Number of Images: 1; Color: Black and white; Size: 4.75 x 4.5; Type of Image: Group, candid; Landscape; Medium: Photographic print
Type:
Photographic print
Landscape
Group, candid
Place:
Panama
Coiba Island (Panama)
Date:
January 22, 1956
Category:
Historic Images of the Smithsonian
Notes:
From 1919 to 1991, Coiba Island, Panama, was a penal colony. Fear of the prison and its inmates deterred visitors from the island; thus some 80% of the natural areas on the island remain undisturbed. The island is also host to many endemic species. Both of these factors made the island ideal for Alexander Wetmore's scientific expedition. The officers and convicts pictured in Wetmore's images from the expedition were part of the penal colony. Some even worked as laborers for the expedition. Today, the island is no longer a penal colony. Instead, it is one of 38 islands composing Coiba Island National Park, a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site.
Summary:
Convicts of the Penal Colony on Coiba Island, Panama, are lined up in two lines for evening roll call. A wall of a building can be seen along the right side of the road and another building of the penal colony compound is on the left behind one row of the convicts. The image was taken by Smithsonian Secretary Alexander Wetmore while on a scientific expedition in Panama to Coiba Island, while completing field work for his four volume work, The Birds of Panama.
Contained within:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Alexander Wetmore Papers, Record Unit 7006, Box: 183, Folder Album: Panama and Coiba, 1956
