Series 1 - Government relations

7 cm of textual records

Series consists of correspondence and some reports documenting the relationship between the United Fruit Company and various levels of government in Panama and Costa Rica. These include internal company correspondence about dealings with the government as well as direct correspondence with government officials of varying ranks including presidents of the republics. Documents in this series reveal the extent of company influence vis-à-vis the governments and include correspondence related to export taxes, wages and nationality of workers, and appointment of key government officials. Another predominant subject is land appropriation and use especially around the Talamanca Valley and Sixaola River in Costa Rica, including the topic of squatters and the Bribri, the original and Indigenous inhabitants of this Costa Rican portion of the United Fruit Company’s Bocas del Toro Division.

Individual documents were placed into files by Bourgois and arranged chronologically by the archivist. Files were grouped into this thematic series by the archivist based on file title assigned by Bourgois.

Restricted to protect the privacy of third parties. Contact the Archives & Special Collections Staff (utml.cds@utoronto.ca) for information about accessing these records.

• English
• Spanish

See Series 6: Non-thematic Groupings and Series 9: Chronologically Organized Letters which include other documents that touch upon the same topics, and often include the originating letter or replies to letters found in this series.