Samuel Zemurray (nicknamed "Sam the Banana Man"; born January 18, 1877 in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russian Empire, present-day Chişinău, Moldova; died November 30, 1961 in New Orleans, Louisiana) was a U.S. businessman who made his fortune in the banana trade. He founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and later became head of the United Fruit Company, the world's most influential fruit company at the time. Both companies played highly controversial roles in the history of several Latin American countries and had a significant influence on their economic and political development.
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Zemurray's original name was Schmuel Zmurri. He was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russian Empire (present-day Chişinău, Moldova) to a poor Jewish family that emigrated to America when he was fourteen years old. Zemurray had no formal education. He entered the banana trade in Mobile, Alabama in 1895, at the age of eighteen. His early wealth was largely due to a very successful venture in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he bought the bananas that had ripened in the transport ships and then sold them locally. His success earned him the nickname "Sam the Banana Man." By age twenty-one he had banked $100,000. He later bought a steamship and went to Honduras. In 1910, he bought 5,000 acres (20 km²) of land along the Cuyamel River. He later added more land and found himself heavily in debt.
Honduras and Nicaragua at the time were working to reschedule their debts. United States Secretary of State Philander C. Knox was involved in the negotiations, which would have agents of bankers J.P. Morgan and Company sitting in the countries' customs offices to collect the taxes needed to repay the debt. Zemurray feared that he would be taxed out of business and appealed to Knox for help. Knox spurned him so he returned to New Orleans, where deposed Honduran president Manuel Bonilla was living. Zemurray smuggled Bonilla back to Honduras and a revolution was fought that led to Bonilla's return to power. Bonilla granted Zemurray land concessions and low taxes that saved his business.
In 1930, Zemurray sold his company, Cuyamel Fruit, to the rival United Fruit Company of Boston, Massachusetts, for $31.5 million in stock and retired. But the company suffered because of mismanagement and the Great Depression. The stock plunged 90% from when he sold, so Zemurray returned to the business in 1933 by voting out the board of directors. Zemurray reorganized the company, decentralizing decision-making and made the company profitable once more.
In 1953, The U.S. State Department and United Fruit embarked on a major public relations campaign to convince the American people and the rest of the U.S. government that Guatemala was a Soviet "satellite". Zemurray authorized Edward Bernays to launch a propaganda campaign against Jacobo Arbenz, democratically-elected president of Guatemala, for he had proposed to redistribute some of the unused land owned by the United Fruit Co., to make it available for farming. In 1954 the campaign succeeded and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated a coup that eventually led to the 36-year Guatemalan Civil War which left over 200.000 people dead. Zemurray retired as president of United Fruit later that year.
He and his family made generous donations to Tulane University, Zamorano, and to other philanthropic ventures, including the Zionist movement through his personal acquaintance, beginning in the 1920s, with Chaim Weizmann. Zemurray supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies, helping to draft the Agricultural Adjustment Administration industry codes [1], and contributed financially to left-wing causes such as The Nation magazine [2]. He created the Zemurray Foundation in 1951. His former mansion on Audubon Place is now the residence of Tulane's president. His daughter, Doris Zemurray Stone, an archaeologist and ethnographer, served as the director of the National Museum of Costa Rica and endowed various professorial chairs in U.S. universities.
Zemurray died in New Orleans, where he had lived for most of his life.