Conquest of the Tropics: The Story of the Creative Enterprises Conducted by the United Fruit Company [Paperback]

Frederick Upham Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2004

1914. Illustrated. An examination of The United Fruit Company in Central America and the incredible power it held over whole nations offers many insights into turn-of-the-century economic imperialism as well as gleanings into the Central American Republics, Columbia and Cuba. In recent American history, the United Fruit Company is among those enterprises most closely identified with Yankee Imperialism in Latin America. Founded in 1899, they grew to become the largest employer in Central America by 1930, having been granted vast tracts of jungle to clear and develop by friendly governments. Contents: Our Neglected Tropical Neighbors; The Modest but Mighty Banana; Attacking the Wilderness; Laying the Foundations; Birth of the United Fruit Company; Growth of a Great Enterprise; Twelve Years of Creative Work; In the Wake of Columbus; Where the Banana is King; In Beautiful Costa Rica; The Awakening of Guatemala; Along the Coast of South America; Exploring the Sugar Bowl of Cuba; Health Conquest of the Tropics; An International Tropical Farm; Lessons Taught by the Banana.

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt - Our Neglected Tropical Neighbors:

It is a peculiar and mysterious trait of a considerable portion of the people of the United States that they know little and seem to care little about their national neighbors to the tropical south. This is a regrettable, expensive, and inexcusable fault. Our insular indifference concerning the sentiments, problems, and aspirations of the southern peoples on this continent is construed by them to imply contempt. This has engendered in most of Latin America a feeling of resentment, suspicion, and unfriendliness toward the United States. It certainly is not an asset to acquire and retain the ill-will of those who should be allied with us in ties of friendly intercourse. The plain truth of the matter is that we have over-cultivated and over-expressed an attitude of self-sufficiency. We are so sure that the United States is the greatest country in the world that we are inclined at times to act as if it were the only country in the world. Some of us are so narrow that we find it impossible to understand why a citizen of the United States cares to live or dares to invest a dollar outside of the confines of his native country. The broad spirit of initiative and enterprise recognizes no national lines.

The great nations of history are those which encouraged their citizens to go out into the world and develop it commercially and industrially. Carthage was great because of citizens who dared to be the pioneers in the developments which created its stupendous commerce. Spain became great because of merchants who followed fast on the heels of her military adventurers, and because of colonies which sprung up in all parts of the world. Great Britain is great because her sons have been trained for centuries to know and act on the truth that there are no geographical boundaries and no national limitations to the enterprise of a British subject....

Excerpt - The Modest but Mighty Banana:

I retain a fairly vivid recollection of eating my first banana. It was in 1876, and I, then a youngster, was visiting the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia with my father as guide and treasurer. When a young man, my father had spent some time in the tropical sections of Central America and the West Indies, and I had often heard him talk of revelling in bananas and other fruits of those then fever-stricken districts.

On the afternoon of the day when I encountered my first imported banana we had visited the horticultural department of the great exposition, and there was then pointed out to me one of the leading attractions of that exhibit, a scrubby banana tree from beneath whose fronds actually grew a diminutive bunch of bananas. My recollection is that this was part of the government exhibit. In any event it was surrounded by a crowd of spectators, most of whom would have been delighted to have plucked a banana, a strip of bark, or even a bit of the earth which

surrounded its roots in the huge box which served that purpose. The craze for the collection of ‘souvenirs,’ regardless of property rights or possible damage, was then already in vogue, though it had not suck its victims to such deplorable depths of peculation as at present.

An attendant restrained the bolder of those who longed to touch or dissect this banana tree which was doing its feeble best under artificial conditions far removed from its native habitat. To my young and impressionable mid this was the most romantic of all the innumerable things I had seen in any of the vast buildings. It was the tangible, living, and expressive symbol of the far-distant and mysterious tropics. I had seen pictures of banana trees in text and Sunday-school books, and I had derived from the pleasing but --as I have learned--inaccurate information that the fortunate natives of the tropics have nothing to do but roam the flowery glades and live on bananas. I had no difficulty in picturing such natives lounging beneath the small banana tree now before me, and I conjured from my imagination a boa constrictor emerging from the surrounding jungle and making away with a swarthy savage who was about to pluck his evening meal from the ripened bunch of bananas.

I presume my father was the only one there who had ever seen bananas growing in the tropics. He explained to me the difference this hot-house product and that of the warm and humid coast lands near the equator, and as he talked the throng gathered about him and asked questions...

End excerpt -- rest assured, the young man tasted his first banana later that day. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 380 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing (December 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417914726
• ISBN-13: 978-1417914722
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,273,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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