My old history books gave the credit for constructing the Suez Canal to Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French developer. But he had help.
The excavation took some 10 years using forced labour (Corvée) of Egyptian workers during a certain period. Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period, that altogether more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed, and that thousands of laborers died on the project.
Part of my family's history is that my great-grandfather was unable to settle down right away after fighting with the Union Army in the American Civil War at the ferocious battles of Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. He travelled around the world, arriving in 1869 in Egypt just as the canal was opening. In Cairo, he attended one of the first performances of Verdi's opera Aida, written for the occasion.
Those hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who actually built the Suez Canal also have descendants -- who also have family memories. As they continue to bravely occupy Tahrir Square, they might be excused if they have not lost their suspicions about Western sincerity.
It is interesting that you should mention the canal Mr. North. While Obama is speaking lovey dovey about the Egyptian people, this is what is happening in the name of “evacuating Americans” –
“The Pentagon is moving U.S. warships and other military assets to make sure it is prepared in case evacuation of U.S. citizens from Egypt becomes necessary, officials said Friday.
The Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship carrying 700 to 800 troops from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Ponce have arrived in the Red Sea, putting them off Egypt’s shores in case the situation worsens.
Pentagon officials emphasized that military intervention in Egypt was not being contemplated and that the warships were being moved only for contingency purposes in case evacuations became necessary.”
Read between the lines…
AMERICAN WARSHIPS HEAD TO EGYPT
Just thought you might like to know, since some think “everything is changing” in regard to western Hegemony, so you folks better listen a little more carefully to some of the proposals I have made.
So 30,000 people from the region were enslaved (Forced Labor) to build a canal and yet when Egypt wanted to nationalize the canal, that was an act of war according to the French, British and Israelis.
Who built the Suez Canal? The same people who built the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China. The workers built it.
Under the original 1858 contract between the French company and Egypt, Egypt was to gain full ownership and control of the canal in 1957. You know what happened next. Here’s the canal’s historical timeline: link to i-cias.com
How fascinating, James. I bet you got some amazing family foto albums.
In Cairo, he attended one of the first performances of Verdi’s opera Aida, written for the occasion.
how heavenly! i love that opera. wow
I haven’t checked back on the details, but as far as I remember from my Middle Eastern economic history classes when I was a student, the contract signed between the Khedive Ismail and Ferdinand de Lesseps was highly favourable to the French entrepreneur, and amongst other things specified that Egypt would provide the labour for digging the canal for free. This was then achieved by a corvée (forced labour service) of Egyptian peasants.
It was not slave labour, as Wiki says, but forced free service by Egyptian peasants. The same, they say, as built the Pyramids.
Ismail was a fool, borrowed money right and left on the international market, and Egypt was bankrupt six years later.
Yes, it was corvee labour, an Egyptian tradition since the building of the pyramids and still widely used at the time of the building of the Suez Canal for public irrigation projects, for example. Although the Brits claim they abolished it, the key factor in ending corvee labour was that the big Egyptian landowners/mangagers found such labor increasingly not cost-effective, for example in the cotton and rice industries, especially since those Egyptian industrialists were forced to pay for the exemption of their own peasant workers from the traditional forced labour. During the course of the building of the Suez Canal corvee labor was essentially phased out to meet the demands of a modernizing Egypt for contract labor. Nevertheless, the workers were paid so little they could not afford to take a train to the work site. See link to past.oxfordjournals.org
Citizen: Thanks for the valuable link.
link to nytimes.com
I’m sure this will trashed for the author, though the message is resounding.