Central America 1909
Central America Map 1909.
The United Fruit Company (UFCO) (1899-1970), known as the Frutera, the Pulpo or the Yunai (in Costa Rica), was a US multinational commercial firm, founded in 1899, from the merger of Minor C. Keith's banana-trading concerns with Andrew W. Preston's Boston Fruit Company.
The company produced and marketed tropical fruits (mainly bananas) cultivated in Latin America, and that during the twentieth century became a political and economic force in many countries in the region (the so-called "banana republics"), decisively influencing governments and parties to maintain their operations with the greatest possible margin of profits, to the extreme of sponsoring coups and bribing politicians.
Map cropped from a United Fruit Company's map titled "Central America, the West Indies South America and portions of the United States and Mexico" produced in 1909.
