Banana Massacre Of Colombia Essay

The Banana Massacre of Colombia started out as a strike for better pay, and for less working hours. What started out as a delegation for Colombian banana workers quickly became a 2 months long strike, which managed to unify the United Fruit workers of Colombia. On December 5th, 1928, the Colombian Army opened fire on the crowd of strikers, killing an untold amount. In spite of the demands ultimately failing by means of gunfire, the rapid unionization of thousands of United Fruit Company laborers shook the company. In response to this, United Fruit Company ramped up their efforts to divide their multiethnic, multinational workforce through establishing a new racial hierarchy, this time, amongst the laborers themselves. United Fruit utilized

This was accomplished through inhibiting the integration of West Indian workers into the social fabric of Central American society by means of propagating and maintaining both linguistic and physical barriers between the two demographics. This was done in order to pivot the bulk of the mounting tension away from United Fruit, and onto issues of nationalism and race. The presence of West Indians within the Central American subcontinent was a product of eugenics, slavery, and United Fruit ambition. The theory of Eugenics(the concept of producing a master race by breeding humans) dictated that those of African descent were geared for hard labor, which eventually led to the importation of thousands of West Indians into Central America. The West Indians who were brought to Central America often lived in segregated barrios, which were company towns constructed by United Fruit in order to accommodate their West Indian workers; this explains

United Fruit provided them with year-long employment opportunities, and land. Combined with the relative degree of physical and cultural isolation from the natives, West Indians never integrated into Central American society; they essentially Africanized a foreign nation, while managing to propel themselves above the natives in the hierarchy. This incited anti-black sentiments, which was reflected in a multitude of anti black laws ratified in the 1930s and