Vol. 6, Issue 2, Part B (2024)

The banana massacre was a massacre of the workers of the US banana company, and so called United Fruit Company, which occurred on 6^th December, 1928 in the town of Cienaga near Santa Marta, Colombia. On December 6, 1928 Colombian army troops allegedly under the command of General Cortes Vargas fired crazily on a crowd of strikers gathered in the central square of the town of Cienaga. The suppression was ruthless and violent indeed, was responsible for deaths of scores of strikers and members of their families. Reports of casualties widely differed and were constantly disputed by both sides, but estimates of striker fatalities range from forty to around two thousands. Women and children were included largely among the dead. A strike began on November 12, 1928 with roughly ten thousand workers who ceased to work until the company would reach an agreement with them to grant them dignified working conditions. After several weeks with no agreement in which the United Fruit Company refused to negotiate with the workers, and the Conservative government of Miguel Abadia Mendez sent the Colombian army against the strikers. Soon after, the United Fruit Company decided that Colombia was too messy for it to operate there, and with no acknowledgement of the tragedy they had caused, the company left. The aim of this paper will be to examine how the United Fruit Company was responsible for the Banana Massacre of 1928 in Santa Marta, Colombia and its consequences. The paper further highlights how the bloody event shaped the Colombia’s political scenario.