Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
be funded by the taxes and fines that they themselves collected. A portion
of the tax revenues was earmarked for subsidizing shipping in the hope of
normalizing steamship schedules. Somewhat ironically, the law's imple-
mentation generated discord inTela, where many fruit growers refused to
pay the export tax, claiming that the inspectors' stem counts did not cor-
respond with the number for which they had been paid.
53
The municipal
council dismissed the allegations and ordered growers to comply with the
law by paying the amount corresponding to the inspectors' lists. Decree
30 did not immediately succeed in attracting more fruit traders to Tela.
In August 1894, the port continued to find itself in a ''precarious situa-
tion'' due to a lack of steamer tra
c.
54
The dire economic consequences
were spelled out in clear terms by Tela's municipal government: without
an outlet for bananas, there was no circulation of currency with which to
import goods and foodstuffs.
Banana growers also complained about noncompliance with Decree
30. In 1896, the municipality of San Pedro Sula strongly urged the Min-
ister of Development to punish those who delivered their fruit on board
steam ships.
55
Five years later, the same ministry received a lengthy letter
penned by Omoa Mayor José Ruiz complaining that ''higher authorities''
had periodically suspended enforcement of the 1893 decree.
56
According
to Ruiz, some fruit merchants enjoyed ''an authorized license'' to have
their fruit inspected on board ship. He questioned rhetorically whether
the law was still in effect, stressing the urgent need to enforce the regula-
tion mandating that fruit inspection be done onshore. The mayor's letter
reflected the extent to which Honduran nationalism in banana-growing
regions was redefining itself in opposition to the increasingly dominant
role played by U.S. shipping companies: ''The banana farmers (fruteros)
of this region are resolved to lose their fruit if the failure to enforce the law
obliges them to deliver their fruit on board, since the American employ-
ees, while in the shadow of their flag, believe themselves to be above the
law.''
57
In a context of growing U.S. military and economic domination
in the Caribbean and Central America, struggles for national sovereignty
could come down to the distance between a beach and a ship's deck.
However,therelationshipbetweennationalidentity,class,andpower
was complex and cannot be reduced to arrogant North Americans and
indignant Honduran growers. In his memoir, En las selvas hondureñas,
Francisco Cruz Cáceres describes a Sunday afternoon spent in a bar in
Nueva Armenia, a booming banana town in the early twentieth century.
Thejointwasfilledwithfinqueros who, having just received payment for
their fruit, were ''shouting, singing, arguing and tossing money around
