AboutPaul Walcutt Expertise I am a lifelong student of history with a BA from Haverford College. My areas of concentration and expertise are Latin America and Europe, with a focus on the 20th century.
Question When I was in boot camp we were told a little about the tactics of the so called Banana wars of the Marine Corps but we were not told what they were about or why we were sent into those countries.
They were Nicaragua 1912, Veracruz, Mexico 1914, Haiti 1915 and Dominican Republic 1916. We stayed in the Dominican Republic until 1926 and Haiti until 1935. I do not know how long we were in those other places.
Perhaps the invasion of Cuba in 1898 ought to be added.
Can You tell me the cause of these invasions?
I have been able to read on the internet something of the cause of the Spanish-American war of 1898 with the Spanish ambassador embarrassing President McKinley by publishing a letter in a newspaper telling his opinion that McKinley was incompetent. But all I have been able to find on the other wars was a report on war atrocities done by the Marines on Hispaniola Island - the Dominican side I think.
Anything You can tell me would be appreciated.
Answer Sorry for the delay; I just started the semester on Monday.
The term comes from "Banana Republics", a term used to describe the small nations in and around the Caribbean, whose main source of income during the period was from agriculture (namely Bananas, coffee and sugar).
Essentially the Banana Wars served two aims: to stabilize the countries politically and economically. However, one might argue that political "stabilization" amounted to American control over regimes that were impediments to our political/economic goals. When we didn't like what a regime was doing or found in ineffective (and destructive to American business interests - American Fruit Company, etc.), we rolled in with the Marines and established puppet governments or direct American control. This arguably had some positive effects (as in Haiti's remarkable economic growth during our occupation) but mostly negative ones (suppression of democratic movements and the opposition, war crimes, etc.) especially in Nicaragua, where we eventually installed the Somozas who ruled brutally until the 70s.
The second cause of the interventions, in my opinion, was America's quest to establish its own empire, since it had missed out on the colonization of the Third World. Since the creation of the Monore Doctrine, which essentially kept Europeans from intervening in the Western Hemisphere, we tended to think of the Caribbean as "our pond." As the masters of the house, we could do whatever we wanted without regard to autonomous nation-states.
I think you could put the Spanish American war in this category of actions. My understanding of the the Spanish American War was that it was actually precipitated by the torpedoing of the USS Maine in Havana harbor (of which has been suggested was a conspiracy by the Americans to start the war). But the letter might have created the sentiment that led to the war. Several American newspaper editors/owners were certainly pro-war (Horace Greely comes to mind), primarily because they knew that we could easily take Spain's remaining Caribbean possesions (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands). (There had been discussion of adding Cuba as a state since before the Civil War, but this was mainly a desire of the Slave states who wanted to add to their numbers in Congress.)
