1915 United Fruit Company advertisement
11 June 2020 [Minor correction on 12 June]
Many Americans know banana republic only as the name of clothing retailer, but the term comes from an older form of American capitalist exploitation. The term’s origins are enmeshed in the practices of dictatorial regimes, crony capitalism, the U.S. Marines and American colonialism, embezzlement, prison, and a book written in exile.
Journalist Robin Wright, writing in the New Yorker on 4 June 2020, defines banana republic as follows.
The term—which originally referred to a politically unstable country run by a dictator and his cronies, with an economy dependent on a single product—took on a life of its own. Over the past century, “banana republic” has evolved to mean any country (with or without bananas) that has a ruthless, corrupt, or just plain loopy leader who relies on the military and destroys state institutions in an egomaniacal quest for prolonged power.
Banana republic was coined by short-story writer O. Henry, the nom de plume of William Sydney Porter. In 1896, Porter was indicted for embezzling money from the bank where he worked, and he fled to Honduras, a country with which, at the time, the United States had no extradition treaty. At the time Honduras was a military dictatorship being run mainly for the benefit of the U.S.-based United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Brands International) and propped up by the threat of intervention by the U.S. Marines. During his self-imposed exile, Porter penned a series of short stories set in the fictional country of Anchuria, modeled after Honduras. In one, “The Admiral,” he first used the phrase banana republic:
In the constitution of this small, maritime banana republic was a forgotten section that provided for the maintenance of a navy. This provision—with many other wiser ones—had lain inert since the establishment of the republic. Anchuria had no navy and had no use for one.
Porter would return to the United States after six months to face trial, and while in prison published “The Admiral” in 1901. That story, and the others about Anchuria, would be collected in his 1904 Cabbages and Kings.
Banana republic quickly caught on as a general term for similar dictatorships. For example, there is this article from the 9 April 1907 Arizona Republican that not only uses the term, but outlines the power relationships in play in Honduras:
No Bombardment of Coast Towns: A Rule Laid Down for the Conduct of all Future Banana Republic Wars.
New Orleans, April 9.—That Puerto Cortez surrendered without fighting, and that about 1500 Honduran soldiers abandoned the port two days before the Nicaraguan troops appeared, was the information brought tonight by the steamer Anselm.
The Hondurans did not desert the post through cowardice, according to a dispatch, but they decided that the war was over. They returned to the banana plantations where most of them had been employed as laborers before the war began.
The United States marines closed all saloons in Ceiba after the abandonment of the port by the Hondurans. A proclamation was issued by Commander Fullam of the Marietta, Virgil C. Reynolds, U. S. vice consul, that the civil authorities would assume charge of the civil government, and that all l’quor saloons should be immediately closed. Capt. Fullam declared that the bombardments of the coast towns cannot be permitted during the frequent wars and revolutions in the Central American states.
And there is this theater review that appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on 8 September 1909:
Walter De Leon is another of the old time favorites to return with the Hartman company, and his energy as well as his singing contribute much to the success of the performance. His Leopoldo, revolutionist in a banana republic where revolutions are as common as the chills and fever, is very busy young gentleman throughout the whole of two acts.
Over the course of the twentieth century, banana republic generalized. It can now be applied anywhere in the world to a country with a corrupt and dictatorial regime that is beholden to corporate interests and for whom the rule of law is only a facade.
Sources:
Henry, O. (William Sydney Porter). “The Admiral.” Of Cabbages and Kings. New York: A.L. Burt, 1904, 132. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Joy, Al C. “Alcazar Gives Us a Pretty Comedy.” San Francisco Examiner, 8 September 1909, 3. ProQuest.
“No Bombardment of Coast Towns.” Arizona Republican, 9 April 1907, 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Wright, Robin. “Is America Becoming a Banana Republic?” The New Yorker, 4 June 2020.
[Correction: I amended the final paragraph by deleting a historically questionable aside.]