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Banana Wars

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The Banana Wars were the occupations, police actions, and interventions on the part of the United States in Central America and the Caribbean between the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the inception of the Good Neighbor Policy under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. With the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States. Thereafter, under the guise of the Roosevelt Corollary, the United States conducted military interventions in Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. The series of conflicts ended with the withdrawal of troops from Haiti in 1934.

These military interventions were most often carried out by the United States Marine Corps, however, the Navy provided blockades, gunfire support, and engaged in warfare as well in Panama, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Army troops were also used, namely in Cuba. So numerous were the interventions undertaken by the Marine Corps that eventually a manual meant to aid in future military operations similar in nature, The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars, (1921) was developed based on its experiences.

Origins

Further information: Monroe Doctrine, Latin America–United States relations, and United Fruit Company

The term "Banana Wars" was popularized in 1983 by writer Lester D. Langley. Langley is an esteemed historian who has written several books on Latin American history and American interactions including: The United States and the Caribbean, 1900-1970 and The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900-1934. The latter book on the Banana Wars (1983) encompasses the United States' extensive involvement in the affairs of Latin American countries throughout the western hemisphere, spanning both of the presidential terms of Teddy Roosevelt, (1901-1909) up to a year into the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1934). The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900-1934 portrayed the United States as a police force that was sent to reconcile warring tropical countries, lawless societies, and corrupt politicians, with the end-goal of ultimately establishing a reign over tropical trade, which consisted largely of raw goods, namely, bananas.

United States Marines with the captured flag of Augusto César Sandino of Nicaragua in 1932

The Banana Wars were instigated by what the United States viewed as threats to maintaining its Latin American sphere of influence. This included the advancement of its economic, political, and military interests in the region, as well as the security of the Panama Canal (opened 1914) which it had recently secured and fortified to promote global trade and extend its own naval power. Other factors were also at play, such as the United States' diplomatic control of both Puerto Rico and Cuba as a result of the Spanish–American War.

Banana workers also played a sizable role in providing what the United States deemed as threats to its sphere of influence, beginning what was comparable to a civil rights movement in the tropical fruit trade. They instigated strikes and other disruptions to food companies' daily operations in protest of what they claimed to be an atmosphere of worker maltreatment and abusive working conditions propagated by the American fruit companies. This movement and the typical level of resistance it faced is exemplified by the Banana Massacre of 1928, in which the United States, at the urging of the United Fruit Company, whose workers were the ones on strike, coerced Colombia into violently ending the ongoing strike using the threat of U.S. military intervention.

The United Fruit Company had financial stakes in the cultivation and distribution of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and other commodities throughout the Caribbean, Central America and Northern South America, and as a result were heavily invested in maintaining the status-quo of the region's economic landscapes. Maintaining the status-quo was a task often accomplished by military intervention, a feat made easier by the significant degree of political influence within the United States' government that the United Fruit Company held. This degree of influence often meant having high-ranking government officials on their payroll, such as brothers John Foster and Allen Dulles, who served as Secretary of State and head of the CIA, respectively, in the Eisenhower administration.

Interventions

American warships off Veracruz in 1914

William Allen Rogers cartoon depicting Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick ideology

• Panama, U.S. interventions in the isthmus go back to the 1846 Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty and intensified after the so-called Watermelon War of 1856. In 1903, Panama seceded from the Republic of Colombia, backed by the U.S. government,  during the Thousand Days' War. The Panama Canal was under construction by then, and the Panama Canal Zone, under United States sovereignty, was created.

• Cuba, occupied by the U.S. from 1898–1902 under military governor Leonard Wood, and again from 1906 to 1909, 1912, and 1917 to 1922; subject to the terms of the Cuban–American Treaty of Relations (1903) until 1934.

• Dominican Republic, action in 1903, 1904 (the Santo Domingo Affair), and 1914 (Naval forces engage in battles in the city of Santo Domingo); occupied by the U.S. from 1916 to 1924.

• Nicaragua, which, after intermittent landings and naval bombardments in the previous decades, was occupied by the U.S. almost continuously from 1912–1933.

• Mexico, The U.S. military involvements with Mexico in this period are related to the same general commercial and political causes, but stand as a special case. The Americans conducted the Border War with Mexico from 1910-1919 for additional reasons: to control the flow of immigrants and refugees from revolutionary Mexico (pacificos), and to counter rebel raids into U.S. territory. The 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz, however, was an exercise of armed influence, not an issue of border integrity; it was aimed at cutting off the supplies of German munitions to the government of Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta,which U.S. President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize. In the years prior to World War I, the U.S. was also alert to the regional balance of power against Germany. The Germans were actively arming and advising the Mexicans, as shown by the 1914 SS Ypiranga arms-shipping incident, German saboteur Lothar Witzke's base in Mexico City, the 1917 Zimmermann Telegram and German advisors present during the 1918 Battle of Ambos Nogales. Only twice during the Mexican Revolution did the U.S. military occupy Mexico: during the temporary occupation of Veracruz in 1914 and between 1916 and 1917, when U.S. General John Pershing led U.S. Army forces on a nationwide search for Pancho Villa.

• Haiti, occupied by the U.S. from 1915–1934, which led to the creation of a new Haitian constitution in 1917 that instituted changes which included an end to the prior ban on land ownership by non-Haitians. This period included the First and Second Caco Wars.

• Honduras, where the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company dominated the country's key banana export sector and associated land holdings and railways, oversaw the insertion of American troops in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925. The writer O. Henry coined the term "Banana republic" in 1904 to describe Honduras.

Other Latin American nations were influenced or dominated by American economic policies and/or commercial interests to the point of coercion. Theodore Rooseveltdeclared the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, asserting the right of the United States to intervene to stabilize the economic affairs of states in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international debts. From 1909-1913, President William Howard Taft and his Secretary of StatePhilander C. Knox asserted a more "peaceful and economic" Dollar Diplomacy foreign policy, although that too was backed by force, as in Nicaragua.

American fruit company involvement in Honduras

The period from the early 19th to the early 20th century of Honduras' history is marked by instability both politically and economically. Indeed, the political unrest gave way to 210 armed conflicts between Honduras' independence and the rise to power of the Carias government. This instability was due in part to the American involvement in the country's politics, which arose along with the explosion of the banana industry at the turn of the 20th century.

The first company that concluded an agreement with the Honduras government was the Vaccaro Brothers Company (Standard Fruit Company). The Cuyamel Fruit Company then followed their lead. Furthermore, the United Fruit Company also agreed to a contract with the government, which was attained through its subsidiaries ( (the Tela and Truxillo Rail Road Companies).

There were different avenues that led to the signature of a contract between the Honduras government and the American companies. The most popular was to obtain exclusive rights to a piece of land in exchange of the promised completion of railroads throughout Honduras. It's this type of agreement that belies the reason the agreements between the United Fruit Company and government of Honduras were often overseen by railroad companies.

However, most banana producers in Central America existed at risk of their plants contracting Panama disease, a fungicide-resistant plant disease that causes banana plants to dehydrate and die. Typically, when a plantation would be decimated, the companies would abandon the plantation, and destroy the railroads (and other utilities) that they had been using along with the plantation.

 The ultimate goal in the acquisition of a contract between a fruit company and their potential host country's government was for the contract, once signed, to allow the company the ability to completely control the process of the cultivation and subsequent distribution of the bananas. Therefore, the companies would finance guerrilla fighters, presidential campaigns, and governments whose agendas aligned with their bests interests as well. According to Rivera and Carranza, the indirect participation of American companies in the country's armed conflicts worsened the situation. They argue that the presence of more dangerous and modern weapons produced more dangerous warfare among the different factions involved in the fighting.

In British Honduras, modern-day Belize, the situation was slightly different. Despite the fact that the United Fruit Company was the sole-exporter of bananas in British Honduras and the company was also involved in government affairs, the country did not suffer the instability and armed conflicts its neighbors experienced.

Notable veterans

The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page. (February 2017)

Perhaps the single most active military officer in the Banana Wars was U.S. Marine Corps Major General, Smedley Butler, nicknamed "Maverick Marine", who saw action in Honduras in 1903, served in Nicaragua enforcing American policy from 1909–1912, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his role in Veracruz in 1914, and a second Medal of Honor for bravery in Haiti in 1915. In 1935, he denounced the role he had played, describing himself as "a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers ... a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism".^{[page needed]}

Notable U.S. veterans of the Banana Wars include: (MOH indicated Medal of Honor)

• U.S. Army:
  • Henry Tureman Allen, senior officer known for exploring the Copper River
  • Frank Maxwell Andrews, Founder of United States Army Forces, which became the United States Air Force
  • George Brett (general), Commander of US Caribbean Defense Command
  • John F. Curry, First National Commander of Civil Air Patrol
  • John L. DeWitt, {MOH}
  • Townsend F. Dodd, First commissioned US Army Aviator
  • Claudius Miller Easley {MOH}
  • Robert L. Eichelberger, Saw service in Panama and around Mexican border
• U.S. Navy:
  • Harry C. Beasley {MOH}, Took part in United States occupation of Veracruz
  • Joel Thompson Boone {MOH}
  • William elly Harrison {MOH}
  • Isaac C. Kidd {MOH}
  • Frank Friday Fletcher {MOH}
  • George M. Lowry {MOH}
  • William Zuiderveld {MOH}
• U.S. Marine Corps:
  • Smedley Butler {MOH}
  • Louis Cukela {MOH}
  • Daniel Daly {MOH}
  • Joseph A. Glowin {MOH}
  • Herman H. Hanneken {MOH}
  • Henry Louis Larsen {MOH}
  • John H. Quick {MOH}
  • Christian F. Schilt {MOH}
  • Donald L. Truesdale {MOH}
  • William P. Upshur {MOH}
  • Ernest C. Williams {MOH}
  • Roswell Winans {MOH}