United States "Manifest Destiny"
By 1930, over 40 percent of all the arable land in Puerto Rico had been converted into sugar plantations, which were entirely owned by Charles Allen and U.S. banking interests. These bank syndicates also owned the entire coastal railroad, and the San Juan international seaport. This land grab was not limited to Puerto Rico.
In 1912 the Cayumel Banana company, a U.S. corporation, orchestrated the military invasion of Honduras in order to obtain hundreds of thousands of acres of Honduran land, and tax-free export of its entire banana crop.
By 1928 the United Fruit Company, another U.S. corporation, owned over 200,000 acres of prime Colombian farmland. When a labor strike erupted against the company in December 6 of that year, over one thousand men, women and children were shot and killed in order to "settle" the strike. This was known as the Banana Massacre.
By 1930 the United Fruit Company owned over one million acres of land in Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico and Cuba.
By 1940, in Honduras alone, the United Fruit Company owned 50 percent of all private land in the entire country.
By 1942, the United Fruit Company owned 75 percent of all private land in Guatemala - plus most of Guatemala's roads, power stations and phone lines, the only Pacific seaport, and every mile of railroad.
The U.S. government supported all these economic exploits, and provided military "persuasion" whenever necessary. Openly and proudly, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt declared that “It is manifest destiny for a nation to own the islands which border its shores,” and that if “any South American country misbehaves it should be spanked.”
Read more about this topic: United States Capitol Shooting Incident (1954)
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, manifest and/or destiny:
“The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism.... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate.”
—James Reston (b. 1909)
“Television is an excellent system when one has nothing to lose, as is the case with a nomadic and rootless country like the United States, but in Europe the affect of television is that of a bulldozer which reduces culture to the lowest possible denominator.”
—Marc Fumaroli (b. 1932)
“With steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old “central ideas” of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us—God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare, that “all States as States, are equal,” nor yet that “all citizens as citizens are equal,” but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that “all men are created equal.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
““Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent. No man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again.””
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)