Banana Wars

Banana Wars

United States Marines taking control of Fort Riviere during the occupation of Haiti in 1915.
Objective Protect United States interests in Central America.
Date 1898 - 1934
Executed by  United States
For the 1934–1935 Banana war against U.S. monopolies and Central American countries see Union of Banana Exporting Countries.

The Banana Wars were a series of occupations, police actions, and interventions involving the United States in Central America and the Caribbean. This period started with the Spanish-American War in 1898[1] and the subsequent Treaty of Paris, which gave the United States control of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Between the time of the war with Spain and 1934, the United States conducted military operations and occupations in Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. The series of conflicts ended with the withdrawal of troops from Haiti and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy in 1934.

Contents

Origins

Reasons for these conflicts were varied but were largely economic in nature. The term "Banana Wars" arises from the connections between these interventions and the preservation of American commercial interests in the region. Most prominently, the United Fruit Company had significant financial stakes in production of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and various other products throughout the Caribbean, Central America and Northern South America. The U.S. was also advancing its political interests, maintaining a sphere of influence and controlling the Panama Canal which it had recently built, critically important to global trade and naval power.

Scope

Other Latin American nations were influenced or dominated by American economic policies and/or commercial interests to the point of coercion. Theodore Roosevelt declared the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, asserting the right of the United States to intervene to stabilize the economic affairs of states in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international debts. From 1909-1913, President William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox asserted a more "peaceful and economic" Dollar Diplomacy foreign policy, although that too was backed by force, as in Nicaragua.

American military

These military interventions were most often carried out by the United States Marine Corps. The Marines were called in so often that they developed a Small Wars Manual, The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars in 1921. On occasion, U.S. Naval gunfire and U.S. Army troops were also used.

Perhaps the single most active military officer in the Banana Wars was U.S. Marine Corps Major General, Smedley Butler, who saw action in Honduras in 1903, served in Nicaragua enforcing American policy from 1909–1912, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his role in Veracruz in 1914, and a second Medal of Honor for bravery while "crush(ing) the Caco resistance" in Haiti in 1915. In 1935, Butler wrote in his famous book War Is a Racket:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Other notable U.S. veterans of the Banana Wars include:

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ The banana wars: United States intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934 By Lester D. Langley, page 3
  2. ^ In a state speech in December 1903, President Roosevelt put the number of "revolutions, rebellions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks" in Panama at 53, within the space of 57 years. in "Theodore Roosevelt's third state of the union address":http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt%27s_Third_State_of_the_Union_Address
  3. ^ GILES A. HUBERT, WAR AND THE TRADE ORIENTATION OF HAITI, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1053341.pdf
  4. ^ http://www2.truman.edu/~marc/resources/interventions.html
  5. ^ a b http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars1900s/p/veracruz.htm.
  6. ^ http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37266/so-far-from-god-the-mexican-revolution-1913-1920

Notations