Worst American Birthdays, vol. 38

Before there were the Worst American Birthdays, there was Forgotten American Bastard Blogging, which established the standard for the genre. A little more than a year ago, Erik offered some thoughts on Sam Zemurray that are worth recalling on what would be the banana kingpin’s 131st birthday.

Working closely with Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, Zemurray and [the United Fruit Company] destroyed labor unions, gained signficant land concessions, and increasingly worked the CIA to undermine any smidgen of opposition to the Ubico regime. Ubico had been installed by the US in 1930 and in fact, for most Guatemalans, United Fruit and the United States were the same thing. A 1934 uncovered coup plot allowed Ubico to militarize his regime, something fully supported by Zemurray, United, and the Roosevelt administration. Zemurray worked closely with the powerful businessman John Foster Dulles, later Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower, to gain ever more lucrative contracts and create ties to the US government in case things went sour in Central America.

The US demand for bananas, which soon became one of the cheapest fruits on the market, also spawned widespread environmental destruction. Millions of acres of native jungle were destroyed to provide for bananas, decimating wildlife populations. The monocultures that replaced the jungle became susceptible to diseases such as Panama disease and Sigatoka disease. Today, much of that original Cuyamel and United land cannot support bananas. When I traveled on the North Coast of Honduras a few years ago, I saw miles and miles of palm oil plantations where jungle and then bananas once grew. In addition, nasty chemicals were used to fight off Sigatoka, exposing workers, animals, and water supplies to chemical pollution.

Inspiring legacy.