Natalie Nye - 150 YEARS OF BANANAS AND PEOPLE

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WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY NATALIE NYE




This is Minor Keith. He's the man responsible for making bananas what they are to you and me today. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1848.

In 1871, he was ...which put Keith invited to move to officially in charge of Costa Rica, where he would help the project. his uncle build a railroad from the Caribbean coast at the Port of LimĂłn to the capital city, San JosĂŠ. It was a really dangerous project, and thousands of men died, including Henry Meiggs, Keith's uncle...


BANANAS FIRST SEEN IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION, PEOPLE GO NUTS OVER THEM

1876

KEITH PLANTS BANANA TREES ALONG RAILROAD TRACKS TO FEED WORKERS

1873 RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION BEGINS

1871


Nearly 5,000 men died working on the railroad in that thick jungle - of heat exhaustion, malaria, you name it. Keith ran out of Costa Rican volunteers, so he brought immigrants from Jamaica, Italy, and China, and Louisianian prisoners to Costa Rica to finish the work.


The railroad was almost Turns out keith wasn't the a huge failure. only guy from the USA who had discovered this gold mine. After twenty years of construction, nobody even wanted to ride the dang thing! Things were looking even more rough for Keith When the Costa Rican government failed to pay him. So they settled on giving him 99 years of jurisdiction over the railroad's operations and 3,200 km of land instead. Lucky for Keith, that ended up being the perfect recipe for success when he discovered the railroad didn't need to carry passengers at all; it was much more suited for exporting bananas!

Keith combined forces with a few other little banana startups, and the group of men together became the notoriously powerful United Fruit Company.

UNITED FRUIT COMPANY OFFICIALLY FOUNDED

1899

1890 RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE

The Company absorbed competition with ease and quickly controlled almost the entire emerging banana industry.


S.S. VENUS, THE WORLD'S FIRST

REFRIGERATED PRODUCE SHIP, SETS SAIL FOR THE U.S.A. WITH A NICE BIG LOAD OF FRESH BANANAS

1903

1904

BANANA SPLIT INVENTED IN LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA

PANAMA DISEASE (FUSARIUM OXISPORUM) FIRST APPEARS IN PANAMANIAN PLANTATIONS, THOUSANDS OF ACRES OF LAND ABANDONED U.S.A. INVADES NICARAGUA

1903 U.S.A. INVADES HONDURAS

1907

U.S.A. INVADES CUBA

1906


U.S.A. INVADES HAITI

1914 1918 1915

U.S.A. INVADES HONDURAS, CUBA, AND PANAMA

1912

U.S.A. INVADES THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

1917 U.S.A. INVADES CUBA

COLOMBIAN BANANA WORKERS GO ON STRIKE, UNSUCCESSFUL


CORNFLAKES AND BANANA SLICES POPULARIZED IN UNITED FRUIT RECIPE BOOK

1922

1924

UNITED FRUIT USES DISCARDED BANANAS TO MAKE BANANA CHIPS

UNITED FRUIT PUBLISHES TEXTBOOKS PROMOTING BANANA CONSUMPTION, DISTRIBUTES THEM IN SCHOOLS ALL OVER THE U.S.A.

1929

1929

COLOMBIAN BANANA MASSACRE, STRIKING UNION WORKERS MURDERED

This is El Pulpo orThe Octopus. It's a nickname for the United Fruit Company coined by Latin Americans, the people most affected by its tentacles.


1935

BORDEAUX MIXTURE, CHEMICAL SPRAY THAT CONTROLS DISEASE, INTRODUCED TO BANANA CROPS

HONDURAN PLANTATIONS THREATENED BY NEW FUNGUS, SIGATOKA (MYCOSPHAERELLA FIJIENSIS)

Okay, we're switching gears now! It's biology time. Commercial bananas are grown in monocultures. This means that they are planted row by row, shoulder to shoulder, and for miles and miles, they are the only crop in the entire plot of land. It's like this drawing, but times a million. These bananas don't have seeds. They don't have the chance to reproduce sexually because humans do it for them. Each of these bananas started from the same original plant,

1935 as parts chopped off and replanted over and over again in new spots. While it might seem like this method makes bananas essentially infinite and invinsible, exactly the opposite is true, because it also means that each banana is genetically identical to the one next to it...

...which means that each plant has the exact same ability or inability to resist diseases. If one banana gets it, all of them get it.

Agrochemicals do not spare the lives that get in their way. They are used to kill diseases, but that doesn't mean they don't kill people too. Families, schools, workers...everybody is vulnerable near a banana plantation. Skin discoloration, birth defects in children, infertility, temporary loss of consciousness...there's no avoiding the horror. But we must protect the banana.


MISS CHIQUITA BANANA FIRST APPEARS IN BANANA ADVERTISING

1944


1951

JACOBO ÁRBENZ ELECTED LEADER OF GUATEMALA, PROMISES REFORM TO HIS PEOPLE, ALLOCATES UNUSED LAND TO PEASANTS, UNITED FRUIT FORCES HIM TO RESIGN

HONDURAN STRIKE, 21 PERCENT WAGE RAISE

BOXED BANANAS INTRODUCED TO THE MARKET

1950

1955


ELVIS PRESLEY POPULARIZES THE PEANUT BUTTER AND BANANA SANDWICH

1960

1960 GROS MICHEL BANANA OFFICIALLY EXTINCT

OBITUARY GROS MICHEL The last of our beloved, Gros Michel, passed away tonight due to complications with Panama Disease. The first banana to be grown and exported to the United States, enjoyed by many, Michel will be missed dearly. The extinction was long foreseen, as Panama Disease has threatened Gros Michel plantations everywhere for years.

Luckily, scientists have been working hard to develop a new variety of banana that is more resistant to this disease. So, don't get too worried. Your hungry tummies will still be filled with nanners. This new banana is called the Cavendish, and we will be fighting to keep this one alive with all the chemicals we can get our hands on.


There are actually thousands of varieties of banana on this planet! The Cavendish is just one variety, and it happens to be the one that can be purchased today at almost any grocery store in the U.S.A. Just like the Gros Michel, though, the life of the Cavendish isn't guaranteed forever. Powerful fungi continue to show up on banana plantations in Latin America, and monoculture makes it super easy for them to completely devour the crop and the land.

DEPARTMENT STORE, BANANA REPUBLIC, IS FOUNDED

1978

1979

1974

AGROCHEMICAL, DBCP, BANNED IN THE sTATES, CONTINUES TO BE SPRAYED ON CROPS IN LATIN AMERICA

HURRICANE FIFI DESTROYS MAJORITY OF HONDURAN PLANTATIONS, THOUSANDS OF WORKERS LOSE JOBS MEN BEGIN TO REPORT TESTICULAR DAMAGE FROM EXPOSURE TO AGROCHEMICALS


TERM, BANANA HAMMOCK, COINED

1990 So what actually is a banana republic? A banana republic is a country or nation whose economy depends on banana exportation. But let's Without money from the U.S.A., banana republics can't not forget who established that system for them. support themselves easily. United Fruit hooked up Central and South American countries with a bunch of sweet infrastructure like railroads, telephone wires, radio towers, systems that conveniently worked totally in the Company's favor...

...in exhange for land, work, control, and total dependence.


U.S. BANANA CONSUMPTION REACHES ONE HUNDRED PER PERSON PER YEAR

1999 1993 COSTA RICAN BANANA WORKERS COME FORWARD WITH EVIDENCE OF INFERTILITY DUE TO USE OF AGROCHEMICALS, LAWSUIT AGAINST UNITED FRUIT

1998

WORLD'S LARGEST BANANA PROCESSING PLANT OPENED IN COSTA RICA


GWEN STEFANI'S HIT SINGLE,

HOLLABACK GIRL, RELEASED (IT'S BANANAS B.A.N.A.N.A.S.)

2005

2009 CHIQUITA SUES BANANAS! DOCUMENTARY


RECORD BROKEN FOR MOST BANANAS PEELED AND EATEN IN UNDER A MINUTE (EIGHT)

2010

MAURIZIO CATTELAN DUCT TAPES A SINGLE BANANA TO THE WALL OF AN ART GALLERY AND SELLS IT FOR 120,000 DOLLARS

2011 SEVEN GUATEMALAN BANANA UNION WORKERS MURDERED

2019



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