X-Nico

History of modern banana plantations in the Americas

He then joined with Boston based Andrew Preston to form the Boston Fruit Company, the first company to engage in all aspects of the banana industry.

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Since banana exports came to dominate the overseas trade and most of the foreign exchange earnings of Central American countries, and the companies could use their financial clout as well as carefully established connections with local elites, they had great influence over politics in those areas, leading O. Henry, who lived in Honduras (which he called "Anchuria") in 1896-97 to coin the term banana republic for them.

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In 1876, a New York based sea captain named Lorenzo Dow Baker returned from a voyage to the Orinoco River, and stopping in Jamaica bought 160 stems of bananas in the hopes that he could recoup losses from his voyage by selling them in Philadelphia.

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These three factors converged in the Caribbean in the 1870s, and would lead to the development of large-scale banana plantations, usually owned and operated by highly integrated large corporations such as Dole and Chiquita Brands International.

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In addition they brought in thousands of new workers to labor on these large estates, many from the Pacific side of the country, many others from the English-speaking Caribbean.

see also