In April 1976, the Cuban publishing house Ciencias Sociales published the book United Fruit Company: a case of imperialist domination in Cuba by Oscar Zanetti. It was a quite unique book in the Cuban intellectual universe. For the first time, a study was carried out on an American transnational company established in the largest of the Antilles. The company had created two large sugar mills then called Boston in the municipality of Banes and Preston in Mayarí.
Another fact that marked that event was that the work was the result of teamwork by several researchers, an issue not very common in Cuban historiography at that time. The group was directed by Alejandro García and Oscar Zanetti Lecuona. It was also made up of students from the School of History of the University of Havana such as Sergio Guerra, Rosa Pulperio, Concepción Planos, Josefina Ballester, Manuel Rodríguez, Vivian Peraza, Francisco Román García, María del Carmen Maseda, Armando Vallejo and Rafael García . We approached Oscar Zanetti Lecuona, one of the most relevant historians of Cuba and the Antilles, with some questions that he was kind enough to answer.
How did the idea for the United Fruit investigation come about?
“Oscar Pino-Santos influenced the specific selection of United Fruit. A renowned economic journalist, Pino had a relevant political career at the Agrarian Reform Institute, as ambassador to China, etc.‚ and had just won the Casa de las Américas Essay award with the work: The assault on Cuba by the Yankee financial oligarchywhich offers a unique approach to the process of imperialist penetration in our country.
“With good connections in the Ministry of Sugar, Pino approached the School of History of the University of Havana with a proposal, which had just had the experience that I have mentioned to you and that‚ since its creation‚ had not been able to adequately solve the research training of their students. It was then decided to make the United Fruit investigation the graduation exercise for a large group of students in the final year of the degree, which Alejandro García and I would direct under the coordination of Dr. C Carlos Funtanellas, who was the deputy director of School Research. A crucial detail: Pino was from Banes and knew that the United documentation there was relatively well preserved, that determined the selection.”
How was the team organized? What determined the selection of the students?
“They were the students of the last year of the degree; Almost everyone participated, because there were some who were scholarship recipients from organizations with which they had already committed their graduation work. Then, there was no actual selection, although some girls who were already mothers could not move to the centers and worked from Havana. The team organized itself on the fly, to the extent that we were able to group sources and determine research topics; In the selection of the latter we gave some margin to the preferences of the students.”
With whom did you have conversations for such an investigation into the world of sugar?
“The help of technicians and experts was very valuable. At Banes, for example, Ángel Ricota, an old worker at the Central Boston offices in Macabí, guided us regarding sources, in addition to providing us with essential information about the organization and functional practices of the company; In Preston we had the chemist Augusto Cornide, whose explanations helped us delve into the complicated terrain of efficiency indices. On a smaller scale, we also had similar supports in Preston. The help of old labor leaders was equally important, all of them related as testimonies in the sources of the book.
And about the support of the authorities in Banes, Holguín‚ what can you tell me?
“So Banes was a region of the province of Oriente, just like Holguín, therefore the latter was above all a place of passage, although we had contact with some historians from Holguín, particularly Hiram Pérez, since his brother Hernán was a professor in our university department. ”.
What can you tell me about your memories about Holguín at the time and about Banes? Did the history activist movement of that town support them?
“In my memory as a Havana resident, I remember Banes as a relatively modest town still segmented by the presence of United Fruit just a decade ago. In this sense‚ the differences were very notable between the company’s facilities (houses and warehouses)‚ as well as between the neighborhoods. During our work we had help in various ways—from Pedro Martínez, who was in charge of the History Commission of the regional Party in Banes—; We were also approached by some local historians, by no means professionals, but who in certain cases collaborated with our investigations through testimonies and explanations, especially regarding the labor movement and local politics‚ as well as with more practical needs of life. In Guatemala it was more or less the same, although at that time a movement of history activists as such, I don’t remember existing.”
What was the status of the documentation? Were they forced to give it an organization? Had the original state of organization been lost?
“The situation was different in both centers. In Banes and Macabí, a lot of documentation was preserved, undoubtedly most of that left by the company. In Macabí were the operational offices of the Boston central office that kept small files that were still organized. But we found the bulk of the Banes Division’s documentation converted into a huge pile of papers on the floor of one of the areas of the company’s large warehouse in Banes.
“I remember that we opened a space in the middle and asked a student to get into the mass of papers, which reached up to his neck, to take a photo that I don’t know where he was going. Then the first job was to remake the archive, collecting the documentation and grouping it according to its nature on large shelves placed in the same location; There were payroll books, personnel files, accounting books, manufacturing reports, copiers of letters from administrators, etc.
“We spent about a month redoing the file to be able to start exploiting those sources. Months later, when the work was finished, we moved all the documentation in an orderly manner to a small masonry room on one side of the small railway yard behind the large warehouse, as it seemed to us that it would be better preserved since only the document shelves could fit there. According to what they told me, some time later the premises were used as a barber shop and the documents were removed and moved to the basement of the municipal museum.
“I don’t know his subsequent condition. The documentation preserved in the Guatemala central was much less, because its administrations did not take care of it and they even told us about an administrator who sent stationery to the ovens because it took up space and was imperialist. However, what remained was relatively organized and even a spectacular photographic archive was preserved.”
Were the students data collectors or did they actually write their respective chapters?
“Students wrote thematic reports dedicated to specific aspects, some with a remarkable level of completion. I remember, for example, those of Sergio Guerra on demographic aspects or that of Manuel Rodríguez who had studied engineering for a year and became quite familiar with the technological aspects. Subsequently‚ Alejandro and I with that synthesized information, the hundreds, thousands of files that supported it, other additional information compiled directly by us on aspects such as accounting – which were not available to the students -, more bibliography, press and other sources consulted in Havana, we developed the analysis, outlined the structure of the book and wrote its chapters.
If you did it again, what would you add?
“Forty years later and with all the accumulated experience it would be a different book. I think that the thematic structure would basically be maintained, although space would have to be given to issues that we did not address then, such as the ecological impact. It would also be necessary to get closer to the life of the communities in the bateyes, both in the sugar mills and rural areas, and continue along the same lines the interaction of the Company with the banense community, which remained somewhat limited to the political sphere.
“Of course, now we would practically not be able to count on direct testimonies, but if it were possible to consult the United archives in Boston—which apparently are not yet very accessible—‚ the book would gain a lot. Certain interpretations and explanations would certainly change, the quality of the writing would improve; everything that could bring almost half a century of professional experience and the evolution of historiography itself. That’s why when they told us about a second edition‚ we took the idea with reservation, since it could be a revised edition but hardly expanded; “It should be kept almost like a relic.”
Do you believe that the United Fruit Company had a cultural impact on Banes?
“When I was there in 1971 and 1972 the presence of the Company was very lively; It was appreciated in the urban order, in the architecture, in people’s conversations. There were ethnic components incomprehensible without the presence of United. Now‚ I don’t know‚ after forty years‚ how much it will last, if it will be perceptible. Perhaps it happens like in so many other situations in which traits and phenomena whose historical origin is unknown are manifested. There is, on the other hand, Guatemala, which unlike Banes with its autonomy of large population, was only a large batey around the central one whose survival I do not know what will be based on once it is demolished, with a pole of attraction so close in mining”.
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