The Committee's Report: punishment, power and subject in twentieth-century Panamá

Abstract

My dissertation, The Committee's Report, analyses punishment, power and subject formation in three historical settings in twentieth-century Panamá. Instead of an omniscient narrator, I use fictional narrators, who interpret the archival documents, and debate their meaning. The text as a whole is therefore a pastiche, combining fictional and historical narrative. Chapter One, below, analyzes the construction of the penal colony on the Island of Coiba and its first years (1919–1930). The narrators disagree about the most appropriate historical framework with which to explain this project, and the historical depiction the reader encounters is therefore one of conflict.

Keywords:

• Panamá
• punishment
• penal colonies
• liberalism
• Belisario Porras
• post-colonialism

Notes

^1. Pulga is the name of a short story by Panamanian writer Enrique Chuez. Pulga, the narrator and protagonist of the story, is a dog in the penal colony. Aside from the fact that it is a dog which narrates Chuez' story, the narrative is fairly exact in many respects. This is not surprising, given that Chuez interviewed many ex-prisoners before writing the story. Editor's interview with Enrique Chuez, La Chorrera, Panamá, May 29, 2008.

^2. The Casa Blanca was the name of the Director's residence.

^3. The document is fictional.

^4. The Watermelon Slice Incident took place in Panama City on April 15, 1856. After Jack Oliver, an American traveler, refused to pay for a watermelon, an incident developed that escalated into a full riot. Estimates of casualties varied – 18 dead was one estimate (Daley 1990).

^5. Belisario Porras' most elaborate biography is by Sisnett Cano (1962). This work is, however, reverential and does not discuss the material critically. Porras' own writings serve the implied author here, and I will indicate where an obvious reference is made. A useful summary of Porras' works can be found in the introduction to Pizzurno de Araúz and Muñoz (1992). Other valuable sources are Araúz (1988); Conte Porras and Porras (1996); Aparicio (1993); and De la Rosa (1968, 103–108).

^6. This is a reference to B. Porras and Ayala (1912). Porras' anecdotal writings on his life and presidencies appear in B. Porras (1931).

^7. On the Liberal efforts during the Thousand Day War, see B. Porras (1973).

^8. The actual negotiation took place between Bunau-Varilla, of the French company that had failed to construct the canal, and the U.S. State Department. Bunau-Varilla had an interest in closing a deal under any circumstances, because it meant that the French rights and equipment could be sold to the U.S. The Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty and the relations between the U.S. and Panamá have been the subject of numerous Panamanian writings. For a general review of the literature see Conniff (1990).

^9. B. Porras (1903).

^10. Jaén Suárez (1998, 321). See also Conniff (1985).

^11. Jaén Suárez (1998, 321).

^12. For a detailed description of the oligarchy in the 1950s and 1960s, see Gandásegui (1974).

^13. For works on the Antillean community in Panamá, see Conniff (1985) and Greene (2009). The first essays about this community were written by one of its teachers and leaders, George Westerman, and remain highly valuable today (Westerman, 1946, 1980). On reactions to the transformations that the building of the Canal brought about, see Szok (2001, 37–65).

^14. Jaén Suárez (1998, 505).

^15. Gorgas' contribution is told in detail and praised in McCullough (1977, 405–468). In Panamá Gorgas is to this day considered by many to be a true hero, as he was considered by President Porras. It was Porras who, in 1923, placed the first brick in the new Gorgas Institute for the study of tropical disease, and emotionally eulogized the doctor.

^16. McCullough (1977, 384). Michael Donoghue's excellent history of the Canal Zone paints this colonial picture in vivid colors (Donoghue, 2006).

^17. Pearcy (1998, 39).

^18. The Marsh Incident was actually more complex for the simple reason that, as it appeared later, the young R.O. Marsh, who had been left as Charge d'Affaires in the U.S. Embassy in Panamá, had acted without authorization to effect Mendoza's resignation. The Embassy did not apologize or act to reverse his actions, but Marsh was later dismissed. For Marsh's correspondence with the State Department, see Panamanian Embassy Dispatches to State, 1910–12, RG 84, NACP. For the Embassy's internal investigation of the affair, see T.C. Dawson, Minister Plenipotentiary, to Philander Knox, Secretary of State, September 28, 1910, Dispatch No.2, Vol. 26, Panamanian Embassy Dispatches to Dept. 1910–12, RG 84, NACP. The best discussion of Marsh can be found in Howe (1998).

^19. On the elections, see H.P. Dodge, American Minister, to Philander C. Knox, U.S. Secretary of State, June 8, 1912, Dispatch No. 141, Vol. 29, Panamanian Embassy Dispatches to Dept. 1910–12, RG 84, NACP. See various other letters in Volume 29 as well.

^20. The implied author seems to be referring to Chatterjee (1986).

^21. Teeters (1946, 55).

^22. H.F. Porras 1980). On coastal navigation in Panamá more generally, see Jaén Suárez (1998, 141–142).

^23. Public debates about the issue echo the discursive connection between railways, the connection of the national territory, and independence. See for example, ‘Ferrocarril de Panamá a David y a la Provincia de Los Santos,’ La Prensa, 18 January 1911, 1. The article compares the length of railroads paved in most Latin American countries. See also B. Porras (1916).

^24. B. Porras (1992, 128).

^25. Ricardo J. Alfaro, speech to the General Assembly, February 19, 1919. Tomo 5-02 XX A (Secretario de Gobierno y Justicia) folio 302–304, ABP.

^26. For conditions prior to the establishment of the penal colony, see Noberto S. De la Guardia to Belisario Porras, April 8, 1919. Tomo 5-02 XIX-A (Secretario de Gobierno y Justicia), Folio 196–202, ABP.

^27. Ibid., no enumeration.

^28. Ibid., no enumeration. The Martinelli family eventually came to dominate much of the southern Azuero peninsula, using police as private mercenaries to displace the peasants. There is no documentation of any compensation given to any of the parties involved. Porras later refused a request that the Colony begin diving for pearls, but suggested the government might at some point organize such a venture.

^29. Transcript of the speech included in Ricardo J. Alfaro, Secretary of Government and Justice, to Porras, February 19, 1919. Folio 302–304, Tomo 5-02 XX A (Secretario de Gobierno y Justicia), ABP.

^30. This is very similar to the double civilizing act that Alice Bullard observes in the case of the French transportation of communards to the South Pacific (Bullard 2000).

^31. B. Porras (1924). Notice that the numbers Porras cites are conspicuously exact – his new Registro had to supply such figures. Since the only numbers available thus far are the official ones, the implied author relies on them. Inaccurate or not, the trend is clear.

^32. ‘Primer año de la administración de Rodolfo Chiari’, La Prensa Ilustrada, 1925 (In the bound edition, p. 37).

^33. It is not entirely clear what, if any, research was available to the Liberals on agriculture in Panamá, and on shifting cultivation in particular. The earliest study in the Isthmus seems to have been a report on the agriculture of the Canal Zone, written in English, by American experts. The study criticizes shifting cultivation severely, but still recognizes some of its benefits, like the reduction of land erosion (Bennett and Taylor 1912). The Liberals, by contrast, admit no advantages. The first study in Spanish only appears in 1937 (Baxter, 1937).

^34. From a leftist position, economic historian Michael Perelman describes the centrality of the attack on subsistence agriculture to the early European political economists. Whether or not this argument is true in the European case, the implied author cautions against applying it in countries in which there was an oversupply of cheap labor, and in which politicians relied on working-class support (as in the case of Panamá after 1914; Perelman 2000).

^35. Bourgois (1989, 15–18).

^36. There are records of Porras' inspections of jails in an official capacity and his reports of conditions there in 1888. Various documents in Tomo 919, cajón 806, Sección Colombiana, Archivos Nacionales (AN), Calidonia, Panamá. In 1895, Porras and some of the others leaders of the Liberal Party were imprisoned for a few months in Panama City, on orders of the Conservatives from Bogotá. Thus, most of the Liberals had known prison from the inside before exercising power (Sisnett Cano 1962, 62).

^37. For the most comprehensive account of the U.S. occupation of Chiriquí, see Cuestas Gómez (1990).

^38. Odin G. Loren, American Vice Consul in charge, to Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State, September 10, 1920 (National Archives Microfilm Publication, M607, roll 29, frame 207–9); Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Panamá, 1910–1929, Record Group 59, National Archives at College Park (NACP).

^39. B. Porras and Ayala (1912, 83–84).

^40. Col. Chester Harding, Governor, U.S. Canal Zone, to Belisario Porras, President, September 29, 1919. Folio 208–9, 5-02 (Sect. de Gobierno y Justicia), XIX-A, ABP.

^41. Norberto de la Guardia to Porras, April 8, 1919. Folio 196–202, tomo 5-02 (Gobierno y Justicia) XIX-A, ABP. Also, Miguel Herrera to Porras, November 12, 1919. Tomo 5-02 (Secretario de Gobierno y Justicia) XIX-A, Folio 186–190, ABP.

^42. ‘In our exploration we visited all the neighboring islands,’ he wrote years later, ‘deciding on Coiba definitively, because it was the vastest, and for having very fertile and leveled areas, covered with leafy forests; and for being crossed, from East to West and from North to South, with ravines and creeks that irrigate it’ (B. Porras 1931, 152).

^43. Julio Payló, National Engineer, to Secretaria de Fomento y Obras Públicas, no date. Tomo XX, serie 5-02 (Fomento y Obras Públicas), Folios 149–152, ABP.

^44. Instead of ‘Panama City,’ Panamanians refer to their capital as Panamá, causing foreigners some confusion. The same confusion occurs with provincial capitals, as when, for example, Santiago is often called Veraguas. The name Panama City is used below only in places in which some ambiguity exists. Above, the Chiriquí Prison was not the central jailhouse of the province of Chiriquí, but rather, the large colonial prison of the capital.

^45. H.P. Dodge, Minister to Panama, to William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State, March 12, 1913 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M607, Roll 29, Frame 170–1); Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Panama, 1910–1929, RG 59, NACP.

^46. The event is described at length in Alfred R. Lamb, Instructor and Inspector, Policía Nacional to John G. South, American Minister to Panama, April 17th, 1922 (M607 Roll 26, Frame 925–932); Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Panama, 1910–1929, RG 59, NACP. For an example of friction between Lamb and American officers, see: William J. Price, Minister to Panama, to Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, February 20, 1919 (M607 Roll 26, Frame 846–848); Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Panama, 1910–1929, RG 59, NACP.

^47. ‘Reglamento de la Penitenciario de Panamá.’ Tomo 5-02 (Secretario de Gobierno y Justicia), XIX-A, Folio 220–228, ABP.

^48. Belisario Porras, President of Panamá, to Atanasio Cañizales, Chief of Agricultural Section of Coiba, January 21, 1921. Libro 5-03 (Sect. de Gobierno y Justicia, Policía Nacional), XXXI Folio 480; ABP.