In fact, most Japanese laborers never got the chance to farm. Digging canals and clearing new land were both exhausting, labor-intensive tasks.
That was right: they consumed people.
Setting aside the sheer scale of the canal project, simply spending so long in a tropical rainforest teeming with poisonous insects and rife with disease was enough to fill anyone with dread.
Clearing new land was no easy job either. Although Spain had established a colony there in 1524, the Spanish had always been good at killing, but not at burying the dead.
Their colonial administration was so appallingly lax that, over more than three hundred years, less than twenty percent of Nicaragua's total land area had been developed.
There were pitifully few people of Spanish descent, while large numbers of Native Americans still lived in the jungles.
And the large-scale land-clearing campaign launched after the Austrian Empire took over had undoubtedly shattered the fragile balance between the natives and the colonists.
The natives had naturally learned a thing or two to survive for centuries right under the Spaniards' noses. As a result, it was the Japanese laborers sent to clear the land who suffered.
The Japanese laborers who made it to the rear and could settle down to farm had all survived by the skin of their teeth and been carefully selected. Their obedience and loyalty were naturally beyond question.
Besides that, centuries of feudal society had shaped them into people with an exceptionally strong sense of hierarchy.
Their relationship with their superiors differed from that between Western serfs and lords, or farm laborers and landlords. They were quick to idolize a group.
There were indeed some masterless samurai among the Japanese laborers sent to Central America, but they were often the first to pledge allegiance to Austria. Their loyalty was