Commercial banana export by ship (Lorenzo Dow Baker)
Exportación comercial de banano en barco (Lorenzo Dow Baker)
- Date
- 1870 · confidence medium
- Place
- Port Morant, Saint Thomas, Jamaica
- Credited to
- Lorenzo Dow Baker (Boston Fruit Company) and Minor Keith in Costa Rica
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
In 1870 Captain Baker bought hundreds of bunches of bananas in Jamaica and sold them in Jersey City, starting the mass banana trade with the United States. In parallel, Minor Keith planted bananas along the Costa Rican railway; both merged into the United Fruit Company (1899).
There were smaller banana shipments to the US before 1870 (around 1804 and in the 1830s), so primacy is disputed; Baker marks the start of mass trade.
What it led to
- export plantations and banana enclaves in Central America and the Caribbean
- a fleet of refrigerated banana ships from 1900
- the political influence of fruit companies ('banana republics')