Part of United Fruit’s “Great White Fleet”

Bananas. People (and many animals) love bananas. In the United States, we eat about 26 pounds of bananas per person per year; that’s half a pound of bananas each, every week. We grow very few bananas here, which makes us almost as dependent on foreign bananas as we are on foreign oil. Fortunately, we’ve had the United Fruit Company to look after our interests.

United Fruit Company dates back to 1871, when Henry Meiggs signed a contract with the Costa Rican government to build and exploit a railroad in that company. He was also given land, about 800,000 square kilometers. When Meigg’s nephew Minor Keith took over the operation in 1877, he began experimenting with growing bananas, at first to feed his workers, later as a source of income. Soon the profits from bananas far outstripped those obtained via the railroad. The railroad became a means of getting the bananas to market (it connected San José with the port city of Limón).

Keith merged his company with the Boston Fruit Company in 1899 to form the United Fruit Company. United Fruit grew to be the largest employer in Central America. Using political pressures to obtain favorable rights in different countries (that is, monopolies), United Fruit became the poster child for the goods and ills of capitalism. Their influence in the region led to the creation of the term “banana republics.”

As the Wikipedia article states, “It [United Fruit] had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries.” Two examples stand out among many:

• The Guatemalan coup of 1954: Colonel Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala on a platform of land reform and economic change. Neither of those terms appealed to the United Fruit Company, who saw its business interests in Guatemala threatened. The U.S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, worked for a law firm that represented United Fruit Company. His brother, Allen Dulles, was not only director of the C.I.A. but was also a board member of United Fruit. Accusing Arbenz of communism, the C.I.A. armed and trained a military force of Guatemalans who invaded Guatemala from Honduras, toppling Arbenz and ensuring the continuation of the United Fruit Company’s business in that country. (After the Castro revolution in Cuba, Castro warned the United States: “Cuba is not another Guatemala.”)
• The Colombian Banana Massacre: During a strike by United Fruit Company workers, Colombian troops opened fire on the strikers, killing hundreds. Two dispatches from the United States Embassy in Bogotápaint a chilling picture of the involvement and ruthlessness of United Fruit, as well as the influence that United Fruit had with the U.S. government (the entire set of dispatches paint a fascinating picture of the incident:
  • The Dispatch from US Bogotá Embassy to the US Secretary of State, dated December 29, 1928, stated: “I have the honor to report that the legal advisor of the United Fruit Company here in Bogotá stated yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military authorities during the recent disturbance reached between five and six hundred; while the number of soldiers killed was one.”
  • The Dispatch from US Bogotá Embassy to the US Secretary of State, dated January 16, 1929, stated: “I have the honor to report that the Bogotá representative of the United Fruit Company told me yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded one thousand.”

It’s amazing that a privately-held company could have such a major impact on the politics of numerous nations, but such is the case of the United Fruit Company. Think of that as you peel open your next banana.