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Archival description
University of Toronto Mississauga Library, Archives & Special Collections
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United Fruit Company fonds

  • CA UTM F001
  • Fonds
  • 1912-2004

Fonds contains primarily corporate records created, received, or used by management within the Chiriqui Land Company. Records include correspondence, memoranda, monthly production statistics and financial reports, personnel records, annotated newspaper clippings, some maps and photographs. The fonds consists of the following series:

  • Series 1: Government relations
  • Series 2: Labour & ethnicity
  • Series 3: Labour supply & conditions
  • Series 4: Labour organizing
  • Series 5: Marcus Garvey
  • Series 6: Non-thematic groupings
  • Series 7: Interdivision visits & reports
  • Series 8: Statistics & reports
  • Series 9: Chronologically organized letters
  • Series 10: Maps & photographs

United Fruit Company

Chronologically organized letters

Series consists primarily of correspondence, but also newspaper clippings, newsletters, personnel and other lists, a poster and original and translated court orders and laws. Material in this series complements material found in thematically organized Series 1-6, as the originating letter or replies to letters found in this series can sometimes be found within the above series. As such, the records touch upon a wide variety of subjects including negotiations between company and government officials regarding labor quotas and export taxes; interactions between the company, labor unions, and workers of various ethnic backgrounds; and land appropriation and use.

Government relations

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.

Non-thematic groupings

Series consists of records organized into groupings by the last custodian (Bourgois), but do not appear to belong to any one thematic grouping. Material in the first half of the series appear to have been submitted for consideration to be published as part of Bourgois’ 2003 article “One Hundred Years of United Fruit Company Letters.” As such, individual records within this series serve as especially important representative samples of all the themes found in the other series. Of particular significance are letters and photographs identifying and targeting specific labor agitators; and internal correspondence discussing Marcus Garvey and Henrietta Vinton Davis, the first female president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Records include correspondence, two photographs, and a report produced by the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT).

Maps & photographs

Series consists of four maps produced by Costa Rican divisions of the United Fruit Company. Series also includes five photographs which appear to be reprints of publicity photographs acquired from the United Brands Company Headquarters in New York in the 1980s. Photographs include depictions of United Fruit Company plantations, including in Guatemala.

Statistics & reports

Series primarily consists of financial, production, personnel and other business records, including a series of monthly statements from the early 1930s and company statistical records from the 1980s. Also included amongst these business records are two seemingly unrelated letters, including a handwritten letter to the company from a destitute worker requesting a plot of land to live on. Records include reports, correspondence, memoranda and translated newspaper articles.

Labour organizing

Series consists of material related to the United Fruit Company’s relationship to labour organizing and unions on their Costa Rican and Panamanian plantations, documenting the ways the company tracked and monitored labour organizing activity among their workers. In particular, the series includes records related to the strikes that took place in 1918, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, including correspondence and lists that name individual labor ‘agitators’ and workers deported as a result of participation in strikes. Also included are letters from or about Serafino Romualdi (1900-1967), Latin American representative of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Assistant Secretary of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT). Records include correspondence, lists, and newspaper clippings.

Labour supply & conditions

Series consists of material generally related to labor supply and conditions on United Fruit Company plantations in Panama and Costa Rica. Topics covered include labor shortages, after hours entertainment for workers, medical coverage, wages and lawsuits against the company. Records include correspondence, memoranda and newspaper clippings.

Labour & ethnicity

Series consists primarily of material documenting the United Fruit Company’s employment of specific national and/or ethnic groups of workers, including Panamanian, Ngäbe, Kuna, Bribri and Jamaican workers. It includes material related to negotiations between Panamanian government officials regarding quotas on Panamanian workers, and material documenting the employment of laborers from Indigenous groups in Panama and Costa Rica. Of especial significance are the multiple letters between the company and Kuna leader, Cacique Olotebiliquina, as are a number of other letters that document efforts among the Ngäbe to organize their workers. Records include correspondence, reports, newspaper clippings and personnel lists.

Interdivision visits & reports

Series consists of correspondence, reports, telegrams and an official memorandum related to a somewhat formal program of exchange visits between North American managers of various tropical divisions of the United Fruit Company. Material documents the impetus and start of these interdivision visits, as well as correspondence discussing logistical arrangements and final reports for the visits. Records in the series provide insight into the lifestyles and working life of North American employees of the United Fruit Company in the 1920s, and reference a number of the steamships owned and operated by the company.

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