At the turn of the 20th Century, the U.S was able to expand their territories through military interventions, diplomatic negotiations and having an economic influence. They were able to achieve this by using the concept of the “ Manifest Destiny” which meant it was a “ god given right” for them to expand in which they obtained by the Spanish-American war that led to significant take over of Latin American countries.
The podcasters of “Throughline” describe Minor Keith’s business relations with Central American countries as “ American Colonialism” because he used his business relations through railroads, plantations of bananas and cargo shipping. Minor Keith was seen as a privileged rich man from New York who desperately wanted to be a successful entrepreneur which led him to wanting to try railroads but ultimately led him to look at other business opportunity’s outside of the U.S. he decided on Costa Rica to build his railroad but the conditions were extremely dangerous and work conditions were awful to the extreme heat and the opportunity of more illnesses/diseases, and jungle trees falling on the locals due to heavy rain and cutting the jungle down by hand. He stopped at nothing to keep trying to recruit anyone and everyone to build this railroad.Even after seeing a lot of the workers die and get sick and the locals give up on building because they did not want to die he just wanted to keep going. Minor Keith was able to build this relationship with the Costs Rican government on his plan to build the railroad that didn’t go well. It was still able to win the people over and continue to convince them to let him keep trying in which he started the banana plantations and also being the founder of one of the biggest companies which is United Fruits. He then was known for helping Costa Rica move transport their coffee across Europe which helped him gain a lot of points with Costa Rica, they viewed him as an important figure/patriarch, his takeover is similar to how government decided to do a lot of their interventions And inserting themselves which could be seen as “ American colonialism” in which I agree. You have this person from America who has money and knowledge and desperately wanted to be successful in something and also the realization how much Costa Rica wanted to industrialize their country. There isn’t much of a difference between him and the federal governments interventions. Although he did good by helping create this banana business and help Costa Rica he also did a lot of bad with it too.
Sources :
NPR. (2020, January 9). There will be bananas. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/07/794302086/there-will-be-bananas
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=10&smtID=2
The podcasters of “Throughline” describe Minor Keith’s business relations with Central American countries as “ American Colonialism” because he used his business relations through railroads, plantations of bananas and cargo shipping. Minor Keith was seen as a privileged rich man from New York who desperately wanted to be a successful entrepreneur which led him to wanting to try railroads but ultimately led him to look at other business opportunity’s outside of the U.S. he decided on Costa Rica to build his railroad but the conditions were extremely dangerous and work conditions were awful to the extreme heat and the opportunity of more illnesses/diseases, and jungle trees falling on the locals due to heavy rain and cutting the jungle down by hand. He stopped at nothing to keep trying to recruit anyone and everyone to build this railroad.Even after seeing a lot of the workers die and get sick and the locals give up on building because they did not want to die he just wanted to keep going. Minor Keith was able to build this relationship with the Costs Rican government on his plan to build the railroad that didn’t go well. It was still able to win the people over and continue to convince them to let him keep trying in which he started the banana plantations and also being the founder of one of the biggest companies which is United Fruits. He then was known for helping Costa Rica move transport their coffee across Europe which helped him gain a lot of points with Costa Rica, they viewed him as an important figure/patriarch, his takeover is similar to how government decided to do a lot of their interventions And inserting themselves which could be seen as “ American colonialism” in which I agree. You have this person from America who has money and knowledge and desperately wanted to be successful in something and also the realization how much Costa Rica wanted to industrialize their country. There isn’t much of a difference between him and the federal governments interventions. Although he did good by helping create this banana business and help Costa Rica he also did a lot of bad with it too.
Sources :
NPR. (2020, January 9). There will be bananas. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/07/794302086/there-will-be-bananas
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=10&smtID=2