–3.

100 Garrard Harris, 1914, RG 84, vol. 179.