Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 349 - The 1928 Banana Massacre

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Did you know that American banana corporations turned almost all of Central America into US satellite states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for roughly half-a-century? It took the massacre of thousands of unarmed, exploited, and striking Columbian  banana workers in 1928 to turn the tide against American imperialism.  Today we explore just how several central American nations became true Banana Republics. Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp tickets are ON SALE!  BadMagicMerch.com Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GjS-jjEqARABad Magic Charity of the Month: The DNA Doe Project is a non profit with a simple humanitarian mission: to identify John and Jane Does using investigative genetic genealogy. Our donation amount is currently TBD. To learn more, please visit dnadoeproject.orgMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits

Bananas, delicious, yellow, sexy bananas, waiting to be ravaged or eaten normally by normal people who like normal bananas in a normal way. Did you know that Americans eat more bananas per year than apples and oranges combined? In other parts of the world, bananas more than rice, more than potatoes, are what keep hundreds of millions of people alive.

Bananas are great. As a protein smoothie lover, I have a banana almost every day and half for years. I like to chop them up, put them in cereal or an asi-e bowl. I love banana bread, banana cream pie, banana slices on some Nutella, on a crepe, delicious. For a while as a kid, my favorite dessert was a banana split. And then there's banana pudding. I could go on and on. Banana is great, such an easy and tasty snack on the go.

Banana's also helps shape the modernization of Central America in some really dark ways for many, many years. At the end of the 19th century, a few rugged and ruthless banana barons built a market for a product most Americans had never heard of. The fruit proved to be a commercial miracle. Within 20 years, bananas had surpassed apples to become America's best seller, despite the fact that the banana is a tropical product that rots easily and often needs to be shipped thousands of miles to make it to most of its markets.

Those first banana companies, direct ancestors of Chiquita, they invented new ways of produce harvesting and shipping to bring bananas out of the dense jungles of Central America, all the way to local US markets without spoiling through the fruits, long distribution chain. To do that, they cleared rainforest, laid railroad tracks, built entire company towns, then vented radio networks to allow communication between plantations and cargo vessels approaching ports. They created some of the first vessels with built-in refrigeration. They spawned the modern fruit industry as we know it today.

They built a vast and very profitable commercial empire. And so much of that is admirable, especially at first glance, but along the way, holy shit, did they engage in some ruthless and disgusting business tactics. Under the guise of quote, civilizing central America, they brutally subjugated local work forces and collaboration with local governments that they essentially came to own. When local workers refused to work long hours and squalid in dangerous conditions for almost no money, sometimes literally not any money,

just a tiny bit of company store credit with no hope for advancement. They crushed strikes without mercy. They also intentionally pitted their Hispanic workers against black West Indian workers to keep their laborers mad at each other Instead of taking out their anger on their actual oppressors and every once in a while when the workers did manage to figure out who the real Enemy was and they tried to stage a substantial strike these banana barons literally sent in the troops and that is what happened in Colombia

In 1928 that's what led to the now infamous banana massacre and which an unknown number of people were rounded up and killed in the town of Sienaica. The workers had some demands, very reasonable demands. They wanted compensation for work accidents, hygienic dormitories, six day, 60 hour work weeks instead of seven day, 70 hour weeks. They wanted to be paid an actual money instead of coupons to the United Fruit company stores. And United Fruit did not want to give any of this to them. They wanted them to accept exploitation. And when they didn't, United Fruit decided along with the Colombian government,

that there would be blood. A dark and super strange chapter in the history of the American produce industry right now in another. How the hell did I never hear about this before? Edition of Time Suck. This is Michael hear about this before edition of Time Suck? Happy Monday, mate sacks. Welcome to the Cult of the Curious of Dan Cummins, Suck Master, lonely hearts club vice president, guy who wears shoes so often,

he's probably destined for a nervous breakdown. And you are listening to Time Suck, praise B to the four horsemen of the Suck Pocalypse, Nimrod Lucifina, Bojangles and Triple M. May they someday bring about the best Doomsday ever. Recording this after some shows in Bloomington at the comedy attic, man, what a cool college town. Such fun shows.

I had a blast working on so much new stuff. Probably got a little crazy Friday night at Lake Show. But that's what happens. When you're working on new stuff, sometimes you go too far in certain directions. By the time you hear this, I will have already worked at comedy on state, Madison as well. If it goes, anything like Phoenix and Bloomington, I want to be feeling great about a new rough

draft of an hour of new material I'll be taking to clubs this fall. Right now, the only tickets on sale for the summer, one weekend in Spokane in August, August 4th and 5th. And that's it. Dancomas.tv for tickets. Last reminder for our charity, I still don't have the amount, but I know we'll be donating around 14,500 to the DNA Doe project, a nonprofit with a simple humanitarian mission

to identify John and Jane Doe's using investigative genetic genealogy. To get some healing for those who have suffered such a significant loss. To learn more, please visit dnnadoproject.org and another 1500 ish will be headed to the scholarship fund. The amounts we updated on the time suck app which will be reskinned and rebranded as the bad magic productions app sometime later this year. And you can see on the app that so far

we've raised over $600,000 for a variety of amazing charities. So thank you so much to everyone on Patreon who has helped us do that. And now one more quick announcement. Hi, everybody, partners and ponies. Tom Anderson here from your favorite one-stop kink shop, Captain Whiskerhorn's Pony Play and Poryam Tech Shop and Satellarie. The Quad State area's number one destination

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Actual saddle knowledge, not required, but definitely bonus. Sound fun? Visit BadMagicBerser.com and pick up your new Captain Wisk or Orange Employee team clip clop on down to an orientation today. Choose between our new standard employee tea or a reissued classic tea in new colorways featuring me, Tom Anderson, in my true pony form. We look forward to seeing all your eager mayors and stallions walking into our new shop real

soon. Hi, all, Stas Perrilla! Oeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee And now onto a topic that our Patreon subscribing space is voted in for me to suck and share today the 1928 banana massacre Very different than the 1993 Banana fornication An incident that occurred in a small grocery store in Rick and Zaidohoe where a teenage boy Ledgely tested the premise that a banana peel was one of the vaginas of the fruit world in the employee bathroom After spending time working closely with a large breasted fellow employee named Rhonda and charge of produce who been over a lot of the time whom he had become quite attractive to.

That teenage boy may have been me. I might have a stand up bit about it after called Chiquita Charlie, but today not that kind of banana tail. Banana bring up a lot of different associations, right? They're a staple and many of our day to day lives, something quick to grab for breakfast on your way to work or school or healthy snack. Bananas are among the most important foods on the planet, paleing from a family of plans called Musa, native to Southeast Asia that grow in many of the warmer areas of the world. Bananas are a healthy source of fiber, potassium, vitamin B, vitamin C, and various antioxidants and phytonutrients.

Bananas are great pre-workout snacks. They're loaded with potassium that aids in maintaining nerve and muscle function during strenuous activity. That high potassium content also means that they promote heart health, fight the world's most leading cause of premature death, which is heart disease. Bananas have other benefits too. The inside of a banana peel can help relieve itching and inflammation, such as from bug bites or poison ivy. And if ripe enough, the inside of a banana peel can kind of act as a lubricant for, hey,

Lucifina. Based on the bananas we see in pretty much all of our grocery stores, it's easy to ascertain that there is big business in bananas. Even a little gas station doesn't have a produce section, we'll still often have bananas. So many of the coffee shops I've been in over the years, if they have one fruit option, it's almost always banana. The biggest producers of bananas are not the countries I expected.

Care to take a guess regarding the top two in the world? I would not have gotten these countries in 10 guesses, maybe not in 20. India, number one, producer of bananas followed by China. India produces about 29 million metric tons on average per year, almost 64 billion pounds of bananas while China produces about 11 million metric tons. The Philippines, Ecuador, and Brazil are also very large producers. I want to guess how many varieties of bananas there are.

I was way off with this one. There are thoughts to be more than 1,000 varieties of bananas subdivided into 50 main groups grown in over 150 countries. The Cavendish is by far the most commercialized variety. They're sweeter, generally eaten raw, accounting for about 47% of global production and over 90% of production

here in the US. About 50 billion metric tons of Cavendish bananas produce global each year. And actually 99% of the bananas exported to developed nations across the world belong to this group. All of this is interesting, at least to me, but also pretty fucking benign, right? Bananas tend to make us think of harmless things like breakfast snacks, maybe mushed up food for babies, nothing too intense. What bananas probably don't bring to mind, but sometimes should, is ruthless corporate greed, a complicated and somewhat violent legacy

of American corporate empires, and the way they shaped Central America beginning in the 1800s. And that is the main story today. [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Gonna try and cover a lot of ground this episode. Though the Banana Massacre was one incident that took place on December 6, 1928, after a two month long strike, the story of what led to the Banana Massacre is much longer, deeper, more complicated, and I think a lot more interesting.

It's a story of how entrepreneurs from the US transform South America in the 19th and early 20th centuries, turning undeveloped nations newly independent from Spain, mostly agricultural, farming countries into industrial hubs that produce millions of tons of produce and other raw materials each year. It's a story of how these companies began to not just work in these countries, but take them over, operating much more like governments than foreign corporations. They ran the railroads, postal service, customs, and more. In the beginning, many Central American governments were happy to have the help of advancing their infrastructure industry and overall economic growth. But then the US government working with US corporations exercise more and more pressure on local regimes, often putting people into power who were on board with foreign investment

that eventually would come to be seen for what they were, exploiters rather than investors. Eventually local governments took back some autonomy, but before they did, they would do things like deploy their own military against their own people to protect foreign US business ventures. And that's what happened in the in the banana massacre. And it wasn't new in 1928, similar shit. It been going on for years. Today we'll cover US involvement, both on the part of the government and private individuals in shaping Central America.

We'll look at nations where United Fruit and other companies had a huge influence, not only in Colombia, but also in Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Of course, the full history of US involvement in any one of these nations would take an entire podcast series, rolling dedicated part of an episode to that today. Before we get into a timeline where we'll focus on United Fruit and its expansion and the conflicts it faced in these various nations, as well as how it shaped the lives of its workers, both white and nonwhite.

We'll first look at what the banana massacre would come to embody to Colombians and Central Americans at large. The results of long-term and large scale imperialism. Let's fucking go! The banana massacre might have been lost to history. We're not for the book 100 Years of Solitude by Colombian author, Gabrielle Garcia Marquez, the winner of the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize or Nobel Prize, not Peace Prize, Nobel Prize in literature. I bring automatically once a piece after Nobel. Marquez was born in a racotaca Colombia. That's how that's how the people

are staying on YouTube. A racotaca Colombia. In 1927, making him an infant when the banana massacre took place, but the banana massacre and United Fruit in general shaped his home country and surrounding areas profoundly. He was also led to reflect on the banana massacre through a more personal connection, his grandpa, Colonel Nicholas Ricardo Marquez Mejia, well known for his refusal to remain silent about the banana massacre. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the banana massacre, Columbia's liberal party, to whom the colonel belonged, stepped up its vocal criticism of United Fruit

and other companies that had dominated Central American economies for decades. By contrast, conservative leaders and newspapers maintained that the army's actions had been warranted, they had to be done. They had the support of the US government on their side who supported United Fruit's actions, whatever they happened to be, even violence against local populations.

It was authors like Marquez who tried to correct the official record, not only of the banana massacre, but of United Fruit in general, who always claimed that its domination of Central America was for the good of the local people that it had came to civilize and develop some backwards nations. One hundred years of solitude plays out against the backdrop of bananas, but the that it had came to civilize and develop some backwards nations. One hundred years of solitude plays out against the backdrop of bananas, but the climax deals directly with the massacre occurring during a plantation strike when martial laws declared.

The workers gather in their town square amidst ominous signs around 12 o'clock, Marquez writes, more than 3,000 people, workers, women and children had spilled out onto the open space in front of the station and were pressing into the neighboring streets, which the army had closed off with rows of machine guns. The crowd remains in the square even after their order to disperse. A second warning is met with defiance, and eventually time runs out. Fourteen machine guns answered at once, but it all seemed like a farce. It was as if the machine guns had been loaded with caps because their panting rattle could be heard and their incandescent

spitting could be seen, but not the slightest reaction was perceived, not a cry, not even a sigh among the compact crowd that seemed petrified by an instantaneous vulnerability. Suddenly, on one side of the station, a cry of death tore open the enchantment. Ah, mother! A seismic voice of volcanic breath, the road of a cataclysm broke out in the center of the crowd. 3,000 striking banana workers are killed, and then their bodies, one by one, are thrown into the ocean, and an attempt to cover up would have just occurred. In the novel, Marquez uses this event to capture the profane fury of modern capitalism, so powerful that not only can dispossessed land and command soldiers, but control the weather. After the killing of the company's US administrator, Mr. Brown, someone's up an

interminable whirlwind that washes away not only Macondo, but any recollection, any recollection of the massacre. The storm propels the reader forward towards the novel's famous last line, where the last descendant of the Wendia family finds himself in a room reading a Romani prophecy. Everything he knew and loved would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men because races condemned to 100 years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. The book is a powerful, parable of virtually unchecked imperialism, especially the distinct

type of imperialism that united fruit and other corporate empires were practicing in Central America beginning in the mid 1800s. This kind of imperialism and how it led to the banana masquer right is our focus today. We previously discussed imperialism in our episode on the colonial devastation of Africa. In that episode we learned about how in 1884, Otto van Bismarck, chancellor of the German Reich, decided that Europe needed to sit down and figure out how to carve up an entire continent specifically for European profit. That happened at the Berlin conference, France, Germany, great Britain, Portugal were the major players. One of the tasks of this conference was for each European country that claimed possession over a part of Africa to bring quote civilization in the form of Christianity as well as trade.

Lots and lots of one sided trade. The way European imperial powers carved up Africa to serve their own greed, ignoring which tribes lived where and who they historically fucking hated, exploiting the population and taking almost all of the wealth out of Africa has left much of Africa, pretty fucked up in war torn to this day, a direct result of this. King Leopold II of Belgium promised that the Congo would be formally recognized as his personal possession. And the Congo was and is extraordinarily rich and natural resources, including ivory, palm oil, timber and rubber, and leopold would greatly increase his personal

wealth at the expense of the African environment and the people of the Congo. And similar shit happened around the rest of the continent. What happened in Central America would take place a little differently. They would not be multiple countries slicing up the continent, continent as they had at the Berlin conference. They would not be drawn countries slicing up the continent continent as they had at the Berlin conference. They would not be drawn up a national border, you know, for all these places, but, but a lot of exploitation would go down. Beginning around 1840, the US became increasingly involved in Central America and the Caribbean reshaping it with the idea that the goal of any society should be to look, work and be structured like the US, but like, kind of like subjugated also by the US. and be structured like the US, but like subjugated also by the US. The 1995 book, The Banana Man, American Mercenaries and Entrepreneurs in Central America, 1880 to 1930,

written by Lester D Langley and Thomas Schoonover will be one of our main sources for this episode. And it would describe the US's unique form of imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries like this. Tragedy. Often results when Americans adopt liberal development values and societies deemed important for the US role in the world. The insistence that these societies assimilate US values and institutions negates the fundamental liberal principle of self-determination and weakens domestic political institutions, particularly where compredor elites

who are often subservient to or co-opted by foreign concerns seem more determined to defend the interest of the foreigner than those of the nation. Anyone else never heard the word compredor before? That means a person within a country who acts as an agent for foreign organizations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation. So, essentially, some motherfucker are happy to sell out his fellow citizens interest to some foreign organization. Continue with this excerpt.

The US government warranted or excuse me, the US government wanted Central America developed, but in accordance with US economic and geopolitical interests. It also enunciated the goal of assisting central American states in the modernization of liberal institutions and democratic practices, materialism, frequently triumphs over humanitarian and idealistic goals. Well, so while US government officials attempted to acquire territorial possessions in the region, private citizens known as filibusters, filibuster urs, weird word, also organized armed expeditions to various places in Mexico, Central America and Cuba.

After the territorial acquisitions of the 1840s and North America, the idea of additional territorial expansion remained very popular with men in the US public. As did the idea of spreading a Republican government, Cuba in particular was seen as an attractive possibility for a new American state. I'm not gonna lie, totally selfishly, I do kinda wish we had Cuba as a state, right? It would just be nice to have a second Hawaii of sorts,

not far from the mainland. White sand, it's fucking beautiful. I haven't been, which is based on pictures, white sand beaches, nice, some nice mountains, lush jungles, warm weather year-round. Ah, looks amazing. And the food is, at least what we get here in America is fantastic. Anyway, filibustering and official U.S. diplomacy were equally unsuccessful in acquiring

permanent and significant territorial gains in Central America and also tended to incite local antagonism against U.S. actions in the region. Although the Civil War ended the nation's dreams for large-scale territorial expansion, the nation emerged from reconstruction with the dynamic economy that increasingly demanded overseas outlets for American exports and capital. That opened the path for businesses

to start making commercial inroads into Central America, to bring back to the US raw materials like coffee, sugar, and fucking sexy ass nanners. In the 1850s, a New York company constructed the Panama Railroad to further US corporate interests in the region, the world's first transcontinental railway. By the 1870s and 1880s, such ventures had become increasingly commonplace around the Caribbean. In Central America, additional US entrepreneurs built key railroads, railways, and laid banana plantations while other US merchants moved into Cuban sugar production. In the mid 1890s, a severe economic downturn in the US, the panic of

1893 and local labor upheaval in America spurred many political and business leaders to embrace commercial and imperial expansion as their answer to domestic turmoil. Basically, it was a deal of, if we can't get American workers to accept next to fucking nothing, maybe we can get foreigners to do that. And if Americans don't want to pay our prices, well, maybe people in other markets will. These corporate empires were by and large, very successful and expanded and expanded becoming a critical factor in shaping life and work in many parts of Central America. And life was shaped according to the very racist ideologies of the day.

Ideologies that believe local, non-white people were inherently backwards, provincial, mentally and capable of governing themselves, and they needed United Fruit and other corporations to show them the right way. And of course, they had these attitudes. These attitudes have been shaped for centuries in America. United Fruit Managers, other white Americans, carried a complex legacy of race and labor with them to Central America. And it also already existed all around the Caribbean and further south before they even got there. Spain first imported African slaves to the Caribbean colonies in the early 16th

century. By the 1530s, Portuguese entrepreneurs were using African slaves to develop a profitable sugar trade in Brazil. By the 1640s, the English sugar colony of Barbados had followed suit, turning to enslaved Africans as its main source of labor, and in the following decades, planters and mainland colonies such as Virginia and Carolina adapted the system to tobacco and rice cultivation. In the process of producing these tropical commodities, white superiors came to see black people as commodities in and of themselves, as in slavery, while also thinking they had the ability to withstand tropical diseases and the harsh conditions that plantation labor entailed. They thought that black people were somehow better and more fit for doing back breaking manual labor and convince themselves, selfishly I'm sure, that they thrived

on little access to food beyond basic staples and basic housing accommodations. Well white people were best suited to be, you know, supervisors, bosses, and they needed, of course, better accommodations and luxuries. Fucking ridiculous. Oh, don't be silly. Increased wages? They don't even want that really.

They're not like us. They don't really care about money or wealth building or mattresses to sleep on or time off to relax with their families or medical treatment. No way how they, they actually enjoy working themselves to death in the fields and dying penniless. It's what they want.

We're doing it for them really. It's a great system for everyone. Yeah, fucking absurd that they actually convince themselves of this win-win, just hooray for everyone. These preposterous illogical and guilt-reducing racial assumptions gained force in the early 19th century as cotton grown on the expanding southwestern frontier, topped the nation's exports and fed Northern textile mills.

And I think I fucked up there, but in the southeastern, well, I guess I guess what? No, it was a little southwestern going to Texas. Sorry, struck me as weird now. And the process whites across the nation South Eastern. Well, I guess I guess what? No, it was a little southwestern, going to Texas. Sorry. Struck me as weird now. And the process whites across the nation embraced the dehumanized and emasculated vision of black people that slavery produced.

Even people living in the North. Northerners flock to stage shows such as the 1828 smash hit Jump Jim Crow, which featured a white performer in blackface impersonating a bumbling idiotic slave, and such attitudes moved easily across frontiers and blue water borders. In 1856, for example, New Englander John M. Dow, a skipper for the Pacific male and steamship company, tried to impress white women in Kingston, Jamaica by having local, quote, negro boys perform tricks for fucking money. It's so cringey. And, letter to his future wife, he recalled, that what you'll use the latest most was Negro boys performed tricks for fucking money. It's so cringey.

And letter to his future wife he recalled, that which amused the latest most was when I directed the little Ebony faced fellows to phone themselves into a line against the wall of the yard to look up, open their eyes and lips wide, and teeth compressed together that we might see the line of contrast, which their white teeth and eyes made with their dark skins. It was a ludicrous sight. Sweet fucking Jesus.

When he tossed the coins, he noted, all white had disappeared leaving nothing but a confused jumble of little wooly heads knocking against and tumbling over each other. It's mother fucker treated them like they were dogs because that is exactly how he honestly saw them. By the time the Civil War, two and a half centuries of slavery had shaped popular views of blacks and their proper, quote unquote, place in American society. Northern as well as Southern whites associated blackness with menial work, entertainment, and social inferiority.

These shared assumptions weakened the nation's commitment to reconstruction, dampened Northern opposition to the violent reassertion of southern white supremacy that became synonymous with Jim Crow Essentially, while many northerners disagreed about slavery They tended to agree that black people were still inferior Even the most so-called progressive people thought that black people still needed to be told what to do Supervised and had little ability for self-determination or autonomy. This line of thought would extend to central America for self-determination or autonomy. This line of thought would extend to Central America, which United Fruit and other companies

saying that they needed to govern these regions. Because they were the only ones who could guide these inferior dipshits towards industry and democracy in ways that they couldn't possibly do themselves. And sadly, they could have used their wealth and power to actually help. They less developed, less industrially educated nation, modernize and increase the basic standard

of living for locals and Still make a lot of money. They could have done that in a way that still you know Made them you know money without treating local people like subhuman pieces of shit But they knew they could make even more money if they did things a different way They use their capital to create things like railroads, mail services, customs and more taking on many of the roles That would have otherwise gone to these countries governments but they did not do that for the locals. They did it for themselves. And local governments, believing that the industry was needed at all costs, let them do this

at the great expense of their workers who were disenfranchised, subjugated to very little pay and poor conditions. Local governments allowed these companies to manipulate the working class citizens in ways that only benefited the corporations. This manipulation came in a lot of different forms. One that was very frequent was a tactic called labor segregation, which had been developed in northern industrial hubs in the US.

Black workers and most shops and factories in the Northeast were by the 1850s, frequently intentionally pitted against Irish immigrants by their new England textile barons to divide the workers. Right. Get them to constantly under bid each other when it came to pay and working conditions. And through that process, hate each other instead of hating the factory owners that were

setting this whole system up. Over the following decades, massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe enabled large industries such as steel to refine this strategy further. By 1907, economist John R. Comments would claim that the only device and symptom of originality displayed by American employers in discipline their labor force has been that of playing one race against the other. The system of labor control featured the manipulation of tensions amongst immigrants and native born whites to be sure but also rested upon a shared commitment to racial hierarchy. Despite the cultural differences among them, all workers perceived as, quote, white,

socially and economically benefited from non-white subordination and most objected to the employment of black workers and any but the most menial positions. The hiring of African Americans also proved to be an effective means of weakening unions and breaking strikes. The factory owners continue with production and again, anger was directed from one group of workers towards another instead of the people, you know, hiring the African Americans and setting up this tension. And that reminds me of misplaced anger in many places towards illegal immigrants in the US, right? And some, if some illegal immigrant truly has taken your job because it'll accept a wage you can't live on, should you be mad at them or should you be mad at the person

who hired them and is paying them lesser wage? To me, it's pretty clear. The person who hired them is the problem. They're the one that allowed your job to be taken. If they would not have done that, then the illegal immigrant would have no job to take for a lesser wage. And then there would be no problem. The United Fruit Company would employ tactics like the ones I've just laid out in Central and South America. When resistance from its black workers threatened United Fruit's authority, the company sought to build a divided workforce by recruiting local Central Americans. But

these Central Americans wouldn't be all too happy with their working conditions either. As worker tensions mounted, the weight of exploitation became too much to bear and violence was on the horizon. Stage set! Let's now examine the growth of the United Fruit Company, how it dealt with its workers, and the banana massacre in today's time-suck timeline. Right after today's mid-show, sponsor break. Thank you for listening to these sponsors, and now it is time for our timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier.

We're marching down a time-sug timeline. Let's start in 1821. That year, the states that composed the Central American Federation, known today as Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, all declared independence from Spain on September 15th. I don't know that I knew that they all did that at the same time before. Spain must have been pissed. For King Ferdinand 7th, it's tough to get the office. I have terrible news, Johannes. Costa Rica has declared its independence Seriously? I have shit that sucks bro. I fucking love Costa Rica

They have the best rice and beans. That really bums me out. I have more I'm afraid so I'll save it all has also declared independence your highness on the same day Shit, I'm gonna miss those popus us and of course the money we got from taxi them to one day. What the fuck Still not done your highness guatamala has also left. Oh come on. I mean at least we have Honduras and Nicaragua, right? Actually your highness. No five Spain even have Spain anymore Five? Does Spain even have Spain anymore?

And for now, you'll Highness. A lot of talk about it in pending civil war, though. These five states, along with the location of today's topic, Columbia, which included the nation of Panama until 1903, it was a territory of Columbia, we come home to the United Fruit Company's corporate empire. At the time, the five nations who broke away from Spain

only had about one and a quarter million inhabitants. In 1823, these states formed the United Provinces of Central America under General Manuel Jose Arce, the U.S. recognized the independence of the Federation of Central American States from Spain on August 4, 1824, and President James Monroe received Antonio Jose Canas Arcanas as envoy, extraordinary, administer, Plenipotentiary, oh my God, she, she, Erie, Jesus Christ, Plenipotentiary, there we go, that's a fucking weird ass title. What do you do? Why I am an on-voy extraordinary and minister,

Plenipotentiary. I feel like you have to carry around a fucking bugle. Trumpet, right? To play every time before you say that. Uh, what do I do? Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, unvoiced ordinary, a minister of plentiful potentiary. That was the title given to the diplomatic head

of a mission ranked below ambassador. Fucking weird, that ambassador is a higher rank than bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, unvoiced ordinary and minister of plentiful potentiary. That's a fucking dumb title. I can weird that ambassador is a higher rank than Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum America. I did this with something called the Monroe doctrine. My daughter Monroe, named after this doctrine. The Monroe doctrine was a new policy articulated by President James Monroe to Congress on December 2nd, 1923. The doctrine warned European nations that the US would not tolerate further colonization in Latin America or any other territories in the new world. If anyone was going to fuck with Central or South America, it was going

to be the US. It said here, He said, with the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintain it and whose independence we have on great consideration and on just principles acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other matter

their destiny by any European controlling in any other matter their destiny by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. Right? In short, you fuck with them. You fuck with us. My daughter Monroe not named after that doctor by the way I like. Now she was named after some ancestor who had the last name of Monroe. I like history, but not enough to name one of my kids after some early 19th century US foreign policy.

On the surface, this new policy seemed to give newly independent Central America some protection, but Monroe had another aim, the policy, not my daughter. The young US needed to expand economically if it was going to survive as an independent country, meaning it needed new trading ties and influence in regions to the south.

European mercantilism, opposed the greatest obstacle to US economic expansion. In particular, Americans fear that Spain and France might reassert colonialism over the Latin American people who had just overthrown European rule in another way through doing what they wanted to do with corporations. For their part, the British also had a strong interest in ensuring the demise of Spanish colonialism with all the trade restrictions, mercantilism, and post. Earlier in 1823, British foreign minister George Canning suggested to Americans that the two nations issue a joint declaration to deter any other power from intervening in central and South America. But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams struck struck that down he was like no thank you

crown love and moussi pied and liby fucks something like that i don't know how grassy was but he didn't want it was american influence or bust in central america meanwhile over the following decades in central america federation began to dissolve during eighteen thirty eight through eighteen forty due to civil war, informing and reforming

these states, Central American leaders tried to assure their country sovereignty, but soon these officials would learn about the power of the cash crop and the money that foreign investment would put directly into their pockets, not the pockets of their people, not to the benefit of their nation, but in their personal pockets. What they may not have bargained for was how incorporation into the world economy soon placed severe limitations on their sovereignty and capacity for self-government. Meanwhile the 1848 victory over Mexico and the Mexican-American War left thousands of young American men enthralled with conquest and convinced of their destiny to travel to

lands unknown to stake their fortune. Manifest destiny, Hoéi! I feel like I want to hit that button again. Subjugation away! It also yielded Pacific territories that lacked transportation links to the rest of the nation. A deficiency, a deficiency, that became apparent when the discovery of gold in California brought a stampede of American prospectors. Although most made their way directly across the plains

and deserts of the West, thousands more traveled by sea and land via Nicaragua and Panama. That migration in turn drew the attention of US adventures, entrepreneurs and policymakers to Central America. I was going on down here and we should stay here and see what kind of money can be made. With the gold rush, US merchant ships began arriving on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts and the population boom in California provided a new market for regional exports, particularly coffee. American migrants carried with them domestic prejudices that often contributed to the abuse of local residents, sometimes took on an anti-catholic bent in the mid-19th century.

In June 1849, for example, the US traveler refused to doff his hat during a religious procession in Chinundiga, Chinundiga, Nicaragua, and then drew a pistol on the priest who tried to remove the hat from it. Other Americans viewed Central America as a new, relatively lawless outlet for sexual desires, forced themselves on local women or marrying them under false pretenses. In 1853, for example, US newspaper editor E newspaper editor, E. George Square, and it's, I thought it was a squire. It might be a squire, but it's pronounced square.

Or it's spelled square. Reported that in Grenada, a man named Walcott had married a very respectable girl of the country and afterward left her having a wife or two in the States. Many of these visitors thought that the White Americans would soon rule these areas. In October 1851, Michigan native Albert Wells, now living in Grenada asserted that American residents quote, look forward to the time when black blood will be forced to take the position that nature designed it should occupy. Yikes.

Overall, Americans weren't really worried about infringing on local rights. Right. Again, manifest destiny. Despite the prejudices and air or supremacy brought by American visitors, Central America opened to American industrialism in the 1850s. In February 1855, the Panama Railroad Company announced the official opening

of the world's first transcontinental railway. Located within what would become the Panama Canal Zone, a half century layer, the line connected Cologne on the Caribbean to Panama City on the Pacific. At the time, it represented the largest American investment anywhere in the world outside the borders of the U.S. Simultaneously, American commercial magnet Cornelius the Commodore Vanderbilt. What a fucking name. Like I sound so punchable, right? Like if you met somebody, or you're going to meet somebody to party, I'd like to introduce you to Cornelius,

the Commodore Vanderbilt. My reaction internally would be like, God, I want to fucking punch this piece of shit in the face. They just based on the name. I don't think I'm gonna like this guy. But Vanderbilt's accessory transit company obtained to contract to launch a river lake and land route through Nicaragua.

Since there was a shortage of local Hispanic labor at the time, most of the labor on these projects were British West Indians, Jamaicans and other Caribbean. In the middle decades of the 19th century, some 300,000 West Indians traveled to Central America, providing critical labor to foreign enterprise. In addition to French and American canal projects, United Fruit would employ most of these workers. Jamaicans and other migrant workers now became an integral part of US expansion into Central America. They saw Central America as a place where they would be able to pursue further emancipation that has started with the Jamaican slave rebellion of 1831.

Their quest for autonomy and economic self-determination led them to accept jobs at United Fruit and similar companies, where they hoped to save enough money to later buy some land back in their home islands. What they likely did not know was that the labor force they would be joining through new companies would be just as racially segregated as work was back home. And they would be on the bottom without much of an opportunity to make any money at all. And they could also be subject to violence. And may of 1854, local residents attacked Vanderbilt's property after one of the company's American captains shot a black boatman determined to protect a US firm in a strategically vital region, US president Franklin Pierce dispatched the US

warship, a cyan, which bombarded and virtually destroyed Greytown. To justify the destruction, Pierce cited the offense is committed by a quote, a heterogeneous assemblage gathered from various countries and composed for the most part of blacks and persons of mixed blood with mischievous and dangerous propensities. They didn't even fucking hide. They're dehumanizing views back then. We had to show them some false. You know how they are?

They can't be risen with. The savages only understand brutality. Like, that's a fucking president president It's openly talking like that Now another thing increases American presence in central America particularly in Panama the gold rush between 1848 1860 more than 200,000 Americans crossed what was then a narrow Colombian province Right Panama initially American travelers crossed by river and rail Or river and trail relying on Afro-Panamanian guides and boatmen. They drew upon familiar racial assumptions and chafed at being in a place

where whiteness was not the norm. The combination of US corporate power and the imperious behavior of US migrants stirred anti-American sentiment among Panamanians, most famously during the April 1856 watermelon riot in Panama City. Although the incident began with the refusal of an American traveler to pay a local vendor for some watermelon he had sampled, it quickly escalated into mob violence that targeted company property as well as US U.S. migrants. After 16 Americans and two Panamanians were killed, the Paris administration dispatched right naval vessels.

By September, with tensions continuing to mount, US Marines briefly landed in Panama City to guard the rail depot. Although the American press denounced the riot as mindless savagery, many Panamanians considered patriotic resistance to US expansionism. Many Panamanians who already did not want to be part of Colombia also did not want Americans fucking around in their nation. With this resistance, it would soon fall to a sweeping tide of American immigrants. As US experienced a series of economic depressions through the 1870s, from 1873 to 1878, again, from 1883 to 1885, and again, from 1893 to 1898, more and more Americans look towards financial opportunities abroad. Thankfully, for these people, many of the Central American governments would see the US and its

investors as potential allies. This connection was especially evident in Costa Rica and Guatemala. By the 1850s and 60s, the coffee exports of both countries were growing quickly due in part, largely, actually, to new markets in California. In addition to reshaping regional land use and labor systems, this rising coffee sector brought to power ambitious leaders who were determined to promote economic development of their nations at basically any cost. In both Costa Rica and Guatemala, their visions of progress hinged upon the construction of

Caribbean railroads that would carry coffee to Atlantic markets. To build these lines, they turned to US contractors and US mercenaries to subdue opposing political parties and resistance of any form. One of these mercenaries they turned to was a fucking lunatic named William Walker. This guy, he sounds like he was a lot. He was a doctor, lawyer, journalist, and mercenary and dabbled in being a warlord. Locked in a losing struggle with a rival conservative party, Nicaragua Liberals contacted Walker, who along with 55 men, boarded a leaky brick in San Francisco in May of 1855 and sailed for the Pacific port of Rielho.

Rielho, I think it's heist. Contrary to the hopes of his local allies, however, Walker planned not to restore liberal rule, but to just conquer Nicaragua and his neighbors for himself After defeating the conservatives and setting up a puppet regime in Grenada He now called for American immigration and he received an enthusiastic response in two months alone Vanderbilt's transit company carried 2000 recruits to join Walker's crusade US president Franklin Pierce promptly recognized Walker's regime and the Democratic Party and a plank into its 1856 platform endorsing American ascendancy in the Gulf

of Mexico. Fearing the Walker plan to conquer the entire region, coastal recon troops invaded Nicaragua in the spring of 1856 and soon after Vanderbilt turned against Walker, hoping to rally support in the US Walker played the race card. In addition to Dolen Outland and mining concessions to white support in the US, Walker played the race card. In addition to Dolenaut landed mining concessions to white settlers, he also, this fucking maniac, reinstituted slavery in September of 1856, which had been abolished in Nicaragua 18 years earlier

in 1838. Who is this motherfucker? He was like an American conchistador, dude headed down south with 55 other guys, small band of fellow mercenaries, and just took shit over, and then started passing crazy laws and building a bigger army. And this guy had previously done the same shit in northern Mexico. He took over the state of Sonora and most of Baja California for a little while. Then the Mexican army beat him out. Just a random guy just going around taking over other parts of the world not on behalf of the US directly.

going around taking over other parts of the world, not on behalf of the US directly, like initially just on behalf of himself. It's fucking wild. Imagine if that still happened today, right? The story pops up on your news feed about some guy you just go to high school with, and he's just taken over the Dominican Republic. Just like, holy shit, baby, do you hear about Carl Damon?

Yeah, Carl from high school. He fucking runs the Dominican Republic now. Seriously, apparently you got a bunch of guys together from his softball league. They formed some kind of militia, and they just fucking took it over. Yeah, here got a bunch of guys together from his softball league. They formed some kind of militia and they just fucking took it over. Yeah, here's a pick of him sitting on a throwny made. He's either king now. He didn't even go to good grades in school. Now he's a fucking king. You think he's still going to come to the reunion?

Regarding his reintroduction of slavery, Walker said that such policies aimed to make Nicaragua a home for Southern men. He added with the Negro slave as his companion, the white man would become fixed to the soil and they together would destroy the power of the mixed race, which is the bane of the country. Again, these fucking attitudes, they're just like things that are just being like published and you know, the press and people are just reading them, go, hmm, yeah, yeah. Instead of just like, what the fuck? The restoration of slavery increased opposition to Walker. Of course he did.

How did he not see that coming? And by early 1857 Central American armies were besieging his regime. Defeated in battle, we can buy disease, the surviving Walker soldiers were rescued by a U.S. naval vessel. Walker not done though. Of course not, because this is a fucking crazy person. Over the following months, he seeks help reclaiming his empire by stoking sectional tensions in the US.

In 1858, sorry, 1857 and in 1858, he undertook a big speaking tour to the South, proclaiming that his policies had been calculated to bind the Southern States to Nicaragua as if she were one of themselves. And in response, many southerners were like,, oh fuck yeah, they took up his cause. In March of 1858, the newspaper, the New Orleans crescent, called for Southern conquest of Central America, not only because, quote, our own peculiar form of society is best suited for renovating the tropical regions of this continent, but to prevent abolition fanaticism from getting the first foothold in Nicaragua.

Such efforts it added would provide a national method by which to heal the social and political disorder of Spanish America and to restore the choices, portions of the continent to the uses and purposes of civilization. In reality, Walker's Wars devastated the region with deaths from gun-firing disease numbering in the tens of thousands. Central American governments now saw that inviting Americans into their borders haphazardly was a pretty risky proposition. In response, some governments started limiting American immigration and seized an American's property. A dude named Albert Wells, for example, had his new mind in home in Sagovia, Nicaragua, just

fucking take it. For a man who had welcomed Walker's new racial order, it was a bitter pill to swallow. Walker, too, lost out, but on a more, uh, more than just as fortunate. In 1860, British authorities turned him over to the Honduran government and they executed that motherfucker at the age of 36. And not surprised that's how he met his aunt. He definitely seemed like a live by the sword, die by the sword, kind of guy. Still, even though they were met with local and governmental resistance, many Americans continued to dream of a US-dominated central America. They even hoped that would help settle the slavery debate, raging in America in the 1860s,

if freed slaves would now colonize there. US postmaster general, US postmaster general, Montgomery Blair predicted that black settlers would create rich colonies under our protection and transform all of Central America into our India. The New York Independent agreed, in addition to spreading US Protestantism, to lands where, quote, papal dogmas and ceremonies, and grafted upon old Indian superstitions, have so long held sway, colonization would ensure that the problem of the future development of the Negro race under the conditions of freedom and self-government may be solved in part in Central America.

To the US government, Shagrin, however, only Haiti and Columbia agreed to accept black colonies, the latter in their Panama province only. The rest of the Central American states refused all proposals for African-American resettlement, but soon a new opportunity would arise for America to infiltrate and take over Central America in a different way for all intents and purposes. The sexy, sexy banana market, nature's dildos, nature's pegging shafts. And then when you're done pegging and all hungry for a snack, you just peel an eight. If you're careful enough, you don't even have to wash your hands or something like that. That's too much for me.

But you know, when it comes to Nana's, I try not to kink shim. The whole making crazy Nana dollars down by the equator industry started off so small. In 1870, a 30 year old sailor from Massachusetts kept in Lorenzo Dow, Lorenzo Dow Baker, future Nana Baron, about 160 bunches of bananas in Jamaica for a shilling per bunch,

and then sold them across the Hudson from Manhattan and Jersey City for two bucks each That's more than bananas cost today the average cost of a grocery store in Nana in a US grocery store Less than 75 cents Hard to really translate 18 70 dollars to today's dollars, but according to online inflation calculators two bucks in 18 70 Rough equivalent of about 46 bucks now and this dude bought a bunch of bananas for his shilling and a bunch has on average about 100 bananas in it. There are 20 shillings in a pound and an 1870 a pound was the equivalent of about five US dollars. So one dollar was worth about four shillings, one shilling,

right, being worth about a quarter. So this guy bought a hundred bananas for a quarter and then sold each banana for two dollars. Even he even if he lost half of those bananas to spoilage, he would still make $99.75 per bunch and at 160 bunches that would be $15,960. Profit, not counting what he had to pay his crew and for ship repairs. Those costs would be spread out over the rest

of the goods he was carrying though. Again, using an online inflation calculator, if he lost half the bananas to spoilage, he still made $367,733, selling 160 bunches of bananas in today's money, not counting shipping costs. He was able to sell those bananas as an exotic luxury item. Bananas were not completely unknown in the state at that time, but they were very rare. Trading that them was extremely risky because they're highly perishable and not familiar to most Americans,

but Baker gambled on Nannas and his gamble paid off fucking big time, made a killing. And when he came to Boston with his next shipment of May of 1871, he met another Nanner fella named Andrew Preston. At only 18, with only five years of formal schooling, Preston had been a produce dealer's assistant

and he was a thoroughly calculating man. He had the typical New Englanders disdain for tropics, but realized the potential market for bananas specifically. And soon these two men would become co-founders of United Fruit, but they couldn't do that without infrastructure help from someone else. The very next year, 1871, the next future owner of United Fruit starts making his mark in Central America.

Minor Cooper Keith. That was his real name. Minor is not some weird qualifier title. His first name was minor, M-I-N-O-R. His dad's name also minor with different middle names. So he's not a junior. It doesn't seem to have had any siblings named major, which I feel like is a missed opportunity. I have no idea how big minor was, but I can't help but picture the tiny little guy.

Little tiny minor Keith. After taking out his middle name, his first and last name sounds almost like your same minor key. I'll move on for my obsession with weird names now. Minor was born in Brooklyn, New York, January, 1918, 1948, son of minor Hubble Keith, a prosperous lumber merchant, and Emily Meigs Sister of railroad builder Henry Meigs In the industry was in his DNA and he was born with money to invest

He was educated in private schools until the age of 16 when he moved to Texas to manage a cattle ranch That his dad bought for him in 1869 Man, must be nice. Why why did my dad buy me a cattle ranch? What do you want for your birthday? A cattle ranch, a very profitable Texas cattle ranch. Puy, please, please buy me a cattle ranch daddy. The younger miner, the little man, no taller than five feet with a slender build, never weighed more than 115 pounds.

Soon abandoned the cattle industry in 1871 when his uncle Henry Meigs invited him to work on a contract to build a railroad in Costa Rica. The railroad was to stretch from San Jose to the port of La Monde on the Caribbean coast, but Meigs had succeeded already at building the Colajo, Lima railroad and the Oreyah Railroad in Peru some years before. Minor accepted the invitation. Theosiascically went to Costa Rica with his two brothers to work on the railroad project. During the first 25 miles of construction,

meags and the keys brothers faced some hardships. Building the jungle was a lot more difficult than they had calculated since a disease and hardworking additions left an incredible, or you know, created an incredible cost. Between four and five thousand men died during construction, including meags and minor keys brothers, fucking malaria.

And all these guys died during just 25 miles of laying down some track. An 1874 minor, never taller than four foot, six inch and never heavier than 90 pounds. He was left in charge of the project and stubbornly continued with it despite the odds. Large number of deaths made it hard for him to recruit new workers in Central America, so he was able to work out a deal with the state of Louisiana and recruit labor from some

New Orleans jails. These poor fuckers. Sorcerers don't say if they were given a choice in working for the jungle or some kind of exchange. I'm guessing a commuted sentence was offered, but it did not work out for them. With the 700 prisoners that he began with, it is estimated that only 25 survived to the end of the railroad's construction. Fuck, that is terrible. Mine are just burning through human life to make his railroad.

If you were in charge of construction project where dudes are dying by the thousands, would you abandon it at this point? Maybe wouldn't want more blood in your hands, or would you keep going not wanting the original sacrifices to have been made in vain? Honestly, not sure what I would do. I hate to say it, but being really fucking stubborn, I might just keep doubling down on a terrible idea in the name of, you know, not letting the rising death toll be in vain. I would minor brought a boat with 2000 recent Italian immigrants from Louisiana. Many of them rose in rebellion when they discovered the terrible working conditions. I would minor brought a boat with 2000 recent Italian immigrants from Louisiana.

Many of them rose in rebellion when they discovered the terrible working conditions. Many of them decided to run away. Excuse me. And then 60 of them died after getting lost in the jungle. This all sounds so fucking incredibly miserable. Minor kept going. He had a will much larger than his body. If he could survive this long in the tropics when he was never taller than maybe four

foot nothing and never more than 75 pounds, he could finish this railroad. He decided to try a different group of immigrants, a decision rooted in racial assumptions of the time. Like most white Americans, Keith and his colleagues believe that black and most Asian workers were immune to tropical diseases, like yellow fever and malaria. They were not. They were definitely not. But that's what he thought. As one of the railroad managers observed, I was always of opinion that it was a mistake to bring white laborers for that work on the coast.

The Negroes in Chinese seemed to do better than any others. Initially, the American managers favored Asian contract laborers whom the company began to import in early of 1873. Like contemporary railroad builders in the American West, Keith and his colleagues viewed these workers as company-owned servants. In a February letter, acknowledging the arrival of quote,

562 China men. For example, associate Williams Nan promised the road roads companies New York supplier W.R. Grace to pay the value of these slaves by monthly installments. In fact, for years, both in Central America and North America, Chinese people were sold as if they are slaves for a certain term of years observed US diplomat George Williamson. He added the value of each China man is computed according to the period he is still obliged to labor. When sold, it is agreed that he shall serve his new master for

only said balance. Man, but then these guys kept dying too. Sources do not indicate numbers. Sadly, I bet a little value was placed on their lives, such a little value that no one bothered to keep track of how many were dying. Enough died for Keith and his associates to soon look to the British Caribbean as a promising source of new workers. And these workers would actually fare the best, although these new workers would be just as susceptible to malaria, as well as various respiratory illnesses common in the railroad squalid labor camps. Many, in fact, were immune to yellow fever due to childhood exposure. Also, British West Indians spoke English,

and many had experienced in rail construction, including a number of former employees of the Panama Railroad. As early as September of 1873, minor Keith happily reported that 621 men arrived from Jamaica last month, and 200 more were expected. By 1882, Keith had carried the construction of the railroad 70 miles from the coast to Rio, Susio, but he was running out of money

and received no help from the Coastal Reacon government who had defaulted on some promised payments. So he obtained a 1.2 million pound loan. The only problem was there was nobody to work on it. He'd used up his supply of workers from the West Indies, they'd either died or quit. And desperation Keith, once again, turned to Southern Europe and poured in over 1500 Italians

in 1887. They didn't work out either. In October of 1888, they went on strike, sick of many of them, no exact number, dying of tropical diseases, poor working conditions for those who remained and delayed and shitty pay. Over 700 survivors made the way to San Jose and asked to be returned home. Keith demanded that Costa Rica authorities force them back to work. How dare they not want to die?

The jungle for almost no money. But the government instead invited the strikers to settle in Costa Rica and roughly 700 accepted, and then the rest sailed for Italy. Miner still pushed forward to finish the railroad and he did finish it. He cut the damn rabbit himself at no more than three feet tall, maybe 60 pounds. Miner had to stand atop a little ladder to do so, but he did it. Then once the railroad was completed, he faced a new problem. There were now not enough passengers to travel on it.

Operating costs cannot be paid, not to mention the huge debts minor had to pay back for construction. But then necessity being the mother of invention, maybe desperation being its father. He quickly found that he could keep the business alive by exporting the fruit of a shit ton of banana trees. Not really trees, but they're called trees, that he planted as an experiment along his railroad tracks. The bananas had previously been used just to feed workers, but now he figured he could use the bananas as an export product. This new desperate experiment proved successful,

very successful, and soon minor Cooper Keith owned three banana export companies. By 1890, his trains were solely used for transporting bananas and the new banana plantations quickly built around the tracks, ended up surpassing the value of the railway itself. After all the trouble he went through when building the railroad, now the 1890s are looking promising for Keith. He managed to become a very influential and respected man and coastal recon society.

He married Christina Castro, the daughter of the president, a woman who stood three feet taller than the mighty little fella who had never stood more than 30 inches high and never weighed more than 40 pounds He spent most of his honeymoon with her playing horsey making her carry him her carry him around on her back and running around the pool And then he worked as the main negotiator for some coastal recon foreign debt with English banks Now he started dreaming of an even bigger railroad one of its stretch from North America to Central America It would be built mainly for one purpose to ship bananas to the US and Canada. Beginning to act on this plan,

during a business trip to London, minor Keith organized the tropical trading and transport company, to coordinate the banana business, and provide transportation to increasing shipments in the US. In addition, the new company managed to chain stores that he established along the coastal recon coasts. He also expanded his banana business

to the region of Magdalena, Colombia, through the Colombian land company, and made a deal to export fruit from there to the states with the Snyder banana company of Panama, which was again at that time part of Colombian territory. All this was encouraged by state governments who did whatever minor in his peers asked of them. The citizens would be massively exploited, but the new industry would grease the palms of local politicians big time. Sweeping land reformers were quickly passed that required plots to be placed under individual titles. And Guatemala by breaking up Maya communal lands, these new ownership laws opened new real estate to coffee and banana planners by undermining

communal substance. Local indigenous Maya peoples had their ancestral lands taken from them with these laws, along with their traditional way to provide for themselves. They virtually had no choice now, but to work for the companies that had fucking taken their lands. They didn't speak English, had no Western education, and thus had no ability to advocate for themselves or negotiate in any fashion. In many countries, a new reformed tax structure also burdened central Americans with new cash tax obligations to their governments, which accelerated their abandonment of traditional substance farming, and they

now too had no choice. But to get whatever cash paying jobs were available to them and those jobs were menial labor jobs, generally for like banana plantations now many places. They were essentially forced to enter a wage labor system on the bottom wrong in order to just survive. More and more legislation converted locals into mobile, seasonal, wage earning laborers, useful to foreign employers. Legislation local officials were undoubtedly pressured to pass by new foreign business

moguls like minor Keith, men born with giant silver spoons up their assets who probably had no fucking sympathy for the plight of those born with nothing. When any indigenous groups resisted, leaders of Central American governments enforced the new laws with rural police and a professionalized military organized and trained by foreign investors. Don't want to get a job to pay your taxes fine. You'll just be arrested, jailed, and then loaned out to these companies to be used as conscripted labor.

Soon another company would surface to challenge miners' nanoprene remnants. As back up, it's a little bit to 1885. That was the year the Boston Fruit Company formed the brainchild of Captain Lorenzo Baker and Andrew Preston, who started selling bananas in New England in 1870. Now in 1885, they officially incorporated the Boston Fruit Company established with capital of $20,000,

over $600,000 in today's dollars. In the 1880s and 1890s the Boston Fruit Company established with capital of $20,000 over $600,000 in today's dollars. In the 1880s and 1890s, Boston Fruit relied mostly on animal power carriages pulled by donkeys to get fruit from field to ship. Independent producers moved the harvested fruit, meaning that profits were vulnerable for delay if there was an issue with animals or the dirt roads. In October of 1891, Boston Fruit Agent Cecil Lengua, or Lengua, ah, fucking, who knows? It's a fucking weird name I'm not familiar with. Fruit Agent Cecil, fucking, who gives a shit? Complain that the weather was taken to toll on the fruit harvest in Jamaica, where even

empty carriages sank up to their axles, loaded wagons faired even worse. The roads were so bad that pickers could not reach banana cultivations. They started to minimize the use of mules and oxen and built their own rail line that went in between properties in Jamaica. After the line's construction was completed in 1898, company agents Stephen Hislop happily wrote to Lorenzo Baker's son that the run from plantation to port took only 30 minutes now. The very next year, someone else's transportation failure would greatly increase the fortune

of what has become united fruit. In 1899, a wholly in company, a New York broker corporation that lent minor keys to million and a half dollars declared bankruptcy. And teeny tiny little itty bitty minor keys, no more than two feet tall tops ever, maybe 20 pounds so can wet, lost all his money. The coastal recon government and several members of the local elite made efforts to help keep him helping him in his new crisis, but minor keys financial situation did not improve. As the last resort, he headed to Boston to talk with Andrew Preston and Lorenzo Baker. The Boston Fruit Company was minor's rival and he hoped a merger of

the two companies would end his debt and the two sides would agree to terms. And the United Fruit Company is born March 30th, 1899. That April, the newly acquired, newly, sorry, that April, the newly already incorporated United Fruit Company, acquired seven independent companies that have been operating in Honduras. This new company was led by Andrew Preston,

who had spent much of the 1890s forming a refrigerated distribution network to sell nannas to a national market. Refrigerating green unripepe bananas can extend their life for weeks. Minor Keith served as vice president. Never more than 18 inches tall, maybe 10 pounds. It said his office was a golden bird cage. Three men brought complimentary interests or brought complimentary interests and skills

that quickly made the new company very lucrative. Keith had his railroad network and plantations in Central America plus the market in the US and Preston grew bananas in the US Indies, ran a steamship fleet called the Great White Fleet, which brought bananas to New England. As the company grew, Keith continued with his railroad projects in Central America, which would create further growth and profit. Together, Baker, Preston and Keith gained control

of vast areas of tropical growing regions, brought all this under cultivation and built an extensive and carefully controlled means of rail and water transportation and refrigeration. In addition to clearing lands, draining swamps and building housing and branch real lines, they remapped the landscape, christine banana farms with names of American cities like Boston, Chicago, New York, and Buffalo, as well as with titles resident of the American Empire, such as Manila, after gaining the Philippines and the Spanish-American War of 1898, and their empire grew and grew. When Preston announced the first dividends of $2.50 a share in December of 1899, the company

controlled 250,000 acres in Columbia, Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. More than 100 square miles of the almost 400 square miles of land they owned had producing banana trees. A few years later, more banana land was bought in Guatemala. On its vast estates, the company employed around 15,000 people. In operated 11 steam ships, chartered 20-30 more vessels, and ran its 300 box cars and 17 locomotives over more than 100 miles of laid track, laid exclusively for linking the banana plantations with its coastal warehouses.

As the company expanded, it transformed coastal towns into commercial hubs, full of foreigners of all kinds. Puerto Cortes boasted a French-ified community dominated by names like Dubrault, An-Wa, Corona, as well as a hotel run by Mrs. Barat. I'm probably fucking those French names up with. Something like that. There's more French-towning. A great town in Bluefields and Nicaragua had British and German merchants and businessmen.

Other ports had residents of various other nationalities, including Syrians, Jamaicans, and Chinese. But not all of these diverse people were in charge or even in positions of power. In fact, there was a clear corporate hierarchy with white men at the top. At the head of the division was the general manager who reported directly to company headquarters in Boston. Beneath him, a small number of superintendents oversaw districts, each of which consisted of several banana farms,

each farm was in turn ran by a mandador, assisted by two time keepers and charge of recording the hours worked by the predominantly Jamaican laborers. With the exception of the foreman, often drawn from the workers' ranks, supervisory jobs were restricted to whites. To fill these positions, United Fruit initially hired Americans and Europeans already residing in the region, including a number of former adventurers, as it pushed to professionalize its ranks. However, the company began to recruit more educated American men to staff its divisions. All this came out of a paternalistic ideology where United Fruit and its white managers believed

again they were helping transform the backwards region. This would persist within the company's rhetoric for the following decades. Frederick Uppam Adams writing a classic study of United of United Fruit in 1914 predicted that the future inhabitants of the lowland tropics would bow with gratitude before the company's achievements and will realize that all this was made possible by the American citizens who were the pioneers in their conquest of the tropics. Backing up to 1900, United Fruit and a few emerging foreign competitors, as they're making all this fucking nanomoney, they do not want to compete with any local growers or any individual

sellers. They want to own everything, from growing to harvesting to distribution. Previously they had worked alongside some local producers in this emerging market. In letters, Lorenzo Baker senior advises son that we wanna keep hold of the large producers as much as possible and recommended going to occasionally see these people and see that they are not getting dissatisfied.

He wrote to others that the Renzo Jr. knew how to massage the little growers much better than I can maintaining these relationships was key to beating their corporate competition. But now this attitude of working with locals would change. Started with telling the local growers, you know, what to do and when, so the United Fruit could time things exactly right to get the bananas to the US before they spoiled. Occasional errors and harvest timing, usually brought about by lack of communication between

independent suppliers, resulted in a product that nobody could sell a rotten banana. Press now began to communicate the difficulties of making high-grade fruit while depending on independent planners to Baker Jr. in another letter saying, I hope you may be able to secure fruit in some way as we shall need it badly here if it is full clean and bright. Which fact I presume you can establish if you have control of the cutting. The time has passed when importers can make a profit on thin and ordinary fruit. When they did get bad fruit, United Fruit organized so that those fruits will be sold to competitors, not under the United Fruit name.

And then by the end of the 19th century, United Fruit was disillusioned with the idea of collaborate with local growers at all. Time for them to own everything, so they did just that just that Then in 1902 United Fruit expands to Cuba and they take over things there just like they did in Central America Following here a new problem pops up that banana barons still deal with today in 1903 the plant disease known as Panama disease appears for the first time in United Fruit plantations in Panama this disease attacks the plants tree roots time in the United Fruit plantations in Panama. This disease attacks the plant's tree roots, cutting off the water supply. Thousands of acres of banana plantations now have to be abandoned. That same year, United Fruit introduces refrigerated ships to its transportation system. This advancement reduced the rate of overripe fruit, arriving in US ports from around 12% to just 2%.

By 1904, Preston could write to stockholders that the largest steamers in the United Fruit companies fleet have been fitted with the cooling equipment, which permits the delivery By 1904, Preston could write to stockholders that the largest steamers in the United Fruit Company's fleet have been fitted with the cooling equipment, which permits the delivery to the trade in the interior of the choices fruit in the best of conditions. That same year on May 4, construction began on the Panama Canal. The path of the Panama Canal had been a long one marked by a French effort to do the same thing in the 1880s, followed by the US government acquiring the rights in 1903. But since the Canal Zone was still in Colombian territory, Colombia rejected US plans.

In response, the US government threw its military weight behind a Panamanian independence movement which was successful that led to a great deal for the US. With a new puppet government, they helped install the Republic of Panama granted America exclusive and permanent possession of the Panama Canal Zone now. In exchange, Panama received $10 million and an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later. The seizure of Panama spurred Washington toward in towards Imperial supervision of the region, which US officials considered essential to promoting American business interests as well as protecting the future canal. Part of this imperial supervision was assuming the debts of Panama and then later other Central American countries, having those debts transferred to US creditors and giving

the US government leverage over those states. Roosevelt announced this policy in December of 1904, although promising that responsible nations need fear no interference from the United States, he warned the governments that failed to maintain order or pay their debts would force the United States to exercise an international police power. This was a new Monroe doctrine practiced known as dollar diplomacy. It would become the main state of the US government's dealings with Central America. Almost a decade later, in his message to Congress on December 3rd, 1912, US President

Taft would characterize this program as substituting dollars for bullets. Over the coming decades, the US would use dollar diplomacy to throw out leaders that, you know, we didn't like and install new ones that we did. Dollar diplomacy was also established. Also established, excuse me, collecting customs by US officials. And we started giving loans to Central American governments, loans that made them more beholden to Washington. More and more Central Americans are reading the writing on the wall now and they're not loving it.

As early as 1907, congressional deputy Ricardo Jimenez warned fellow coastal reacons of the linkage between corporate power and imperial domination. He said in a speech, I think it was a speech not a letter. Yes, he said in a speech, there are some who make fun of us for thinking that United Fruit President Andrew Preston could come and take over Costa Rica for himself. It's a pity that these writers haven't read the history of modern conquest carefully. India did not lose its independence because Great Britain had declared war on the Indian princes. It was a merchant company, similar to the United

Fruit Company, which created English interest there, and was the precursor to Great Britain's regular armies. The men as we claim, in trying to take over our territories, they don't believe they are coming to conquer and prey on us. They are coming to claim their rights to fulfill the manifest destiny of their race.

The men as with a smart dude, he knew exactly what the fuck was up. Sadly, he will be powerless to stop what he saw going on. Now let's back up a bit again. 1904, Guatemalan dictator, Manuel Astrada Cabrera, grants United Fruit a 99 year concession to construct and maintain the countries or the country's main rail line from Guatemala City to Puerto Obarios.

The company keeps growing in both power and profit. In 1906, United Fruit purchases 50% of the shares of the Vicaro brothers company in Honduras, their primary emerging competitor just fucking takes them over. Also in 1906, United Fruit erects two radio stations in Eastern Nicaragua. The company already owned a 200 foot transmission tower at Bocust, Electoral Panama. They will control transportation in the region and communication. When the conservative New England stockholders complained that the expense of operating the stations, each word cost 50 bucks to broadcast, pressed and confidently retorted that in the uncertainty

of the banana business, a word was sometimes worth $50,000, excuse me, $50. And United Fruit was expanding into more than radio. As United Fruit expanded its operations along the Central American coast, it sought control of more property suitable for banana production and shipping, including land, warehouses, railroads, warfs, and steamships. From the moment the green bunches were whacked from the trees until they were unloaded in the states, United Fruit rained. They owned the land the bananas were grown on, the railroad used to ship the bananas to the coast,

the ports were the ships they also owned docked, and then transported the bananas to destinations to be purchased. Almost all of the labor force was indigenous, West Indian black, or Hispanic, with West Indian black workers making up most of the labor force. And as we'll get into here before long, they basically own these guys too. By 1909, UnitedFruits workforce is getting pretty angry. They were tired of being excluded from the upper ranks. As in one case, when it responds to an application for a managerial position from a West Indian man named William Hartin in July of 1909, the general manager RJ Schwep bluntly inquired, what is your nationality and are you a white man?

On December 7th, the surprise pay cut on a plantation in Costa Rica leads to protests. In response, the farm's white timekeeper declares, Mr. Smith says, you are all getting too much pay. He says $30 a month is enough for you insert racial slur here. News of the racial slur and pay reduction spread quickly among the labors who were already simmering over their poor treatment in that enclave and then things will get worse. December 16th the farm's time keeper shot a Jamaican man named George Reed for protesting. Upon learning of Reed's death hundreds of West

Indians turned their anger on the farm's commissary. This led to more bloodshed as a white store clerk named E.H. Tennyson shot at least one West Indian before fleeing. Some strikers pursued Tennyson while the rest marched towards the Dartsmouth Farm demanding that all workers refuse to low banana trains until the company agreed to wage increases. Late on December 17th,

the United Fruit official wired higher ups that 400 Jamaican laborers are on strike and drunk and raising a riot. Warning that the local garrisons were unable to restore order, a request was sent for 175 Guatemalan troops. Guatemala's Minister of War demanded that Guatemalan troops not use force against the strikers except as a last resort. Guatemalan troops peacefully occupied the troubled plantations on December 18th, nevertheless

the situation of course remained tense. And six days later, a US employee in the region reported that the number of strikers had grown to 600, most of whom were equipped with some sort of firearm and not in the best of temper. Despite United fruits continued demands for repression, however, Guatemala troops held back almost certainly due to the presence of some British diplomats in the area. Britain at that time ruled over a portion of Guatemala that will later become Belize. A part of Belize. In the week following the uprising, another British

vice-conciled, God-free-hagged, conducted investigation into the living conditions and labor practices in United Fruits, on Clayton. He concluded that the strikers had very legitimate grievances. In addition to United Fruits manipulation of its payroll, he reported West Indians complained of high-handed treatment and cursing and being threatened with revolvers. Cursing's kind of funny. The pro-fane language, no one cares for all of this trouble could have been avoided. He concluded had the firm assumed a more sympathetic and

tactful attitude towards its black employees. Well, of course, United Fruit official disagreed elsewhere. Workers are dissatisfied to in early 1910 some 8,000 of the companies Jamaican laborers around limone organize the artisans and laborers union soon after union leaders announced that a general strike will commence on August 1st West Indian Emancipation Day. The union's leadership reached out to their Hispanic co-workers, claimed that both groups were being mistreated. As West Indian dock worker, William Cohen publicly declared the company mistreats Jamaicans and Hispanic workers.

And because of this, we don't want to work. This moved towards working class unity between races. Very much concerned, United Fruit Officials. One tool the company was used to break up the union was its leverage over West Indian communal institutions. Many black churches and fraternal societies resided on company land and received some funding from the firm. Managers now pulled on these strings to weaken support for the strike.

One letter general manager, Schwep, a scolded West Indian reverend named John Henderson, for talking against the company that gives you bread and butter, and ordered him to attend strictly and only to your religious duties swept also threatened to withhold the firm's annual funding of the west and the emancipation day celebration at the same time the company q's a span of trouble makers of stirring unrest amongst uh... supposedly previously content black workers indeed swept up blame the entire strike on a honduran labor organizer

who has been exploiting our labor and causing a considerable trouble united fruit now called upon the coast re government, you know, that they basically owned and demanded they end the strike. After a long meeting with Schwepp on July 24th, coastal recon president, Ricardo Jimenez, spoke with workers and felt the strike would be avoided. United Fruit, where conflict, Jimenez will put down any insubordination, but the strike still occurred. It began on August 1st as planned, dragged on through the fall and November, swept now in

ported 680 strike breakers from the British colony of St. Kits. But the predominantly Jamaican strikers undercut this move by reaching out to their fellow British subjects, informing the newcomers of the poor treatment and wage cuts that led to the strike. In response, most of the St. Kits men refused to work, causing the company to threaten them with enforcement of Costa Rica's vagrant law. Tensions mounted further as the now hungry newcomers started demanding food. Then on November 24th, a group of St. Kitsmen attacked a company commissary after its white

clerk struck one of them with an axe handle. In response, United Fruit called in the Costa Rican police who brawled with the riders now. Clashes continue the following day as Jamaican workers poured in from outline banana farms and the Costa Rican government now dispatched 250 troops to limone. The riot led many Hispanic union members to actually join the strike breakers and call for the repression of their West Indian co-workers. Finally, Costa Rican authorities deported the strike leaders and by the end of 1910,

the union had collapsed. They gutted it. Seemed like everything was back to status quo, but it wasn't. Now white conductors and engineers inspired by the Jamaican union presented a petition demanding higher pay and shorter hours for them. The solution for United for United Fruit was to pay the white workers a little bit more, but only so they would be loyal to the company and then do their part in putting down any disgruntled Hispanic and black workers going forward. Starting in 1911, United Fruit considered abusing workers to keep them under control

part of the job. They considered it essential that a number of their white workers be able to put down non-white laborers as like a primary work responsibility. And they began to hire for lack of a better term, fucking enforcers. One person who would have tested this was a young ambassador named Hugh Wilson. In early 1912, 26 year old Hugh learned of his appointment as a US ambassador in Guatemala city. In Guatemala, he was met by the general manager of United Fruit's Guatemala division Victor M. Cutter. He described him with a broad grin on a rugged clean shave face. Cutter was a

picture-esque, huge figure and tropical white. As the young diplomat followed Cutter down the gangway, he caught his first glimpse of United Fruit's workforce. He wrote, in the black moist night, a line of Negroes stripped to the waist and barefooted, each bent under the load of a huge bunch of bananas strode up the wharf, where they passed their burden into the hold through a chain gang of handlers. Wilson added that Cutter's handling of Negroes was remarkable, and that he, quote, excelled in everything they admired. He could fight the wildest of them, he could out-shoot them, his endurance was unlimited, and his occasional flash of ferocious temper kept them cowed. Such qualities were essential, he said. He explained, these Negroes from Jamaica were cheerful and reasonably

industrious, but full of liquor, they became dangerous. Cutter would face them down in their worst moments, but white brawlers like cutter were pretty hard to find. More and more Americans were afraid to work in Central America in this tropical climate, where, you know, if they weren't getting like a attacked by people understandably fucking angry with their jobs, they could succumb to disease. The US medical establishment held that white people were not suitable for the tropics of this time.

So now United Fruit tries to fix that. A new lab is set up with a hospital zone to treat workers and a research facility to continue progress on understanding and treating tropical diseases. By contrast, the sick camps for labors were separate and basic, as common belief held, that they weren't really able to maintain themselves anyway. Jesus. As Dr. W.E. Deeks, a consultant for the Canal Commission, and future head of United Fruits Medical Department explained, as elsewhere in the world, the enforcement of sanitation

among the Negroes is a gigantic task. The European laborer, though he mingles with the natives, does not live with them. But the Negro lives and sleeps in their houses, exposing himself constantly to the endemic malarial infection. As long as he has a roof over his head and a yam or two to eat, he is content. And his ideal of personal hygiene is on par with his conception of marital fidelity. God damn! I can dock deeks! Oh man, even doctors, so fucking dumb back then compared to, uh, now, uh, well compared to some people now, uh, equally dumb to other people now. Laborers medical facilities were actually openly called second class by the company because of course the ones for white supervisors were first class.

Laborer medical facilities also weren't even staffed by medical professionals. In the first class facilities, patients were tended to by white female nurses who had been educated and trained in the U.S. But those white women were not allowed to be around black male patients. So they often received care from quote unquote doctors and nurses with little or no formal education. Also in 1912, the U.S. faces opposition to dollar diplomacy, Nicaragua. Using dollar diplomacy, President Howard Taft

had installed Adolfo Diaz, former employee of a US mining company to now finally the nation, just a total puppet regime. The new president immediately signed a protectorate, treaty, granting Washington full control over Nicaraguan finances, rights to a naval base, and an exclusive option on a Nicaraguan canal of the US 101.

Now anti-American sentiment rises in the nation with citizens not interested in being led by puppets in the pocket of DC. American journalist William Hale attributed Central American distrust to the region's chaotic racial mixtures. He declared that the protectorate was the only way to govern the quote, sad-faced, dull-witted Indians of Nicaragua. The State Department of Official and Former US Minister to Coastal Rika, Lewis Einstein would say, the heterogeneous nature of the region's population, apart from Coastal Rika, and

the existence in the other countries of the majority of Indian and Negro Indian blood, inevitably spawned instability, which in turn threatened US Enterprise, including not only the Panama Canal, but US-owned railroads, mines, and banana plantations close to the coast. 1912, after a fierce price competition against the United Fruit Company, another rival, the Atlantic Fruit Company, the Clare's Bankruptcy. Atlantic had been the United Fruit's main competitor

in Costa Rica, and after the Bankruptcy, United Fruit takes complete control of the country's banana exports. Next year, United Fruit would acquire more railway and land concessions in Honduras. Same year, the Senate Finance Committee of the US includes bananas in the proposed Underwood Simmons tariff. Bananas would be taxed at five cents a bunch. This initiative faces strong opposition from the New York Times, the Terra for Form Committee of the Reform Club, the Banana Buyers Protective Association, and randomly the Housewives League.

The lobby made by these organizations eventually succeeds, and the U.S. government permits the tax free import of bananas to continue. So Banana Barons, they're getting whatever the fuck they want domestically and abroad. They're just making so much money. Money talks, yeah, so much and so much money in America's new favorite fruit. Meanwhile, United Fruit continues to segregate workers. In addition to housing Hispanics and Black separately, it assigns them different tasks and wages based upon race, routinely placing West Indians in charge of Spanish-speaking workings. All very intentional. Right again, divide

the workers, get them to fight each other instead of their superiors. Reminds me of American politics, right? Get the populist to believe that the heart of the battle is between, I don't know, whites and non-whites or citizens and immigrants or conservatives and liberals instead of the poor and working classes versus corporate oligarchs, which it usually is. Distracted with social issues while the military industrial complex

and massive international conglomerates continue to get Washington to feed the shareholders and CEOs at the expense of literally everyone else. Domined by American managers and often subordinate to black foreman who also didn't like them, many Hispanics responded by channeling their resentment towards West Indian co-workers. These patterns grew more pronounced during World War I. Desperate for employment during wartime shortages, thousands of Hispanic workers from throughout

the region make their way to UnitedFruits, banana enclaves, particularly in Costa Rica and Guatemala. Once there, however, they find West Indians holding positions on the firm's shrinking payrolls, the resulting competition for jobs exacerbated the racial tension already embedded in the company's labor structure. Soon Central American migrants are demanding restrictions on black immigration and preferential hiring for Spanish speakers. Hispanic officials in Guatemala in particular respond with increased harassment of West Indian immigrants, which only adds to racial division amongst laborers.

And this will have tragic results. On the evening of Saturday, May 9, 1914, Nathan Gordon, an Alfred Essen, two Jamaican workers in United Frutes, Guatemala, the division, are walking on the outskirts of the companies, uh, Tejana farm when they are attacked by four Hispanic men. Gordon escapes, SN not so lucky. After receiving machete wounds to his hands and face, he is shot to death. Following day in a rage group of Jamaicans marched to a Hispanic workers camp near Tejana to settle the score after failing to locate the murderers, they killed two Guatemalan men

unconnected to the attack and threatened to do the same to all the Spanish men and women alike. The rampage ends when three African American workers convinced the Jamaicans to return to their barracks. The rampage ends temporarily. The violence really just beginning. And formed by the commander of the nearby Los Amatees, Garrison, that more than 60 armed Negroes were killing all the Guatemalan Guatemalan inhabitants. Guatemalan President Astrada Cabrera orders the provincial governor to, quote, take any steps you think necessary to repress the evil. Guatemalan troops arrive at United Fruit's district headquarters at Kereguah in the early

morning hours of May 12th. Soon became clear that their mission was not to capture the killers, but to terrorize West Indian residents in mass. When Don breaks, soldiers harass, beat, and shoot indiscriminately at black laborers who were on their way to work wounding or killing an unrecorded number. Then over the following two days, they invade the Tejwana, Kiche and Mixco farms, killing several more West Indians, looting black homes and making sweeping arrests. Since no Americans have been threatened, US diplomats showed little interest in all this, and company officials seemed concerned only with disruption of operations. The Army's attacks caused most remaining West Indian workers to flee virtually emptying

the three plantations. As one time keeper on the Mexico plantation complained, there are only about 10 racial slur left on this farm. Many of these fleeing West Indian workers entered the British Army, others made their way to Cuba and Panama. And Cuba, one of the largest employers, would be none other than United Fruit. They fucking run away from United Fruit to get back to another place dominated by United Fruit. As in Central America, Black immigrants and Cuba faced nativist hostility, which became evident during a sugar strike in February of 1917.

Although British West Indian played little role in works in the workstoppage, Cuban officials targeted them, scapegoated them for repression and carried out at least one massacre of an untold number of Jamaican workers. This upheaval, which threatened the property of United Fruit and other sugar interests, in turn prompted the US military occupation of Eastern Cuba. In 1917, a land dispute between rival fruit company, Cuimel and United Fruit, along the border of Honduras and Guatemala, drives the two countries nearly to war. The war is avoided, but the countries

are left more reliant and ever on the fruit companies to solve problems in the aftermath. In August of 1919, the Honduran state is forced to ask United Fruit and some competitors, like Cuimel, for funds to put down another rebellion. The financial leverage enabled the companies to carve up Honduras' Caribbean coast with little state interference. United Fruit took the land surrounding the ports of Tele and Puerto Castilla.

Have you learned their lesson in Costa Rica and Guatemala? They immediately established a segmented workforce hiring local Hispanics as well as recruiting British West Indians. In addition to using ethnic and racial divisions, United Fruit, depended on Honduran authorities to intimidate and discipline workers, particularly West Indians. The West Indians were not the only recipients of abuse. Spanish-speaking labors who came to the enclave found themselves treated

as inferior in their own country. According to the wife of one United Fruit Engineer, Americans routinely bossed and humiliated Hispanic workers, especially in the enclaves early years. Although the company publicly maintained that a deplored conflict between West Indian and Central American workers, its strategy of formenting such tension was an open secret. Or tensions, I guess there. U.S. consul John J. Miley observed that it used, it used quote mixed gangs to prevent worker resistance and that Descension between West Indian and Hispanic workers was favored if not more or less openly encouraged by the

Labor policy of the United Fruit Company in order to render effective organization less likely. As part of the strategy explained, the firm also ran its own secret service that employed West Indians to gather information among workers and disrupt and labor and disrupt labor organizations in the unions or you know or organizing the unions or planning strikes. Excuse me. Man. Now, let's look at the case study of one man who will personalize a lot of the shit I've been talking about.

The letters, a man named Everett Brown wrote, thankful that his family kept them. They go a long ways into illustrating how shitty United Fruit was. In August of 1919, Bostonian Everett Brown disembarked from the United Fruit Company ship in Antia Cuba, ready to begin a tropical career in the trans nationals rapidly expanding sugar division of Preston. Brown went from working as a time keeper

and drawtsman on railroad construction in Cuba to being promoted to engineer and transfer to Panama, where a few months later he headed to Survey Crew, carving the forested Talamanka Valley into more banana plantations. He was given a published pamphlet of instructions for field engineers and draftsman in 1920 to help prepare himself. Addressed to the young engineer unfamiliar with the tropics Arthur Henry Bestor laid out a series of technical practices to its wide employees, heading surveying crews on the expanding edges of the company's property. It is the custom to allow the Negroes and natives to do most of the manual labor,

the author of the Fruit Companies Manual noted, the supervisory and technical tasks only being suitable for whites. The new recruit would encounter both types of labor and each posed its own challenges to form it. The natives are usually very quick and are exceptionally good for woodland work, but are not very rugged or strong. Typically they required several days rest a month. Man, what a bunch of weak little babies, several days of rest a month. How's that that they couldn't perform rugged manual labor from dust till dawn and a tropical climate where the temperature

regularly gets into the 90s and the humidity often cracks over 70% and these babies in properly fed drinking dirty water still need a few days of rest a month. Let's fucking absurd. That's a complaint. And then the right the Negroes on the other hand are more regular and steady, but not so quick to learn. They seemingly get along best when employed in the same kind of work and cannot readily be charged or changed from one duty to another. The author cautioned his readership to avoid the temptation of depending on black workers or natives to clean and maintain the surveyor's instruments, tools he considered far beyond their limited comprehension. Fuck sake. Brown would perform exactly the role Henry Breston or Breston, excuse me, described. Tools he considered far beyond their limited comprehension fucksake

Brown would perform exactly the role Henry Breston or best. And excuse me described Donna new Stetson carrying a revolver in case anyone gets out of hand He sets about plotting the lines of the forest at the head of 15 non-white laborers When these laborers on his crew go on strike wanting a dollar 50 a day a Situation Brown described as quite a circus. He's similar, some, oh my gosh, summarily dismisses the lot of them, even those who did not participate in the strike. That amount, by the way, equivalent to 22 bucks a day, according to inflation, inflation calculators for 10 hours of hard work. Brown, just like United Fruit expected, lower level white men would be if they were paid better and thus became little to the company, he was pleased with how he did.

He wrote his wife after the incident, of course it is all new and strange and I own to rather enjoy this being a little tin god. All right. Brown made a subordinates address him with their hands, hats in their hand, a privilege he certainly had not had as a middle class man in America. The racial hierarchy woven through the company's tropical world made Brown's life better than other way too. By providing him with personal servants, so called, quote, houseboys,

whose cost was included as part of lodging, both in Cuba and Panama. Basically, every part of United Fruit, you know, did its best to affirm these men so that they in turn would keep the black and Hispanic workforce subservient. After work, Brown would read things like the employee magazine, a unifruitco, sounds like a fucking boring ass magazine, or maybe Playboy for Banana Fuckers. Brown read things like this article from the United Fruit employee in Honduras, which argued that Anglo-Saxon men possess character traits necessary to subdue the tropics.

It said the Anglo-Saxon man was a cool-headed, persevering, enterprising, practical man, this is a prosparial alger writing, and responsible in large part for the advances made by the modern world in the fields of business, commerce, and material progress. He was expert at adapting himself to new circumstances, and was imbued with a singular reference for law and order. These virtues concluded Alger meant that other races have a great deal to learn from the Anglo-Saxons. Conversely, recurring portrayals of non-white workers and unifroot co-spoked their defects. Cartoon's Lampoon Blacks and Native Central Americans and timekeepers and overseers from the company's farms offered their own quote, humorous anticoitytes.

One such portrayal described Jones a Jamaican working in Honduras. Like most Jamaicans wrote overseer John Erskine, Jones wanted money and was willing to do almost anything but good work for it. This is in an employee magazine, mocking an entire class of employee. The article went on to describe how the feckless man cut corners in banana planting that led to crop losses and took time away from his paid work in various petty money making schemes. Erskine conveyed the lessons he learned from Jones. You must judge everything these men do on its own merits and then forget it as they will. I'm not even entirely sure what that fucking means.

as they will. Not even entirely sure what that fucking means. In this telling it, Jamaican could be made to do good work only with unrelenting supervision, a role that could only be filled by the right sort of man. But despite being the right sort of man, Brown and his colleagues also had a bone to pick with the United Fruit, actually several bones. The North American engineers and lower level foreman around him complained incessantly and bitterly about living conditions and their treatment at the company's hands. Poor pay, high cost of living, a vacation policy that exacerbated homesickness and rigid, uncarrying bosses. A brown starting salary is a timekeeper and assistant to the engineering department

around a hundred bucks a month made for tight personal budgeting. With a wife and daughter to support in Massachusetts, he usually sent home at least forty five bucks a month, leaving them with very little money after room board and other expenses took the lion's share. This fucker is making between three and three fifty, uh, three fifty a day, you know, three bucks and three thousand fifty cents a day, complaining that it's a barely livable wage. And yet happy to fire guys who wanted a buck fifty a day. Man, the oppressed helping oppress the even more oppressed. After his first two months in Cuba, he wrote that it is a pretty tight rub to get along on what I have and I have not been able to do it yet. He had to borrow money from colleagues in Cuba to afford working in Cuba before he made it to Panama. Not only was United

Fruit still not paying him a decent wage in Panama, he also had to pay for things that weren't exactly essential, but were essential if he wanted to progress in his career. These were things like company dances and other leisure activities, which could cost you to man between four and seven bucks a pop. These dances, other functions were made available only to white people. For ever Brown, it wasn't the whites only policy, but the high price tag that made him pocket attending. For one particularly expensive Halloween dance in Guarro, Brown told his wife that he would try to get out of it, but feared creating

bad feelings amongst his peers. He noted with some bitterness that the single young men without his obligations could spend more freely on such functions and on alcohol. I have to keep up some way. He felt at least enough to keep them satisfied. In the end, he attended that particularly expensive function, paying $4.30 for one night of entertainment more than he made in a day. He wrote, I saw that it would cause hard feeling if I did not. It is policy to pay it for they would make it very unpleasant here if they chose. Brown felt such costs necessary for advancement. Soon after this particular dance, he overheard two of his supervisors weighing him for a supervisory position

in the agricultural department, which would have brought a significant pay raise. Over hearing such a conversation, made pain his way into the community in acceptable loss. Resigned, he exclaimed, I think it is policy just now, not to start any antagonism, even if it hurts to pay the price.

Other policies in Oedium 2, like the fact that he wasn't allowed a horse to travel on for free during his time off, his new manager had nixed that policy in order to save money. So Brown and colleagues had to pay two bucks a day for the use of a horse. And doing so, that manager was keeping these men from having contact with other U.S. companies, which offered better bonuses and higher wages than United Fruit. Making everything worse, brown contract and malaria in Panama, and it would trouble him through the end of his time with the company. Almost a year into his tropical career, now an engineer in Panama, brown called in a long

held promise for a vacation. After weeks of frustrated requests, the superintendent responded that vacations were granted, quote, as a reward of merit for services rendered and not as a regular recurrence. Brown reminded his boss that a vacation had been offered to him as an inducement to come to Panama and that he would resign if it were not granted. Uh, I have been led to believe it is my due. He grumbled at another what letter to his wife.

In the end, the division manager, Mr Blair did not follow through on the agreement brown made with the central office of the United Fruit company regarding evocation. Blair argued that he would only grant a vacation as a reward for a full year service regardless of whether or not, you know, this man had transferred in from another company division and possibly worked, you know, longer time there. Brown discussed it with his treatment, sorely missing his family resigned from United Fruit a month later. So after a year abroad, he's worse off physically and financially, then he would have been if he would have just stayed in Boston and been exploited by some factory owner at home. At least then he would have been with his family.

And this is a white American engineer being paid far more and treated far better than the average labor. In February 19, a massive strike by West Indian workers paralyzes the canal zone, but it is soon crushed by US and Panamanian authorities. No word on how many people were hurt or if any were killed. A minute rising tide of Central American unity, a pro-labor movement, and rising anti-black sentiment amongst locals, Hispanic workers helped convince the new hunder and president to ban Jamaican immigration in June of 1920. The dream of solidarity and the face of white superiors, of laborers, of all races and nationalities

standing together, that's gone there now. In Guatemala, the same thing will take place. It announced that foreigners arriving in Guatemala will be required to deposit $500 with customs officials. United Fruit protested this vigorously, noting that the law would cripple its operations, and response Guatemalan officials reduced the requirement to a hundred bucks, and privately assured company officials, it would only be enforced for black immigrants. Guatemalan authorities stepped up their harassment of West Indians, particularly those who lived with Hispanic women. Local law enforcement began finding Hispanic women,

who cohabitated with United Fruit's black workers, literally fine for fucking the wrong colored meat sack. Those who could not pay often found themselves grinding corn for garrisons. Across Central America, there were some glimmers of unity when Hispanic and Black workers united to carry out strikes in a few localities, but those quickly crushed. 1921 United Fruit completed its community house on hospital point, a social center and mess hall.

I made the first class housing complex and the recently expanded company hospital and medical laboratory. This was part of a greater trend in US business, following Henry Ford's design of corporate wealth or corporate welfare policies. Man, which aimed to cultivate worker loyalty and discourage labor organizing by trading workers so well that they would never want to strike. United fruits, version of Fordism included improved housing and medical care for laborers, better stock company commissaries, and an increase in the civic and leisure activities available

in his tropic divisions. It would also require a position shift for the entire company, rather than portray itself as a corporate expression of white colonial rule as as it had so often its earlier years, United Fruit increasingly presented itself as a progressive force that fostered stability and raised living standards throughout the Hispanic Caribbean. The new community house replaced the need for the much-reviled lemon or limone lodge, source of much employee protest over poor service and dismal food. As the company assumed total control of the employee room and board and absorbed the cost of staff, equipment and furnishings, the cost of boarding each man went down from 30 bucks

to 25 according to a railway manager. Total savings that came into the community house, he estimated, stood around 5,000 bucks a year for the company. So this was not a humanitarian venture, it was just some cost cutty. Superintendents and their families inhabited large multi-room homes with spacious, tidy, landscape, backyards, so nice for them. For this highest echelon of employees, the residents could be more than one story and pretty big.

The next class of managers overseers lived in smaller, one family dwellings, and single-white employees lived in bachelor's housing. Unmarried technicians or functionaries like Everett Brown had been before he quit. They usually lived in dormitories with colleagues of similar statuses, several men sleeping in the same small room. They were all surrounded by well manicured lawns, parks, and walkways that encouraged face-to-face socialization between white people and other white people. They could spend their free time at various United Fruit Own bars, billiard halls, dance

floors and libraries. On a typical work day, American employees took their meals at the local United Fruit Club. And after dinner might read periodicals, chat, play cards, play pool. It was a nice improvement for the white workers. Meanwhile, nothing got better for the non-white laborers. Laborers, either indigenous to host countries or contracted from the West Indies, inhabited segregated areas on the margins of company towns.

The company's non-white workers inhabited Spartan, unaccompanied barracks, often built literally across some railroad tracks from these white neighborhoods. No manicured lawns surrounded them, no bars, no billiard halls, no dance floors, no libraries, nothing but a small company store where they could buy overpriced food and basic supplies. On a macro level at this time, companies like the United Fruit Company and the United States were essentially running these central American countries. The US collected state revenues and supplied customs commissioners, finance supervisors, revenue and distribution agents, and military personnel to enforce revenue collection and preserve the order necessary to permit business activity. In fundamental disputes between governments over these matters, the US defined what was meant by democracy or freedom,

or financial responsibility, and what had to be done to assure compliance. Central American nations existed for one purpose, a purpose and one purpose only in the eyes of the American government at this time to provide a place where American business could greatly profit, period. And in order for American business to profit greatly, these nations had to be safe for

Americans. Whatever happened to the locals, whatever exploitation went down, that was of no real concern. Unless, you know, it was also bad for Americans. By the early 20th century, central American countries had virtually surrendered control of major elements in their internal communications, public utilities, national debt, currency, state revenue, and other economic activities that generated national wealth to American corporations and or the American government. Influenced by local elites, excuse me, that worked with the American interests and profited at the expense of their fellow

countrymen, these governments exercised only limited power over their political economies. But soon a new class of a Central American politician would gain power. The 1920s brought a surge of nationalist sentiment throughout Latin America, people who had grown up under exploitation by American companies are now running for political office. This eventually spurred the US government to end most of its military occupations in the Hispanic Caribbean. More and more Hispanic workers resented their high-handed treatment by white American managers and also denounced the firms' apparent favoritism towards British West Indians. For their part, Central American leaders and middle-class nationalists increasingly viewed

black immigration as inseparable from the problem of US domination, West Indians came under increased attack as symbols of Yankee imperialism. So damn it! Still not going after the real enemy But also the governments of Costa Rica and Guatemala called for an end to the United fruits control over commerce and infrastructure. So going after the real enemy on some places Within the company Hispanic nationalism started to flourish more and more often Nicaraguan's and Panamanians harbored fierce anti-American more and more often, Nicaraguan's and Panamanians harbored fierce anti-American sentiments. And Nicaraguan's a particular gained reputation for talking back to US bosses. United Fruit found it impossible to ignore the Hispanic nationalism that now threatened

the order and autonomy of its enclaves. In response, United Fruit tried to blame some of their competitors, most of whom they had absorbed by now. One United Fruit of a company official wrote, it must be remembered that all past troubles have been caused by small irresponsible companies and individuals and by unjust concessions, sometimes improperly obtained. In contrast, large corporations brought development without exploitation," he said. Then in 1924, United Fruit Company president Andrew Preston would die.

By the time of his death, United Fruit Company alone imported 35 million bunches annually of bananas from Central America. 1924, the company had 20,000 stockholders valued $100 million, roughly $1.8 billion today. It had 67,000 employees owned $1,626,000 acres of land and operated a fleet of 80 steam ships directly served nine countries in the Western Hemisphere and played an important role in the commerce of 23 other countries. Jesus, it is to have us to maintain hotels for some of its employees, churches, hospital schools, laundries, ice plants, bakeries, electrical, light companies, water works, sewage systems, had 1,500 lines of railroads, 700 miles of tramways, sorry, miles of railroads,

not lines, 3,500 miles of telegraph and telephone lines, but then soon things would take a downturn. A few years later, by 1927, United Fruit was bleeding employees. That year, 39% of the men in the agricultural departments, the% of the men in the agricultural departments, the majority of them with less than five years with the company quit for a variety of reasons. Most of them medical and disciplinary. Not only that, like many other Central American governments, the government of Colombia had now turned against them. By 1927, Colombia's political system seemed to finally be leaning against the banana conglomerate. And now the National Assembly ordered an investigation into UnitedFruit's land acquisition policies.

The conservative parties 30-year grip on power seemed to be loosening, with liberals making gains especially in the countryside. Banana workers who were still working without even the most basic human rights felt emboldened. And now we arrive at the beginnings of the banana massacre. Throughout the rest of 1927 and 1928, the trend of discontent and resentment toward United Fruit continued. On the evening of October 5th, 1928, delegates for Columbia's banana workers and Magdalena gathered to discuss their grievances.

Among their concerns were the long hours and low pay. One worker remembering, we worked from six in the morning until 11. And then, oh, sorry, first I thought that was 11 at night. I'm like, my God, no, from six in the morning until 11. And then, oh, sorry, first I thought that was 11 at night. I'm like, my God, no, to 11 in the morning. And then from one in the afternoon until six, the contractor paid the salary and reserved up to 30% for himself. So 10 hours a day, and they were doing a seven days a week, 70 hour work weeks, and only getting paid 70% of whatever shitty wage they were supposed to get because the contractor is just fucking grifting off the top.

Arasmo, Cornell, spoke in favor of a strike. Others agreed. Then it around five of the more in October 6th, the workers issued the United Fruit Company, a list of nine demands. They demanded to be granted to proper medical treatment, proper toilet facilities, right? That is they wanted the same medical access

and bathroom access as the white men they worked with. No more and no less. The insisted on being paid in cash rather than company issued script, right, that is they wanted the same medical access and bathroom access as the white men they worked with. No more no less. The insisted on being paid in cash rather than company issued script only redeemable and United Fruit owned stores. Man, not sure exactly when that bullshit was enacted based on sources, but at some point rather than pay their labor as actual money, these United Fruit mother fuckers pay them essentially just store credit to be used

at stores where they set the price. Stores often in company towns with no competition because of this, the workers were essentially slaves, like how the fuck do you move on to another job if you have literally no money, no matter how much you work, you're way out in the jungle. United Fruit Houses them barely then gave them enough store credit working 70 hours a week to buy clothes and food and other essentials from the company at stores you know they profited off of Hard to negotiate for a raise when the company that owns you can fire you and now you have no place to live no money to go get another job

You know to find something else. It's shit that ranges The workers also asked that they be considered they be considered true employees rather than subcontractors who are not even afforded the minimal protection of Columbia's very weak labor laws. This was the demand's list in full. The nine demands here. One, stop the practice of hiring through subcontractors. Two, mandatory collective insurance. And so when they get fucking hurt, they're not just out of, like there's no kind of insurance for them. Three compensation for work accidents.

Four hygienic dormitories in six day work weeks. Five increase in daily pay for workers who earned less than a hundred pesos per month. I was able to find historical Colombian peso to American dollar exchange rates for 1928. I didn't think I would. Thank you, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Archives. I do love the internet sometimes. It was 97.7 to one. So basically these mother fuckers are being paid a dollar a month, a little bit less than a dollar actually. The equivalent of less than 18 dollars a month today. For someone working seven, ten hour days a week and not even a dollar in real money.

A fucking store, company store credit. These other guys previously been fired for working one to buck 50 today. It's gotten so much worse. The workers also wanted six to be paid weekly not monthly seven abolition of company stores, eight abolition of payment through coupons, rather than money, nine and finally,

improvement of hospital services. And United Fruit didn't wanna hear any of this shit. They said that the employees had no right to make demands because they were temporary contractors and not real workers. Just temporary contractors, working 70 hours a week until they died or couldn't take it in quit.

After months of constant effort to seek an audience with United Fruit Hireups, manager Thomas Bradshaw finally agrees to meet with USTM representatives on November 10th, but then ignores them at the bargaining table and conceives to literally zero demands. These guys are some stone-hearted nanartyrants. And so on November 12th, the strike begins. On the first day of the strike, the commander of the Colombian armed forces appoints general Carlos Cortez Vargas as the military chief at Santa Marta and the and the banana zone. By the second day Cortez Vargas was in Siannaga with the battalion.

There were no soldiers from Magdalena involved because General Cortez Vargas did not believe they would be able to take effective actions as they might be related to the plantation workers they might need to kill. One worker later recalled that when soldiers asked a group of striking workers who was in charge, they'd have finally responded that they were all in charge. Man, hail Nimrod to these brave motherfuckers. The conflict is now making headlines in the US. The New York Times article published in December of 1928 lays out the company position on the strike. A banana company spokesman attributed

the strike not to a genuine need to improve conditions for exploded workers, but to a quote subversive movement carried out by men who weren't even representatives of any established body of labor. In fact, the article quoted the company is saying no complaints have been received by our employees. Uh, United Fruit reported that in response to the strike, uh, the Colombian government had suspended the rights of, excuse me, free assembly and free speech. We are convinced, the spokesperson said, that only this prompt action by the government prevents great loss of life.

So crazy how some Americans are all too happy to take away the freedoms from other nation's people that we pride ourselves on being champions of at home. Marshal laws declared in Cianniga Columbia just outside of Santa Marta December 5. The clamp down is celebrated by the US ambassador to Columbia Jefferson Cafery, who sent a telegram to US secretaries of state Frank Kellogg that said, I've been following Santa Marta fruit strikes through United Fruit Company representative here. Also through Minister of Foreign Affairs,

who on Saturday told me government would send additional troops and would arrest all strike leaders and transport them to prison in Cartania. That government would give adequate protection to American interests involved. Yeah, fuck those guys who want basic worker rights. The tensions mount the next day, December 6, telegram from Santa Marta, consulate to the US Secretary of State, reads, feeling against the government by the proletariat, which is shared by some of the soldiers is high and is doubtful if we can depend on the Colombian government for protection. May I respectfully suggest that my request

for the presence within calling distance of an American warship be granted and that it stand off subject to my call. It is admitted that the character of the strike has changed and the disturbance is a manifestation with a subversive tendency. But that day was actually supposed to be a peaceful day. It was a Sunday and CNN got banana workers

and their families gathered mid-morning in the big town square. There was no hint of violence in the air. The city hall stood at one end of the square, a big church at the other, which is where large portion of the workers were leaving from. They'd attended mass,

when they got out, soldiers informed them to gather and wait for the regional governor to give them a speech. They weren't even gathered together as part of some subversive plan to write. They were told by soldiers to gather in the square. Striker, a six-toe, a Spinoe Nunez would later convey the strikers' hopes for reconciliation that day, saying, the people firmly believed that the army would not fire and the governor would arrive. But that would

not happen. What they didn't know is that General Cortez Vargas had given his commanders these orders. Prepare your mind to face these crowds of rebels and kill before foreign troops tread upon our soil. What the fuck four machine gun positions are surrounding the square now put on rooftops one of these corner As the crowd gathered general Cortez Vargas announced to the banana workers and their families that a new decree Quote declared the strikers to be a bunch of hoodlums and authorized the army to shoot to kill That's his opening line Delivered to exploited banana baron labors many of whom had just left church

Right they were told to gather in the square and they were there with their wives and kids. Then the soldiers issued an order that they needed to be clear in five minutes. But not everyone in the crowd heard these orders. There was confusion. I mean, they had just been told by soldiers to gather there to stay there.

Now they're being told to leave. They'd also just been threatened. Many are million about. They're afraid to do anything else. There are thousands of people in the square. Less than five minutes later, not even honoring their unjust decree, the troops just open fire.

But luckily, fighting man is there to save the day. Fight fight! Watch out for my melee sword! This is my defense shield! United Fruit Hired Guns Fight Fight Fight Fight! Brought and paid for Colombian soldiers? Fight Fight Fight Fight! Evil Banana Bear in! Notty pants guys! Fight Fight Fight! Shubbananas in their bottles! Until their heads explode! Fight Fight Fight Fight! Pretty sure that's not even possible! But they did it anyway! Fight Fight! Nana Fight! That's their fucking heads explode! I wish. Sorry, couldn't decide in a great song for anyway fight fight Nana fight. That's their fucking head to explode. I wish Sorry couldn't decide in a great song for the fight guy this time I don't know if I like that one now sadly fighting man did not show up and just fucking slaughter the enemy No one's jumping in as up the banana barons butts no one exploded their heads And now it's a very one-sided masker

Later US ambassador to Columbia, Caffrey reported the events to his superiors in Washington, reported the events, the tone and language of the memo, pretty chilling. I have the honor to report that the Bogota representative of the United Fruit Company told me yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded 1,000. Wow.

The people of the banana zone insisted that the military killed hundreds of strikers at night, but when daylight broke, according to the official memory, just nine bodies lay in the plaza. Josepha Maria, who worked from Sianega to support the strike, noted that the military had deliberately left those corpses as a symbol, saying they had only left nine dead bodies equal to the nine demands the workers made. Far more people than nine would die.

After the massacre, many workers fled seeking refuge in the mountains, but other states sought to avenge the killing of their companions. The workers destroyed several of the United Fruit Company's buildings, including the engineers, quarters in Sevilla. Among the survivors was Louise Encente Games, later a famous local figure who survived by hiding under a bridge for three days. Every year after the massacre going forward for decades, he would deliver a memorial service on the radio. Meanwhile the clumpy military and United Fruit Company did not let up in their persecution

of workers. A telegram to the secretary of state on December 7th read, Situation Outside Santa Marta City unquestionably very serious. Outside zone is in revolt. Military who have orders not to spare ammunition, have already killed and wounded about 50 strikers. Much less. A government now talks of general offensive against strikers as soon as all troop ships now on the way arrive early next week. I'm just declared war on these strikers. Followed to the US Department of State would add the

legation at Bogota reports that categorical orders have been given to authorities at santamarta to protect all american interests the department does not repeat not desire to send a warship to santamarta keep the department informed of all developments by telegraph uh... the next day telegram report that american citizens have been evacuated from the area it added guerrilla warfare now continuing in the zone but military forces are actively engaged in clearing the district of the communists and other pain in the strikers as communists.

The American government was now working hard to portray the protesting workers as some kind of Bolsheviks, right? This riled up by, you know, some foreign agitators, you know, that military intervention might be necessary. It was a Russian revolution all over again. It wasn't. Meanwhile, the country's liberal party had heard about the massacre, and when using it as a rallying point, they pointed out how the government was helping United

Fruit and killing their own people. Conservative newspapers tried to defend the government's actions. The words did nothing to quench the liberal tide now sweeping through Columbia. In reality, we'll never know how many workers or their family members were killed in the banana massacre. Official estimates put the death toll anywhere between 47. Most people don't think it was that low at all to around 2000 people. According to Congressman Jorge Alicir, Gaton, the bodies of all but nine of the strikers were thrown out into the sea. Other sources claim the bodies were buried in mass graves, but no agreed upon official story. Just a bunch of variations based biased, excuse me, innumerous ways, depending on the source they come from,

the American press bias towards United fruits, towards a lower number of fatalities, some of the Colombian press also bias towards United Fruit, the more conservative papers, and then some biased against them, the more liberal papers. The true story of the Banana Masker, the exact details, you know, lost to history. We do know that the Banana Masker and subsequent support for workers did lead to the 1930 details, you know, lost a history. We do know that the banana massacre

and subsequent support for workers did lead to the 1930 election of liberal president Aleya Herrera, liberals then celebrated their victory at the polls with massacres, assassinations, looting and the destruction of property and the burning of many buildings, including a lot of churches. This further polarized the country, as you might imagine, and in 1946, conservatives would return to power, setting off another wave of violence. 1948, the assassination of liberal presidential hopeful Jorge Aliciero Catan ignites huge riots in Bogota, kicking off a civil war that'll last until 1957, called LaVylencia in Colombia.

An estimated 200,000 people killed during this period, including 112,000 between 1948 and 1950 alone, large parts of Colombia's cities destroyed. 200,000 people killed during this period, including 112,000 between 1948 and 1950 alone, large parts of Columbia cities destroyed. The partisan violence created a rip between liberals and conservatives, which ultimately triggered a breakdown of existing institutional structures and a partial collapse of the state. This would only be resolved 1947 with the establishment of the con-social national front between the two traditional parties, which agree to alternate

between liberal and conservative presidencies for a period of 16 years and evenly distribute all government positions between the two parties as a way of limiting partisan violence. Although not directly responsible, UnitedFruit's Colombian meddling contributed towards all the violence and polarization. So what happened to UnitedFruit? Oh, back up a little bit. In 1929, you're after the massacre, little tiny, barely visible minor Keith,

completed the line connecting Guatemala and El Salvador, those railroads, which meant the unification of a system of 800 miles of track valued at $80 million and then he died on June 14th. He was buried in a coffin, the size of a box of matches, exactly that size. He was buried in a coffin the size of a box of matches. Exactly that size. He was buried in a box of matches. All three and a half inches tall, four

ounces of him. When he died in the United Fruit Company's largest competition was the Kuyamao Fruit Company, then United Fruit bought them out. The new Bigger United Fruit kept growing. By the end of 1940, the company owned 61 ships, Chartered 11 more, a British affiliate owned an additional 23 ships at the Starter World War II. This fleet was taken over by the American British governments, but war didn't stop the company from expanding. 1944, United Fruit invests in some marketing that gives them the most brand recognition they had ever had.

They hired cartoonist Dick Brown, the creator of Haggar, the horrible, and yes, his name was Dick Brown. So great to create a cartoon based on the Latin American singer and movie star Carmen Miranda. The cartoon was called Miss Jiquita Banana. The character of Miss Jiquita Banana debuted in the technical or movie advertisements. Miss Jiquita Banana's beauty treatment, where she sang to revive and exhaust at Housewife. By 1946, United Fruit Company, 83,000 employees owned over 116,000 acres for the cultivation of bananas, almost 100,000 more acres for sugarcane, and almost 50,000 acres for cocoa.

1953, Guatemalan President, Jacobo Arbenes declared that just under 210,000 acres of uncultivated lands of United Fruit should be distributed to landless peasants. The Guatemalan government promised the company in, I didn't, I didn't, there's so many fucking words. I didn't realize how hard they would be to say this guy, Demscrib, in demnification, okay? Words you always read, but never fucking say.

The company in demnification of $627,572 in governmental bonds based on the company's declared tax value of the land. United Fruit decides to fight this in 1954, launched a campaign that portrayed Arbyns as a dangerous communist. Working together with an advertisement company, they distributed alarmist propaganda among the press in Congress in which they portrayed Guatemala as a foothold of the Soviet Union and the Western hemisphere. The campaign was very successful. The CIA ended up sponsored a military coup against our bends, maybe not our beans, our

bends, in which the rebels used United Fruit boats to transport troop ammunition. The Colonel who led the coup, Carlos Castillo, repealed our bends labor and agrarian reforms and harshly repressed the opposition. CIA involvement in Central America, a story for another day. Eli M. Black then bought 733,000 shares of United Fruit in 1968 and became the company's largest shareholder. June of 1970, Black merged United Fruit with his own public company, AMK, to create the United Brands company after his death in 1974 since the nati-based American financial group bought into United Brands.

August of 1994, billionaire Carl Lydner took control of the company and renamed it Chiquita Brands, international headquarters moved to Cincinnati in 1985. Chiquita Brands, international to brands international made $3.1 billion in revenue in 2022, shortly before being bought out by Bear Evil Inc. Bear. The only corporation in the world with the balls to admit they are full on evil. Bear admittedly only in it for the money. They don't care about their employees, they don't care about you, South America, Central America, North America, or even sexy ass nannies. Bear evil and cooperated, go fuck yourself. I wonder how much Jikita would have made in 2022, if they hadn't exploited the fuck out of Central in South America and the Caribbean decades earlier. And that is it for today's timeline. If they hadn't exploited the fuck out of Central in South America and the Caribbean decades earlier. And that is it for today's timeline.

Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. The banana massacre, who knew the legacy of my favorite breakfast fruit so dark. The space that's was voted this topic in, they knew I did not. Man, this kind of shit still goes on today. Recently, I was talking to somebody at the gym about how much of the shit that we have right now has so much darkness behind it. We were actually talking about the hypocrisy of someone who say, you know, really looks

down on you for, I don't know, being the asshole who used a plastic straw. But then that person is, you know, looking down on you while wearing clothes made in some South Pacific sweatshop, or maybe they're posting, you know, about what a piece of shit someone is for not supporting some social justice cause, using a phone made in a communist Chinese factory where the conditions are so fucking dire and hopeless that the company installed nets around the building to cut back at the amount of suicides because workers would rather literally throw themselves off the fucking roof than keep making the phones. Or the hypocrisy of someone pat themselves in the back for driving an electric car instead

of some gas guzzler, a car that runs on a battery built out of components, some of which are mined by exploited children. These are not random references. If you live in America or you live in some other developed nation, you just like me have blood in your hands. Thanks to corporations, no better in many ways than the United Fruit Company was back in the early 20th century or at least not that much better. How do we break out of that cycle? I don't know. Not going to be easy. No one can just snap their fingers and remake the world into a place more humane and equitable for everybody. Best we can do right now is make the most informed choices we can when we can. But even that's not easy.

Right, I try to make good choices, but also I can't make my life work without a cell phone. I can't make my life work without a computer. My entire business is built on content, consumed on cell phones and computers, and both cell phones and computers use components, mind and parts of the world where exploitation is still the norm. And you know, in other similar electronics, you know, it's like, you all these like activists and Hollywood and stuff, and I get it like, good for them for raising attention to things, but it's also their content is being consumed on screens made of shit, shit mind by people being exploited. Like their whole fucking career is dependent on their shit being seen,

via electronic devices that are not made ethically. Circling back to to fruit from far away that were, you know, able to not much pay, not they were able to not pay much to buy here in the States. A fruit pick would cheap for in labor. How do we avoid supporting that? Right? Not everybody has a farmer's market near them. Not everybody can afford to buy local. Sadly, it's not realistic for most of us to only make ethical purchases.

So what do we do? Well, we can try and support politicians who stand up to exploitive corporations. Whenever we can, we support companies that support workers. Something's better than nothing. But those politicians, those companies, it's surprisingly hard to figure out where people stand and where the company stands. Here's an example. I probably spent too much time on this.

But most of the T-shirts we sell in our store at BadMagicMers.com, next level of parallel T-shirts. Many other podcasts, band T-shirts, comic T-shirts, whatever, just a lot of T-shirts in general, same brand. Or an equivalent brand teachers in general, same brand, or an equivalent brand made in the same area or in a very similar area by a similar workforce, if not the same workforce. Next level t's, they are made somewhere we just spent time exploring in Nicaragua. The company on their website, they pride themselves on social responsibility. Per their website, it says, our commitment to operational excellence. At the forefront of our social responsibility and social compliance is our commitment to our workers to implement the highest ethical standards of conduct and best quality practices in the USA

and internationally. We are relentless about partnering with suppliers who uphold the same high ethical standard. Prioritize workers rights by ensuring working conditions in factories worldwide. high ethical standard. Prioritize workers rights by ensuring working conditions in factories worldwide. Administr and implement our workplace code of conduct through our entire global supply chain. More specifically, NLA is committed to upholding our workplace code of conduct and FLA's principles of fair labor and responsible sourcing throughout our entire global supply chain. We have made it our mission at next level apparel to collaborate with the FLA and fellow affiliates to improve workers' lives worldwide. We're also partners with better work

on a factory, national and international level, to improve working conditions and respect labor rights for workers while boosting the competitiveness of a peril. And that all sounds great. But did you notice how they didn't share any specific details? Like how much do they pay their Nicaragua workers? Can't find that on the website. I can't find that anywhere. The monthly minimum wage for a Nicaraguan factory worker, just kind of nationwide, is $192 US dollars, $192.25. Under $200 a month, a month, the average monthly wage for any job in Nicaragua is $305 US dollars. Here in Cordillay, Idaho, the McDonald's, about a mile from where I'm sitting right now and recording, is currently paying, well, at least last I checked, 16 bucks an hour for

like an opening position, because they can't get anybody to work for less. And that's a wage of over $2,500 a month. Some high school kid working here in Idaho, a state not known for supporting workers. A working in McDonald's, a company not known for paying high wages, is making over 12 times the average factory worker what they're making in Nicaragua. If next level really truly cared about workers' rights,

would they even have a factory in a country where people make such little money? Or does $192.25 a month do just as much for someone's life in Nicaragua as $2,500 a month does here? I don't think so. Doing some research and reading articles about US citizens considering living in Nicaragua, basic groceries cost on the low end, about 25 bucks per person per week. Over half of that,

a 192 bucks a month gone to food. Rent in a very small place with no AC and no hot water, the bottom of the barrel is at least 250 bucks a month according to these articles. So if two people are working at the average factory down there, they can rent the shitties of apartments, not quite have enough money for food, and then no money for anything else.

Is next level paying a lot more than $192.50 a month or 25 cents a month? I hope so. Are they paying double the average factory worker wage there? I doubt it. Even double the wage though. Double the wage and a worker still would not make enough to support themselves living alone in the studio apartment. So should we not use them?

Well, if not use them? Well, if not them who? Our distributor doesn't work with any brands that are made just in the USA as far as I can tell. And even if they did, how much are their factory workers being paid? And how does that compare to people in other countries? Right? Like the wage, the derby and paid, how does that compare to living here in the US? I mean, do you see how fucking complicated all this is? If you were an American in 1929 and you found out about this story, would you stop eating bananas? What about now? Are you no longer going to buy a Chiquita banana? Not ever? Are other choices that much better? I have a lot of respect for people who can avoid a lot of these choices. And there are other people out there. But if we all behave like they did,

what are economy literally completely fucking collapse and make life so much worse for everyone Yes, yes, it would I Wish I had easier answers regarding all of this This topic reminds me of the bear AG the most evil company in the world suck right bear has a terrible legacy A lot of that terrible legacy also took place in central and south America But sadly as we learn in that episode, so do so many other fucking companies. The brutal truth of it all is that if you're living in a developed nation, if you're enjoying a really good standard of living, you are doing that at least partially at the expense

of other people in the world. Your fresh fruit is affordable, as someone else is expensive, same for your clothes, your phone, your car, on and on and on. So should we feel guilty all the time about all this? No, that's not why I'm pointing out. We should just be aware of it though, and we should each do the best we can, depending on the situation that we are in to understand what we're buying and try to support the most ethical companies we can. When we can, if we can, if you're barely paying your bills, raising kids a single parent, don't add fucking more stress to your

plates, but maybe someday your situation will change. And then you can do something to help, and something's better than nothing. You could tip a bit more by fair trade coffee, by farmer's market, fucking produce, you get it. I know on this podcast, I made dozens of announcements about donations we've made, only possible because of subscribers. But you know how much money I donated

over the course of my adult life prior to my career changing thanks to the show? Almost fucking nothing. And you know what, I'm sure I'm still gonna eat plenty of jikita bananas. I travel a lot at airports and gas stations. I don't offer a lot of choices. I need my fruit, you motherfuckers.

And sometimes maybe I go horny. So horny. No. But yeah, you know, I wanna try and get like local fruit like when I can, when given the choice between companies, at least supposedly trying to support, you know, shit, like next level claims in some other company that I know is in a terrible job. I'm going to make the responsible choice and pick the responsible company. And that's better than just giving up and not doing anything.

Episodes like today's remind me that, you know, choices do matter. They remind me that, you know, are real human lives that there are real, excuse me, human lives behind the shit that we buy. None of that shit shows up in the store magically. Comes from somewhere. Sometimes the story behind it, way more tragic than I like to think about. Man, crazy history. I'm guessing that most people, you know, when they think of Central America, they think of, you know, Maya Ruins, delicious food, beautiful beaches, vacation resorts.

But behind the history of the modernization that now makes comfortable travel to these destinations possible, man, some dark shit, a lot of Latin American authors have written about US imperialism and United Fruit. We looked at the Columbia author Gabrielle Garcia Marquez at the beginning of the episode, will fame Chilean poet Pablo Nerudo Neruda also wrote about United Fruit. Saying the fruit company incorporated, reserved for itself the most succulent piece, the central coast of my own land, the delicate waste of America, it re-cricioned its territories, banana republics, and over the sleeping dead, over the restless heroes who brought about

the greatness, the liberty and the flags that established the comic opera, it abolished free will, gave out imperial crowns, encouraged envy, attracted the dictatorship of flies. Fly is sticky with submissive blood and marmalade, drunken flies that buzz over the tombs of the people, circus flies, wise flies, expert at tyranny. Damn. Whew, those words, uh, hit hard after learning what we just went over this week. Let's head to today's takeaways. Time suck, tough, right takeaway. Number one, the banana massacre occurred December 6, 1928, when soldiers opened a machine gun

fire on a maybe striking, maybe not striking crowd. Not currently doing anything dangerous, that's for sure, crowd in the town square of Sienaica in Colombia. The exact number of workers killed has been lost to history, but the callousness of United Fruit who blamed outside agitators and called to the military has not been. And they were striking. They were just not currently seeming to be protesting. Number two, United Fruit company has a long and tumultuous history informed by both brazen corporate policy, gobbling up as much land and controlling as much of the supply chain as possible and by racist and paternalistic ideologies. Number three, United Fruit constantly played populations off each other to maintain control

over its employees, which pitted Hispanic workers against black-west Indian workers. All of them in reality were probably looking for the same thing, just enough money to support themselves and their families and improve the quality of their lives. Number four, United Fruit for a time paid its workers not an actual cash but in store credit. How do you like to work for Amazon and only be paid in Amazon give cards? Or maybe more comparable to what United Fruit did, work for Target or Walmart, and then only be able to shop at Target or Walmart.

What a fucking absurd policy. Number five, new info in 2007, some Colombian citizens sued Chiquita Brands International, accusing the company of making payments to a paramilitary group responsible for hundreds of civilian killings. The lawsuit accused Chiquita of complicity in hundreds of deaths because of its financial support of the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, also known by its Spanish initials, AUC. The plaintiffs concluded or included relatives of 387 people thought to have been killed by the group. The group was designated a terrorist group by the US in 2001.

Chiquita had already acknowledged that a former subsidiary, Banadex, had paid 1.7 million to the AUC from 1997 to 2004. The company also admitted that the payments were illegal. It pled guilty earlier in 2007 to violating counterterrorism laws and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Jiquita insisted that it had no choice but to pay protection money to groups like the AUC that had threatened to turn death squads loose on its banana plantations and employees. But the New York lawyer who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families, Jonathan Reiter said Jiquita's support of the AUC went beyond mere protection payments and included the shipping of thousands of rifles. In the 2015 documentary Banana Land,

Colombian plantain workers spoke up about how they feel terrorized by multinational companies like Jikita and their work with paramilitaries. They even said the people who speak up about the way they feel are at risk of being targeted by the AUC, targeted as in murdered. feel or at risk of being targeted by the AUC targeted as in murdered. As for the class action lawsuit, it's still unsettled. In 2016, Florida federal judge Kenneth Mara rejected a Chiquita's argument that the case should be heard in Columbia rather than the US, allowing the case to advance. In August of 2022, however, US district judge Kenneth E. Mara found Chiquita brand international's payments approved in the United States were not made specifically to fund terror attacks on innocent civilians, although Chiquita executives

allegedly knew or should have known that the money paid to the AUC would incidentally fuel such attacks. Today, a total of 19 Chiquita lawsuits are reportedly still pending. The plaintiffs include approximately 7,500 Columbia Nationals who alleged their family members were victims of extrajudicial killings and human rights and human right violations by the AUC. Seems as if a bunch of exploitive nanofuckery still going on in at least some areas where United Fruit and its predecessors and successors have long made life worse for Central and South American people. Time, suck, top five takeaway.

The 1928 banana masquer has been sucked. No idea. So much blood and terrible inhumane treatment was associated with the harmless banana. We nearly all see somewhere nearly every day. Thank you to Bad Magic Productions to the team here for your help in making time, suck. Thanks to the Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins.

Thanks to the suck Ranger, Tyler C for producing and directing today. Thanks also to Bitelixer for upkeep on the Time of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins, thanks to the Suck Ranger Tyler C for producing and directing today. Thanks also to Bitelix, for upkeep on the Time Suck app, the art warlock Logan Keith for creating the merch at BadMagicMersh.com and helping run socials with the Suck Ranger and a team led by social media strategist Ryan Handelman. Thanks to producer Sophie Evans for some top-notch

research on this one. It's kicking it off, not an easy topic to put together in any kind of narrative. And, you know, have it be interesting. Do the average person. Also thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating the Cult of the Curious Private Facebook page, the mod squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth.

And everyone over at the time suck, subreddit, and bad magic subreddit, thanks to you for taking a chance on a random subject like this one. I hope I mush-mouthed it and fuck it up for you. Those are some challenging top shelf scrap awards today. Next week on TimeStuck, we return to true crime, the Hillside Stranglers. The Hillside Strangler singular was the name

of a suspected serial killer targeting young women and girls in and around Los Angeles, California in the fall of 1977 and in early 1978. Young women in the area understandably terrified. They would be the next victim. The fact that it was suspected by many that the killer was posing as a police officer added to their fear. Victims were found in October, November and December of 1977. Young women and girls usually found naked with distinct marks that indicated they died of strangulation.

And there was evidence of rape. Despite the similarities in the murders, the victims were different. Some were sex workers, others were college students, waitresses, one was a teen runaway, youngest victims were just 15, 14 and 12. After breaking the murders in January of 1978, the hillside stranger killed another victim in February. This time, the victim was found in the trunk of her car, which had been pushed off a cliff.

The police had few leads and witness statements, and now suspected that more than one person was involved, but they just couldn't find him. In January of 1979, one of the hillside strangers was finally arrested after two college students were strangled in Belingham, Washington. The stranger was Kenneth Bianchi. And he revealed that his cousin, Angelo Bono,

was the second killer. Bianchi and Bono were cousins who shared violent sexual urges and a desire to kill. Kenneth would reveal the gruesome details of how each victim was killed and the cold and calculating thought process behind the murders. How did Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Bono become the hillside stranglers? How do they grow up? What kind of lifestyles did they live? The led to them becoming killers? Who were the victims? How were these killer cousins finally caught? All that a more next week on Time Suck.

Right now, let's get to today's Time Sucker Updates. Updates, get your time sucker updates. First up, some extra info about Mount St. Helens, from someone who knows a lot more about the shit that I do. A scientific sucker, Brian Fuller writes, Dear Lizard King and the rest of the time suck crew, congrats on the Mount St. Helens suck. As a professional geophysicist,

I give you an A on geologic accuracy and doing a great job in describing a complex scientific subject without diving too far into the weeds and distracting from a great story. Well, you know what? That thanks will be passed along to Sophie Evans because she set me up to be successful by doing a fucking killer job Structuring the information. I just added a bit here and there

St. Helen's story has another connection for me because I grew up south of Chihalis Chihalis Washington in the 1970s and saw a beautiful and up close view of St. Helen's every day When it wasn't covered by clouds My brother-in-law who I didn't know the time, was also a seismology grad student at UW, and had been on the mountain the morning of the eruption checking on the seismometers. Close one, bro. Closely related to the subject, I wanted to mention another incredible volcanic story that shapes today's topography and scenery of all of Eastern Washington, large parts of Idaho,

including Quiddellaine, and large parts of Eastern Oregon. About 15 million years ago, cracks, many miles long, formed in the Earth's surface, and spilled out sheets of hot lava to travel hundreds of miles and covered thousands of square miles. The wave of hot lava traveled up to 15 miles per hour, and would have been 50 foot thick in places. Fucking amazing to see if humans had existed there at that time. This story was repeated many times over several million years and deposited accumulate basalt or basalt, the rock that is left after lava cools and solidifies, thousands of feet thick

in many places. You can see the layers of lava particularly well by driving in the Columbia River Gorge on I-84. This story was followed later by an equally amazing geostory in which the continental glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago. Torrance of water gouged the top of the basalt and ripped the Columbia River gorge into existence with water flow over 700 feet higher than the current Columbia River surface. The river is currently 300 feet deep, so damn that would have been cool to see, and humans did live in the area at that time. Love you guys and scratchable dangles on the tummy for me. Spaces are Brian.

Brian, thanks for sharing awesome info. Man, sheets of lava coming out of cracks in the ground, miles long. Can you imagine seeing that today? 50 miles per hour doesn't sound that fast, until you're running. You know the average human only runs eight miles an hour? 50 miles an hour equals a four minute mile.

I have never ran that fast at my best many years ago. I was able to run just under a six minute mile for three miles and it felt like I was fucking hauling ass. We have these little unagi scooters, they're kind of like a lime scooter at the house. They talk about it 16 miles an hour. And it feels like you're really zipping along. And it's funny for me to think about scooting away from a massive lava field Just barely moving faster than the lava praying that the lava slows down before my battery gives out Yeah, all that stuff would be so crazy to see

Next up South Dakota sucker Holly Davidson. She got got Holly writes Dan you motherfucker. This is the second time I've been coming to law, but the first time writing about it, I'm partially to blame, but dude, it's about 55th in the blame game. I should know better when I learn. I was listening to the Mount St. Helens suck, I'm my way to work this morning,

and you kept up about the volcano eruption boner, spraying magna cum everywhere. And then, and this is what I should have known better, you said you were done talking about said eruption boner. I literally thought to myself, oh shit, someone's gonna fall for that. Fast forward to my lunch break. In my car and join an amazing sunny 65 degrees South Dakota Spring Day, windows down, birds chirping, living life. I roll up to dairy queen. Sounds amazing. And before I can even say anything, you fucking say maybe right now a volcano has a massive bulge growing. You know what's

inside that bulge? That's right. Something I said I wasn't gonna talk about it again, but sometimes I lie. A massive eruption boners about to grow. And that's when I snapped my attention from the menu and had to wear with all to turn down the volume. And then I heard, order whenever you're ready?

Just another reminder that every day we stray further from God's light. Such a funny sense. Anyways, I wanted to share that I'm glad I was able to drag my husband to see you in Minneapolis for the taping of your special. Can't wait to see it so I can tell people there. That annoying laugh, that's me.

I'm surprised you came with me because I introduced him to the pod with Albert Fish. He must love me very much. Thanks to the bad magic folks for all you do to keep us sane-ish. Well, thank you, Holly, for listening so we can keep this weird train on the tracks. And thanks for going to that taping,

and still waiting for the final nitpicky edits to be completed. I'm hoping to get an email any moment, like it's done. And then we can figure out where it's gonna live. Can't wait to get it out there. Now a quick note from an encouraging sucker, Nicholas Tnetti, who writes, a friend John got me to the Colt and Curious,

and I have been sucked 50 plus times now. He wants to go to the wet hot bad magic summer camp but I'm unable to go and he doesn't want to go alone. I have a simple request. Please tell John to drink some fucking Whipple and buy his damn ticket. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick. Yeah, John, ton of people are coming alone.

Same thing happened last year and we got so much feedback later about how so many of them had the best time met new friends They stayed in touch with You could start if you wanted to kind of test the water before you think you know make up your mind about a ticket You could make some friends in advance ask some questions by joining the camp's Facebook group You just go for or just look for wet hot bad magic summer camp 2023 within Facebook it comes right up You can introduce yourself to the crew there,

and then yeah, see if it feels right to go sell it or not. And I haven't mentioned it in a while here. Camp is September 21st through the 24th. Thanks to everyone who's bought tickets, people still buying them, and it's gonna be blast. Now for an update from nearly divorced super sucker, Mont Van Busker, who traumatized his children with details from Skidmark's sex life. Mont writes, hello Van Busker, who traumatized his children with details from Skidmark's

sex life. Mont writes, Hello, Dan and crew, I'm writing this as a time suck update while I'm standing in a hot commercial building in St. George, Utah. I'm a commercial carpenter, and if you don't already know, it gets hot here, even in April. I was calling to tell you my first and hopefully last Cummins Law debacle. They'll set up 35 years old and a full-time college student, and about 32 hours per week, blue collar worker. My wife is a full-time student and a full-time employee of a drug rehabilitation center. She does all her school online, so she has time to work full-time.

Needless to say, we are trying everything we can to make life better for our sons. Man, hail Nairman, you guys are fucking inspiring. With this in mind, recently we needed to get a new vehicle and neither of us had ever had much. My old pickup being the nicest. We found we could make it work to get her a brand new car though big deal in our world. Yes congrats. Anyway, Bluetooth and cars was foreign to us and we both thought it was super cool to

connect our phones for music and calls. This is the issue. I was listening to the Jeff Lunggren suck, Jeffree Lunggren suck, in my pickup in front of my home about to leave. It's physically plugged into my truck stereo. Then my wife shows up and has to grab something from inside the house. She leaves my seven and nine year old in the car and then runs inside.

At that moment, my truck stops playing the episode as you start talking about Jeff's love of poop play. As I sit there trying to figure out what's going on, I see my son laughing and my son's laughing and waving at me. I wave back, I continue trying to figure out what's going on, my wife runs out of the house, heads to her car, opens the door and stands there, disgusted, and then just stares at me. It was that moment I realized my phone connected to the Bluetooth and my wife's car, and was blasting the podcast from my voice. Probably the fifth time in 10 years, my wife has lost her cool with me, and now I the podcast from my boys. Probably the fifth time in 10 years,

my wife has lost her cool with me. And now I've scarred my children. Needless to say, I had to do a lot of explaining. And ignorance of technology is not great in today's world. So yeah, I'm sure I will never hear the end of this. Anyway, figured someone could laugh at my stupidity. Thanks for making my days better and keep it up, Montvie. Mont, my God!

Of all the stuff I've talked about your kids could have hurt I mean, I least probably better than a lot of the brutal true crime depictions. I Hope that the I hope the exposure to scat play disgusted them and then they never want to you know be shit on in the bedroom or Shit on others and Good on you and your wife for working your asses off again, going to school, to improve your lives, better provide for your children, I mean working that much and going to school that much, how honorable, how inspirational again. I love it. Thank you for the messages, everybody who keeps sending them in.

Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Please do not exploit a massive geographical area for over a century so you can make more I need a net. We all did. Please do not exploit a massive geographical area for over a century so you can make more money on fruit this week. Just put up a net in your mouth, put this podcast in your ears, and keep on sucking. And magic production.

I would love a good moral excuse to never have to eat those nasty little fake vegetable grapes ever again.