United Fruit Company

The United Fruit Company (also known by its acronym UFCO, as la Frutera, el Pulpo or la Yunai —in Costa Rica—) was an American multinational company, founded in 1899, dedicated to the production and marketing of tropical fruits (mainly Bananas) grown in Latin America.

During the 20th century, the United Fruit Company became a determining political and economic force in many countries of that region (the so-called "banana republics"). »), decisively influencing governments and parties to maintain their operations with the highest possible profit margin, to the extreme of sponsoring coups d'état and bribing politicians.

This company is known for having murdered 1800 employees in the territory of Colombia called the Banana Massacre in 1928. After its bankruptcy in the 1970s, it was reorganized as Chiquita Brands International.

Rise

American businessman Minor Keith settled in Costa Rica in 1871. Costa Rica was then a country with an almost exclusively agricultural economy, and Keith had started his business activities dedicating himself to the railroads, supporting the businesses of his uncle, the businessman railway manager Henry Meiggs until his death in 1877.

While passenger and freight traffic in Costa Rica was not profitable enough, Keith soon discovered that his railroad could be used to transport bananas for export to the US, significantly reducing their cost of transportation, thus In the 1880s, he dedicated himself to the business of planting and exporting bananas, buying vast farms located on the sides of his railway and creating the company "Tropical Trading and Transport Company" that years later would control a large part of the production of bananas. plantains in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras, (in addition to pineapple and plums), in plantations in Central America.

In exchange for negotiating new payment terms for Costa Rica's external debt with British bankers, Keith succeeded in getting the government of that country, chaired by Próspero Fernández Oreamuno, to grant him a large concession of almost 800 hectares in 1884 of arable land. Soon after, Keith's holdings spanned large tracts of Central America and the Caribbean where the company was known as "Mamita Yunai" (note that "Yunay" is a Spanish deformation of the English term "United"). These fruits were sold in the United States and Europe.

Soon Keith expanded his business to El Salvador and Honduras, taking advantage of the fact that tropical fruits such as bananas reached high prices in the US market as they were considered exotic and expensive goods for the public, while in 1890 the line concluded railway to transport such products. However, Keith was indebted to the New York bank, suffering bankruptcy in 1899 and had to find a partner with sufficient capital to sustain his business.

The United Fruit Company or UFCO was thus born in 1899, when Minor Keith had to merge his company “Tropical Trading and Transport Company” with an important competitor company: the "Boston Fruit Company" by his compatriot Andrew W. Preston.

Heyday

Keith and Preston shared the positions of president and vice president of the UFCO, complementing their respective companies, as Preston owned a vast fleet of merchant ships (known as the "Great White Fleet") as well as Major contacts in the northern US markets, along with plantings on Caribbean islands. For his part, Keith contributed much larger tracts of cultivation than he had years ago in Central America, an extensive network of railways in those regions and also his dominance of the fruit markets of the southern United States, which made the merger very attractive also for Preston.

Building that hosted the headquarters of the United Fruit Company in New Orleans.

The resulting company, the United Fruit Company, began buying up shares in rival companies on the advice of its legal counsel, attorney Bradley Palmer, offering its competitors access to 80% of the US tropical fruit market (that the extinct "Tropical Trading and Transport Company" and "Boston Fruit Company" already controlled), thus managing to dominate the shareholding of 14 rival companies and thus obtaining an almost monopoly of the tropical fruit market in the southern United States.

By 1930, the UFC had managed to absorb some 30 United States companies in Central America, further increasing its economic power and financial penetration in the region, its last acquisition having been in 1930 the Cuyamel Fruit Company of the American Samuel "Sam" Zemurray.

Samuel Zemurray's residence in New Orleans, after transferring the UFCO headquarters to that city.

However, due to the Great Depression of 1929 and the stagnation of the US tropical fruit market, the value of the shares of the United Fruit Company began to decline rapidly. As the company's market value declined, Zemurray launched a hostile bid against the United Fruit Company in 1933 and bought out most of the company's shares, with Zemurray taking full control of it.

Sam Zemurray moved the headquarters of the United Fruit Company to New Orleans, from which he would run all agricultural and commercial operations abroad, and it was from the mid-1930s that the UFC reached its greatest financial power and politician in Central America.

Operations in Central America

Since its founding in 1899, UFCO already owned large tracts of land devoted to banana cultivation, almost entirely destined for export to the United States market, although it later diversified its fruit crops. Even taking advantage of its financial power, the "frutera" had established the first great railway network in Guatemala and El Salvador, administering along with it the Guatemalan postal service since 1908, although said railway was used almost exclusively for the transport of fruit in its beginnings; Subsequently, this railway network was transformed into a monopoly with the authorization of the Guatemalan government.

A mechanism widely used by the UFCO was to buy large amounts of land in Central America at low prices. This was a tool to prevent competitors from emerging and thus maintain a monopoly on the production of bananas, including keeping extensive agricultural areas uncultivated under the pretext that droughts or hurricanes forced him to keep large tracts of unused land “in reserve”.

Route map of the “Big Fleet” of the “United Fruit Company”, which had a monopoly on cargo transport and people in many of the Latin American countries.

However, the company's detractors maintained that the purpose of this massive purchase of land was to avoid an overproduction capable of reducing banana prices, eliminating competitors from the market; another goal was to force the poorest peasants to abandon cultivation on small individual properties and become "pawns" of the UFCO, as very cheap labor due to the artificially low wages paid by the UFCO. Such a policy implied a frontal opposition from the "United Fruit Company" to all types of land distribution in Central America, even if such distributions affected their farms that had not been cultivated for several years.

Similarly, another constant concern of the company was to maintain low tax and labor costs, being accused of massively bribing political leaders in Central America to free itself from all pressure to pay taxes and obtain benefits and tax exemptions, as well as to obtain "preferential treatment" from local authorities; in terms of tariffs, in exchange for the UFCO to finance various regimes of all kinds, provided that they simultaneously take care of the interests of the company.

The reduction in costs also affected the wages of agricultural workers who were kept quite low by the UFCO with the help of the national authorities of each country, frequently criticized for issuing laws only to "satisfy" to the "cost structure" of the "United Fruit Company" regardless of the destination of local laborers. In the same way, a concern of the UFCO was to prevent any formation of worker unions and to violently repress all labor protests, counting for this with the determined support of the local authorities of each country, dependent on the money contributed by the UFCO in taxes and bribes.. During the government of the first civilian president of Guatemala, Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898-1920), the UFCO became the main economic force in Guatemala, with large concessions granted by the government since Estrada Cabrera had shares in the company, and He was also interested in obtaining US support to prevent a possible attack by the British fleet (which was very possible due to the debts left by his predecessor, General Reyna Barrios after the failure of the Central American Exhibition); Regarding the foreign policy of the United States for Central America, it consisted of maintaining similar governments and the most peaceful possible to facilitate the construction of the interoceanic canal that was first planned for Nicaragua, then in Colombia and finally in Panama, after the Separation of Panama from Colombia; this American economic policy was known as the "Big Stick of Teddy Roosevelt's Banana Wars" and its operations frequently had the military backing of the United States Marines.

Caricature of the policy of the "Gran Garrote" (in English "Big Stick") of the government of the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who kept all the countries of the Caribbean under a fierce rule so that the construction of the Panama Canal would happen smoothly.

Possibly the most active military officer in the Banana Wars was United States Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler who in 1935 wrote in his famous book "War is robbery"

"I have served for 30 years and four months in the most combative units of the U.S. Armed Forces: in the Marine Corps. I have the feeling that I have acted during all that time as a highly qualified bandit at the service of the big Wall Street companies and their bankers. In other words, I have been a gang member at the service of capitalism. In this way, in 1914 I affirmed the security of oil interests in Mexico, Tampico in particular. I contributed to transforming Cuba into a country where the people of the National City Bank could quietly double the benefits. I participated in the "cleanness" of Nicaragua, from 1902 to 1912, on account of the international banking firm Brown Brothers Harriman. In 1916, on account of the great American sugar mills, I gave the Dominican Republic the "civilization". In 1923 I "understood" the affairs in Honduras in the interest of U.S. fruit companies. In 1927, in China, I strengthened the interests of Standard Oil. When I look back I think I could have given Al Capone some suggestions. He, like a gangster, operated in three districts of a city. I, like Marine, operated on three continents. »

Thanks to the concessions granted to foreigners, by 1901 the UFCO began to become the main force in Guatemala, both politically and economically. The government was often subordinated to the interests of the Company (one of the main ones in Central America). The UFCO came to control more than 40% of the arable land in the country and in other Central American countries, as well as port facilities (especially Puerto Barrios). It must be remembered that the North American economic policy at that time was directed towards the Panama Canal: with the canal under construction since 1903, its main purpose was to ensure a peaceful and stable atmosphere in the entire Central American region without the intervention of European powers. For this reason there was an increase in the operations of North American companies in Central America, including the exponential growth of the operations of the "United Fruit Company". In addition, Estrada Cabrera also had another reason to approach the United States: The main one was that he could ask for military help in the event that England sent a military fleet to demand payment of the debt that Guatemala had with the English banks, and that increased after the Barrios government and, especially, after the failure of the Central American Exposition of 1897.

Another of the countries that tried to influence Guatemalan politics during the government of Estrada Cabrera was Mexico, which was governed by General Porfirio Díaz and was concerned about the growing North American presence, which had increased since the war with Spain for Cuba in 1898 and then with military aid during the Separation of Panama from Colombia that allowed the Americans to build the Panama Canal. Díaz and the rest of the region's presidents viewed with concern how Estrada Cabrera had bowed to US interests.

The plantain export monopoly and the UFCO's need to ensure a «favorable business environment» necessarily motivated this company to become involved in the domestic politics of the Central American countries, supported by due to its status as the largest employer in the region with the impact that this generated in society, imposing its influence on the governments of the area so that they issued laws favorable to the interests and needs of the UFCO.

Also, although the taxes that the UFCO paid were very low, they constituted the majority of the export income received by the governments of Central America, which thus remained concerned with maintaining a "friendly" with United Fruit Company. The participation of the UFCO in the railway and postal monopolies increased the power of the company, which, with control of these two essential communication routes, could easily pressure and threaten local or state authorities that were "uncooperative" with the company.

Study of the Mayan civilization

A complex hieroglyphical figure on the west side of Estela D of Quiriguá

In 1910, the United Fruit Company received the archaeological site of Quiriguá and all the surrounding land for plantain production through a generous concession granted by the government of Estrada Cabrera. The fruit company reserved thirty hectares around the ceremonial center and classified them as an archaeological park, thus leaving an island of jungle between the plantations. of American Archeology in Santa Fe, and plaster replicas of the Quiriguá stelae made from Hewitt's molds were exhibited at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, California. various projects in Quiriguá since 1915.

In 1953, the study carried out by Richard Woodbury and Aubrey S. Trik on the ruins of Zaculeu, in Huehuetenango, sponsored by the United Fruit Company, was published in two volumes. According to the introduction to the work, this was sponsored by the fruit store to "express its social responsibility and to improve understanding between the two Americas." The anthropologists who worked on the project also expressed their gratitude to the UFCO for its valuable contributions to the knowledge of Mesoamerican archaeology.

The Zaculeu project was carried out for two reasons: to broaden knowledge about the prehistory of the Mayas and to increase the flow of tourists to Guatemala. The archaeological site was chosen for its ease of access and because the ruins they were in a good state of preservation.

Excursion to Quiriguá in 1923

Shed of a monument

Details of a monument

The Argentine artist Berta Singerman

Visitors watching a trail

Visitors at the foot of a trail

Images taken during an excursion to Río Dulce and Livingston organized by the Academy of Geography and History of Guatemala and sponsored by the United Fruit Company.

International Railways of Central America

Map of railway branches in Guatemala and El Salvador, which were owned by the IRCA, the UFCO subsidiary that controlled the railroad in both countries, while the only port in the Atlantic was controlled by the Great White Fleet, a merchant marine also owned by the UFCO.

In 1904 partners of Minor Keith, who had already built some railway lines in Central America, began to gain control of various railway branches in Guatemala and El Salvador, thanks to generous concessions from the presidents of both countries; In that same year, the company "International Railways of Central American (IRCA)" was incorporated in the US state of New Jersey, even though the different railway branches continued to operate independently.

Expansion

The annual activity report for 1912 describes the consolidation of the different branches: the Guatemalan railroad assumed control of the “Central”, “Occidental” and “Ocós” branches in 1912, when the labor force of the General and station offices and workshops in Zacapa and Guatemala City were consolidated in the buildings of the Compañía Ferroviaria Central in Guatemala; The union of all this received the name of "International Railways of Central America" (IRCA). From that moment on, Guatemala's trains became known as:

• «Ferrocarril del Distrito del Atlántico»
• « Pacific District Railway»: the old railways «Central», «West», «Panamericano» and «Ocos»
• « Pan American Railway» (in construction by the «Central Railway Company»)

The annual report also recorded the construction of the line between La Unión and San Miguel in El Salvador and mentions that the IRCA director was William C. Van Horne, who had already gained a certain reputation in the Canadian Pacific Railroad..

Keith had the idea of building a "Pan-American" railroad that would run through all the Central American republics, connecting Mexico with Panama and eventually with South America. At this time the construction of the Panama Canal was well advanced, and US interests in the region were growing. The IRCA promoted the construction of railway lines along the Pacific coast, connecting with existing lines, and providing the connection with Mexico at Tecún Umán, in Guatemala. Maps from this period show that there were projects to connect the Central line of Guatemala from Santa María in Guatemala to Santa Ana in El Salvador, where it would connect with the Salvadoran railway lines; this line would have given El Salvador direct access to the Mexican lines, but it was never built. IRCA only reached El Salvador via Zacapa, but this line passed through many mountains and made any attempt at commercial rail with Mexico impractical.

The connection between Zacapa and San Salvador was not completed until 1929; It connected to the lines that IRCA already had in both countries, reaching La Unión, from where it was possible to go to Nicaragua by means of a ferry in the Gulf of Fonseca. For its part, the direct route from El Salvador to Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic justified the cost of building between the mountains. With this branch in El Salvador, IRCA had created an empire of narrow-line rails that stretched from Mexico to the Gulf of Fonseca, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a system of more than eight hundred miles of rail line. Even in 1930, the "United Press" reported that with this branch already completed, the longest train journey without transfers in North America ran from Hudson Bay in Canada to La Unión in El Salvador, a journey of just over five thousand miles..

Atlantic District Tour

The Guatemala Division (Atlantic District) of the IRCA with a total of 197 Miles and operated between the Barrios and Guatemala stations around 1950: - Barrios - Corozo - Laurel - Higgins - Manaca - Entre Ríos - Champona - Castañeda - Forks - Cayuga - Lagarto - Navajoa - Darmouth - Morales - Bananera - York - Virginia - Montufar - Cristina- Macaw - Quiriguá - Los Amates - Tipón - El Rico - Santa Inés - Carolina - Gallusser - Managuá - La Puerta - Iguana - Vanilla - Brafra - Gualán - El Alto - Los Robles - Choyoyó - Capulín - San Pablo - Pepesca - Los Manzanotes - Zacapa - Fragua - Mármol - Reforma - Cabañas - Drum - Lo de China - Los Bordos - Jícaro - Malena - Rancho - Santa Rita - Calandria - Progreso - La Libertad - Cromo - Conacaste - Cruz - Lutecia - Barranquillo - Jalapa - Briceña - Sanarate - Cumbre - Carizo - Chile - Dolores - El Plantón - Cucajol - Joaquina - Los Encuentros - Agua Caliente - Joya - Fiscal - Cimarrón - Paraíso - Soto - Horizonte - Vuelta Grande - Cantera - Méndez - Menocal - Lavarreda - Novella - Hermitage - Guatemala.

UFco Line Tour

The IRCA Guatemala Division (Atlantic District) comprised the UFCo Line. with a total of 24.2 miles and operated between the Bananera and Quiriguá Junction stations around 1950: - Bananera - Salomón Creek - Oneida (Emp.) - Oneida (Camp) - Barranca (camp) - La Libertad (UFCo) - La Vigía - El Cedro - Patzún - Conchas - Chicksaw Camp - Chicksaw (Wye Empalme) - Chicksaw n. #5 - Creek Commissary - "C" Line (Junction) - El Pilar - San Blas - Yaqui - Aztec Wye (Junction) - Aztec Commissary - La Junta (Junction) - Maya Camp - Las Ruinas - El Empalme - Quiriguá Junction.

The Great Depression

In 1933 IRCA was in crisis: despite the fact that the line was highly profitable, the Great Depression meant that IRCA was suddenly unable to obtain financing for the extension of its branches in El Salvador; a liquidity crisis occurred when there was not enough cash to pay its short-term debts and the company was headed for bankruptcy. There was also another problem: the United Fruit Company reached an agreement with the government of Jorge Ubico in Guatemala for the UFCO to build a modern port at "Concepción del Mar" on the Guatemalan Pacific coast, in exchange for a large land grant. for the banana plantation in Tiquisate. The bananas were expected to be transported by sea through the Panama Canal and, as if that were not enough, a port with new facilities was expected to attract much of the profitable coffee, sugar and banana transport business that IRCA had hitherto carried out. transported to Puerto Barrios. The situation was not looking good for IRCA.

But IRCA managed to convince its UFCO partners that transcontinental land transport to Barrios was more efficient than maritime transport via the Panama Canal; With this, IRCA was saved from disaster: it had more traffic towards Barrios, now leaving Tiquisate. Additionally, the UFCO not only saved the railroad from bankruptcy, but also purchased new equipment for it. The contract with Ubico was renegotiated, eliminating the construction of the port (but keeping the juicy concession). In 1936, IRCA and UFCO signed an agreement whereby the "frutera" paid $2.6 million of the railroad's financial obligations in exchange for obtaining a promissory note for $1.75 million plus 186,000 IRCA shares..

Decline

After this, things began to go downhill for the railroad. The last year that IRCA reported a profit was 1957. In 1959, the highway to the Atlantic from Guatemala City to Puerto Barrios was inaugurated, which resulted in the trucks driving the train down in price, plus it lost a lot of clientele. And in 1964, due to a hurricane and tree diseases, it closed its extensive operation in Tiquisate, leaving IRCA without 10% of its profits.

Bluefields Steamship Company

In Nicaragua, the production of bananas for export initially developed on the Atlantic Coast: the United Fruit Company was established in 1899 with its branch the "Bluefields Steamship Company" in the vicinity of Bluefields, but in 1911 it decided to withdraw from Nicaragua since his banana exploitation on the Atlantic Coast was not successful. The "Standard Fruit Co." from New Orleans took his place, but ended up also withdrawing due to the unhealthy nature of the region.

In 1960, UFCO returned at the invitation of the Nicaraguan Institute for National Development (INFONAC) and this time settled on the Pacific coast. But in 1965 this company withdrew again, arguing that "it did not have adequate technology, that the activity was not profitable for it and that Nicaragua provided little technical assistance." However, the real reason for UFCO's departure in 1965 was that it failed to reach an agreement with the government on the price of bananas. The institute demanded a higher price for the exported production, which was not accepted by the United Fruit Company. INFONAC took over the marketing and production of bananas, but due to its inexperience it failed and decided to call Standard Fruit again to take over banana production.

Costa Rican Banana Company

The rich alluvial soils of this region of El Palmar Sur in Costa Rica facilitated historic agriculture since the 1930s. The UFCO had dominated this southern region with banana plantations since the 1920s in Parrita and Quepos, and entered Palmar Sur in the 1980s. in 1930 under the name "Compañía Bananera de Costa Rica" in an effort to avoid antitrust legislation.

Chiriqui Land Company

The "Chiriquí Railroad" was a former railroad that served the province of Chiriquí, Panama for much of the xx century. It had four branches that started from the main station located in the city of David, capital of the province to La Concepción. The sum of all the lines was 81 kilometers. The project for a railway through the province was created by President Pablo Arosemena in 1911 to connect Panama City with David, with a branch to the province of Los Santos, but it did not materialize due to the excessive budget. Subsequently, during the presidency of Belisario Porras, through Law 20 of February 19, 1913, feasibility studies for a provincial railway began under the contract of the American company R.W. Heabard. The works began on April 23, 1914 and it was inaugurated by President Porras on April 22, 1916, with a budget of 21 million dollars. In 1928, under the presidency of Rodolfo Chiari, the branch from La Concepción was extended to the town of Puerto Armuelles and a station was built. Later, the Chiriqui Land Company, a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company, got the government to build more branches that could transport their banana crops. The Chiriquí railway became the only means of transportation in the province prior to the construction of the Pan-American highway, and began to decline after the construction of the highway connecting Puerto Armuelles with the Pan-American highway in 1970.

The Great White Fleet

The name "Great White Fleet" began when in 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt sent several warships on a goodwill voyage around the world, following the victory in his war against Spain in 1898; the ships were painted white and not gray like the rest of the US Navy. Later, when the United Fruit Company began painting its ships white to improve the conditions of the bananas they were carrying, their fleet became known as the "Great White Fleet". After the bankruptcy of the United Fruit Company and its reorganization in Chiquita Brands International the White Fleet became part of the latter and continues to transport fruit and other goods from Latin American countries under the name of "Great White Fleet Liner Service, LTD".

View of the “Great White Fleet” of the “United Fruit Company” at the New Orleans Piers in 1910.

Publicity announcement of the UFCO White Float in 1916.

USS Taurus, Built as "San Benito" in 1921, was perhaps the first Turkish-electric merchant ship in the world.

SS «Abangarez», 1945

Frutero merchant ship of the company "Dole", which currently competes with the "Great White Fleet".

The Great White Fleet exists today. It is run by Chiquita Brands International, but it no longer has the monopoly it once enjoyed: it now competes with other shipping companies for the transportation of fruit from Latin American destinations.

UFCO abuses in Latin America

Literary introduction

UFCO's modus operandi was exposed in the following conversation, which appears in the play The Yellow Train, by the Guatemalan author —and former Minister of Education and ambassador of the revolutionary governments of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán—Manuel Galich. In this scene, Mr. Whip is the manager of the UFCO in a Latin American country, Mr. Bomb is the president of the headquarters in New Orleans, and Bracamoente is a character modeled after the Guatemalan general José María Orellana:

Argentine

In 1948, the US ambassador to Argentina, Spruille Braden, known for his intervention during the 1946 Argentine elections —where he publicly urged Argentine voters not to vote for Juan Domingo Perón—, received a salary to lobby on behalf of the company in Central America.

Columbia

Leaders of the workers' strike in the Colombian banana plantations in 1928. From left to right: Pedro M. del Río, Bernardino Guerrero, Raúl Eduardo Mahecha, Nicanor Serrano and Erasmo Coronel.

In Colombia in 1928, where before the protests of agricultural workers demanding labor improvements in the city of Ciénaga, the «United Fruit Company» managed to get the Colombian Military Forces to repress the demonstration with shots, killing about 1,800 Colombian workers. It is what is known as the "Banana Massacre", denounced in the Colombian Congress by Jorge Eliécer Gaitán and immortalized by Gabriel García Márquez at the peak of his famous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude; The person who held the presidency of Colombia in that bloody event was the conservative politician Miguel Abadía Méndez. Also, the first novel by the writer Álvaro Cepeda Samudio, La Casa Grande, focuses on this event, since the author himself lived in the vicinity of where the event occurred.

General Cortés Vargas, who gave the order to fire, later defended himself by arguing that he gave the order because he had been informed that there were US Navy ships ready to land on the Colombian coast to defend US personnel and US interests. the United Fruit Company. Vargas would have given the order to prevent the United States from invading Colombia. This position was strongly criticized by the Senate, especially by Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, who argued that the same bullets that killed the unarmed workers could have been used against the invading enemy.^{[citation needed]}

The United States embassy in Bogotá sent the following communications to the United States Department of State:

Costa Rica

Death of Antonio Saldaña in 1910

Antonio Saldaña was a Bribri cacique and the last king of Talamanca in Costa Rica. He opposed the operation of the greengrocer on his land. He died of poisoning in 1910, and various versions suggest that he died on instructions from UFCO representatives.

1934 Banana Strike

This strike took place in Puerto González Víquez, one of its leaders being the Costa Rican communist writer Carlos Luis Fallas. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Nobel Prize for Literature, contributed to the dissemination of the work Mamita Yunai by the Costa Rican Carlos Luis Fallas and its fame by dedicating a poem to "Calero, banana worker", one of the characters in Mamita Yunai, in her Canto general.

Cuba

In Cuba, the UFCO was one of the US companies that controlled sugar production and was expelled in 1959, after the triumph of the Cuban revolution. A year later, on January 1, 1960, the Cuban socialist government nationalized all of the fruit company's possessions without the right to compensation. Given this, the UFCO offered some of its ships to the Cuban exiles who tried to overthrow Fidel Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961, but the offer was not accepted by the Kennedy government.

Guatemala

Concessions in exchange for financing

In 1904, as part of the policy of the government of Theodore Roosevelt to achieve a peaceful environment in the Central American region during the construction of the Panama Canal, North American companies began to seek business with Central American countries. One of them was the United Fruit Company, which obtained large concessions from the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera in exchange for financing for his government.

Facilities of the United Fruit Company in Izabal in 1923

IRCA Station in Quiriguá

UFCO facilities in Izabal

IRCA station at UFCO facilities

Great White Fleet Vapor in Puerto Barrios

Facilities of Puerto Barrios

Images taken during an excursion organized by the Academy of Geography and History of Guatemala and sponsored by the United Fruit Company to Río Dulce and Livingston.

Attempt of strikes in Izabal

Guatemalan President, General José María Orellana and his Minister of War. General Jorge Ubico Castañeda. Photograph of 1922.

In the middle of 1924, the port workers of Puerto Barrios, key to banana exports and imports to Guatemala, demanded an 8-hour day and an increase in their wages. The UFCO refused to accept and did not give in; The workers then went on strike, to which all the workers on the farms of the frutera joined. The UFCO asked the government of General José María Orellana for help, which acted quickly: troops were sent to impose order in Barrios; the clash was brutal, resulting in death and injuries among the workers. The strike lasted twenty-seven days, but the repression managed to end it: twenty-two leaders were imprisoned and later expatriated.

At the end of 1924, the workers of the «International Railways of Central America» (IRCA) demanded a reduction in working hours, a salary increase and respect for their organization «Sociedad Ferrocarrilera». Once again, the "frutera" (owner of IRCA) flatly refused to accept these demands and mobilized the Orellana government to violently repress the strike of five thousand workers.

Attempt to bribe President Arévalo

Terminal of the IRCA and the Great White Fleet in the Port of San José, Escuintla in the 1940s.

On November 17, 1948, the new United States ambassador, Richard Patterson, arrived in Guatemala. Arévalo's political enemies were waiting for the new ambassador to save the nation, threatened by the communists that his government allegedly tolerated and even protected. Patterson was an energetic man, who did not laugh or smile easily, and was part owner of a fountain pen factory. The appointment of his ambassador had been requested by the United Fruit Company, so that the Labor Code approved by the Arevalista government would be modified, since this affected the interests of the fruit company.

An ambassador from a South American country, residing in Honduras, told President Arévalo that he had reliable information that Patterson's mission was to overthrow him. Arévalo then told his Foreign Minister, Enrique Muñoz Meany, that he would not see the new ambassador in the presidential office because he wanted to avoid expelling him from that office. He preferred, then, to attend him, the first time, to present his credentials, in the Reception Hall, and the following times, in the Banquet Hall, both in the National Palace. The first meeting between the two occurred on November 18, for the presentation of credentials; Patterson did not speak Spanish, and Arévalo did not want to speak to him in English. Eight days later, Patterson requested the first interview, in which he informed the president that the United Fruit Company opposed the Labor Code being applied to United States citizens who worked for the company and that the law needed to be reformed, to exclude those citizens. Patterson told a translator from Puerto Rico, hired by him: "Tell the President that I am a businessman and that I speak little," to which Arévalo replied: "Please tell the Ambassador that I am a politician and that I talk a lot."

A week later, the ambassador requested a second interview; on this occasion Patterson told the translator: «Tell the President that I am studying Spanish. So soon we will talk without an intermediary”, to which Arévalo replied: “Tell the Ambassador not to take these fatigues. I have been studying the language for forty years, and I still haven't mastered it.» Patterson missed the presidential irony. The interviews continued. In the end, Arévalo chose to see him in the presidential office, but with a translator chosen by the president. In the sixth or seventh interview, the ambassador told the translator: "Tell Mr. President that I have come to offer him a trip to United States, with the route he wishes and for as long as he sees fit; that my government does not grant decorations but that President Arévalo will be decorated in Washington; that he will be splendidly received and that, furthermore, we will give him whatever he asks for; but let him change his policy »; Arévalo replied: "Tell the Ambassador that my wife and I have been very concerned, in recent days, by the news that Mrs. Patterson was suffering from an attack of the flu, and that we would like to know that she is out of danger now." The answer was no longer ironic; it was a frank way of telling the American ambassador that his proposal was denied. The ambassador was stunned and could only ask: "Did you communicate my message to the president?", who replied: "Yes, Mr. Ambassador." Arévalo commented in his memoirs: «The battle was won. Guatemala had saved itself from a vile business, from those vile businesses that usually take place on the presidential desk."

Patterson, however, was stubborn, and without first asking for an audience, he asked to speak to the president once more. This time the translator was Raúl Osegueda, Private Secretary of the Presidency. The ambassador said: "Inform the President that I will be eight days in Washington. Tell him that I have been told that he likes women; I want to bring him one but I want to know if he prefers her blonde or black-haired ». Arévalo mentions in his memoirs: «I had never heard from a diplomat such an offer of celestial services that are only justified on a level of intimate friendship. It made me deeply sad to think that this man represented the nation that had just won a world war. With no little contempt I provided the answer, now without irony. The president's response, communicated by the translator, was this: “Indeed, I like women; but I usually look for them myself».

The US ambassador was convinced that it was too difficult to subdue Arévalo, and so he opted for a resource that turned out to be as futile as all his attempts had been until now: conspiring to overthrow him.

Labor dispute of 1951

Shortly after the government of Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán began, on March 15, 1951, a labor dispute began between UFCO and its workers over the renewal of labor contracts. This situation continued until March 1952, and the company demonstrated that it had not lost any of its arrogance or intransigence, since it fired more than three thousand five hundred workers and did not want to accept the mediation of the arbencista government; in the end, the workers relented and accepted the conditions offered by the greengrocer.

Coup of 1954

Annex:Guatemalan coup of 1954

Honduras

Tela central railway station building built in 1915 by Tela railroad company.

In Honduras, the de facto governments that succeeded each other in that Central American country made seventy-one concessions to foreign companies, including some to the United Fruit Company. She also owned the "Tela Railroad Company", with which she obtained two more concessions.

In Honduras, the Tela Railroad Company is known simply as "The Company," which continues to operate with the transnational corporation Chiquita Brands International; and it got its name because its headquarters were in the coastal town of Tela, where it was established in 1912. During the time that the railway and banana company operated, the small town had a lot of splendor.

On October 23, 1979, workers affiliated with the Tela Railroad Company Unions (SITRATERCO) declared a general strike at the Tela Railroad Company, demanding a wage increase. The strike would end on October 26, being a win for the union In March 1980, SITRATERCO went on strike again, demanding an 80% wage increase on the payroll. This second strike would represent a new victory for the union against the company, granting them a 66% salary increase, the right to 24 days of paid vacations per year and a subsidy to the union of 900,000 lempiras for the construction of houses for employees.

Nicaragua

In 1970 a terrorist command led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua hijacked a commercial plane at the Juan Santamaría International Airport in Costa Rica, which was taken to Cuba to wait there for the ransom to be paid for the release of a group of executives from UFCO.[citation needed]

Decline and bankruptcy of the UFCO

In 1969 it was bought by the Zapata Corporation, a company owned by American magnate Eli M. Black and later related to George H. W. Bush, thus forming a new company called United Brands Company. The company suffered serious losses due to the mismanagement of Black, who believed that the UFCO had more liquidity than actually existed. Although United Brands thus left behind a name associated with a long history of social and political manipulations, for day laborers in the fields, working conditions remained the same: seasonal work requiring excessive physical effort and in which they were exposed to to toxic chemicals that were used to fertilize and fumigate the plantations.

Eli M. Black committed suicide in New York in 1975, deeming it unfeasible to restore the company's profits to their past levels of the 1950s-1970s. Shortly before, the US press had accused the UFCO of paying bribes to the Honduran government, headed by General Oswaldo López Arellano, in exchange for the latter abolishing certain tax laws that raised taxes on the company.

Chiquita Brands International

Banana plantation in Guatemala in 2004. Note that the transport of the clusters is no longer done with people but through a mechanical conveyor.

In 1975, the company American Financial Group, owned by millionaire Carl Lindner Jr., bought the shares of United Brands Company and changed the name of the company to Chiquita Brands International and to this day it operates under this name, although the diversification of fruit imports to the US caused the company to lose much of its share of consumers in the 1970s, with a consequent loss of profitability and influence in Central America. The participation of new companies in the international trade of tropical fruits, as well as the opening of the US fruit market to countries outside of Central America, caused Chiquita Brands to gradually lose the political and economic influence that it had. UFCO held xx until the middle of the century, keeping its business activities at a much smaller level.

In 2007, Chiquita Brands faced trial in the United States for funding "paramilitary self-defense groups" in Colombia that they were responsible for the massacre of trade unionists and peasants; the company had to pay a fine to the authorities in their country but now the Colombian authorities seek cooperation from the United States so that they extradite the officials responsible for these crimes and be tried in the country.

Despite the end of the UFCO, the role played by foreign capital and initiative in the development of banana export activity in Central America has been important. Both the production and the export of the fruit have been under the exclusive control of transnational companies that continue to dominate the world banana market: for example, banana imports from the US show that 72.4% of the fruit is traded. by 3 companies: «Standard Fruit Co.», «United Brands Co.» and "Del Monte Corp", while in Japan, those same companies have 80.9% of the market.

In literature

Publicity drawing of the novel "Mamita Yunai" by Carlos Luis Fallas in the communist weekly Labour, 1941

Several renowned Latin American writers wrote about their home countries' experience with the frutera:

Writers who have written about the United Fruit Company

Author	Country	Work	Awards
Miguel Ángel Asturias	GuatemalaGuatemala	Week-end in Guatemala (1956)	Nobel Prize in Literature
		Banana Trilogy: Strong Wind (1950) The green pope (1954) The Eyes of the Buried (1960)
Manuel Galich		The Yellow Train (1950)	Ollantay Award from Bogotá
Carlos Luis Fallas	Costa RicaCosta Rica	Mamita Yunai (1941)
Anacristina Rossi		Lemon Blues (2002)
Joaquín Gutiérrez Mangel		Puerto Limón (1950)	National Prize for Magon Culture
Alvaro Cepeda Samudio	ColombiaColombia	The big house (1962)
Gabriel García Márquez		Hundred years of solitude (1967)	Nobel Prize in Literature
Francisco Martín Moreno	Mexico Mexico	The Wind Scars (1989)	Laurel de Oro a la Excellence Literaria de España
Pablo Neruda	ChileChile	Calero, banana worker (1940)	Nobel Prize in Literature
Ramón Amaya Amador	HondurasHonduras	Green Prison (1950)
Mario Vargas Llosa	Peru Peru	Times recited (2019)	Nobel Prize in Literature

Additional bibliography