In One Hundred Years of Solitude, author Gabriel Garcia Marquez introduces readers to the fictional Buendia family living in the Central American town of Macondo. Telling the story of six generations of the family, Garcia Marquez weaves a fantastical and dramatic tale, which eventually sold over 45 million copies. However, readers may be surprised to learn that some parts of the books are inspired by actual events. Though Macondo is a figment of the author’s imagination, its role as a “banana republic” and details of a massacre are shockingly true.
A Booming Business
Tropical fruits, particularly bananas, became increasingly popular in the United States near the end of the nineteenth century. Capitalizing on this rapid growth, the United Fruit Company was established in 1899 and created from a merger between two successful American businesses. The company soon had an extensive empire throughout Central and South America, utilizing the tropical environment to grow thousands of bananas and shipping them to the US and, eventually, globally.
As United Fruit grew, its influence expanded as well. The company was heavily involved in the development of “banana republics” in Latin America, which were generally unstable governments that were reliant on the production and export of bananas. These governments relied not only on bananas but often on funding from the companies producing them. Non-state actors such as United Fruit eventually played an ever-expanding role in the function and execution of politics in these countries. They selected officials, pushed for lawmaking that would benefit their business, and avoided taxation. In some cases, they even overthrew entire governments to install politicians who would look upon their business matters more favorably.
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Sign up to our Free Weekly NewsletterA great deal of United Fruit’s profits came at the expense of the environment and local workers. Swaths of rainforest were destroyed to plant bananas, and impoverished people were often forced from their homes as a result. Chemicals were applied to fight banana disease and pests without much regard for the surrounding area or its people.
United Fruit controlled all aspects of its supply chain, and this hold extended to workers’ lives. Workers were generally locals or poor immigrants. They were paid pitiful wages, often in vouchers instead of cash, and lived where they worked in housing provided by the company. Their entire lives revolved around their work, which was often seven days a week. Poor sanitation was rampant, and disease was common among banana workers.
Efforts to Bring Change
Workers in Colombia got tired of the oppression of working under United Fruit and decided to make efforts to change the status quo. In 1928, a strike committee was created in order to organize protest actions and coordinate workers. This led to the establishment of the Union Sindical de Trabajadores de Magdalena, the Magdalena Workers’ Union, or USTM. One of the new Union’s first actions was to create a list of requests and demands for workers, which was submitted to United Fruit.
The list included collective insurance, workers’ compensation, hygienic dwelling places and one day of rest during the week, a pay increase for the lower-paid workers, elimination of company commissaries and credit slips instead of wages, weekly paychecks, no subcontractors, and hospitals and sanitation. At the time, the Colombian United Fruit workforce, numbering 30,000 people, was paid biweekly in company credit.
Though these requests were not outlandish, particularly by today’s standards, the implementation of the changes would have drastically increased the production and operation costs of the United Fruit Company. The company’s officials decided to utilize their considerable political power to solve the threat to their profits that the USTM brought.
United Fruit Fights Back
United Fruit capitalized on the state of affairs in America, where, although years from the Cold War, communism was already seen as a worrisome threat to democracy everywhere. United Fruit officials used media contacts to paint the striking workers as communists who were threatening not only Colombia’s government but the democratic governments of the world.
When asked to comment on the uprising, United Fruit made claims that the strikers were part of a “subversive movement” and that the company had received no complaints from workers regarding conditions (Koeppel, 2008).
Throughout its history, United Fruit has had considerable influence over the United States government and the governments within its production countries. Colombia was no exception. The company pressured the Colombian government to intervene and, when they did not, recruited aid from the government of their home country.
Though President Calvin Coolidge was not well versed or very interested in foreign affairs, leaving those dealings to his cabinet members, he did desire to grow America’s commercial interests. US business involvement in Latin America was heavy during his term as president and sometimes included military support from the US government.
United Fruit leaned on the Coolidge administration for support during the strike and received it. US marines stationed off the shores of Colombia threatened to invade the country if the Colombian government refused to step up and stem the strike. Realizing the economic impact and military intimidation this threat potentially carried, the Colombian government decided to act as United Fruit desired. Martial law was declared on December 5 (Koeppel, 2008).
The Banana Massacre
The next day, December 6, a crowd gathered in the town of Cienaga. Though many in the throng were striking workers, they were not gathering to protest specifically. It was a Sunday, and many had just attended services at a nearby church and were waiting to hear a speech from the regional governor (Koeppel, 2008). Many believed that the USTM list of demands was to be discussed. In addition to United Fruit workers, the crowd included their families and children.
In addition to the gathered public, members of the Colombian military gathered. Rooftop machine gun positions were set up around the square, four in total, one at each corner of the public square (Koeppel, 2008). Led by General Carlos Cortes Vargas, who later claimed he was only acting to prevent an invasion by a foreign power, the soldiers gave an order for the square to be cleared within five minutes. Though they could see the soldiers and their firepower assembled, many in the crowd refused to believe that the army would fire at innocents and that the governor’s arrival would calm the increasingly chaotic scene. In addition, the number of people packed into the small area made it impossible for those who wanted to leave to do so (Koeppel, 2008).
The troops opened fire on the crowd of unarmed men, women, and children. The number of people killed is not known concretely, but estimates generally range from 1,000-3,000. The US ambassador to Colombia, Jefferson Caffery, proudly reported in a dispatch to Washington, “I have the honor to report…that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded one thousand.”
It is unknown what happened to the bodies of the slain, though some reports indicate that the military loaded the bodies on trains and disposed of them either in a mass grave or in the ocean. The massacre would shape the future of Colombia’s government, resulting in the eventual removal of the conservative status quo and the institution of a more liberal regime. Despite this, the United Fruit Company maintained a hold on the politics of the region.
The event, branded the masacre de las bananeras locally, was not extensively covered in the US media, though Colombian papers actively reported on it. No photos of the event exist, at least in the public realm. The president of Colombia, Miguel Abadia Mendez, tried to minimize any backlash on the Colombian government and military by blaming the event on unnamed “foreign agitators.”
Survivors gave their version of events publicly, including strike leader Raul Mahecha, who spoke publicly at events throughout South America. However, the event would not truly come to light on the global stage until the publication of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Though fictional and fantastical in many respects, the novel centers on a strikebreaking massacre that is based on the 1928 bloodbath.
Continuing Concerns
Though the banana massacre in Columbia occurred almost one hundred years ago, the issues surrounding the climactic event still persist into the twenty-first century. The issues that USTM brought to light regarding workers’ rights are still a matter of concern in many areas of the world to varying degrees. According to the Global Rights Index, there was a record-high level of workers’ rights violations in 2023, with 77% of countries preventing workers from union involvement. Violent attacks against protesting workers still take place while rights groups continue to make efforts to improve conditions globally.
United Fruit Company, now known as Chiquita, was never punished for its role in the massacre and continued to operate on Colombian soil. The massacre would not be the last time the company encouraged Colombian violence in the name of profits.
In 2007, Chiquita Bananas pleaded guilty in a court of law to charges of supporting terrorism. These charges were brought upon the discovery that the company was making long-term payments to the United Self-Defense Forces, also known as the AUC, in Colombia. The AUC is a right-wing paramilitary group that is known to be responsible for many violent attacks on human rights, including murders, displacement, and threats and received over 1.7 million dollars from Chiquita between 1997 and 2004.
However, these crimes are largely glossed over or simply unknown to the global public, which continues to help the banana maintain its place as the most popular fruit in the world. One hundred billion bananas are eaten globally each year, produced on backyard farms and corporate plantations alike, and ten billion of those are Chiquita bananas.
The company’s website currently touts its environmental protection actions, involvement in causes such as breast cancer awareness, and sustainability initiatives. Are these the actions of a company that has reformed itself, or one that should be finally held accountable by the public for its actions?
Reading List:
Koeppel, D. (2008). Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. Penguin Group.
