What Is a Banana Republic? Definition and Examples
https://www.thoughtco.com/banana-republic-definition-4776041

- Latin American History
- American History
- African American History
- African History
- Ancient History and Culture
- Asian History
- European History
- Genealogy
By
Updated on November 19, 2019
A banana republic is a politically unstable country with an economy dependent entirely on revenue from exporting a single product or resource, such as bananas or minerals. It is generally considered a derogatory term describing countries whose economies are controlled by foreign-owned companies or industries.
Key Takeaways: Banana Republic
- A banana republic is any politically unstable country that generates most or all of its revenue from exporting a single product, such as bananas.
- The economies—and to an extent the governments—of banana republics are controlled by foreign-owned companies.
- Banana republics are characterized by highly stratified socioeconomic structure, with unequal distribution of wealth and resources.
- The first banana republics were created in the early 1900s by multinational American corporations, such as the United Fruit Company, in depressed Central American countries.
Banana Republic Definition
The term “banana republic” was coined in 1901 by American author O. Henry in his book “Cabbages and Kings” to describe Honduras while its economy, people, and government were being exploited by the American-owned United Fruit Company.
The societies of banana republics are typically highly stratified, consisting of a small ruling-class of business, political, and military leaders, and a larger impoverished working-class.
By exploiting the labors of the working class, the oligarchs of the ruling-class control the primary sector of the country’s economy, such as agriculture or mining. As a result, “banana republic” has become a derogatory term used to describe a corrupt, self-serving dictatorship that solicits and takes bribes from foreign corporations for the right to exploit large-scale agricultural operations—like banana plantations.
Examples of Banana Republics
Banana republics typically feature highly stratified social orders, with depressed economies dependent solely on a few export crops. Both agricultural land and personal wealth are unequally distributed. During the early 1900s, multinational American corporations, sometimes aided by the United States government took advantage of these conditions to build banana republics in Central American countries such as Honduras and Guatemala.
Honduras
In 1910, the American-owned Cuyamel Fruit Company bought 15,000 acres of agricultural land on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. At the time, banana production was dominated by the American-owned United Fruit Company, Cuyamel Fruit’s main competitor. In 1911, Cuyamel Fruit’s founder, American Sam Zemurray, along with American mercenary Gen. Lee Christmas, orchestrated a successful coup d’etat that replaced the elected government of Honduras with a military government headed by General Manuel Bonilla—a friend of foreign businesses.

The 1911 coup d’etat froze the Honduran economy. The internal instability allowed foreign corporations to act as the de-facto rulers of the country. In 1933, Sam Zemurray dissolved his Cuyamel Fruit Company and assumed control of its rival United Fruit Company. United Fruit soon became the sole employer of the Honduran people and took complete control of the country’s transportation and communications facilities. So complete was the company’s control over the agricultural, transportation, and political infrastructure of Honduras, the people came to call the United Fruit Company “El Pulpo”—The Octopus.
Today, Honduras remains the prototypical banana republic. While bananas remain an important part of the Honduran economy, and workers still complain of being mistreated by their American employers, another product aimed at American consumers has become a challenger—cocaine. Because of its central location on the drug smuggling route, much of the cocaine bound for the United States either comes from or passes through Honduras. With the drug traffic comes violence and corruption. The murder rate is among the highest in the world, and the Honduran economy remains depressed.
Guatemala
During the 1950s, the United Fruit Company played on Cold War fears in trying to convince U.S. Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower that popularly elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was secretly working with the Soviet Union to advance the cause of Communism, by nationalizing vacant “fruit company lands” and reserving it for the use of landless peasants. In 1954, President Eisenhower authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to carry out Operation Success, a coup d’etat in which Guzmán was deposed and replaced by a pro-business government under Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas. With the cooperation of the Armas government, the United Fruit Company profited at the expense of the Guatemalan people.

During the bloody Guatemalan Civil War from 1960 to 1996, the country’s government consisted of a series of U.S.-backed military juntas hand-picked to serve the interests of the United Fruit Company. More than 200,000 people—83% of them ethnic Mayans—were murdered over the course of the 36-year-long civil. According to a 1999 U.N.-backed report, the various military governments were responsible for 93% of the human rights violations during the civil war.
Guatemala still suffers from its banana republic legacy of social inequality in terms of the distribution of land and wealth. Just 2% of the country’s farming companies control nearly 65% of the agricultural land. According to the World Bank, Guatemala ranks as the fourth most unequal country in Latin America and the ninth in the world. Over half of the Guatemalan people live below the poverty line, while corruption and drug-related violence retard economic development. Coffee, sugar, and bananas remain the country’s main products, 40% of which are exported to the United States.
Sources and Further Reference
- “Where did banana republics get their name?” The Economist. (Nov. 2013).
- Chapman, Peter. (2007). “Bananas. How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World.” Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-881-1.
- Acker, Alison. (1988). “Honduras. The Making of a Banana Republic.” Toronto: Between the Lines. ISBN 978-0-919946-89-7.
- Rozak, Rachel. “The Truth Behind Banana Republic.” University of Pittsburg. (March 13, 2017).
- “Guatemala: Memory of Silence.” Commission for Historical Clarification. (1999).
- Justo, Marcelo. “What are the 6 most unequal countries in Latin America?” BBC News (March 9, 2016).
WHAT IS A WITCH HUNT?

Witch-hunt
/ˈwiCHˌ(h)ənt/

noun
- 1.a search for and subsequent persecution of a supposed witch.historical
- ▪a campaign directed against a person or group holding unorthodox or unpopular views.historical
Witch-hunt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
“Witch hunt” and “Witch trial” redirect here. For other uses, see Witch hunt (disambiguation) and Witch trial (disambiguation).
Burning of three “witches” in Baden, Switzerland (1585), by Johann Jakob Wick
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions.[a][1] The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today.
In current language, “witch-hunt” metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, and so on, but with the real purpose of intimidating political opponents.[2] It can also involve elements of moral panic[3] or mass hysteria.[4]
The woman who stood up to a witch-hunt
By Louise Yeoman
BBC Scotland
- Published10 November 2019
bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50330147
Share

Would you have stood up to a witch-hunt? In 1597, a Glasgow woman called Marion Walker did just that, taking on the most powerful and vengeful men in the land.
Marion Walker used the methods of the modern day whistleblower. She obtained, copied and leaked documents. She wanted the guilty held to account for the horrors of the Glasgow witch-hunt, a shocking miscarriage of justice even by the standards of the day.
We know more about her thanks to Dr Daniel MacLeod of the University of Manitoba. He came across Marion as he researched the networks of resistance of the city’s Catholics.
“She’s a clear and active resister of the new Protestant religion over three decades,” Dr MacLeod says.
“She’s a widow, she’s not wealthy but she’s got an ability to be heard.”
Marion was not afraid to take on any foolhardy minister who dared to upbraid her.
https://buy.tinypass.com/checkout/template/cacheableShow?aid=tYOkq7qlAI&templateId=OTBYI8Q89QWC&templateVariantId=OTV0YFYSXVQWV&offerId=fakeOfferId&experienceId=EXAWX60BX4NU&iframeId=offer_0e763acc7b457c03340a-0&displayMode=inline&widget=template&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com

Her Glasgow wasn’t like Glasgow today. For one thing, says Dr MacLeod, it was tiny, “maybe even half the size of modern day Fort William”.
Yet it became the stage for one of the worst excesses of the Scottish witch-hunt.
Innocent people were being falsely accused by an utterly bogus witch-finder and put to death.
The witch-finder was also a woman – the so-called “Great Witch of Balwearie”, Margaret Aitken.
She’d been arrested for witchcraft in Fife and tried to save her skin by claiming she could identify other witches just by looking in their eyes.
The authorities, including King James VI, saw her as a new super-weapon in the war on Satan, and soon terrified Glaswegians were being led out in front of this desperate individual. People were being strangled and burned at the stake because of her evidence.

Then as the witch-hunt went on, someone had a bright idea. Take the people Margaret condemned one day and bring them back the next in different clothes and a different order. The great witch turned witch-finder failed to recognise them, condemning and exonerating a different selection.
It dawned on the ministers and magistrates that what they really had was a horrifying fraud. They’d killed people for nothing. They ran for cover.
And this is where Marion stepped up. She wasn’t going to let the ministers get away with this, particularly not John Cowper, the Great Witch’s most zealous promoter. Cowper was a thin-skinned vengeful individual.
“He was not very popular” says Dr MacLeod. “But I think he did a lot of it to himself.”
Marion wanted to take him down. Through her networks of resistance she managed to get her hands on the most incriminating document of all, the final confession of the Great Witch herself where she pointed her finger at Cowper and blamed him for all that he had done. The church wanted to hush it up – so Marion circulated it.
Cowper was livid. Thanks to Marion, the confession was passing hand-to-hand, making sure Glaswegians knew exactly who to blame for the deaths of their innocent friends and relatives. To strike back at her, he mobilised his fellow ministers to back him up.
According to Dr MacLeod: “The presbytery passed this act threatening the branks for any who blamed the ministry of the city for putting to death the persons lately executed for witchcraft.”

The branks were literally a gag – the scold’s bridle – with a metal cage for the head and often with a prong to stop the mouth. But in the end they backed off. They didn’t dare gag Marion.
“It would go on almost a cycle,” said Dr MacLeod. “Marion would ‘slander’ Cowper, he would call her before the presbytery and it would go on like that, but the root of it was this confession and her role in passing it around.”
But wasn’t Marion putting herself in danger of being prosecuted as a witch?
Dr MacLeod thinks people were a bit more sophisticated than that.
“They knew she wasn’t a witch but a defender of wrongfully-accused women,” he said.
Marion lived to fight another day against the Protestant ministry. She became a prominent supporter of the Jesuit, John Ogilvy, who was eventually martyred, but despite being linked to him by multiple witnesses she survived that too.
In the fevered religious environment of the time, it took courage to harbour a hunted man.
Dr MacLeod said: “A lot of times when we think about women in the early modern religious context we think of this quiet, meek kind of devotion but that is not Marion Walker.”