Those Yellow Things

We have seen commodities take over cultures (chocolate.) We have seen lands industrialize for them (sugar). We have seen them as a sort of trump card; an asset that can never be removed (that red dye I can't spell for the life of me.) Now, let's look at a commodity that took over whole countries.

At the very least, it was a way for companies like United Fruit to take over central American areas. It should be reminded that the U.F.'s meddling created what was essentially an entire infrastructure for a country; company towns, railroads, and ports were created for the banana. Even more interestingly is how the company mobilized the population itself. To a certain extent, the company did bring the comforts of Western civilization for at least some of its workers, using prefabricated towns to lure in perspective laborers and even using a medical wing to help treat problems like Malaria (not something frequently brought up in studies about U.F.) As Susan pointed out, the story does go deeper than your typical one class against another. That said, it would seem as though the company could play nice so long as everything was in their complete control. Since banana season, harvesting, and markets were much more volatile than crops like sugar cane, the big business of bananas became the population's only option for employment. We don't see big conflicts between them and the laborers until the unions get started and the droves of men and women become more organized.

Perhaps more interestingly (as Kirsten alluded to) is the fight against nature in banana growth. The parallel can be drawn to the red dye we saw earlier, but given that the battle was against disease rather than climate is intriguing. Perhaps again, the fungi that threatened the bananas can be seen as a threat to the company's control of the region, which in turn might explain the ever-increasing and drastic steps they took in attempting to contain outbreaks. Some of their attempts to take control might have also contributed to their callous reputation, with many workers receiving chemical burns for their tactics.