The Banana DictatorIn all(a)usion to the nineties iconic pop artist Gwen Stefani, ?this browse is banana trees, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!? and in primaeval the States these catchy lyrics certainly suppress true. In the archaean and mid twentieth century the substitution the Statesn goernment and economy were going bananas for the get together harvest-home federation, investment companyamental the States?s large(p)st unusual investor. mating the States?s join Fruit friendship (UFCO) was an manufacture around entirely devoted to the exporting of primeval American capital: as well know as bananas. Bananas became a prized commodity in some countries within Copernican America namely: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. UFCO was the primo leader of produce after the First gentlemans gentleman War because of the United States dominance in expatriation, economy, and g everywherenmental influence. The realises, employment, and suppuration generated by banana production of companies like UFCO were very live to the cardinal American economies. In countries where tradings were sparse and alien debts were huge, the economic benefits were greatly infallible. The potential revenue from bananas was so dreamy that many substitution American g everyplacenments tried extremely hard to get in crop companies. The development and reliance on this industry direct to a revolution of the economic, political, and social bring inscape of the region.
Central America during the early and mid twentieth century was non unite at all and during this conviction period broad dictators began to hit control and develop their states. The initiatory priority of these new Liberal dictators was to install pressures for fast express and large capa urban center emigration to gain economic dominance and power all over some other nearby estate during this time of political unrest. In Central America?s competition quest to progress their swap and economy railways were a necessity, however; it takes great wealth to store such an extensive project, wealth Central American nations did non possess. The railways already produced in Central America were made thinkable by giant unusual funds by the British or Germans before the United States came to dominate later. This was the exact boldness in Guatemala when Justo Rufino Barrios? ?plans for a railway to the north coast [of Guatemala] were non successful. As with near of the rest of Central America, that region had to stop until a giant foreign firm, the United Fruit bon ton, did the job in the twentieth century.? (Woodward: 161) The UFCO became the enabler of many impressive advancements in Central America, merchant vessels organism a focal point. In 1871, railroad entrepreneur Henry Meiggs from New York, signed a trim d aver with the government of Costa Rica to build a railway linking the city of San José to the Caribbean port in Limón. Minor Cooper Keith assisted his uncle Meiggs as a young man during the project and eventually took over the business after Meiggs death in 1877.
Banana trade in took finish off when it proved to be profitable for the railroad systems in 1878 when Minor Cooper Keith began ecstasy small amounts of bananas to New siege of Orleans from Limón. From this point on, the government supported the export of bananas by bring export-tax exemptions, to encourage more trade to increase the economy to fund railroad endeavors. In 1885, Costa Rica exported over a half(prenominal) a million bunches a year and the potential of this profit producing produce could truly be seen, from then on the export of bananas escalated quickly. ?The banana economy is al roughly entirely export oriented. somewhat 85% of the harvest-festival grown Central America is exported to modify countries.? (Thomson: 84). The founder of tropic Trading and Transport, Minor Cooper Keith, had a lot success in the banana business and he demonstrable a large trade linking Costa Rica with the United States. Keith matrimonial Cristina Castro Ferández, the daughter of the President of Costa Rica, José MarÃa Castro Madriz, and became cognize as the `Uncrowned King of Central America. His success in the industry didn?t go unnoticed. Many small self-sustaining growers popped up around Central America, the most competitive being the Boston Fruit attach to started by Lorenzo Baker in 1870 when he shipped bananas from Jamaica to Boston. The in 1899 the two most prevailing companies coordinated to form the United Fruit society. The combination of the two rangy timers became unitary(a) of northeastern America?s monster conglomerates. The UFCO pealed into Central America?s banana of gold and fed the take to the very hungry new foreign investors.
The government started by supporting and encouraging banana trade in the early 1870?s because of their ability to perform as a particle accelerator for railroad construction and land development. As soon as banana manufacturing took hold the multimillion dollar company, UFCO, started mental synthesis railroads through and throughout Central America to increase their profits. The UFCO?s interest in building railways grew and they spread to the Caribbean and peaceable coasts. Meanwhile study railroads were completed with Guatemala?s transcontinental railway in 1908, and railroads in crewman, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras. Honduras became the highest banana producing area in Central America where bananas were their primary quill export. Honduras revolve around banana production; the major railways plainly serviced banana trade routes and did not even reach past San Pedro Sula. The North American investors took immediate interest in Honduras? trade where it became a primary source of bananas for UFCO. As the UFCO became more and more pre overriding in Central America they simultaneously gained control of the railroads through their International Railways of Central America (IRCA). Not solely did the UFCO lay down railways as means of transportation scarcely they also had steamships that affiliated the United States with Central America known as ?The swell White Fleet?. By 1930 the United Fruit Company had a total of ninety-five vessels, some owned and rented. The UFCO was the and corporation that could afford ships and they took over the ports from Limón in the Caribbean to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala because they were the solo ones that frequented the ports.
The United Fruit Company established itself as the first of all economic interest in Central America by owning large amounts of land and having extensive means of transportation to areas remote and wide. Because it was the leading economic interest the government sought to notice the UFCO in ?an ideal investment climate?. To keep UFCO contented they received the best and largest pieces of government concession land at little to no cost, low export taxes, and immunity from campaign and environmental laws. The competition over land concessions was intense in particular with other small companies and with UFCO?s largest competitor, the Standard Fruit Company and Steamship Company and Cuyamel Fruit Company, in 1924. Together these companies grow the export and market of bananas by rifleing together. The good relations among the companies came to an end when UFCO and Cuyamel came into close competition over prized land concessions. Honduras was the top dog banana producer and therefore the most desirable land concession, to win this concession the companies would even go as removed as to fund revolutions in Nicaragua and Honduras. The United Fruit Company was nicknamed El Pulpo? (the octopus) because they were so eager to get involved in politics, sometimes even violently. In 1910, Sam Zemurray, hired a group of armed assassins from New Orleans to help point a coup in Honduras to beat out UFCO in the competition over government concessions for his own banana-trading company, Cuyamel Fruit. The dispute in the end ended in a compromise when UFCO bought out Cuyamel but then a few months later its previous chairman became the chairman of UFCO?s board. The government also granted the UFCO with large amounts of concession lands because they really wanted economic development, and use of railroads and shipping ports.
With the large amounts of land in lowly populated areas of the live(a) coastal plains where no one wanted to work, the UFCO imported Blacks from Jamaica and the Caribbean to work as a labor force on plantations, railroads and shipping yards. When the foreigners imported Blacks it greatly changed the racial concentration of Central America and created immense racial tension in society. However, the Blacks were not abandoned to the germs in the hot coastal plains and they quickly began to die off because of illness. Once Panama disease broke out among the workers and in 1935 when the bananas became infected with Sigatoka it became essential to find a solution to these diseases to plug the safety of the company?s growth. The United Fruit Company took extreme measures to help rid Central America of the Panama disease, yellow fever, malaria, and other illnesses by opening clinics and vaccination departments. affection was a huge obstacle that Central America could not make overcome by itself but with the help of the UFCO resources disease was lessen with large investments in research and insecticide. Among medical advancements the UFCO also expanded its activities to making communication for efficient between the US and Central America. This was beneficial to mainly the UFCO but also the Central American states. The first radio communication started in 1910 and by 1913 the Tropical Radio Telegraph Company was organize. UFCO also helped hand many of the Liberals goals for economy and resource growth, however; these accomplishments were at the surrender of economic and political independence of Central America. ?Among the benefits were development of transportation and ports; valuable foreign exchange, which financed further (if modest) economic development; potent tax revenues; exploitation of lowland regions; and eradication of deadly diseases autochthonic to the tropics.? (Woodward: 182) The UFCO was working hard to make nice with Central America because the natives did not hold fond memories of them. For the Central American deal the UFCO did indeed bring these benefits but at the cost of their own political and economical freedom.
Central Americans watched as U.S. foreign investors reigned over their country flexing their muscles and dipping into all the benefits of Central America they could. The native mountain were only allowed the leftfieldover land that the UFCO or government did not already possess and that they could afford to purchase (which was a accomplishment in itself), and with the small land they had they could not produce large income to even come close to that of ?El Pulpo.? The UFCO was the largest manufacturer of bananas in Central America by far and it controlled its own marketing and production, but that was not enough, they also bought from smaller autonomous growers. Because the UFCO produced the most bananas and was the only real exporter to customers, small agricultural businesses had no survival of the fittest but to transfer their produce to UFCO because there was no one else to sell too. The UFCO controlled the market of bananas and therefore controlled the price as well, and then giving small businesses no choice but to sell to them and at the price the UFCO decided on. The UFCO was effectively a monopoly over all Central American produce. It was easy for this foreign-controlled entity to make all the rules to benefit itself because by 1950 the United States of America consumed just somewhat fifty percent of the world?s banana exports. ?The United States is the largest banana consumer, importing an average of 3.7 million tons of the fruit each year.? (Baxter: 62) Thus the US secured its position as the most important economic interest and subsequently the most important interest in the political scene. The native people were olibanum left with little or no economical or political power.
As the United States poured more and more time and capital into Central America, competition between other foreign investors became intense. ?By the twentieth century there were British, German, Dutch, North American, French, and mediate Eastern merchants operating in Central America in large numbers.? (Woodward: 183) The contest was mainly between the previous primary foreign controllers, Great Britain and Germany, and the new power, the United States of America.
Before creation War I Great Britain and Germany were the leaders of Central American economic interest but after the war they were left with other major issues at hand. Their ships were called out for war sort of than for trade, and their heads turned to more imminent problems on the home front. When the North American corporation of the United Fruit Company became the dominant economic interest in Central America it started to chassis out the previous interests which caused great tension. The United States has great advantages over Britain and Germany because they were closer to Central America but the Europeans maintained to be a formidable competitor because they had been established earlier in Central America. The British owned the monopolies on tobacco and alcohol, previously owned by the state, primarily in Nicaragua making it a major influence. The British also started early building more than of the initial railroads but they were later overtaken by the dominance of the United States. The British Pacific Mail Steamship Navigation Company dominated the Pacific coast shipping but was replaced once over again by the UFCO. Germany too had an early start. They had been involved with the coffee industry and made large profits from it with the aid of their brilliant applied science and shipping. However, when the low of the 1920?s struck coffee sales plummeted, soberly hurting the German markets. The Germans were also pushed out of the running for foreign economic domination when the German Kosmos Line of ships left because they were needed for World War I. The United States sealed the deal again with the better capitalized foreign corporation that started in Honduras, the main producer of bananas, Pan American Airways which became one of the most important trading operations in Central America. From the early to mid 1900?s the Central American commerce with the United States more than doubled that of its European competitors.
With all of the transportation in Central America formed by large foreign investments, the transportation mainly served only the foreign investors. It was all foreign control of internal transportation in Central America, this made it very difficult to further and improve national integration. The only two countries connected by a railway were Guatemala and El Salvador which was really because it was built for a trading route. It was very difficult to get service from one Central American country to another because all of the major transportation led from one Central American country out to deep sea ports or to the United States not to another nearby country. ?Government owned or subsidized steamers sometimes provided such service, but the foreign companies were reluctant to bring up this apparently unprofitable traffic. Thus, modern transportation improvements, which might have brought the states closer together, instead seemed to emphasize their separateness.? (Woodward: 185)Central America at first glance would appear to be making serious lodge from all of the banana market and exports but really only 11.5% of the total value of bananas generated at the retail level accrues as retained value to the national economies which support them. The remaining 88.5% accrues to foreign enterprises such as transnational, wholesalers, and retailers, owned and operated by citizens of importing countries.? (Thomson: 88) The blowup of the banana industry develops rapidly but is also followed by rapid economic decline of the Central American country once banana production goes down. Banana production decreased for many reasons (disease, natural disasters, political unrest, and changing markets) and resulted in a number of counties in Central America being on the whole deserted by the banana industry. These countries were completely dependent on banana production and thus faced severe economic depression. In the 1930?s Costa Rica was a major Pacific sea port for banana exports but in 1956 when disease struck the area the port was abandoned. Costa Rica plummeted into an economic depression and to make matters worse it also suffered a decrease in population due to disease and those who fled the sickness and depression. (Hall: 35) Costa Rica is not the only country to befall this; this became a pattern for banana companies. When the land was poisoned by disease or ruined by storms or poor markets, the company left for a more profitable area. The banana industry exploited the Central American countries and left them with little resources or economic and political power. The diametrical Central American governments had done almost anything to draw in banana industries because they increased export revenues, employment, and development in desire of becoming more independent and developed but in the end it only gave away the great economic and political power to foreign investors. The United Fruit Company passive exists to this day and after it merged with Eli M. Blacks AMK conglomerate in 1970 to call on the United Brands Company. Then in 1984, under Carl Lindner Jr. it became known as today?s very popular fruit company Chiquita Brands International.
BibliographyAstorga, Y. 1998. The Environmental Impact of the Banana Industry.
Baxter, Terry. 1998. The Hidden sprightliness of Bananas. Sierra.( 5) 62 - 63.
Ferguson, James. 1998. A Case of Bananas. Geographical. 520(1) 49 - 52.
Hall, C. 1985. Costa Rica: A geographical Interpretation in Historical Perspective. Boulder, CO and capital of the United Kingdom: Westview Press.
Kepner, C. D. 1967. Social Aspects of the Banana Industry. New York: AMS Press, Inc.
Norsworthy, K. and T. Barry. 1993. Inside Honduras. Albuquerque, NM: The Inter-Hemispheric development Resource Center.
Thomson, R. 1987. Green Gold. London: Latin America assurance Limited.
Woodward, Ralph L. Central America, A Nation Divided. Third ed. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 1999. 161-189.
Wrigley, G. 1969. Tropical Agriculture. New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger.
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