Series 2 - Labour & ethnicity

5 cm of textual records

Series consists primarily of material documenting the United Fruit Company’s employment of specific national and/or ethnic groups of workers, including Panamanian, Ngäbe, Kuna, Bribri and Jamaican workers. It includes material related to negotiations between Panamanian government officials regarding quotas on Panamanian workers, and material documenting the employment of laborers from Indigenous groups in Panama and Costa Rica. Of especial significance are the multiple letters between the company and Kuna leader, Cacique Olotebiliquina, as are a number of other letters that document efforts among the Ngäbe to organize their workers. Records include correspondence, reports, newspaper clippings and personnel lists.

Individual documents were placed into files by Bourgois and arranged chronologically within the files by the archivist. Files were grouped into this thematic series by the archivist based on file title assigned by Bourgois.

Restricted to protect the privacy of third parties. Contact the Archives & Special Collections Staff (utml.cds@utoronto.ca) for information about accessing these records.

• English
• Spanish

See Series 6: Non-thematic Groupings and Series 9: Chronologically Organized Letters which includes other documents that touch upon the same topics, and often include the originating letter or replies to letters found in this series.

Some file titles and documents within this series contain outdated terminology to refer to peoples indigenous to the land on which the United Fruit Company operated. The Ngäbe are referred to as Guyami, Guaymi, Crimacola Indians or Ngöbe, and the Kuna are sometimes referred to as the Cuna or San Blas Indians.