Origin of the Banana Wars (Pre 1900 to 1902)

U.S. Troops Landing in Cuba

Every day I see news about the conflict in Palestine, Yemen, Ukraine, and so many more countries. It made me think about the past, as I always do being a sort of unofficial historian. The things that come to mind the most are the Banana Wars. Conflicts aimed to protect the business interests of the United States, namely the fruit companies, hence the name of the conflicts. I had the idea to do a sort of series spanning the end of the Spanish-American war in 1898, and the introduction of the Good Neighbor policy in 1934. 

When most people see a banana, they think of a fruit, a smoothie usually paired with strawberries. Innocent enough, right? WRONG. When I (an ardent historian) see a banana, I think of the United States Marine Corps storming Central American and Caribbean nations under the guise of maintaining order, but in reality it was to protect American business interests, such as the multitude of fruit companies littered all over Central America, hence the term Banana Wars. 

At the time, U.S. foreign policy in the Americas was mainly structured around the Monroe Doctrine, a policy that both opposed European colonialism in the western hemisphere, while also professing that any such foreign intervention would also be considered an attack on the United States itself. This would be a key aspect to the events to come in the late 19th and early to mid 20th century when it comes to the numerous Central/South American interventions. 

I can’t say for sure when all of this began, but I would say that the Banana Wars began right at the conclusion of another conflict, the Spanish-American War (1898). With the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the United States entered its “Age of Imperialism”, gaining control of Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippine Islands. This propelled the United States to a sort of imperial power, on the stage with other countries like the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and so on. 

This ended up creating multiple conflicts, as the people of these nations had no real say on what would happen to them or their country. In Puerto Rico, a military government was installed beginning the “Americanization” of the island. A brief period of resistance followed, eventually ending due to the infrastructure projects providing employment to the discontented people involved with the civil disobedience. The military government was replaced with a civilian one, beginning the rise of the “sugar economy”, as it was with many of the island nations in that time, especially ones under the former control of the Spanish. 

In Cuba, the situation was a little different. Like Puerto Rico, the Cuban government was ever so graciously (ugh) given its own military government. In addition to this, the U.S. Congress would pass a piece of legislation known as the Platt Amendment, which “officially defined the relationship of the United States and Cuba”, as well as defined the conditions that Cuba as a nation would need to meet before being given its full independence. 

This, of course, would basically be a joke. The amendment would be used as a pretext for U.S. meddling for the next couple decades. Worst of all, this amendment had a passage forcing Cuba to add the whole piece of legislature into its new constitution, basically letting the United States have a sort of soft power over the country. 

This would be the blueprint for what was to come for the next 36 or so years until the introduction of the Good Neighbor policy under Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the next part of this series, we will go into the early interventions of the United States, specifically the Dominican Republic, and Panama, as well as the involvement of the United Fruit Company.