Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T21:49:53.615Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Crown Colony as Banana Republic: The United Fruit Company in British Honduras, 1900–1920*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Mark Moberg
Mark Moberg
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Alabama, Mobile.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In much historiography of the colonial Caribbean, British administrators are portrayed as mediators between domestic elites, foreign capital, and the working class. Such scholarship converges with popular belief in Belize, whose institutions are seen as a legacy of ‘impartial’ British rule. This article examines the relationship between the United Fruit Company and the colonial government of British Honduras. Contrary to claims of administrative impartiality, colonial officials facilitated the company's monopoly over the banana industry and acted as company advocates before the Colonial Office, actions that ultimately undermined the colony's independent banana producers.

Type
Central America: New Assessments
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , May 1996 , pp. 357 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The term ‘forestocracy’ was coined by Grant, C., The Making of Modern Belize (Cambridge, 1976), p. 36Google Scholar, to refer to the colony's elite classes. For analysis of colonial patterns of labour control, see Bolland, O. N., Colonialism and Resistance in Belize (Belize City, 1988)Google Scholar and Belize: A New Nation in Central America (Boulder, 1986).

2 Quoted in Ashcraft, N., Colonialism and Underdevelopment: Processes of Political Economic Change in British Honduras (New York, 1973), p. 36Google Scholar.

3 Despatch from Governor Barlee to Colonial Office, London, 29 March 1880, British Public Records Office, CO 123 165.

4 Bolland, O. N. and Shoman, A., Land in Belize: 1765–1871 (Mona, Jamaica, 1977), p. 64Google Scholar.

5 Green, W. A., ‘The Perils of Comparative History: Belize and the British Sugar Colonies after Slavery’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 26, no. 1 (1984), p. 116CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Green's assertion inadvertently captures the bias of colonial administrators themselves, who feared that accommodating the demands of newly-freed slaves would invite a ‘relapse’ towards ‘primitive’ forms of African sociopolitical organisation, of which Haiti was considered a prime example.

6 Ibid.

7 For a treatment of Belizean history from this perspective, see Waddell, D. A. G., British Honduras: A Historical and Contemporary Survey (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar. A critique of this view is suggested in Bolland, O. N., ‘Reply to William A. Green's The Perils of Comparative History’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 23, no. 1 (1984), pp. 591–619CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Ashdown, P., ‘The Belize Elite’, Belizean Studies, vol. 10, no. 1 (1982), p. 22Google Scholar.

9 Ashdown, P., ‘Sweet-Escott, Swayne and the Unofficial Majority in the Legislative Council of British Honduras 190–1911’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 9, no. 1 (1980), p. 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Ashdown, P. D., ‘Race, Class, and the Unofficial Majority in British Honduras, 1890–1949’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Sussex, 1979, p. 273Google Scholar.

11 The Clarion, 1 Sept. 1910, p. 267.

12 The Clarion was owned and edited by P. S. Woods, whose brother represented mercantile interests as an unofficial member of the Legislative Council between 1898 and 1907. Ashdown, ‘Race, Class and the Unofficial Majority’, p. 123.

13 The Clarion, 20 March 1913, p. 411.

14 Ashdown, ‘Race, Class and the Unofficial Majority’, p. 273; As has been noted elsewhere in the Caribbean, and as Sweet-Escott and Swayne learned in British Honduras, colonial governors ‘discovered a local white society whose members were eager to welcome him as their ceremonial head … To join with them meant a pleasant tour of duty, to fight them meant … political conflict and social ostracism’. Lewis, G. K., The Making of the Modern West Indies (New York, 1968), p. 104Google Scholar.

15 Kepner, C., Social Aspects of the Banana Industry (New York, 1967), p. 40Google Scholar, argued that United Fruit's monopoly was in part a natural one, given the need to spread production over diverse regions to avert climatic disasters and Panama disease. In contrast, Bourgois, P., Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation (Baltimore, 1989)Google Scholar claims that United Fruit benefited from the susceptibility of bananas to plant diseases, as competitors could not afford to establish comparable infrastructures, only to abandon them within ten or fifteen years. Former United Fruit plant scientists even state that ‘the company dragged its feet’ in developing disease resistant varieties because of the monopolistic benefits of periodic relocation (Ibid., p. 16).

16 Holt, T. C., The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor and Politics in Jamaica and Britain (Baltimore, 1992), p. 354Google Scholar.

17 Ibid., p. 360.

18 Black, C. (ed.), Jamaica's Banana Industry (Kingston, 1984), p. 77Google Scholar.

19 Holt, The Problem of Freedom, p. 365.

20 McCann, T., An American Company: The Tragedy of United Fruit (New York, 1976), pp. 39–40Google Scholar.

21 Bourgois, Ethnicity at Work, p. 8.

22 Central Americans, seeing little that is amusing in the term, refer to the company and its pervasive influence as el pulpo, the octopus. Dosal, P., Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899–1944 (Wilmington, 1993)Google Scholar.

23 Holt, The Problem of Freedom, p. 356.

24 Bourgois, Ethnicity at Work, p. 21.

25 Figures compiled from the Colony of British Honduras, Blue Books (Belize, 1890 to 1903).

26 Although mahogany had recovered its position as the colony's primary export by 1905, thereafter most mahogany was shipped to the US market. At no point after 1903 did Britain resume its former role as the colony's dominant trading partner.

27 SirHutson, E., The Handbook of British Honduras (London, 1925), p. 176Google Scholar.

28 Ibid.

29 The Colonial Guardian, 15 Aug. 1911, p. 2.

30 Until the advent of improved refrigerated shipping in the early 1920s, banana exports from Central America and the Caribbean were destined for the nearby US market, as fresh fruit would spoil during the long transatlantic passage.

31 Ashdown, ‘Race, Class and the Unofficial Majority’, p. 25.

32 The Colonial Guardian, 1 January 1887, p. 2.

33 The overall population of the southern districts increased 5.7 per cent between 1871 and 1891, a period in which population in the northern half of the country exhibited little net growth. Some of this population growth was due to immigration, as an undetermined number of Mopan and Kekchi Maya entered the colony from Guatemala during this period. Yet the rapid growth of banana-growing predominantly Creole settlements, such as Mullins River, Manatee, and Monkey River, is attributable almost entirely to migration from elsewhere in the colony. See Cal, A., ‘Rural Society and Economic Development: British Mercantile Capital in Nineteenth Century Belize’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Arizona, 1991, p. 315Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 321.

35 The Colonial Guardian, 11 June 1982, p. 3.

36 Cal, ‘Rural Society and Economic Development’, p. 316.

37 Government Gazette, 23 Feb. 1901, pp. 21–31.

38 Colonial newspapers report occasions after the reassignment of the mail contract when more than 4,000 stems were discarded weekly at Stann Creek Town after the steamer refused to ship them. The Colonial Guardian, 9 March 1901, p. 2.

39 Kepner, Social Aspects, p. 42.

40 By the late 1920s, the Vaccaro Brothers company was to become incorporated into Standard Fruit (now part of Dole), one of the three major banana multinationals in the region today.

41 The Colonial Guardian, 22 Dec. 1900, p. 2.

42 The Colonial Guardian, 26 July 1902, p. 3; the company successfully repeated the same tactic two years later when the Southern Steamship Line of Mobile began calling at fruit-producing areas of the coast. The Colonial Guardian, 26 March 1904, p. 1.

43 The Colonial Guardian, 1 Jan. 1902, p. 2.

44 Despatch from Governor Wilson to Colonial Office, 13 Feb. 1902, BPRO, CO 123 240.

45 Ibid.

46 Letter from Henry Keith to Governor Wilson, transmitted in despatch to Colonial Office, 13 Feb. 1902, BPRO CO 123 240.

47 The Colonial Guardian, 8 March 1902, p. 3.

48 Ibid.

49 The Colonial Guardian, 26 July 1902, p. 3.

50 Letter from Fairweather, Cuthbert, and Woods, unofficial members of the Legislative Council, to Colonial Office, 6 March 1902, BPRO CO 123 240.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Colonial Office minute paper commenting on letter from Fairweather et al., no date, BPRO CO 123 240.

54 Kepner, C. and Soothill, J. H., The Banana Empire: A Case Study of Economic Imperialism (New York, 1935), p. 154Google Scholar.

55 Stewart, W., Keith and Costa Rica (Albuquerque, 1964), p. 43Google Scholar.

56 Despatch from Governor Wilson to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 3 Aug. 1899, marked confidential, BPRO CO 123 233.

57 Ibid.

58 Ashdown, ‘Race, Class and the Unofficial Majority’, p. 125.

59 The Clarion, 26 July 1909, p. 123.

60 Despatch from Governor Swayne to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 19 April 1907, marked confidential, BPRO CO 123 255.

61 Ibid.

62 Despatch from Governor Swayne to Colonial Office accompanying draft agreement with United Fruit Company for CO approval, 11 Feb. 1909, BPRO CO 123 261.

63 Despatch of Governor Hutson to Colonial Office, 24 May 1919, BPRO CO 123 295a.

64 The Clarion, 22 July 1909, p. 94.

65 The Clarion, 22 July 1909, p. 98.

66 The Colonial Guardian, 11 Dec. 1910, p. 3.

67 The Clarion, 16 Marc h 1911, p. 330.

68 Ibid., p. 329.

69 The Clarion, 1 April 1909, p. 348.

70 Correspondence between. Colonial Office and Hous e of Commons concerning unplanned expenditures on the Stann Creek Valley railway, 11 July 1911, BPRO CO 123 271.

71 Report of the Committee on Landing Rights for Submarine Cables on the Application by United Fruit Company for Permission to Establish a Wireless Telegraph Station in British Honduras, December 10, 1909, marked confidential, BPRO CO 123 267.

72 Despatch from Governor Swayne to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 29 May 1911, marked confidential, BPRO CO 125 268.

73 Letter from C. H. Ellis to Swayne, 28 Feb. 1911, transmitted with Governor Swayne's despatch to the Colonial Office, 29 May 1911, BPRO CO 123 268.

74 Despatch from Governor Swayne to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 29 May 1911, marked confidential, BPRO CO 123 268.

75 Notwithstanding United Fruit's influence in the colonial government at the time, no more than 2, 000 acres of its Middlesex estate was ever under cultivation.

76 Annual Report for 1915 on the Stann Creek Railway, submitted by railway superintendent, April 1916, BPRO CO 123 284.

77 Despatch from Acting Governor Walter to Colonial Office, 1 April 1918, BPRO CO123 291.

78 Agricultural report for Riversdale by W. R. Dunlop, transmitted with despatch from Governor Hutson to Colonial Office, 11 Feb. 1920, BPRO CO 123 300.

78 Sampson, H. C., Report on the Development of Agriculture in British Honduras (London, 1929), p. 23Google Scholar.

80 C. L. Stocker, Agricultural Reconnaissance of the Stann Creek Valley, 1928, BPRO CO 123 529/2.

81 Agricultural report for Riversdale by W. R. Dunlop, transmitted with despatch from Governor Hutson to Colonial Office, 11 Feb. 1920, BPRO CO 123 300.

82 Despatch from Governor Bennett to the Colonial Office, 8 August 1918, BPRO CO 123 292.

83 Ibid.

84 Letter from Railway Superintendent to Governor Hutson, transmitted with governor's despatch to the Colonial Office, 5 April 1920, BPRO CO 123 300. Railroad freight charges were fixed in the 1909 contract between the government and United Fruit at a maximum of five cents per stem of fruit (AB Minute Paper 1423–19).

85 Letter from the Colonial Secretary in Belize to United Fruit in Boston, 11 Feb. 1920, transmitted in Governor Hutson's despatch to the Colonial Office, 5 April 1920, BPRO CO 123 300.

86 From the company's very arrival in the colony, Stann Creek banana producers had complained to the government and press about its fruit grading procedures, which they characterised as arbitrary and punitive. Despatch from Governor Hutson to the Colonial Office, 5 April 1920, BPRO CO 123 300.

87 Despatch of Governor Hutson to the Colonial Office, 24 May 1919, BPRO CO 123 295a; emphasis in original.

88 Despatch of Governor Hutson to Colonial Office, 3 July 1919, BPRO CO 123 295b.

89 Ibid.

90 Despatch from Governor Hutson to the Colonial Office, 5 April 1920, BPRO CO 123 300.

91 Ibid.

92 Telegram from Governor Hutson to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 16 Nov. 1923, BPRO CO 123 316.

93 Minute Paper entitled ‘Valuation of Middlesex Estate for Forestry Purposes’, 16 Nov. 1923, Archives of Belize MP 3121–23.

94 Minute Paper entitled ‘Communication with the United Fruit Company in Regard to Stann Creek Railway and the Company's Interests and Obligations in that District’, 8 May 1919, A B M P 1148–19.

95 Despatch from Governor Hutson to Colonial Office, 18 Aug. 1921, BPRO CO 123 302. One of the two planters mentioned in the despatch was W. A. Bowman, who was later to establish the Stann Creek citrus industry and became the district's largest private landowner by the end of the decade.

96 Government of British Honduras, Sessional Paper on the Banana Industry, AB SP no. 43 1957.

97 Minute Paper entitled ‘Information as to History and Development of the Stann Creek Railway’, 16 Oct. 1933, AB MP 2091–33; Despatch from Governor Burns to Colonial Office, 23 April 1937, AB DO 123 of 1937.

98 For a discussion of these reformist currents in late ninetenth century British colonial policy, see Lobdell, R. A., ‘British Officials and the West Indian Peasantry, 1842–1938’, in Cross, M. and Heuman, G. (eds.), Labour in the Caribbean (London, 1988), pp. 195–207Google Scholar, and Lewis, The Growth of the Modern West Indies, pp. 105–17.

99 Supplement to Government Gazette, 23 Feb. 1901, pp. 21–31.

100 The Clarion, 9 March 1914, p. 322.

101 The Clarion, 16 April 1914, p. 439.

102 The Clarion, 3 July 1916, p. 13.

103 The Clarion, 20 March 1913, p. 412.

104 Ashdown, ‘Race, Class and th e Unofficial Majority’, p. 273.

105 Ibid., p. 181. Among the unofficial members appointed by Hutson was W. A. Bowman, who, as a banana planter, had earlier urged the governor not to antagonise United Fruit by holding the company to its contract obligations.

106 Bolland, ‘Reply to William A. Green's’, p. 124.

107 Bolland, Colonialism and Resistance, p. 158.

108 Grant, The Making of Modern Belize, p. 79.

109 Minute Paper entitled ‘Labouring Work Done by Contract on Banana Plantations and Remedy for Noncompliance – Letter from Stann Creek Planters’, 25 Oct. 1917, AB MP 5424–17.