Banana Wars

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Banana Wars
U.S. Marines with the captured flag of Augusto César Sandino in Nicaragua in 1932
ObjectiveTo enforce United States and private interests in Central America and the Caribbean
DateApril 21, 1898[a] – August 1, 1934
(36 years, 3 months, 1 week and 4 days)
Executed byUnited States
Outcome

The Banana Wars were a series of conflicts that consisted of

Good Neighbor Policy in 1934.[1] The military interventions were primarily carried out by the United States Marine Corps, which also developed a manual, the Small Wars Manual (1921) based on their experiences. On occasion, the United States Navy provided gunfire support and the United States Army
also deployed troops.

With the Treaty of Paris signed in 1898, control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines fell to the United States (surrendered from Spain). The United States conducted military interventions in Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. These conflicts ended when the U.S. withdrew from Haiti in 1934 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The term "banana wars" was popularized in 1983[2] by writer Lester D. Langley. Langley wrote several books on Latin American history and American intervention, including: The United States and the Caribbean, 1900–1970 and The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900–1934. His work regarding the Banana Wars encompasses the entire United States tropical empire, which overtook the western hemisphere, spanning both Roosevelt presidencies. The term was popularized through this writing and portrayed the United States as a police force sent to reconcile these warring tropical countries, lawless societies and corrupt politicians; essentially establishing U.S. reign over tropical trade.

Origins

United States Marines with a Haitian guide patrolling the jungle in 1915 during the Battle of Fort Dipitie

Most prominently, the U.S. was advancing economic, political, and military interests in order to maintain its

sugar cane, and other commodities throughout the Caribbean, Central America
and northern South America.

Combat history

Interventions

Big Stick ideology
American warships off Veracruz in 1914
U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1922
Marine machine gun unit in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1922
A group of peasant guerillas, known as gavilleros, who fought against the U.S. Marine occupation of the Dominican Republic
  • Dominican Republic: Action in 1903, 1904 (the Santo Domingo Affair), and 1914 (U.S. Naval forces engaged in battles in the city of Santo Domingo[6]); occupied by the U.S. from 1916 to 1924. When a rebellion in the Dominican Republic, for example, damaged an American-owned sugar cane plantation, American troops were sent in, starting in 1916. They took over a small castle called Fort Ozama, killed the men inside and set up a military presence to protect their business interests. Dominican forces, who had no machine guns or modern artillery, tried to take on the U.S. Marines in conventional battles, but were defeated at the Battle of Las Trencheras (the trenches), Battle of Guayacanas and the Battle of San Francisco de Macoris. Despite having much greater firepower, it took the U.S. Marines five years to suppress an insurgency in the eastern provinces of El Seibo and San Pedro de Macorís. During the occupation, 144 U.S. Marines were killed in action and 50 were wounded.[7] The Dominicans suffered 950 casualties.[7]
  • Nicaragua: Occupied by the U.S. almost continuously from 1912 to 1933, after intermittent landings and naval bombardments in the prior decades. The U.S. had troops in Nicaragua to prevent its leaders from creating conflicts with U.S. interests in the country. The bluejackets and marines were there for about 15 years.[2] The U.S. claimed it wanted Nicaragua to elect "good men", who would not threaten to disrupt U.S. interests.[2]
The corpses of three U.S. sailors who were part of the U.S. landing party during the 1914 occupation of the Mexican port city of Veracruz

Other Latin American nations were influenced or dominated by American economic policies and/or commercial interests to the point of coercion.

Dollar Diplomacy foreign policy, although that too was backed by force, as in Nicaragua
.

American fruit companies

The first decades of the history of Honduras are marked by instability in terms of politics and economy. Indeed, three armed conflicts occurred between independence and the rise to power of the Carias government.[11] This instability was due in part to American involvement in the country.[11]

One of the first companies that concluded an agreement with the Honduras government was the Vaccaro Brothers Company (Standard Fruit Company).[11] The Cuyamel Fruit Company then followed their lead. United Fruit Company also contracted with the government through its subsidiaries, Tela Railroad Company and Truxillo Rail Road Company.[11]

Contracts between the Honduran government and the American companies most often involved exclusive rights to a piece of land in exchange for building railroads in Honduras.[11]

However, banana producers in Central America (including Honduras) "were scourged by Panama disease, a soil-borne fungus (…) that decimated production over large regions".[12] Typically, companies would abandon the decimated plantations and destroy the railroads and other utilities that they had used along with the plantation,[12] so the exchange of services between the government and the companies was not always respected.

The ultimate goal of the contracts for the companies was control of the banana trade from production to distribution. The companies would finance guerrilla fighters, presidential campaigns and governments.[11] According to Rivera and Carranza, the indirect participation of American companies in the country's armed conflicts worsened the situation.[11] The presence of more dangerous and modern weapons allowed more dangerous warfare among the factions.[11]

In British Honduras (now Belize), the situation was significantly different. Although the United Fruit Company was the sole exporter of bananas there, and the company also attempted to manipulate the local government, the country did not suffer the instability and armed conflicts that its neighbors experienced.[12]

Smedley Butler

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 to 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. After his forced retirement for making reckless statements, Butler made a career of speaking to left-wing groups denouncing capitalism. His standard speech after 1933 was titled War is a Racket, where 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".[13]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The U.S. declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898, but dated the beginning of the war retroactively to April 21.
  2. ^ In December 1903, President Roosevelt put the number of "revolutions, rebellions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks" in Panama at 53 in the space of 57 years.[3]

References

  1. ^ Gilderhurst, Mark (1999). The Second Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations Since 1889.
  2. ^ .
  3. ^ Roosevelt, Theodore (December 7, 1903). Theodore Roosevelt's Third State of the Union Address  – via Wikisource.
  4. .
  5. from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  6. ^ "US Military and Clandestine Operations in Foreign Countries – 1798–Present". Global Policy Forum. 2005. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020.
  7. ^ a b "Congressional Bills 117th Congress". GovInfo. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  8. ^
    Dotdash. Archived
    from the original on November 14, 2020. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  9. JSTOR 1053341. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved February 2, 2021 – via JSTOR
    .
  10. Economist Group. November 21, 2013. Archived
    from the original on November 14, 2020. Retrieved February 16, 2016.
  11. ^ from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  12. ^
    S2CID 146293096. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved February 2, 2021 – via JSTOR
    .
  13. ^ Butler, Smedley (1933). War is a Racket (Speech). US. Archived from the original on May 24, 1998. Retrieved March 4, 2020.

Further reading

  • Anthony, Constance G. "American democratic interventionism: Romancing the iconic Woodrow Wilson." International Studies Perspectives 9.3 (2008): 239–253 abstract.
  • Weeks, Gregory B. U.S. and Latin American relations (John Wiley & Sons, 2015).

External links