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In 1901, the government of Guatemala hired the United Fruit Company to manage the country's postal service, and in 1913 the United Fruit Company created the Tropical Radio and Telegraph Company. By 1930, it had absorbed more than 20 rival firms, acquiring a capital of $215 million and becoming the largest employer in Central America.
In May 1952, Árbenz enacted Decree 900, the official title of the Guatemalan agrarian reform law. [24] Approximately 500,000 people benefited from the decree. [25] The United Fruit Company lost several hundred thousand acres of its uncultivated land to this law, and the compensation it received was based on the undervalued price it had presented to the Guatemalan government for tax purposes. [17]
The United Fruit Company was formed on March 30, 1899, the result of a merger between the nearly bankrupt Tropical Trading and Transport Company and Boston Fruit. On its formation, United Fruit
By 1950, the United Fruit Company's (now Chiquita) annual profits were 65 million U.S. dollars, [b] twice as large as the revenue of the government of Guatemala. [54] The company was the largest landowner in Guatemala, [ 55 ] and virtually owned Puerto Barrios , Guatemala's only port to the Atlantic , allowing it to profit from the flow of ...
In response the US-based United Fruit Company, which had large landholdings in Guatemala, intensively lobbied the US government for Árbenz's overthrow. [12] [13] US President Dwight Eisenhower authorized a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation to overthrow Árbenz, code-named Operation PBSuccess in August 1953. [14]
In 1913, Zemurray bought back the portion of his company owned by United Fruit, a transaction that was made possible by increasing anti-trust pressure on United Fruit from the United States government. [2] Fully in control of the company, he expanded by buying 20 ships by 1915 that were outfitted with refrigerated holds.
The Northern Railroad of Guatemala was a railway system that ran from Guatemala City to Puerto Barrios, the main port of Guatemala, between 1896 and 1968.The American United Fruit Company had the monopoly of the railway system through its affiliate, International Railways of Central America (IRCA), along with the docks at Puerto Barrios, the banana plantations in Izabal and the cargo and ...
By the 1930s, the United Fruit Company owned 1,400,000 hectares (3.5 million acres) of land in Central America and the Caribbean and was the single largest landowner in Guatemala. Such holdings gave it great power over the governments of small countries, one of the factors confirming the suitability of the phrase "banana republic".